[EM] Median-based Proportional Representation

[Warren Smith]

Sorry, as Jameson pointed out, he has invented a voting method he calls AT-TV
which (he claims)
 1. obeys a proportional representation theorem
  2. in the single-winner case reduces to median-based range voting.

I should update http://rangevoting.org/MedianVrange.html
to reflect that.  Why haven't I? Partly laziness/busyness, and partly because I
do not really understand AT-TV and the theorem it satisfies (which is
related).  Sorry for my faults.  I've been busy working on a different
project.

Jameson ran AT-TV on a real-world 9-winner election and claimed in that election
it gave the same results as STV.

Toby Pereira's suggestion for turning median-based-range voting into a PR system
is a pretty ridiculous "kludge" but yes, technically, it works.   It
is kind of a matter of
opinion what is a "natural generalization" of median-based range to
multiwinner PR,
and what is an "unnatural kludge."   In my subjective view TP's
suggestion is clearly the latter and I suppose that kind of ugly
approach could be used to (technically) turn virtually any
single-winner voting method into a PR multiwinner method.  It is
really ugly though
and his transformation can distort a voter's preference A>B to B>A,
which I would
hope a lot of people would find very disturbing as step 1 in any election.
I offer no opinion on whether AT-TV is "natural generalization" or
"unnatural kludge."  I also have little clue whether AT-TV or RRV is
better as a voting method.

-- 
Warren D. Smith
http://RangeVoting.org  <-- add your endorsement (by clicking
"endorse" as 1st step)
and
math.temple.edu/~wds/homepage/works.html

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Re: [EM] Has this idea been considered?

[Russ Paielli]

On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 11:41 AM, Andrew Myers  wrote:

> On 7/22/64 2:59 PM, Russ Paielli wrote:
>
>> As I wrote a couple days ago, I strongly suspect that any vote counting
>> rules beyond simple addition will be extremely difficult to sell on a large
>> scale. IRV may be a counterexample, but I suspect that (1) it has only been
>> adopted in very "liberal" cities, and (2) it will never gain traction for
>> major public elections.
>>
>> The more I think about it, the more I am starting to think that Range
>> Voting is the answer. I'm sure Warren will be glad to hear that! One great
>> advantage of Range is its ultra-simple counting rules. Its only real
>> disadvantage is the equipment requirements, but those are not
>> insurmountable.
>>
>> An open issue about Range is, of course, how many rating levels should be
>> used. A "natural" choice is 10, but anything from about 5 to 10 or so seems
>> reasonable to me.
>>
>> As I said before, I am very concerned about the large number of candidates
>> in the Republican presidential primary. I would love to see Range Voting
>> used there. That won't happen, of course, but if Republicans end up largely
>> unhappy with their candidate (as they were with McCain), the silver lining
>> to that could will be an opportunity to promote Range Voting to Republicans.
>>
> To me, Range remains a non-starter for political settings, though I can see
> some valid uses.
>
> I have implicitly argued that the real barrier to adoption of other voting
> method is simply the complexity of constructing one's ballot. Range voting
> is more complex than producing an ordering on candidates. For me the problem
> of determining my own utility for various candidates is quite perplexing;  I
> can't imagine the "ordinary voter" finding it more pleasant.
>
> Range also exposes the possibility of strategic voting very explicitly to
> the voters. Only a chump casts a vote other than 0 or 10 on a 10-point
> scale. Range creates an incentive for dishonesty.
>
> So if the lazy voters are voting approval style because they don't want to
> sort out their utilities, and the motivated voters are voting approval style
> because that's the right strategy, who's left? It seems to me that we might
> as well have Approval and keep the ballots simple rather than use Range.
>
>
You raise an interesting point, Andrew. I vaguely recall discussing this
very point years ago. From a strict mathematical/probabilistic perspective,
you may be correct. But from a psychological perspective, maybe there's more
to it.

The most common complaint about Approval is that the voter is forced to rate
his approved candidates all equally. Range obviously gets around that
objection.

I would consider rating some candidates off the limits. Does that make me a
chump? Maybe. I'd probably rate my "approved" candidates from 8-10 and my
"disapproved" candidates from 0-2, or something like that -- so at least I
would not be a hard-core chump!

--Russ P.

-- 
http://RussP.us

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Re: [EM] Has this idea been considered?

[Jameson Quinn]

2011/7/8 Dave Ketchum 

> On Jul 8, 2011, at 12:47 PM, Jameson Quinn wrote:
>
> I'm sorry, but aarrhh.
>
> I think that people on this list are smart, but this is pathetic. I don't
> mean to be hard on Dave in particular. But why is it impossible to get any
> two of us to agree on anything? I want to make a list of systems which are
>
>

> 1. Commonly agreed to be better than approval.
>
> Oops, I meant plurality.

>
>
>
> We pretty much agree that approval is a step up from plurality - but most
> of us agree that we want a bigger step - but have trouble agreeing how to do
> that.
>

It's not an irrevocable choice, it's just an endorsement. It would be great
news if ANY good system were tried in a real, high-stakes single-winner
election.


>
>
>
> . SODA - for trying, but seems too complex.
>>
>
> I disagree, but I'm biased. I feel that "approve any number of candidates
> or let your favorite candidate do it for you; most approvals wins" is easy
> to understand. But I can understand if people disagree, so I'm not
> criticizing this logic.
>
>
> Your favorite candidate for, hopefully, getting elected is not necessarily
> one you would trust toward getting a good substitute elected.
>
>
Agreed, although they would be worth trusting more often than not. But the
point of SODA is that it's optional; if you don't trust them, don't delegate
to them.

>
>
>> . Reject Approval - too weak to compete.
>>
>
> Worse than plurality
>
>
> No - but we should be trying for something better.
>

Sure, try for the best. But support everything better than what we have.
Because no system will ever be a consensus best, but many systems are
consensus better.

JQ

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Re: [EM] Has this idea been considered?

[Dave Ketchum]

On Jul 8, 2011, at 12:47 PM, Jameson Quinn wrote:


I'm sorry, but aarrhh.

I think that people on this list are smart, but this is pathetic. I  
don't mean to be hard on Dave in particular. But why is it  
impossible to get any two of us to agree on anything? I want to make  
a list of systems which are


1. Commonly agreed to be better than approval.

We pretty much agree that approval is a step up from plurality - but  
most of us agree that we want a bigger step - but have trouble  
agreeing how to do that.


2. Commonly agreed to be simple for an average voter to feel that  
they understand what's going on.


Voters should understand, but not necessarily be ready to do for  
themselves - leave that to whoever gets assigned to build the system.


I am not asking each person who responds to choose the best or  
simplest system according to them. I'm asking everyone to vote in  
the poll and approve (rate higher than 0) all systems which meet  
those two very low bars. Hopefully, the result will be a consensus.  
It will almost certainly not be the two best, simplest systems by  
any individual's personal reckoning.


As to the specific comments:

2011/7/8 Dave Ketchum 
What I see:
. Condorcet - without mixing in Approval.

You need some cycle-breaker. Implicit approval is the only order-N  
tiebreaker I know; fundamentally simpler than any order-N²  
tiebreaker like minimax. You don't have to call it approval if you  
don't like the name.


When you look close:
. If approval thinking could get involved when there is a cycle,  
we must consider whether this will affect voters' thinking.
. Will not the approval thinking affect what is extracted from the  
ballots.


While there are many methods for resolving cycles, might we agree on:
. Each cycle member would be CW if the other cycle members were  
set aside - why not demand that the x*x matrix that decided there was  
a cycle be THE source for deciding on which cycle member should be  
winner.
. Remember that,  when we are electing such as a senator or  
governor, retrieving new information from the ballots is a complication.


. SODA - for trying, but seems too complex.

I disagree, but I'm biased. I feel that "approve any number of  
candidates or let your favorite candidate do it for you; most  
approvals wins" is easy to understand. But I can understand if  
people disagree, so I'm not criticizing this logic.


Your favorite candidate for, hopefully, getting elected is not  
necessarily one you would trust toward getting a good substitute  
elected.


. Reject Approval - too weak to compete.

Worse than plurality


No - but we should be trying for something better.


JQ



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Re: [EM] Median-based Proportional Representation

[Jameson Quinn]

2011/7/8 Toby Pereira 

> While discussing median-based range voting -
> http://rangevoting.org/MedianVrange.html, Warren Smith says "Average-based
> range voting generalizes to a *multiwinner* proportional 
> representationvoting system called 
> reweighted
> range voting . (See papers 78 and 91 
> here.)
> But there currently is no known way to generalize median-based range voting
> to do that."
>


I've told Warren to change that, and he hasn't given me a clear criterion
for what I have to do so he will. I've created a system called AT-TV which
is PR and reduces to a median-based system in the single-winner case. It's
Bucklin-like, in that there is a falling approval threshold, and when a
candidate gets enough approvals to be elected (a Droop quota) they are,
which "uses up" those votes (except for the excess). So in a one-winner
case, it's based on 50th percentile (median), but in, for instance, a
3-winner case, it would be (pseudo-)maximizing the elected candidates'
75th-percentile score, not their 50th-percentile. I think this is the
appropriate thing to do in the multi-winner "median" case.

