<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div>On Dec 24, 2007, at 1:16 , rob brown wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite">On Dec 23, 2007 2:00 PM, Juho <<a href="mailto:juho4880@yahoo.co.uk">juho4880@yahoo.co.uk</a>> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> <div style="">Works with humans too. Three friends living in different places might agree to meet at a place that has equal distance to all three homes. Or they might select a place that minimizes the sum of the distances (maybe they will share the travelling costs). </div></blockquote><div><br>What you are describing is very different from what happens with eusocial animals.<br><br>A situation where a small number of people can work things out, and where reciprocity plays into it (i.e . "you got your way last time", etc) is completely, totally different from the type of situation where voting is needed, such as a large scale election where most of the voters don't know one another.</div></div></blockquote><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>I don't think be hives and human families are that different. Human families are smaller. Humans have "hives" of 50'000 individuals, called cities, and in such environment humans tend to become less co-operative and altruistic than bees, but that is only a difference in size. Bee hives have members that are not reproductive, which gives them more incentive to wok for the common interest. I didn't include the time component ("you got your way last time") in my examples. That component (proportionality in time) is obviously very weak among the bees.</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>Humans can also make "voting scale" decisions in bee/utility/rating style. For example <a href="http://www.imdb.com">http://www.imdb.com</a>/ uses user ratings and they work ok. The key of course is to use such methods in areas that are not competitive. Polls are one type of (often) non-competitive elections.</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>I think the basic rules are the same but the scale and style are different.</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div class="gmail_quote"><div>What you describe isn't eusociality, which is the complete lack of self interest found in animals that don't reproduce directly. A 100% rational, self-interested person may wish to allow someone else to get their way when preference strengths differ, with the expectation that it will be reciprocated when the preference strengths are reversed. But a large election has no mechanism for reciprocity. </div></div></blockquote><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>Ok, also reciprocity is a concept that bees probably don't use much (due to limited conceptual thinking capabilities).</div><div><br></div><div>The non-reproducing worker bees are probably not completely non-selfish. I'm sure they push the next worker bee aside when they want to perform some important task within the hive. We could also say that humans are non-selfish and their only task is to work for their genes and to pass them on to the next generations (pushing other human beings aside when doing so can be said to be just for the benefit of the genes). My examples are quite wide spread, but the idea is just to demonstrate that although bees have some special characteristics, that need not put them into some totally different behavioural category.</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div class="gmail_quote"><div>I could imagine a voting system that might address this issue for larger groups, but it isn't Range.</div></div></blockquote><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>One could have elections that take into account e.g. proportionality in time (that could be called one kind of reciprocity) (favour a republican after a democrat, favour other pizzas after pepperoni). Range is useful in some cases too, e.g. in "poll like" elections.</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><blockquote type="cite"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div style="">Parents could agree to watch a Disney movie with their child although they might like a war movie more themselves. </div></blockquote><div><br>Parents and children are, from a Darwinian perspective pretty much the same as eusocial animals, motivation-wise. The children's interests are almost completely aligned with the interests of the parents, since the children are the vector for the parents getting their genes into future generations. In my view, all motivation can be traced back to the attempt to get genes into future generations. </div></div></blockquote><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>I wrote above "in favour of the genes", but I would say only that genes are one way to explain motivations and the way the world works, not necessarily the only correct one (maybe you didn't say so either).</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>Juho</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div style="">But in politics / competitive situations rules of course tend to be different. And the election methods should be chosen accordingly. </div></blockquote><div style=""><br>I'm with you there.<br></div><div> </div></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">----</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Election-Methods mailing list - see <a href="http://electorama.com/em">http://electorama.com/em</a> for list info</div> </blockquote></div><br></body></html>