<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">2011/11/9 Juho Laatu <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:juho4880@yahoo.co.uk" target="_blank">juho4880@yahoo.co.uk</a>></span><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div><div>On 9.11.2011, at 10.06, Jameson Quinn wrote:</div><div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div class="gmail_quote">2011/11/8 Kevin Venzke <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:stepjak@yahoo.fr" target="_blank">stepjak@yahoo.fr</a>></span><br>
</div></blockquote><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><div style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0);background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);font-family:'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif;font-size:12pt">
<div style="font-size:12pt;font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif">All that said, I would be interested to hear if someone has made an argument that majority rule, as a sensible principle, depends on some other more fundamental principle.</div>
</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>OK, here goes: utility is happiness and is the true goal. Majority rule is just the most strategy-proof principle which tends to agree with maximum utility. </div></div></blockquote>
<div><br></div></div><div>Here's another approach to justifying majority rule. The target is to achieve a stable state in a society that respects the one-man-one-vote principle. If we elect the Condorcet winner, then the society will be happy with that choice in the sense that there will always be a majority supporting that candidate against changing him to someone else. In the old days one-man-one-vote could have meant also one-man-one-veapon, meaning that there would be no mutiny. </div>
</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>That's what I meant by "strategy-proof". You said it better.</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div><div>Today we may just think that even if some people do have stronger feelings than others, we should consider all of them to have equal strength.</div></div></div></blockquote><div>
<br></div><div>I agree with that. I think that in this case "stronger feelings" is just a special case of strategic exaggeration, where you've convinced yourself that it isn't strategic.</div><div> </div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div><div><br></div><div>I think both approaches (majority, utility) have their problems and paradoxes. There are different needs in different situations, and we could use different criteria in different elections / decision making situations.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Utility example:</div><div>- There are two alternatives. A) One person will lose $10000, others will not lose anything. B) All will lose some equal small amount, so that the sum of losses will be $10001. The point is that if we use utilities, let's not use the sum of utilities as the criterion.</div>
</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Money is not utility. Almost anyone will tell you that utility is not linear in money; this simple fact will mean that a utility-based calculation will always have more of an egalitarian tendency than a money-based calculation. In fact, you can make it as egalitarian as you could reasonably want by deciding how nonlinear your utility model is.</div>
<div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div><div>- In the same way we might assume that in a situation where one person hates all the others, and all persons are candidates, we should not elect the person that hates all others although that might give us the highest sum of utilities.</div>
</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Unlikely that the hater would not be at least disliked. Also, see above about certain emotions themselves being exaggerations rather than honest utility assessments. Obviously, a voting system can never specifically know which emotions (as expressed on ballots) are exaggerated (either consciously or unconsciously, it doesn't matter); but it can minimize the incentives to exaggerate. I don't think that it's at all obvious that Condorcet does a better job of minimizing those incentives than, say, <a href="http://wiki.electorama.com/wiki/MJ" target="_blank">MJ</a>.</div>
<div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div><div><br></div><div>These examples are just intended to demonstrate that there is no easy way out from the problems of both approaches. </div>
</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I'm not claiming that the utility paradigm has no problems or contradictions. But they're not quite so obvious as you suggest.</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div><div>Different situations may benefit of different criteria. There is no single ideal and best method that should be used in all elections. </div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div>
<div>Wait until you see my vaporware... It will basically implement a "what system should I use" flowchart. So I certainly agree here.</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div><div>Overall utility can be measured in many different ways (including also some majority oriented approaches).</div>
<div><br></div><font color="#888888"><div>Juho</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></font></div></div><br>----<br>
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