JQ


>
> So I was thinking about how you might get a median-based PR system, using
> range voting, or some other score system, such as Borda Count. I don't think
> there is necessarily a "perfect" method but I did come up with something
> (possibly ridiculous). You find a way to convert the scores of the
> candidates so that a candidate's median score becomes their mean score. For
> example, if a candidate's mean was 5 (out of 10) and their median was 7,
> their scores would undergo some sort of transformation so that their mean
> score became 7. Likewise if someone had a mean of 7 and a median of 5, their
> scores would undergo a transformation to reduce the mean to 5.
>
> One way to do this is as follows: Convert the range so that it becomes 0 to
> 1 (so in a 0-10 case, just divide all scores by 10). Then for each candidate
> you convert their score s to s^n where n is the number for that particular
> candidate that will make the original median score the mean of the
> transformed scores. For n over 1 the score will be reduced and for n under
> 1, the score will increase. So each candidate has their own value of n.
>
> Once all the scores have been converted, you can just do whatever you would
> have done in your non-median-based PR system to find the winning candidates.
>
> Obviously, this is a bit of a fudge because although we are fixing the mean
> for each candidate to what we want, the rest of the scores just end up how
> they end up. There would be different conversion systems that convert median
> to mean but give different values for the other scores.
>
> Just looking at the median and mean here could be seen as a bit arbitrary.
> As well as converting median to mean, we would ideally also want to convert
> other percentiles accordingly. We'd want to convert the 25th percentile
> score to the 25th "permeantile"*, or whatever the term is. (Is there a
> term?) But it would actually be impossible to do this properly. With
> repeated scores (which would always happen where there are more voters than
> possible scores), different percentile values will have the same score. For
> example, if someone's median score is 5, it's likely to also be 5 at the
> 51st percentile. But, as far as I understand it, the "permeantile" would not
> be able to have a flat gradient at any point, unless it's flat all the way
> across. So we couldn't have a "perfect" system that worked on this basis. So
> for simplicity we can just use the system as described.
>
> Of course, with range voting, people might vote approval style, so many
> candidates might simply have a median of 0 or 10. In that case the only
> "reasonable" conversion would be to convert all their scores to 0 or 10
> respectively. This problem wouldn't occur to the same degree under Borda
> Count, however.
>
> *I was thinking about how you would calculate permeantiles. In a uniform
> distribution between 0 and 1, the 25th permeantile would be 0.25. If you
> weight the averages of each side 3 to 1 in favour of the smaller side of the
> permeantile (0 to 0.25), and average these, then you get 0.25. (3*0.125 +
> 1*0.625) / 4 = 0.25. So for the 10th permeantile, you have (9*0.05 + 1*0.55)
> / 10 = 0.1 and so on. I imagine this would work for non-uniform
> distributions too. (Sorry for going off topic.)
>
> 
> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
>
>

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Re: [EM] Has this idea been considered?

[Kevin Venzke]

--- En date de : Ven 8.7.11, Toby Pereira  a écrit :
The thing about SODA is that it's harder to "get" than Approval Voting.
I haven't exactly read through all the posts on it here thoroughly but
I've looked at the page - http://wiki.electorama.com/wiki/
Simple_Optionally-Delegated_Approval - and I do find myself
thinking "What?"
[end quote]


Well hmm. I'm kind of looking at this article as a collection of things
that have been said by SODA people. As a neutral intro to the method
for people who don't know whether the inventors have any idea what they
are talking about, it's kind of terrible.

In particular that intro paragraph... I didn't want to go on.

"I'm going to abandon the neutral voice and talk as myself."

Ahaha.

Maybe the article should be forked. Have one concise, neutral version
(like neutral neutral), and then the exciting one.

Kevin

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[EM] Median-based Proportional Representation

[Toby Pereira]

While discussing median-based range voting - 
http://rangevoting.org/MedianVrange.html, Warren Smith says "Average-based 
range 
voting generalizes to a multiwinner proportional representation voting system 
called reweighted range voting. (See papers 78 and 91 here.) But there 
currently 
is no known way to generalize median-based range voting to do that."

So I was thinking about how you might get a median-based PR system, using range 
voting, or some other score system, such as Borda Count. I don't think there is 
necessarily a "perfect" method but I did come up with something (possibly 
ridiculous). You find a way to convert the scores of the candidates so that a 
candidate's median score becomes their mean score. For example, if a 
candidate's 
mean was 5 (out of 10) and their median was 7, their scores would undergo some 
sort of transformation so that their mean score became 7. Likewise if someone 
had a mean of 7 and a median of 5, their scores would undergo a transformation 
to reduce the mean to 5.

One way to do this is as follows: Convert the range so that it becomes 0 to 1 
(so in a 0-10 case, just divide all scores by 10). Then for each candidate you 
convert their score s to s^n where n is the number for that particular 
candidate 
that will make the original median score the mean of the transformed scores. 
For 
n over 1 the score will be reduced and for n under 1, the score will increase. 
So each candidate has their own value of n.

Once all the scores have been converted, you can just do whatever you would 
have 
done in your non-median-based PR system to find the winning candidates.

Obviously, this is a bit of a fudge because although we are fixing the mean for 
each candidate to what we want, the rest of the scores just end up how they end 
up. There would be different conversion systems that convert median to mean but 
give different values for the other scores.

Just looking at the median and mean here could be seen as a bit arbitrary. As 
well as converting median to mean, we would ideally also want to convert other 
percentiles accordingly. We'd want to convert the 25th percentile score to the 
25th "permeantile"*, or whatever the term is. (Is there a term?) But it would 
actually be impossible to do this properly. With repeated scores (which would 
always happen where there are more voters than possible scores), different 
percentile values will have the same score. For example, if someone's median 
score is 5, it's likely to also be 5 at the 51st percentile. But, as far as I 
understand it, the "permeantile" would not be able to have a flat gradient at 
any point, unless it's flat all the way across. So we couldn't have a "perfect" 
system that worked on this basis. So for simplicity we can just use the system 
as described.

Of course, with range voting, people might vote approval style, so many 
candidates might simply have a median of 0 or 10. In that case the only 
"reasonable" conversion would be to convert all their scores to 0 or 10 
respectively. This problem wouldn't occur to the same degree under Borda Count, 
however.

*I was thinking about how you would calculate permeantiles. In a uniform 
distribution between 0 and 1, the 25th permeantile would be 0.25. If you weight 
the averages of each side 3 to 1 in favour of the smaller side of the 
permeantile (0 to 0.25), and average these, then you get 0.25. (3*0.125 + 
1*0.625) / 4 = 0.25. So for the 10th permeantile, you have (9*0.05 + 1*0.55) / 
10 = 0.1 and so on. I imagine this would work for non-uniform distributions 
too. 
(Sorry for going off topic.)
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Re: [EM] Has this idea been considered?

[Jameson Quinn]

2011/7/8 Toby Pereira 
>
> The thing about SODA is that it's harder to "get" than Approval Voting. I
haven't exactly read through all the posts on it here thoroughly but I've
looked at the page -
http://wiki.electorama.com/wiki/Simple_Optionally-Delegated_Approval - and I
do find myself thinking "What?" All of its advantages over other systems may
be within the posts on this board, but they are not that clear to me from
reading the article. The method is explained and also the criteria it
satisfies but I'm not happy that I've been convinced why it works.
>
> Why are the votes only delegable if you bullet vote (or is that obvious)?

Because if you vote for several, which one would get to assign the delegated
votes?

>
> Also it seems like a lot of work for just the people who bullet vote (and
also allow delegation). Do we know in practice what proportion of people do
bullet vote in Approval Voting?

Bullet voting in Bucklin is strategically equivalent to bullet voting in
Approval. In fact, approval would have if anything more bullet voting than
Bucklin, because Approval gives no way except bullet voting to express a
unique first preference. A quick search finds two results for bullet voting
in Bucklin: "In Alabama, for example, in the 16 primary election races that
used Bucklin Voting between 1916 and 1930, on average only 13% of voters
opted to indicate a second choice." and in a Spokane mayoral election "568
of the total of 1799 voters did not add second rank votes". That's a broad
range, but certainly enough to see that it's significant.



>  Might SODA reduce this number anyway?
>

SODA takes away most of the strategic motivations NOT to bullet vote, so if
anything it would lead to more bullet voting.


>
> From the page: "If any candidate has an absolute majority at this point, or
> cannot possibly be beaten by any other candidate using the delegable votes
> and candidate rankings available, then they win immediately." Does absolute
> majority just mean over 50%?
>

Yes.


> But with Approval 50% isn't a particular threshold.
>

That's right. However, if most votes are bullet votes, then it is. Also, it
is important when selling a system to just be able to say "majority wins"
and not have to qualify it. Sure, there are people who are willing to listen
to your explanation of why not, but there are a lot of people who aren't.


> You can get over 50% and still be beaten. Maybe I'm just unclear on
> "absolute majority", but it's been put as distinct from "cannot possibly be
> beaten by any other candidate using the delegable votes and candidate
> rankings available".
>

That's right, these are two separate possibilities, but the rule is
deliberately stated in a manner so that a reader who wasn't as aware as you
would just read this as one case, so they don't feel that there are too many
special cases.


>
> And it still seems strange to me that candidates pre-declare their
> delegation order but then still get to negotiate. Yes, there's an
> explanation, but I'm not really sure I get it. "The system as it stands
> allows them to see, after the votes are counted, which of them deserves to
> win. That one will not delegate their votes, and the other one (of
> necessity) will." Couldn't there be a way in the system to decide who
> deserves to win (e.g. based on who would get more votes after the delegation
> or who had more to start with)?
>

In real-world elections, with no more than a half-dozen viable candidates
with the rest getting tiny handfuls of votes, it would be quite feasible to
work out the unique rational strategy and have the system do it for them.
This is not done for two reasons:

1. To allow a "foregone kingmaker" scenario. A non-winning candidate with a
large pile of votes deserves to be a focus of media attention for a few
days, and has earned the right to make minor and reasonable demands (on the
order of a cabinet seat or two for their party, to serve at the pleasure of
the executive). Remember, because the delegation order is pre-declared, the
eventual result is almost fore-ordained; minor candidates do not have the
power to get too greedy in their demands. And if they take the radical step
of NOT sharing their delegated votes in the rationally-correct fashion,
their voters would justly want to know why - and their party would suffer if
they didn't have a good explanation.

