Mr. A. Simmons wrote- I wonder if it's really possible to add utilities meaningfully. The example you give, of a living wage, doesn't seem to be amenable to such a thing. What would we actually measure in order to assign real numbers to physical examples? Stick electrodes in people's brains? Personally, I think the real-space model that is so ubiquitous in the social sciences (e.g. factor analysis) is more of a metaphor. ---- D- For newer folks, I again have to mention that each elector is supposed to have an equal vote. For legislative body elections, most election reform folks want some sort of proportional representation method (to show that such legislative body is supposed to be a substitute of a meeting of ALL such electors -- in which each elector would have 1 vote on each bill in the body --- regardless of his/her intensity about any particular bill). For executive and judicial office elections the same principle applies -- an *equal* vote per elector --- regardless of his/her intensity about any particular candidate.
