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<br><div><div>On Jan 13, 2010, at 8:26 PM, Jonathan Lundell wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div>On Jan 13, 2010, at 5:02 PM, robert bristow-johnson wrote:</div><div><br></div> <blockquote type="cite"><div>On Jan 13, 2010, at 7:57 PM, Jonathan Lundell wrote:</div></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#006312"><br></font></div><div>This seems to me to be a claim that is at best not self-evident (in the sense that Pareto or anti-dictatorship, say, are). While I'm not a fan of cardinal-utility voting systems, it seems entirely possible to make a utility argument or rationale against the *necessity* of electing the CW in all cases.</div><div><br></div><div>That is, as a thought experiment, if we could somehow divine a workable electorate-wide utility function, it's at least arguable that the utility winner would legitimately trump the Condorcet winner, if different, while you couldn't make a similar argument wrt Pareto or dictatorship.</div> </blockquote><div><br></div><div>how would you define that "utility function" metric in a democracy? would the candidates arm-wrestle? take a written exam? flip a coin? what, other than majority preference of the electorate, can be such a metric in a democracy?</div> </blockquote><div><br></div><div>I don't think you can, and that's a big problem for Range, it seem to me.</div><div><br></div><div>But we're talking about utility for the voter, not arm-strength of the candidates.</div> </blockquote></div><div><br></div><div>I guess I didn't understand that the utility function was for the individual voter. Yes, that *is* Range voting. And if the value is restricted to binary, it's Approval voting. Especially if you add up the values of a candidate for all voters (maybe we should add their square-roots, I dunno).</div><div><br></div><div>we have a choice of candidates. only one candidate can be elected (single winner). the "best" candidate means that this candidate is "better" than any other candidate. if we define "better than the other candidate" as "preferred by more voters than prefer the other candidate" (it's a dichotomy, the alternative is to give it to the *less* preferred candidate, unless we make them arm wrestle, or take a written exam or something other criterion without votes), then the Condorcet candidate is better than every other candidate.</div><div><br></div><div>I guess I still haven't heard a good justification for why the Condorcet winner, if one exists, should *ever* be rejected as the elected winner.</div><br><div> <div>--</div><div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">r b-j <a href="mailto:rbj@audioimagination.com">rbj@audioimagination.com</a></div><div><br></div><div>"Imagination is more important than knowledge."</div><div><br></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"> </div><br></body></html>