2011/11/9 Juho Laatu <[email protected]> > On 9.11.2011, at 10.06, Jameson Quinn wrote: > > 2011/11/8 Kevin Venzke <[email protected]> > > > All that said, I would be interested to hear if someone has made an >> argument that majority rule, as a sensible principle, depends on some other >> more fundamental principle. >> > > OK, here goes: utility is happiness and is the true goal. Majority rule is > just the most strategy-proof principle which tends to agree with maximum > utility. > > > Here's another approach to justifying majority rule. The target is to > achieve a stable state in a society that respects the one-man-one-vote > principle. If we elect the Condorcet winner, then the society will be happy > with that choice in the sense that there will always be a majority > supporting that candidate against changing him to someone else. In the old > days one-man-one-vote could have meant also one-man-one-veapon, meaning > that there would be no mutiny. >
That's what I meant by "strategy-proof". You said it better. > Today we may just think that even if some people do have stronger feelings > than others, we should consider all of them to have equal strength. > I agree with that. I think that in this case "stronger feelings" is just a special case of strategic exaggeration, where you've convinced yourself that it isn't strategic. > > I think both approaches (majority, utility) have their problems and > paradoxes. There are different needs in different situations, and we could > use different criteria in different elections / decision making situations. > > Utility example: > - There are two alternatives. A) One person will lose $10000, others will > not lose anything. B) All will lose some equal small amount, so that the > sum of losses will be $10001. The point is that if we use utilities, let's > not use the sum of utilities as the criterion. > Money is not utility. Almost anyone will tell you that utility is not linear in money; this simple fact will mean that a utility-based calculation will always have more of an egalitarian tendency than a money-based calculation. In fact, you can make it as egalitarian as you could reasonably want by deciding how nonlinear your utility model is. > - In the same way we might assume that in a situation where one person > hates all the others, and all persons are candidates, we should not elect > the person that hates all others although that might give us the highest > sum of utilities. > Unlikely that the hater would not be at least disliked. Also, see above about certain emotions themselves being exaggerations rather than honest utility assessments. Obviously, a voting system can never specifically know which emotions (as expressed on ballots) are exaggerated (either consciously or unconsciously, it doesn't matter); but it can minimize the incentives to exaggerate. I don't think that it's at all obvious that Condorcet does a better job of minimizing those incentives than, say, MJ<http://wiki.electorama.com/wiki/MJ> . > > These examples are just intended to demonstrate that there is no easy way > out from the problems of both approaches. > I'm not claiming that the utility paradigm has no problems or contradictions. But they're not quite so obvious as you suggest. > Different situations may benefit of different criteria. There is no single > ideal and best method that should be used in all elections. > Wait until you see my vaporware... It will basically implement a "what system should I use" flowchart. So I certainly agree here. > Overall utility can be measured in many different ways (including also > some majority oriented approaches). > > Juho > > > > > ---- > Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info > >
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