2. As a check on the possibility of strategic declared rankings. In a
1-dimensional 3-candidate scenario, imagine one wing buried the center
candidate and managed to be the apparent "rational" winner thereby. If the
other candidates realize this, they can keep this trick from working, but
only if their "rational" strategy is not automatic.

Also, just out of interest, is there a multi-winner version?
>

SODA outputs approval ballots (which can also be considered as 3-rank
Bucklin ballots). Any proportional method with approval ballots as an input
can then be used. With the number of dimensions on which such systems 

Re: [EM] Has this idea been considered?

[Toby Pereira]

I can see the point about strategic range just being approval, but strategic 
First-Past-The-Post is just ignoring everyone except the top two candidates, 
and 
you wouldn't just cut out all other candidates in an election to make it 
simpler. (I think I nicked that point from Warren Smith). If range voting does 
still produce some honest voters then it might still give a better winner than 
approval. I suppose the main worry is that under First-Past-The-Post, people 
know that if they are voting for someone who's unlikely to win then they are 
"wasting" their vote, whereas under range voting, the best strategy isn't 
necessarily as obvious so people lose voting power by not understanding the ins 
and outs of tactical voting. To me, that's probably the biggest point against 
range voting. Having said that, if it's as simple as always give 0 or 10 (if 
it's out of 10), then I imagine it should catch on pretty quickly, although who 
to give the 0s and 10s to might not always be as obvious.

But anyway, I would use range voting for multi-winner elections. For me the 
biggest problem is not which particular system we use to elect a single winner, 
but that there is a single winner that takes everything. When we had the 
referendum for Alternative Vote (Instant Run-off) in the UK, I think most 
people 
that preferred it to First-Past-The-Post agreed that it was just scratching the 
surface and that although it seemed nicer in principle it wouldn't really make 
much of a material difference (and generally for single-winner systems). And I 
think most people who voted for Alternative Vote really wanted a proportional 
system. Anyway, the point I was going to make is that I wonder what strategies 
people would adopt under a proportional range system - would it always be 0 or 
10?





From: Andrew Myers 
To: election-methods@lists.electorama.com
Sent: Fri, 8 July, 2011 19:41:27
Subject: Re: [EM] Has this idea been considered?

To me, Range remains a non-starter for political settings, though I can see 
some 
valid uses.

I have implicitly argued that the real barrier to adoption of other voting 
method is simply the complexity of constructing one's ballot. Range voting is 
more complex than producing an ordering on candidates. For me the problem of 
determining my own utility for various candidates is quite perplexing;  I can't 
imagine the "ordinary voter" finding it more pleasant.

Range also exposes the possibility of strategic voting very explicitly to the 
voters. Only a chump casts a vote other than 0 or 10 on a 10-point scale. Range 
creates an incentive for dishonesty.

So if the lazy voters are voting approval style because they don't want to sort 
out their utilities, and the motivated voters are voting approval style because 
that's the right strategy, who's left? It seems to me that we might as well 
have 
Approval and keep the ballots simple rather than use Range.

-- Andrew

Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

Re: [EM] Has this idea been considered?

[Toby Pereira]

The thing about SODA is that it's harder to "get" than Approval Voting. I 
haven't exactly read through all the posts on it here thoroughly but I've 
looked 
at the page - 
http://wiki.electorama.com/wiki/Simple_Optionally-Delegated_Approval - and I do 
find myself thinking "What?" All of its advantages over other systems may be 
within the posts on this board, but they are not that clear to me from reading 
the article. The method is explained and also the criteria it satisfies but I'm 
not happy that I've been convinced why it works.

Why are the votes only delegable if you bullet vote (or is that obvious)? Also 
it seems like a lot of work for just the people who bullet vote (and also allow 
delegation). Do we know in practice what proportion of people do bullet vote in 
Approval Voting? Might SODA reduce this number anyway?

From the page: "If any candidate has an absolute majority at this point, or 
cannot possibly be beaten by any other candidate using the delegable votes and 
candidate rankings available, then they win immediately." Does absolute 
majority 
just mean over 50%? But with Approval 50% isn't a particular threshold. You can 
get over 50% and still be beaten. Maybe I'm just unclear on "absolute 
majority", 
but it's been put as distinct from "cannot possibly be beaten by any other 
candidate using the delegable votes and candidate rankings available".

And it still seems strange to me that candidates pre-declare their delegation 
order but then still get to negotiate. Yes, there's an explanation, but I'm not 
really sure I get it. "The system as it stands allows them to see, after the 
votes are counted, which of them deserves to win. That one will not delegate 
their votes, and the other one (of necessity) will." Couldn't there be a way in 
the system to decide who deserves to win (e.g. based on who would get more 
votes after the delegation or who had more to start with)? 


Also, just out of interest, is there a multi-winner version?





From: Andy Jennings 
Cc: election-methods@lists.electorama.com
Sent: Fri, 8 July, 2011 20:57:52
Subject: Re: [EM] Has this idea been considered?

On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 3:56 AM, Jameson Quinn  wrote:


>
>So, I guess the question is: is there anyone who would support Approval but 
>not 
>SODA? Respond in text. Also, I made a poll on betterpolls - go 
>vote. http://betterpolls.com/v/1425
>

Wow, that results page is hard to read when the poll is about voting systems 
and 
the results are analyzed with lots of different voting methods.  Very "meta".

In any case, I went and voted.

I was pretty hard on SODA.  Even though I like where it's going, I, like 
Kristofer, don't think it's been analyzed enough to become our endorsed system 
at this point.

Let's keep working on it...

Andy
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Re: [EM] Has this idea been considered?

[Andy Jennings]

On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 3:56 AM, Jameson Quinn wrote:

>
> So, I guess the question is: is there anyone who would support Approval but
> not SODA? Respond in text. Also, I made a poll on betterpolls - go vote.
> http://betterpolls.com/v/1425
>
>
Wow, that results page is hard to read when the poll is about voting systems
and the results are analyzed with lots of different voting methods.  Very
"meta".

In any case, I went and voted.

I was pretty hard on SODA.  Even though I like where it's going, I, like
Kristofer, don't think it's been analyzed enough to become our endorsed
system at this point.

Let's keep working on it...

Andy

Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

Re: [EM] Has this idea been considered?

[Andrew Myers]

On 7/22/64 2:59 PM, Russ Paielli wrote:
As I wrote a couple days ago, I strongly suspect that any vote 
counting rules beyond simple addition will be extremely difficult to 
sell on a large scale. IRV may be a counterexample, but I suspect that 
(1) it has only been adopted in very "liberal" cities, and (2) it will 
never gain traction for major public elections.


The more I think about it, the more I am starting to think that Range 
Voting is the answer. I'm sure Warren will be glad to hear that! One 
great advantage of Range is its ultra-simple counting rules. Its only 
real disadvantage is the equipment requirements, but those are not 
insurmountable.


An open issue about Range is, of course, how many rating levels should 
be used. A "natural" choice is 10, but anything from about 5 to 10 or 
so seems reasonable to me.


As I said before, I am very concerned about the large number of 
candidates in the Republican presidential primary. I would love to see 
Range Voting used there. That won't happen, of course, but if 
Republicans end up largely unhappy with their candidate (as they were 
with McCain), the silver lining to that could will be an opportunity 
to promote Range Voting to Republicans.
To me, Range remains a non-starter for political settings, though I can 
see some valid uses.


I have implicitly argued that the real barrier to adoption of other 
voting method is simply the complexity of constructing one's ballot. 
Range voting is more complex than producing an ordering on candidates. 
For me the problem of determining my own utility for various candidates 
is quite perplexing;  I can't imagine the "ordinary voter" finding it 
more pleasant.


Range also exposes the possibility of strategic voting very explicitly 
to the voters. Only a chump casts a vote other than 0 or 10 on a 
10-point scale. Range creates an incentive for dishonesty.


So if the lazy voters are voting approval style because they don't want 
to sort out their utilities, and the motivated voters are voting 
approval style because that's the right strategy, who's left? It seems 
to me that we might as well have Approval and keep the ballots simple 
rather than use Range.


-- Andrew
<>
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Re: [EM] Has this idea been considered?

[Jameson Quinn]

I agree that there are plenty of reasons, good and bad, for not signing on
to any given statement. My plea is simply that people consider the reasons
for signing it too. No joint statement will ever say exactly what each
inidividual signator would have said, but I for one am still willing to make
the effort.

As for the specific concerns - which systems, how many, etc - several of
those questions are touched on by the poll .

