Warren. It's enough now. Stop insulting me immediately. Warren Smith wrote: >>>--aha. So by "median candidate" you do not mean what I thought you meant >> >>(namely, in an N-canddt election, the top-quality floor(N/2) are above median) >>but rather median in the prior distribution of probabilities of winning. >> >>But wait, that would be even more insane, since the policy of >>voting only for the candidates with above-median prior election >>probability, would be a policy that would completely disregard the >>quality of the candidates. >> > > My understanding of Weinstein's approval strategy is this: > "Approve your favourite (or equal favourites). If the remaining (so far > unapproved) candidates are on more > than one of your preference-levels, then approve the candidate/s on your > next-from-the-top preference-level if > you consider that the probability that one of the candidates you prefer > less than this/these candidate/s will win > is greater than the probability that one of the candidates you prefer > more will win. And so on." > > This strategy seems sane to me, and probably right for voters who only > have a ranking. > > --aha. > Well in that case, return to my original example that started this thread, > namely > your choices in order of increasing quality are > 1. Stalin > 2. Hitler > 3. Genghis Khan > 4. Jacques Chirac > and assume prior probabilities of (1/4, 1/4, 1/4, 1/4) of > the election of each. Then by adopting the Heitzig/Weinstein > approval voting strategy, you vote for Genghis Khan and Chirac. > > By adopting the Smith Uitlity-based strategy, you vote for Chirac only. > > Excellent. Now that we are all agreed about the underlying definitions, > we are ready to consider how much damage to humanity would be caused by > adoption of the Heitzig/Weinstein approval voting strategy > based on Heitzing denying the existence of "utility". Well, > looks like humanity gets 50% chance of massive euro-asia-spanning-war > and wholesale genocide, the HW way. The Smith way, humanity gets 0% chance of > that. I wonder how many times it would be necessary to repeat this experiment > before it dawns on Heitzig that there may actually exist such a concept as > utility, > and all those Bayesians and economists that have been using this concept for > the > last 100 years, may not have been doing it because they were all completely > insane > and believing in silly phantasms that do not really exist. > > Since I am not a believer in conducting unethical massive experiments, I > would be > happy to change the terms of the election to one which would only affect > Heitzig > and no other human beings. For example, make 1,2,3 be various extremely > painful > forms of torture inflicted on Heitzig, and 4 be he gets $100. > > > > Utility is real, and if top decision makers fail to acknowledge that fact, it > results > in immense damage to humanity. I am not making this up, I am not saying it > because I am "highly emotional". I am simply stating a well known fact that > has been well accepted for over 100 years. > Now my suggestion is that the rest of you simply accept this as settled and > obviously true. > It then will be possible to proceed from there to have a genuine debate about > voting methods. > > I am not going to debate voting methods with people who refuse to accept > probability theory, > believe that the sun revolves around the Earth, think Darwin is a phantasm, > etc. > > Warren Smith > ---- > Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info >
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