Hmmmm, it appears I have struck a nerve.....
Second. Rob Brown relies on his alleged knowledge of human psychology to argue
people will not range vote, they will approval-vote.
I'm basing things on the rational self interest model, which tends to work pretty well in economics and game theory. I could go on for hours about why humans tend to fit this model well for Darwinian reasons, but that would be out of place here.
http://william-king.www.drexel.edu/top/prin/txt/Neoch/Eco111t.html
And incidentally, I don't believe all people are 100% rational and self interested. I do, however, believe that systems that are designed to be used in a rational-self-interested way, tend to be predictable and stable. This is not a radical concept that I just made up.
Therefore, he argues, it is
silly to allow them the option of range-voting. But in fact, so far
there have been at least 3 people (WDS, Jan Kok, and Lomax) here who
have expressed support for RV and/or stated that they have intentionally
gone with a weak vote, i.e. in Lomax's case intentionally abstaining from
voting on an issue he felt he had little knowledge about.
You really think a sampling of people in an election methods group is a fair sampling of the population at large? Is it not possible they have an additional agenda (advocacy of a voting method) that might skew things a tad? Presumably WDS is you?
Incidentally, abstaining from voting is not the same. I have abstained from voting on a candidate plenty of times. I'm talking about voting, but giving it a lower (but non-zero) weight than you are allowed. That I find, if not unlikely, certainly unfair in that it penalizes sincerity.
In any case, I'm not interested in continuing this....the range voting folks have completely lost me with your arguments. I'm 100% behind James Gilmour when he asks:
So you think that just because I feel more strongly than you do in my liking for A and my dislike for B, just because I shout about it more loudly than you do, and just because I mark my ballot paper with bigger numbers than you do, my view of A and B should have more effect on the outcome than your view?That pretty much sums it up for me. I didn't use the term "mind-bogglingly stupid", but if you want to attribute that to me with regard to the above, I've got no reason to argue.
-rob
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