2011/7/8 Juho Laatu 

> There are many reasons why it is difficult to find a statement that
> numerous people on this list would be willing to sign. As you know there are
> probably as many different opinions on different methods as there are people
> on this list. There have been some related (inconclusive) discussions also
> earlier on this list.
>
> I'll write few comments below to outline some possible problems.
>
> 1. Commonly agreed to be better than approval.
>
>
> First I'd like to understand what is the target environment for the method.
> In the absence of any explanation I assume that we are looking for a general
> purpose method that could be used for many typical single-winner elections
> and other decision making in potentially competitive environments.
>
> Numerous people on this list may think that Condorcet methods are better.
> People may find also numerous other methods better than approval, but it may
> be more difficult to find many people with firm and similar opinions on
> them.
>
> 2. Commonly agreed to be simple for an average voter to feel that they
> understand what's going on.
>
>
> Different societies may have very different expectations here, depending on
> what they are used to. Maybe Condorcet voting (ranking) is considered simple
> enough. Maybe the voters need to understand only how to vote, not how to
> count the results.
>
> Some more reasons why people may have problems with signing the statement.
> - there is no statement yet
> - they don't understand or agree that these two targets would be the key
> targets (why just better than approval, what do the voters need to
> understand, what is simple)
> - they may think that there should be more targets or less targets
> - it might be easier to find an agreement on even smaller statements, one
> at a time
> - this proposal would not meet the needs of their own default target
> environment (maybe some specific society) (maybe their current method is
> already better)
> - they are afraid of making public statements that they might regret later
> - they don't want to take part in web campaigns in general (e.g.
> because their primary focus is in their academic or other career)
> - they are simply too uncertain and therefore stay silent
> - there might be one sentence in the statement that they don't like (or one
> method)
> - this initiative was not their own initiative
> - they have a personal agenda and this initiative does not directly support
> it (maybe some favourite method, or some particular campaign, maybe this
> initiative competes with their agenda)
> - technical arguments
>
> I hope you will find some agreements. But I'm not very hopeful if the
> target is to find an agreement of numerous persons on numerous questions.
> Maybe if the statement would be very simple. One approach would be to make a
> complete personal statement and then try to get some support to it (maybe
> with comments).
>
> Juho
>
>
>
> On 8.7.2011, at 19.47, Jameson Quinn wrote:
>
> I'm sorry, but aarrhh.
>
> I think that people on this list are smart, but this is pathetic. I don't
> mean to be hard on Dave in particular. But why is it impossible to get any
> two of us to agree on anything? I want to make a list of systems which are
>
> 1. Commonly agreed to be better than approval.
> 2. Commonly agreed to be simple for an average voter to feel that they
> understand what's going on.
>
> I am not asking each person who responds to choose the best or simplest
> system according to them. I'm asking everyone to vote in the 
> poll and
> approve (rate higher than 0) all systems which meet those two very low bars.
> Hopefully, the result will be a consensus. It will almost certainly not be
> the two best, simplest systems by any individual's personal reckoning.
>
> As to the specific comments:
>
> 2011/7/8 Dave Ketchum 
>
>> What I see:
>> . Condorcet - without mixing in Approval.
>>
>
> You need some cycle-breaker. Implicit approval is the only order-N
> tiebreaker I know; fundamentally simpler than any order-N² tiebreaker like
> minimax. You don't have to call it approval if you don't like the name.
>
>
>> . SODA - for trying, but seems too complex.
>>
>
> I disagree, but I'm biased. I feel that "approve any number of candidates
> or let your favorite candidate do it for you; most approvals wins" is easy
> to understand. But I can understand if people disagree, so I'm not
> criticizing this logic.
>
>
>> . Reject Approva

Re: [EM] SODA

[fsimmons]

You're right, the same example dawned on me last night after I used up all of 
my computer time.

But the Hasse diagram of the partial order does yield a weighted DAG (directed 
acyclic graph) where the 
weight of each coalition is the sum of the weights of the factions that are 
included in it.  If we agree that 
edges are directed from coalition to subcoalition, then the only source is the 
set of all factions. [A 
source is a node that has at least one edge leaving it, but no edge entering 
it; i.e. indegree=0, 
outdegree>0.]

Here's how to order the factions:

While there remains at least one edge in the graph ..
remove the heaviest edge leaving the most recently exposed source.
EndWhile

The factions play in the order that they are exposed.

[The weight of an edge is the weight of the node that it enters.  A node is 
exposed at the stage its 
indegree reaches zero. In the original DAG the only source is considered to be 
the "most recently 
exposed source."]

This generalizes the order that I gave for trees, i.e.if the DAG is a tree, 
this order agrees with the order 
that I gave for that case.

It is clear that this algorithm takes O(n) steps where n is the number of edges 
in the DAG.



- Original Message -
From: Jameson Quinn 
> > The Hasse diagram for a partially ordered set is a tree.
> >
> 
> No, it's not. Or at least, not if I understand your terms 
> correctly. If
> there are three candidates [ABC], and all vote types exist, then 
> is [A] a
> leaf on the [AB] branch or on the [AC] branch?
> 
> JQ
> 

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Re: [EM] Has this idea been considered?

[Jameson Quinn]

just a quick comment on a minor point:

 IRV may be a counterexample, but I suspect that (1) it has only been
> adopted in very "liberal" cities,


I don't think that's because they're liberal, per se, but rather because
they were burned by the 2000 election. We'll see how it works after a
conservative Nader throws a national election to the Democrats. (Of course,
right now, Republicans go out of their way to at least apear to kow-tow to
the conservative base, while Obama goes out of his way to at least appear to
distinguish himself from the liberal base, so Republicans have far less need
for a third-party candidate. But that can change.)

JQ

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Re: [EM] Has this idea been considered?

[Russ Paielli]

On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 9:47 AM, Jameson Quinn wrote:

> I'm sorry, but aarrhh.
>
> I think that people on this list are smart, but this is pathetic. I don't
> mean to be hard on Dave in particular. But why is it impossible to get any
> two of us to agree on anything? I want to make a list of systems which are
>
> 1. Commonly agreed to be better than approval.
> 2. Commonly agreed to be simple for an average voter to feel that they
> understand what's going on.
>
> I am not asking each person who responds to choose the best or simplest
> system according to them. I'm asking everyone to vote in the 
> poll and
> approve (rate higher than 0) all systems which meet those two very low bars.
> Hopefully, the result will be a consensus. It will almost certainly not be
> the two best, simplest systems by any individual's personal reckoning.
>
>
Jameson, I think the answer depends on what you mean by "better." (You may
have defined that specifically in an earlier post, but if you did, I forgot
it. Sorry!)

I think we can break the evaluation of election methods down into three
major categories:

1. Technical criteria
2. Complexity
3. Equipment requirements

Technical criteria includes all those "theoretical" criteria that have been
defined and discussed here for many years, such as Condorcet Criterion,
monotonicity, etc. Complexity relates to the vote counting and/or transfer
rules.

As I wrote a couple days ago, I strongly suspect that any vote counting
rules beyond simple addition will be extremely difficult to sell on a large
scale. IRV may be a counterexample, but I suspect that (1) it has only been
adopted in very "liberal" cities, and (2) it will never gain traction for
major public elections.

The more I think about it, the more I am starting to think that Range Voting
is the answer. I'm sure Warren will be glad to hear that! One great
advantage of Range is its ultra-simple counting rules. Its only real
disadvantage is the equipment requirements, but those are not
insurmountable.

An open issue about Range is, of course, how many rating levels should be
used. A "natural" choice is 10, but anything from about 5 to 10 or so seems
reasonable to me.

As I said before, I am very concerned about the large number of candidates
in the Republican presidential primary. I would love to see Range Voting
used there. That won't happen, of course, but if Republicans end up largely
unhappy with their candidate (as they were with McCain), the silver lining
to that could will be an opportunity to promote Range Voting to Republicans.

--Russ P.

-- 
http://RussP.us

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Re: [EM] Has this idea been considered?

[Juho Laatu]

There are many reasons why it is difficult to find a statement that numerous 
people on this list would be willing to sign. As you know there are probably as 
many different opinions on different methods as there are people on this list. 
There have been some related (inconclusive) discussions also earlier on this 
list.

I'll write few comments below to outline some possible problems.

> 1. Commonly agreed to be better than approval.

First I'd like to understand what is the target environment for the method. In 
the absence of any explanation I assume that we are looking for a general 
purpose method that could be used for many typical single-winner elections and 
other decision making in potentially competitive environments.

Numerous people on this list may think that Condorcet methods are better. 
People may find also numerous other methods better than approval, but it may be 
more difficult to find many people with firm and similar opinions on them.

> 2. Commonly agreed to be simple for an average voter to feel that they 
> understand what's going on.


Different societies may have very different expectations here, depending on 
what they are used to. Maybe Condorcet voting (ranking) is considered simple 
enough. Maybe the voters need to understand only how to vote, not how to count 
the results.

Some more reasons why people may have problems with signing the statement.
- there is no statement yet
- they don't understand or agree that these two targets would be the key 
targets (why just better than approval, what do the voters need to understand, 
what is simple)
- they may think that there should be more targets or less targets
- it might be easier to find an agreement on even smaller statements, one at a 
time
- this proposal would not meet the needs of their own default target 
environment (maybe some specific society) (maybe their current method is 
already better)
- they are afraid of making public statements that they might regret later
- they don't want to take part in web campaigns in general (e.g. because their 
primary focus is in their academic or other career)
- they are simply too uncertain and therefore stay silent
- there might be one sentence in the statement that they don't like (or one 
method)
- this initiative was not their own initiative
- they have a personal agenda and this initiative does not directly support it 
(maybe some favourite method, or some particular campaign, maybe this 
initiative competes with their agenda)
- technical arguments

I hope you will find some agreements. But I'm not very hopeful if the target is 
to find an agreement of numerous persons on numerous questions. Maybe if the 
statement would be very simple. One approach would be to make a complete 
personal statement and then try to get some support to it (maybe with comments).

Juho



On 8.7.2011, at 19.47, Jameson Quinn wrote:

> I'm sorry, but aarrhh.
> 
> I think that people on this list are smart, but this is pathetic. I don't 
> mean to be hard on Dave in particular. But why is it impossible to get any 
> two of us to agree on anything? I want to make a list of systems which are
> 
> 1. Commonly agreed to be better than approval.
> 2. Commonly agreed to be simple for an average voter to feel that they 
> understand what's going on.
> 
> I am not asking each person who responds to choose the best or simplest 
> system according to them. I'm asking everyone to vote in the poll and approve 
> (rate higher than 0) all systems which meet those two very low bars. 
> Hopefully, the result will be a consensus. It will almost certainly not be 
> the two best, simplest systems by any individual's personal reckoning.
> 
> As to the specific comments:
> 
> 2011/7/8 Dave Ketchum 
> What I see:
> . Condorcet - without mixing in Approval.
> 
> You need some cycle-breaker. Implicit approval is the only order-N tiebreaker 
> I know; fundamentally simpler than any order-N² tiebreaker like minimax. You 
> don't have to call it approval if you don't like the name.
>  
> . SODA - for trying, but seems too complex.
> 
> I disagree, but I'm biased. I feel that "approve any number of candidates or 
> let your favorite candidate do it for you; most approvals wins" is easy to 
> understand. But I can understand if people disagree, so I'm not criticizing 
> this logic.
>  
> . Reject Approval - too weak to compete.
> 
> Worse than plurality
> 
> JQ
> 
> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info


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Re: [EM] Has this idea been considered?

