[EM] Reply to Rob regarding RCV

[Michael Ossipoff]

I certainly didn’t mean to imply that RCV maximizes social utility.

For RCV, the giveaway incentive problem isn’t a problem for some
electorates.

It’s a *potential* problem, which I don’t deny—hence my preference for
Condorcet.

As you said, RCV has its valid majority justification, based on coalescing
the Mutual Majority & electing its favorite.

Can you imagine our Democrat beating our Green in an honesty-counted 2-way
election?

Greens win all of our non-mass-media polls.

Non-compromising progressives will elect Greens. With RCV they won’t
compromise.

I think we agree that Condorcet is preferable.

But Condorcetists here have done nothing in enactment. The organization &
advocates of RCV have established RCV in about 60 municipalities & 2
states. Next year Oregon will vote on its RCV referendum. I don’t know much
about Maine & Alaska, but Oregon is a progressive state.

I prefer Condorcet, but RCV is what’s sweeping the country, it’s a big
improvement.

…&, to answer your question, yes Pluralty’s compromise-incentive wouldn’t
be a problem everyone voted honestly.

Admittedly we’ve had a count-fraud problem too, a whole other problem.

On Sun, Sep 24, 2023 at 15:16 Kristofer Munsterhjelm <km_elmet at t-online.de>
wrote:

> On 9/24/23 23:55, Michael Ossipoff wrote:
> > Sure, I said that I prefer the Pairwise-Count Condorcet-Criterion
> > methods, because they’re the ones that get rid of the
> > Lesser-of-Two-Evils problem (LO2E).
> >
> > As I said, RCV’s disadvantage is that its merit & workability depend
> > strongly on the character of the electorate, & on the candidate-lineup.
> >
> > …& yes, I’m talking about voters who won’t make the big giveaway
> compromise.
> >
> > It’s a philosophical question: Is giveaway incentive a problem when the
> > electorate aren’t interested in giving it away?
> >
> > It isn’t a problem to them, nor, in that case, to me.
>
> My point is that the giveaway incentive can indicate a deeper problem
> that degrades the quality of the outcomes.
>
> Suppose voters who don't want to compromise vote where to relocate their
> capital. They all vote honestly, none of them compromises. They use IRV.
> As a result, the capital is placed in the most populous subregion of the
> most populous region, instead of the place that minimizes the sum of
> distances to the voters. Even though the voters honestly listed their
> candidate sites in order of closest first.
>
> You could say that the compromise incentive is separate from the
> propensity to elect the strongest wing of the strongest wing
> (recursively). But it's this dynamic that produces the compromise
> incentive in IRV, so they are connected.
>
> > As I said, an electorate who have just enacted RCV by referendum didn’t
> > do so because they want to vote some one whom they don’t like over their
> > favorite. They want rankings because they want to rank sincerely. They
> will.
> >
> > No problem.
>
> Why doesn't this argument work for a hypothetical ranked Plurality?
>
> "An electorate that has enacted a variant of Plurality where everybody
> ranks the candidates in order of preference and then the candidate with
> the most first preferences wins ... didn't do so because they want to
> vote someone they don't like over their favorite. They want rankings
> because they want to rank sincerely. They will. No problem."
>
> Just like IRV, Plurality has absolutely no burial incentive. Just like
> IRV, Plurality has a rather large compromise incentive. But that
> shouldn't matter if the voters have decided they're not going to
> compromise, right?
>
> Something seems off. "Ranked Plurality" would be a non-starter; nobody
> would go for it.
>
> -km
>
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