Hello James,
Sorry about causing some gray hair to you. I think the problem is that we drove into two alternative tracks in the discussion and my text, when trying to address both of these, was not clear. I hope this mail improves the situation a bit.
The two tracks that I see are one where we talk about dynamics of sequential mutinies and how the voters may stop the process already before the first mutiny when they see the votes and understand the rules of the game, and another one where we try to do the decision just once and then live with the result until the next election day (few years ahead).
I re-read my mail and noted that I had at least made quite bad use of term "first mutiny" since that term has a meaning in the first track but I used it also in the framework of the second track. Maybe I should talk separately abouth these two tracks to avoid any further confusion caused by handling both phenomena and criteria simultaneously.
First track related comments:
I think your conclusions on the first track made all the sense, so let's consider them agreed.
I identified also some possible additional scenarios:
- An alternative model where the cost of mutiny is low and therefore mutinies could continue forever (instead of stopping when pirates understand that the cost of mutinies is too high). Accepting one of the Smith candidates to take permanent lead may thus be more painful than "sharing the leadership" by making continuous mutinies.
- B and C could join forces and make just one revolution where A would be changed to C (202 against 101) and stop there. This case I mentioned also in the previous mail. Revolution of two Smith set members against X would be also possible (202 against 201). A could also try to make a deal with C in order to avoid revolution. But C would become the captain if it made a deal with B instead. Knowing this, A could make a deal with B, make a revolution against herself, and let B be the captain.
Second track relatd comments:
In track two one should maybe talk more about mutiny against elected captain's initiatives instead of talking about replacing the captain herself. In politics the next elections typically come after a fixed amount of time. The winner must thus start working with all the voters and try to make the best of what trust and support she has.
Let's say that X is the captain. She makes an "X style" proposal. A makes an "A style" counter proposal. 201 pirates support proposal "X" but 202 pirates support proposal "A". Let's assume that X is a good speaker (or has a musket) and can convince few additional pirates to vote for the proposal (note close links to "additional votes", that were however defined to come from outside of the current crew of 403 pirates). Majority achieved. Job well done.
Captain A would have more problems driving her policy through since C could always make counter proposals that would be supported 202 against 101 and A would need better speaking skills than X (or a cannon).
I used the pirate example here but also the RSTZ example could be used. Any key observations?
Other comments:
On Mar 18, 2005, at 10:10, James Green-Armytage wrote:
I'm not talking about knowing it in advance, I'm talking about knowing it
after the votes have been cast.
Sorry, I mixed voting and mutinies and your intentions here.
I think it is a mathematical fact that if mutiny resistance is accepted
by a country as the target of the election, one must elect the
Condorcet loser in some cases.
You can only say that if you totally ignore my argument.
Or alternatively made a mess of the two different tracks. Please condsider this theory (and MinMax (margins) as the solution) in light of track two.
Best Regards, Juho
ANNEX 1: The pirate example.
101: a>b>x>c 101: b>c>x>a 101: c>a>x>b 100: x
ANNEX 2: The RSTZ example.
Preferences:
35: R>S>T>Z
33: S>T>R>Z
32: T>R>S>Z
71: Z>R=S=T
Pairwise comparisons:
R>S 67-33
S>T 68-32
T>R 65-35
R>Z 100-71
S>Z 100-71
T>Z 100-71---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