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

Jameson Quinn wrote:
First, I'd ask people on this list to please stop discussing tax policy 
here. It's not the place for it.
 


(What happened to that idea of finding a compromise method that
everybody on EM could support? Did the idea get sidetracked by SODA?)


More or less. My impression was that we had agreed that a statement 
should explain and support no more than two simple methods, and mention 
as good a broad range - as many as could get broad acceptance. For the 
simple methods, it seemed that people were leaning towards 
(Condorcet//Approval or Minimax/WV) plus (Approval or SODA). For the 
"generally agreed as improvements", I think we could get consensus that 
the aforementioned ones plus MJ, Range, and a catch-all "condorcet 
methods" (since in practice they are unlikely to differ), would all be 
improvements over plurality.


So, I guess the question is: is there anyone who would support Approval 
but not SODA? Respond in text. Also, I made a poll on betterpolls - go 
vote. http://betterpolls.com/v/1425


After a fashion. SODA may be a good method in a vacuum, but it's also 
very new and has no precedent at all (apart from its components). Thus, 
mentioning it in a practical proposal could run the risk of making it 
seem left-field and thus the rest of our suggestions appear less serious.



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Re: [EM] Learning from IRV's success

[Kevin Venzke]

Hi,

--- En date de : Ven 8.7.11, Kristofer Munsterhjelm  a 
écrit :
> Bob Richard wrote:
> > It turns that real live voters (including real live
> politicians) care a lot about the later-no-harm criterion,
> even if they don't know what it's called.
> > 
> 
> If true, that is unfortunate. Perhaps we would have to pick
> a better criterion that is also easy to understand,
> something like the (weak) Favorite Betrayal Criterion. But
> if we have to do that, then a lot of otherwise good methods
> go out the window.

Well, you can modify MinMax to satisfy FBC. But, you have to figure out
what to do when it returns more than one unbeaten candidate. First-
preference count is the most obvious general fix. Probably violates
Plurality. "Total support" would be better but brings in an additional
concept...

Yes, I think that if FPP didn't have such strong nomination 
disincentive, voters would be more concerned about the principle of not
having to lie about who their favorite is. As things are, who other than
a "third-party extremist" would ever need to worry about it?

It's too bad there is no conclusive, persuasive way to measure LNHarm or
FBC performance. There's certainly better and worse among methods that
fail.

Kevin Venzke


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Re: [EM] Has this idea been considered?

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

Russ Paielli wrote:
On Thu, Jul 7, 2011 at 3:32 PM, Juho Laatu > wrote:




   What didi people think before the nowadays generally agreed idea
   that all countries should be democratic. Maybe some idealists
   discussed the possibility that one day ordinary people might rule
   the country. I'm sure many others laughed at them and told them that
   such changes are dangerous and will never work, particularly since
   they are not in the interest of the current rulers, nor any other
   rulers that might overthrow the current rulers. So reforms are just
   a joke and idealistic dreams like democracy will never work. There
   would quickly be some new rulers that would kick the poor commoners
   out and probably even kill them.



I'll probably get a bit off topic here, but I think it is important to 
understand that democracy itself is almost worthless without 
Constitutionally guaranteed individual rights (as distinct from bogus 
"group rights"). That's what the American revolution was all about. The 
founders certainly did not want a "pure" democracy. They know very well 
where that majority rule would lead a tyranny of the majority. That's 
why they gave us the Bill of Rights.


The UK doesn't have a written constitution nor a Bill of Rights, yet it 
seems to manage. If anything, it is the European country closest to the 
United States in policy matters.


The main problem with our political system today is that far too few 
people understand what freedom and individual rights mean. The Bill of 
Rights is just the start of it. Property rights are essential to any 
real notion of freedom, and they are also essential to prosperity. When 
half the population thinks the gov't should take from those who have 
"too much" and give to others who "don't have enough," we are in 
trouble. Yet that's exactly where we are. The greatest election methods 
in the world cannot save us from those kind of voters.


"The greatest election methods in the world" could even increase 
redistribution. According to Warren Smith's page on proportional 
representation (http://rangevoting.org/PropRep.html, "What does 
economics say?"), countries with increasing amounts of PR also have 
bigger governments and less economic inequality (which is usually 
accomplished through redistribution, such as by progressive taxes). To 
some extent, it appears that the people want this. See, for instance, 
the "ideal" income distributions, as given by the public, mentioned in 
http://www.people.hbs.edu/mnorton/norton%20ariely.pdf .


If people want redistribution, then giving them more democracy will lead 
to more redistribution. If that is a problem with the people, then it is 
a problem with democracy, and as such, a more accurate democracy would 
have a greater problem with it.


Even if it's an effect of proportional representation, the method, 
rather than an increasingly accurate reflection of the wishes of the 
people, that would still mean proportional representation would lead to 
more redistribution.


The fundamental problem now is that too many of us actually want to go 
back to a state in which gov't is our master rather than our servant. If 
gov't can arbitrarily take from you when it thinks you have too much, it 
is the master, and we are the servants. Why is that so hard for some to 
understand?


Another reason for the link between PR and government size might be that 
when the people are more accurately represented, they feel that the 
government is less "them" and more "us". To the extent that happens, the 
concept of dominance is weakened: if the government is "us" then "us 
mastering ourselves" is no dangerous relation.


I have no proof of that, though; to get it, I would have to ask people 
in PR democracies and non-PR democracies to what degree they think the 
government is of, by, and for the people.



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Re: [EM] Composite methods (Re: Eric Maskin promotes the Black method)

[Juho Laatu]

Some more observations.

Party officials and representatives have more weight in decision making than 
regular voters. The opinions of regular supporters of party A could be 
A>Centrist>B, but the opinions of people whose future and career are tied to 
the party have more A>>>Centrist>B orientation. Some of them may simply count 
the number of days that they will be in power vs. in opposition. They want to 
rule themselves, not that someone ideologically close to them rules. From that 
point of view a two-party system may be better than one that allows also small 
parties that are ideologically closer to win. Parties that are ideologically 
close may be interpreted also as worst enemies since they may steal votes that 
would otherwise be yours (they might thus even think A>>>B>Centrist). These 
people could be more interested in going back to plurality from Condorcet than 
from IRV. And they are the ones that are in power (or have more power than many 
others).

Juho



On 8.7.2011, at 12.43, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:

> Juho Laatu wrote:
>> On 8.7.2011, at 11.00, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
>>> But now consider a parallel universe where the CW always won (and
>>> these victories were significant, i.e. people really preferred the
>>> CW to the rest). Say Montroll won. Then Kiss-supporters and
>>> Wright-supporters might try to unite in the feeling that Montroll
>>> wasn't what they wanted ("we don't want any steenkin centrists");
>>> but if they tried so, there would be a majority who did like
>>> Montroll (because he was the CW), and therefore these could block
>>> the repeal if it came to a referendum.
>> Condorcet methods are majority oriented, but unfortunately CW has
>> majority only in pairwise comparisons. Majority of the voters would
>> choose the centrist rather than X. But it is possible that majority
>> of that majority would want Y rather than the centrist. And quite
>> typically majority of the voters prefer someone else to the CW.
> 
> My point is that a majority of a majority isn't enough in a repeal-or-not 
> referendum. If the repeal side can gather only a majority of a majority, 
> while the keep-it side can gather a full majority, the method remains.
> 
>> In a two-party oriented political system both major parties would
>> prefer a centrist to the candidate of the other major party. But if
>> they think carefully, maybe it would after all be in their interest
>> to just accept the fact that the major parties rule each 50% of the
>> time, instead of e.g. the centrists ruling 50% of the time, leaving
>> 25% to each of the major parties.
> 
> The more general concept that you mention is of course true. I was 
> considering Condorcet methods as new methods versus other methods as new 
> methods, and giving a possibility that Condorcet methods might outlast 
> non-Condorcet methods in voting reform.
> 
> If society didn't have any bias at all, and could coordinate, it would 
> quickly converge to the method that would do it best. The society would say 
> "We don't like the spoiler effect, let's find a way to fix it". But because 
> voting reform is hard, we can assume that doesn't hold true.
> 
> So yes, voting reform will be hard, no matter what new method you want to put 
> in place. I'm merely saying that because of dynamics, it might be easier to 
> replace status quo with a Condorcet method (and have the new method last) 
> than it is to do so with a non-Condorcet method (and have *it* last), because 
> majorities can complain more often in the latter case than in the former.
> 
> If people are in favor of two-party rule, well, then Plurality will remain. 
> If they want two-party rule with no chance of minor spoilers upsetting the 
> outcome, they may settle on IRV. But even here, Condorcet wouldn't be worse 
> than IRV: if the voters want two parties, then one would assume they'd vote 
> in a manner consistent with it. Third parties wouldn't break free -- because 
> the voters don't want them -- and a cloneproof Condorcet method would keep 
> minor spoilers out of the way.
> 
> 
> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info


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Re: [EM] Has this idea been considered?

[Jameson Quinn]

I'm sorry, but aarrhh.

I think that people on this list are smart, but this is pathetic. I don't
mean to be hard on Dave in particular. But why is it impossible to get any
two of us to agree on anything? I want to make a list of systems which are

1. Commonly agreed to be better than approval.
2. Commonly agreed to be simple for an average voter to feel that they
understand what's going on.

I am not asking each person who responds to choose the best or simplest
system according to them. I'm asking everyone to vote in the
poll and
approve (rate higher than 0) all systems which meet those two very low bars.
Hopefully, the result will be a consensus. It will almost certainly not be
the two best, simplest systems by any individual's personal reckoning.

