On May 28, 2012, at 9:17 PM, Michael Ossipoff wrote:
As usual, I don't know what Dave Ketchum means.
Guessing as to what Mike O is assuming, our topic is whether
Approval's inability to indicate such as A>B>C matters. I read the
words below indicating that voters can estimate, accurately, various
situations to respond to. While such may be possible, sometimes, it
is better to not require such estimating.
Returning to the subject-line's topic:
In Approval, with 3 candidates, or 3 candidates perceived viable:
1. From the point of view of the middle candidate's supporters,
there are 2
possibilities:
a. One of the extreme 2 has a majority, in which case it doesn't
matter what
the Middle voters do
b. Or Middle is the CW, in which case it is the responsible for the
smaller
extreme faction to approve Middle, not vice-versa.
2. From the point of view of an extreme voter, misjudging whether to
approve
Middle would amount to misjudging whether your faction is a
majority, vs
whether your faction is smaller than the opposite faction. That
would be a
big mis-estimate indeed, unless the middle faction is very small.
And, continuing #2, from the point of view of an extreme voter,
everyone
has access to the same information, and so if it looks as if extreme
A is
smaller than extreme B, then the B voters will think they don't need
to
approve Middle. But the A voters will think that they _do_ need to
approve
Middle. That means that, if the B voters are mistaken, the B voters'
mistake won't be costly. The situation favors Middle.
Because of #1 and #2, the Middle voters have no reason to approve
either
extreme. And for that reason, candidate A's approval count is a good
estimate for the number of A voters, and B's approval count is a good
estimate of the number of B voters. These are the things that the
extreme
voters would like to know, or at least have an idea of.
In the 2nd Approval election, the progressives or Green-preferrers
will have
a good idea of whether or not the Green can beat the Republican.
The Democrat good-cop/bad-cop scam will be finished, when people are
supporting what they really like, and therefore know what others
like. Given
that, and the disillusionment about what the Republocrats have been
doing,
and their difference from eachother, today's pessimistic and resigned
situation will be no more.
Mike Ossipoff
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