On Wed, 24 Apr 2002, Alex Small wrote: > I concur with Adam. Once you support ranking, unless you've heard of > Condorcet the runoff idea makes intuitive sense, since plenty of places in > the US use 2-stage runoff. The question is how to sell Condorcet over IRV.
I concur also... > > My original message was prompted by an argument with a very intelligent > person who heard of an election in Ireland where IRV happened to find the > centrist. She concluded (justifiably) that if France had used IRV instead > of two-stage runoff the final round would likely have had at least one > liberal or moderate rather than two conservatives. A liberal vs. a > conservative may or may not be as good as a centrist vs. one of those, but > it offers more freedom of choice than conservative vs. ultra-conservative. > > I tried Hitler-Stalin-Washington on her (not those names, but that idea) > but she pointed to the Irish example. She is very intelligent. However, > take the intuitive notion of runoffs and combine it with an anecdote of a > very good result under IRV, and even a very intelligent person like my > fellow student will be difficult to persuade. > > (It probably doesn't help that I'm a Libertarian and hence I frequently > clash with her on politics. If people don't like the messenger the message > will fall on deaf ears. Hence it's important for people from different > third parties to collaborate when selling Approval or Condorcet.) > > I tried summability, thinking that an engineer would appreciate the > difference between exponential scaling and n^2 scaling. She didn't care. > I said that the Condorcet candidate is by definition the one whom the > electorate prefers. She said "Well, it seemed to work pretty well in > Ireland." > > Any thoughts on how to overcome the tag-team combo of IRV's seemingly > intuitive nature and IRV anecdotes? I'm sure CVD is collecting such > stories. > Ask her if she believes in democracy. When she says "yes" then ask if she believes that, in a democracy, the majority of people should be able to choose their leaders. Presumably, she'll say "yes" to that as well. Ask if she'd like a voting system that will ALWAYS find the candidate preferred by the majority. Once she says "yes" to that, I think you're well on the way. You can save discussions about cyclical majorities or other wrinkles for later. I like to point out that Condorcet is the standard by which other voting methods are measured. An analogy I like to use is to imagine two races cars that, to the eye, are identical. However, when you open the respective hoods, one has a lawnmower engine and the other a 500 hp v-8. The car with the lawnmower is IRV. The v-8 is Condorcet. > Alex > > ---- > For more information about this list (subscribe, unsubscribe, FAQ, etc), > please see http://www.eskimo.com/~robla/em > -- paul hager [EMAIL PROTECTED] "The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason." -- Thomas Paine, THE AGE OF REASON ---- For more information about this list (subscribe, unsubscribe, FAQ, etc), please see http://www.eskimo.com/~robla/em