As to the specific comments:

2011/7/8 Dave Ketchum 

> What I see:
> . Condorcet - without mixing in Approval.
>

You need some cycle-breaker. Implicit approval is the only order-N
tiebreaker I know; fundamentally simpler than any order-N² tiebreaker like
minimax. You don't have to call it approval if you don't like the name.


> . SODA - for trying, but seems too complex.
>

I disagree, but I'm biased. I feel that "approve any number of candidates or
let your favorite candidate do it for you; most approvals wins" is easy to
understand. But I can understand if people disagree, so I'm not criticizing
this logic.


> . Reject Approval - too weak to compete.
>

Worse than plurality

JQ

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Re: [EM] Has this idea been considered?

[Dave Ketchum]

What I see:
.. Condorcet - without mixing in Approval.
. SODA - for trying, but seems too complex.
. Reject Approval - too weak to compete.

Dave Ketchum

On Jul 8, 2011, at 6:56 AM, Jameson Quinn wrote:

First, I'd ask people on this list to please stop discussing tax  
policy here. It's not the place for it.


(What happened to that idea of finding a compromise method that  
everybody on EM could support? Did the idea get sidetracked by SODA?)


More or less. My impression was that we had agreed that a statement  
should explain and support no more than two simple methods, and  
mention as good a broad range - as many as could get broad  
acceptance. For the simple methods, it seemed that people were  
leaning towards (Condorcet//Approval or Minimax/WV) plus (Approval  
or SODA). For the "generally agreed as improvements", I think we  
could get consensus that the aforementioned ones plus MJ, Range, and  
a catch-all "condorcet methods" (since in practice they are unlikely  
to differ), would all be improvements over plurality.


So, I guess the question is: is there anyone who would support  
Approval but not SODA? Respond in text. Also, I made a poll on  
betterpolls - go vote. http://betterpolls.com/v/1425



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Re: [EM] Learning from IRV's success

[Dave Ketchum]

On Jul 8, 2011, at 10:43 AM, Juho Laatu wrote:

On 8.7.2011, at 17.16, Andy Jennings wrote:

Also, I think IRV's seemingly intuitive nature has something to do  
with it. For those who *did* investigate more deeply, IRV seemed  
sensible, too: instead of holding a bunch of expensive runoffs,  
collect all the required information at once and then act as if  
there were runoffs. That fails to account for the dynamics between  
the rounds, but that's a subtle detail and might easily be missed.


I, too, must admit that IRV has a natural feeling to it.  I had a  
friend who described to me a system he thought of "on his own" and  
he ended up describing IRV.


And MANY of us asking for Condorcet probably see it as fitting the  
above description - for the voter.


It is when we notice that IRV counting can stray FAR from awarding to  
the CW, that our attention can turn to Condorcet which:

. Has counting that awards to deserving candidates.
. Can easily handle equal ranking.
. Can learn to award to write-ins (when they are deserving).

Dave Ketchum


I agree with that (as one reason). It is a bit  like natural  
selection, or a like fight of strong men where the weakest ones must  
leave the arena first.


Juho




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Re: [EM] Learning from IRV's success

[Juho Laatu]

On 8.7.2011, at 17.16, Andy Jennings wrote:

> Also, I think IRV's seemingly intuitive nature has something to do with it. 
> For those who *did* investigate more deeply, IRV seemed sensible, too: 
> instead of holding a bunch of expensive runoffs, collect all the required 
> information at once and then act as if there were runoffs. That fails to 
> account for the dynamics between the rounds, but that's a subtle detail and 
> might easily be missed.
> 
> I, too, must admit that IRV has a natural feeling to it.  I had a friend who 
> described to me a system he thought of "on his own" and he ended up 
> describing IRV.

I agree with that (as one reason). It is a bit  like natural selection, or a 
like fight of strong men where the weakest ones must leave the arena first.

Juho





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Re: [EM] Learning from IRV's success

[Jameson Quinn]

2011/7/8 Andy Jennings 

> Also, I think IRV's seemingly intuitive nature has something to do with it.
>> For those who *did* investigate more deeply, IRV seemed sensible, too:
>> instead of holding a bunch of expensive runoffs, collect all the required
>> information at once and then act as if there were runoffs. That fails to
>> account for the dynamics between the rounds, but that's a subtle detail and
>> might easily be missed.
>>
>
> I, too, must admit that IRV has a natural feeling to it.  I had a friend
> who described to me a system he thought of "on his own" and he ended up
> describing IRV.
>

If "most likely to be independently reinvented" is the criterion, Borda wins
by a country mile. Bucklin is also compelling that way.

JQ

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Re: [EM] Learning from IRV's success

[Andy Jennings]

>
> Also, I think IRV's seemingly intuitive nature has something to do with it.
> For those who *did* investigate more deeply, IRV seemed sensible, too:
> instead of holding a bunch of expensive runoffs, collect all the required
> information at once and then act as if there were runoffs. That fails to
> account for the dynamics between the rounds, but that's a subtle detail and
> might easily be missed.
>

I, too, must admit that IRV has a natural feeling to it.  I had a friend who
described to me a system he thought of "on his own" and he ended up
describing IRV.

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[EM] Why IRV has been "successful"

[Warren Smith]

>Bob Richard  robertjrichard.com>
>Subject: Re: Learning from IRV's success
>It turns that real live voters (including real live politicians) care a lot 
>about the later-no-harm >criterion, even if they don't know what it's called.
>--Bob Richard

--I think that's bullshit.  IRV got "successful" i.e. was adopted in
Australia, Ireland, etc in
the early 1900s, before "later no harm" was even thought of.
Obviously, nobody gave a hoot about it at the time IRV achieved its
success.   There have been tiny later successes of IRV after the early
1900s but they were small by comparison.   The people doing that then
tried to invent LNH as a post-rationalization and desperate
baloney-argument for why IRV was a great voting method, since it as
very hard to think of good reasons IRV was a good voting method.

The reason for IRV's success is simple: its proponents were in the
right place at the right time early, and very few other voting methods
had even been thought of so it had
little competition.   In other words, it's largely an accident.

One might also ask "why has range voting been so successful?"  Range
voting was adopted in two of the earliest and most successful
partial-democracies, ancient Sparta and Renaissance Venice.   Those
both lasted far longer and under tougher circumstances than any IRV
country.  Indeed, it could be argued these were the two most
successful democracies of all time.   So Range Voting was a great
success.  Why was that?

Well... as far as why Sp. & Ve. adopted range voting, this is unknown,
the story of how that
decision got made is basically lost to history (and/or largely
mythologized).  It is suspected
that the reason the Catholic Popes were elected by an
approval-voting-like process
for several centuries was because the pope (Celestine V) who started
that system knew about the Venetian system and knew it was successful.
  So at least in that case, we have a
good idea why it happened.   I have tried in my limited manner to examine the
Pope Elections in this era and it appears their approval-like system
worked pretty well for them despite immense pressures placed upon it;
and it also appears IRV would not have worked well for them and
probably would have turned the papacy into a permanent family dynasty
and then there would have been (more) wars...

http://www.rangevoting.org/SpartaExec.html
http://www.rangevoting.org/VeniceExec.html
http://www.rangevoting.org/PopeSummary.html
http://www.rangevoting.org/PopeApprovalSystem.html


-- 
Warren D. Smith
http://RangeVoting.org  <-- add your endorsement (by clicking
"endorse" as 1st step)
and
math.temple.edu/~wds/homepage/works.html

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Re: [EM] Has this idea been considered?

[Jameson Quinn]

First, I'd ask people on this list to please stop discussing tax policy
here. It's not the place for it.


> (What happened to that idea of finding a compromise method that everybody
> on EM could support? Did the idea get sidetracked by SODA?)
>

More or less. My impression was that we had agreed that a statement should
explain and support no more than two simple methods, and mention as good a
broad range - as many as could get broad acceptance. For the simple methods,
it seemed that people were leaning towards (Condorcet//Approval or
Minimax/WV) plus (Approval or SODA). For the "generally agreed as
improvements", I think we could get consensus that the aforementioned ones
plus MJ, Range, and a catch-all "condorcet methods" (since in practice they
are unlikely to differ), would all be improvements over plurality.

So, I guess the question is: is there anyone who would support Approval but
not SODA? Respond in text. Also, I made a poll on betterpolls - go vote.
http://betterpolls.com/v/1425

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Re: [EM] Composite methods (Re: Eric Maskin promotes the Black method)

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

Juho Laatu wrote:

On 8.7.2011, at 11.00, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:


But now consider a parallel universe where the CW always won (and
these victories were significant, i.e. people really preferred the
CW to the rest). Say Montroll won. Then Kiss-supporters and
Wright-supporters might try to unite in the feeling that Montroll
wasn't what they wanted ("we don't want any steenkin centrists");
but if they tried so, there would be a majority who did like
Montroll (because he was the CW), and therefore these could block
the repeal if it came to a referendum.


Condorcet methods are majority oriented, but unfortunately CW has
majority only in pairwise comparisons. Majority of the voters would
choose the centrist rather than X. But it is possible that majority
of that majority would want Y rather than the centrist. And quite
typically majority of the voters prefer someone else to the CW.


My point is that a majority of a majority isn't enough in a 
repeal-or-not referendum. If the repeal side can gather only a majority 
of a majority, while the keep-it side can gather a full majority, the 
method remains.



In a two-party oriented political system both major parties would
prefer a centrist to the candidate of the other major party. But if
they think carefully, maybe it would after all be in their interest
to just accept the fact that the major parties rule each 50% of the
time, instead of e.g. the centrists ruling 50% of the time, leaving
25% to each of the major parties.


The more general concept that you mention is of course true. I was 
considering Condorcet methods as new methods versus other methods as new 
methods, and giving a possibility that Condorcet methods might outlast 
non-Condorcet methods in voting reform.


If society didn't have any bias at all, and could coordinate, it would 
quickly converge to the method that would do it best. The society would 
say "We don't like the spoiler effect, let's find a way to fix it". But 
because voting reform is hard, we can assume that doesn't hold true.


So yes, voting reform will be hard, no matter what new method you want 
to put in place. I'm merely saying that because of dynamics, it might be 
easier to replace status quo with a Condorcet method (and have the new 
method last) than it is to do so with a non-Condorcet method (and have 
*it* last), because majorities can complain more often in the latter 
case than in the former.


If people are in favor of two-party rule, well, then Plurality will 
remain. If they want two-party rule with no chance of minor spoilers 
upsetting the outcome, they may settle on IRV. But even here, Condorcet 
wouldn't be worse than IRV: if the voters want two parties, then one 
would assume they'd vote in a manner consistent with it. Third parties 
wouldn't break free -- because the voters don't want them -- and a 
cloneproof Condorcet method would keep minor spoilers out of the way.



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Re: [EM] Composite methods (Re: Eric Maskin promotes the Black method)

[Juho Laatu]

On 8.7.2011, at 11.00, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:

> But now consider a parallel universe where the CW always won (and these 
> victories were significant, i.e. people really preferred the CW to the rest). 
> Say Montroll won. Then Kiss-supporters and Wright-supporters might try to 
> unite in the feeling that Montroll wasn't what they wanted ("we don't want 
> any steenkin centrists"); but if they tried so, there would be a majority who 
> did like Montroll (because he was the CW), and therefore these could block 
> the repeal if it came to a referendum.

Condorcet methods are majority oriented, but unfortunately CW has majority only 
in pairwise comparisons. Majority of the voters would choose the centrist 
rather than X. But it is possible that majority of that majority would want Y 
rather than the centrist. And quite typically majority of the voters prefer 
someone else to the CW.

In a two-party oriented political system both major parties would prefer a 
centrist to the candidate of the other major party. But if they think 
carefully, maybe it would after all be in their interest to just accept the 
fact that the major parties rule each 50% of the time, instead of e.g. the 
centrists ruling 50% of the time, leaving 25% to each of the major parties.

In other words, in order to change the basic rules of distributing power in a 
society one may need also some good will from those currently in power and some 
general support to the new way of distributing power. In societies that are 
based on one party taking all the power after winning the election, giving that 
power to some minor party, or having more than two major parties rotating in 
power (with not much more than 33% support) may be problematic. Also Condorcet 
combined with single seat districts might not provide what people want. One may 
thus need to rethink the whole system to make people accept it and find the 
majority concept of Condorcet methods ideal for them.

CW is ideal for many single winner decisions but the dynamics of the society 
may also work against it. And one may need to be ready to change more than just 
the election method to make the new rules work well.

Juho





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Re: [EM] Has this idea been considered?

[Russ Paielli]

On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 12:32 AM, Juho Laatu  wrote:

> On 8.7.2011, at 8.55, Russ Paielli wrote:
>
> On Thu, Jul 7, 2011 at 3:32 PM, Juho Laatu  wrote:
>
>>
>> What didi people think before the nowadays generally agreed idea that all
>> countries should be democratic. Maybe some idealists discussed the
>> possibility that one day ordinary people might rule the country. I'm sure
>> many others laughed at them and told them that such changes are dangerous
>> and will never work, particularly since they are not in the interest of the
>> current rulers, nor any other rulers that might overthrow the current
>> rulers. So reforms are just a joke and idealistic dreams like democracy will
>> never work. There would quickly be some new rulers that would kick the poor
>> commoners out and probably even kill them.
>>
>>
> I'll probably get a bit off topic here, but I think it is important to
> understand that democracy itself is almost worthless without
> Constitutionally guaranteed individual rights (as distinct from bogus "group
> rights"). That's what the American revolution was all about. The founders
> certainly did not want a "pure" democracy. They know very well where that
> majority rule would lead a tyranny of the majority. That's why they gave us
> the Bill of Rights.
>
>
Let me just correct that sentence: They know very well that majority rule
would lead to a tyranny of the majority.

>
> I think we are on our way from laws of jungle to something more civilized.
> We can invent better and more fine tuned models on how we should operate in
> order to achieve whatever we want to achieve. This is not completely off
> topic since decision making methods are one essential component and tool in
> making our societies work well.
>
>
> The main problem with our political system today is that far too few people
> understand what freedom and individual rights mean. The Bill of Rights is
> just the start of it. Property rights are essential to any real notion of
> freedom, and they are also essential to prosperity. When half the population
> thinks the gov't should take from those who have "too much" and give to
> others who "don't have enough," we are in trouble. Yet that's exactly where
> we are. The greatest election methods in the world cannot save us from those
> kind of voters.
>
>
> Yes, not too much of that, although most societies of course expect those
> that are well off to take care of those that would otherwise be in trouble.
>
>
Yes, I agree. But the well off should *voluntarily* take of the less
fortunate. They should not be forced. I find it ironic that secular Leftists
are constantly trying to impose Christian morality on us. Well, not all of
Christian morality. They have no use for the sexual morality part of it, but
they are gung-ho for what they consider to be the economic morality of
Christianity. But they get that completely wrong, of course. Jesus preached
voluntary charity -- not gov't redistribution of wealth! The two are very
different.

There are also solid practical reasons for not forcing the rich to be
"charitable." For one, they can usually do more for the general good by
running successful businesses that employ people. When you think about it, a
rich person who has the lion's share of his wealth invested wisely is
actually doing great things for society. If his investment wasn't providing
jobs and things that people want or need, then the investment would not be
successful. So long as they live reasonably modestly, they aren't "taking"
any more from society than most other people.

I could go on about how the recipients of public "charity" consider it their
"right," hence have little incentive to get off of it, but I'll leave it at
that.

I need to get to bed. Good night.

--Russ P.


> Are some CEOs overpaid? Yes, I think some are. I happen to believe that
> some CEOs and boards are ripping off their own shareholders, and I would
> like to see the gov't do something to give shareholders more say in the
> matter. But the solution is not to just arbitrarily "raise taxes on the
> rich," as so many want to do. People who don't understant the distinction
> are dangerous, because they fundamentally believe that the gov't really owns
> everything and let's us keep some of it out of sheer benevolence. If the
> gov't really owns everything, it owns you too.
>
>
> One interesting question is if government is considered to be "us" or
> "them" or "it". I tend to think that the government and rest of the society
> (like companies) should serve the people, not the other way around. In a
> well working democracy we can decide how those structures serve us in the
> best possible way (allowing e.g. freedom and wealth to all).
>
>
>
>
>> Today many of us live in democracies and people can make changes if they
>> so want. Actually that was the case already before the age of democracy.
>> Changes were more difficult to achieve then. Now making such improvements
>> should be comparably easy. And despite 

Re: [EM] Composite methods (Re: Eric Maskin promotes the Black method)

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

robert bristow-johnson wrote:


i was looking for Kristofer's posts to EM and came across this, i may 
have missed it:


On Jun 22, 2011, at 5:30 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:

I've mentioned it before, but I think Condorcet enjoys an additional 
advantage here. Say there's a CW and he is not elected. Then that 
means a majority prefers the CW to the candidate who was elected, and 
if that majority is annoyed enough, it could try to repeal the voting 
method in question. However, if the method always elects the CW, any 
attempt to do so must face a majority who did prefer that CW to all 
the other candidates, and if that majority feels the candidate is good 
enough, they can block the repeal by virtue of being a majority.




it's curious to me, Kristofer, that this is a theorem that states that 
Condorcet-compliant will eventually, naturally become the norm because 
eventually the majority will be well aware of their status (as the 
majority) and know their loss, be outraged, and change the system to 
something different.  until Condorcet is landed on, there will always be 
the probabilistic pressure to change to something different.


i dunno if i would be as optimistic as that.  i don't think that people 
think about it.


No, I don't think it would be conscious. I don't think the voters would 
go about and think, to themselves "You know, I would really have liked 
Montroll to win, but since he didn't, I'm going to repeal the system". 
Instead, if the effect above is real, it would take the shape of, say, 
Wright-supporters and Montroll-supporters (or the fraction of the latter 
that didn't think long enough about that Montroll would also lose under 
Plurality or 40% TTR) could unite in the feeling that Kiss is no good. 
Thus united under the feeling that Kiss was the wrong choice, they could 
propose to repeal the system.


But now consider a parallel universe where the CW always won (and these 
victories were significant, i.e. people really preferred the CW to the 
rest). Say Montroll won. Then Kiss-supporters and Wright-supporters 
might try to unite in the feeling that Montroll wasn't what they wanted 
("we don't want any steenkin centrists"); but if they tried so, there 
would be a majority who did like Montroll (because he was the CW), and 
therefore these could block the repeal if it came to a referendum.


I'm making a lot of assumptions here. Perhaps Wright- and 
Montroll-supporters would be too different from each other to unite in 
that way, or perhaps there would never be a "we don't want any steenkin 
centrists" campaign in the alternate universe. I don't know enough about 
Burlington politics to say, but I hope it does show the shape of the 
indirect dynamics that would be in play, anyway.



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Re: [EM] Learning from IRV's success

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

Bob Richard wrote:
It turns that real live voters (including real live politicians) care 
a lot about the later-no-harm criterion, even if they don't know what 
it's called.




If true, that is unfortunate. Perhaps we would have to pick a better 
criterion that is also easy to understand, something like the (weak) 
Favorite Betrayal Criterion. But if we have to do that, then a lot of 
otherwise good methods go out the window.


On the other hand, both Nanson and Bucklin has been used in the US, and 
neither of these pass LNHarm.



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Re: [EM] Toby Pereira, PR voting methods

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

Toby Pereira wrote:
I'm not sure I exactly followed that. Jameson's option 2 is to look at 
the nominated slates and see which is best. You could also still use one 
of the other methods to find a possible winner and then compare it with 
the best nominated slate (if they are different). Is that anything like 
what you're saying?


Perhaps it's a mix of the two: the election commission uses the best 
known approximation algorithm, and then others can try to improve upon 
the result. If they don't, then there's already a reasonably good 
result; if they do, all the better.


If the algorithm that produces the better result is then disclosed, the 
election commission can later make use of it. That would be a 
convergence towards the best result by a competition among algorithms, 
rather than by a competition among results.



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Re: [EM] Learning from IRV's success

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

Jameson Quinn wrote:
Russ's message about simplicity is well-taken. But the most successful 
voting reform is IRV - which is far from being the simplest reform. Why 
has IRV been successful?


I want to leave this as an open question for others before I try to 
answer it myself. The one answer which wouldn't be useful would be 
"Because CVD (now FairVote) was looking for a single-winner version of 
STV". There's a bit of truth there, but it's a long way from the whole 
truth, and we want to find lessons we can learn from moving forward, not 
useless historical accidents.


I think there's that -- and the general confusion between ranked 
balloting in general and IRV in particular. FV has kept the two linked 
together, in effect giving a depiction of the sort: "Hey, don't you just 
loathe spoilers? Wouldn't it be better if you could rank the candidates 
so that there are no spoilers? Well, with IRV, you can!".


This seemed sensible enough at first glance, so IRV was accepted. It was 
a dangerous move: it could get IRV into elections more quickly, but if 
the voters found out that IRV provided bad results, they could turn 
against ranked ballots in general.


Also, I think IRV's seemingly intuitive nature has something to do with 
it. For those who *did* investigate more deeply, IRV seemed sensible, 
too: instead of holding a bunch of expensive runoffs, collect all the 
required information at once and then act as if there were runoffs. That 
fails to account for the dynamics between the rounds, but that's a 
subtle detail and might easily be missed.



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Re: [EM] Has this idea been considered?

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

Russ Paielli wrote:
Let me just elaborate on my concerns about complexity. Most of you 
probably know most of this already, but let me just try to summ it up 
and put things in perspective.


Some of the participants on this list are advanced mathematicians, and 
they have been discussing these matters for years. As you all know, the 
topic of election methods and voting systems can get very complicated. 
As far as I know, there is still no consensus even on this list on what 
is the best system. If there is no consensus here, how can you expect to 
get a consensus among the general public?


*Because* some of the participants on this list are advanced 
mathematicians. We (list participants, since I'm not an advanced 
mathematician, at least not formally :-) might discuss whether or not 
Ranked Pairs is better than Schulze, but were it to come to a referendum 
or a common suggestion, I would support either without a thought.


(What happened to that idea of finding a compromise method that 
everybody on EM could support? Did the idea get sidetracked by SODA?)


I would support Schulze and Ranked Pairs, and the uncovered versions 
thereof. I would have to think a bit longer, but I would probably also 
support Minmax (a bit concerned about clones though) and even 
Nanson/Baldwin (since it's not so different from IRV, and has actually 
been used) and BTR-IRV (for those areas where IRV has buried its claws, 
if the choice is between BTR-IRV and IRV or Plurality).


I would have to think further yet, but I would probably also support 
Approval (depends on what the alternatives were), and Range 
(reluctantly), or top-two (because it works in France). I wouldn't 
support IRV, as I don't think it'll make a significant difference 
(consider Australia, for instance).


But let's suppose a consensus is reached here on the EM list. What 
happens next? You need to generate public awareness, which is a major 
task. As far as the general public is concerned, there is no problem 
with the voting system per se. Voters vote, and the votes are counted. 
The candidate with the most votes wins. What else do you need?


Andrew has given a strategy here: let the people become used to ranked 
balloting (primarily) and to Condorcet resolution (secondarily).


Schulze is also getting some use in different organizations, and it may 
be possible to spread it further to other organizations in that way. If 
the members there get used to counting ballots in the Schulze manner, 
they may start wondering why that isn't done in their local election. It 
may be a slow strategy, but you can't wave a magic wand and alter the 
Presidential election system out of the blue, I think.


So let's say we somehow manage to get widespread public awareness of the 
deficiencies of the current plurality system. Then what? Eventually, and 
actual change has to go through Congress. Try to imagine Senator 
Blowhard grilling the experts on the proposed rules of their favorite 
system. It would certainly be good for one thing: fodder for Jon Stewart 
and Steven Colbert!


By then, hopefully there will be local elections being counted by that 
system, and then one can use that as precedent. Something to the effect 
of: "the people in XYZ vote by method W and like the results. It's more 
complex than Plurality, but XYZ has many independents and smaller 
parties, which is a rarity elsewhere, and the people like it".


For that matter, if what I know about US lawmakers is correct, the 
Senators (and Representatives) usually don't know or read the more 
involved bills themselves anyway. They don't have the time or knowledge.


Also, consider the fierce opposition that would develop from any group 
that thinks they would suffer. And who might that be? How about the two 
major parties! Do you think they would have the power to stop it? For 
starters, they would probably claim that any "complicated" vote transfer 
algorithm cannot be used because it is not in the Constitution.


Yup, that's a problem. It's a general problem for any kind of change: if 
you have an unfair system and wish to correct it, then if those who 
currently benefit from the unfair distribution of power are also the 
gatekeepers, then they will, and can, oppose your change. It's their 
power on the line.


There are no quick fixes to this. The only way to handle it would be 
through the democratic process, which means one should organize and try 
to convince the people themselves to support the change.


It might be useful to look at the history of the Proportional 
Representation League in this respect. Their push for PR did manage to 
get it passed in certain areas (New York, Cincinnati), but then the 
machines caught on and, well, those areas no longer use PR. It's going 
to be tough, no doubt about that, and I hope someone around here is good 
enough at organizing, or that someone who *is* would appear if the 
methods get initial momentum (in local elections, organizations, etc).


However, 

Re: [EM] Has this idea been considered?

[Juho Laatu]

On 8.7.2011, at 8.55, Russ Paielli wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 7, 2011 at 3:32 PM, Juho Laatu  wrote:
> 
> What didi people think before the nowadays generally agreed idea that all 
> countries should be democratic. Maybe some idealists discussed the 
> possibility that one day ordinary people might rule the country. I'm sure 
> many others laughed at them and told them that such changes are dangerous and 
> will never work, particularly since they are not in the interest of the 
> current rulers, nor any other rulers that might overthrow the current rulers. 
> So reforms are just a joke and idealistic dreams like democracy will never 
> work. There would quickly be some new rulers that would kick the poor 
> commoners out and probably even kill them.
> 
> 
> I'll probably get a bit off topic here, but I think it is important to 
> understand that democracy itself is almost worthless without Constitutionally 
> guaranteed individual rights (as distinct from bogus "group rights"). That's 
> what the American revolution was all about. The founders certainly did not 
> want a "pure" democracy. They know very well where that majority rule would 
> lead a tyranny of the majority. That's why they gave us the Bill of Rights.

I think we are on our way from laws of jungle to something more civilized. We 
can invent better and more fine tuned models on how we should operate in order 
to achieve whatever we want to achieve. This is not completely off topic since 
decision making methods are one essential component and tool in making our 
societies work well.

> 
> The main problem with our political system today is that far too few people 
> understand what freedom and individual rights mean. The Bill of Rights is 
> just the start of it. Property rights are essential to any real notion of 
> freedom, and they are also essential to prosperity. When half the population 
> thinks the gov't should take from those who have "too much" and give to 
> others who "don't have enough," we are in trouble. Yet that's exactly where 
> we are. The greatest election methods in the world cannot save us from those 
> kind of voters.

Yes, not too much of that, although most societies of course expect those that 
are well off to take care of those that would otherwise be in trouble.

> 
> Are some CEOs overpaid? Yes, I think some are. I happen to believe that some 
> CEOs and boards are ripping off their own shareholders, and I would like to 
> see the gov't do something to give shareholders more say in the matter. But 
> the solution is not to just arbitrarily "raise taxes on the rich," as so many 
> want to do. People who don't understant the distinction are dangerous, 
> because they fundamentally believe that the gov't really owns everything and 
> let's us keep some of it out of sheer benevolence. If the gov't really owns 
> everything, it owns you too.

One interesting question is if government is considered to be "us" or "them" or 
"it". I tend to think that the government and rest of the society (like 
companies) should serve the people, not the other way around. In a well working 
democracy we can decide how those structures serve us in the best possible way 
(allowing e.g. freedom and wealth to all).

> 
>  
> Today many of us live in democracies and people can make changes if they so 
> want. Actually that was the case already before the age of democracy. Changes 
> were more difficult to achieve then. Now making such improvements should be 
> comparably easy. And despite of having democracy the world is not perfect 
> yet. Improvements are still possible. The key problem is actually, as you 
> say, to agree on the targets, and make a model that majority of the rulers 
> (voters) agree with, and that looks plausible enough so that people can start 
> to believe in that change.
> 
> 
> The fundamental problem now is that too many of us actually want to go back 
> to a state in which gov't is our master rather than our servant. If gov't can 
> arbitrarily take from you when it thinks you have too much, it is the master, 
> and we are the servants. Why is that so hard for some to understand?

I think this is a chicken and egg problem. If government is "us", then all the 
money it takes is because we have agreed to proceed that way. In practice 
things are more complicated, and governments easily become money hungry beasts 
that take and spend all the money they can grab.

If we go back to the EM topics, good methods need good and simple and credible 
models and philosophies to allow regular people (voters) to make sensible 
decisions on which routes to take. One does not work well without the other.

Juho


> 
> --Russ P.
> 
> -- 
> http://RussP.us
> 
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