Re: [EM] Resonance
To Michael Ossipoff: If you don't want to get hurt, then don't attack. You attack with words such as "your confusion," "your mistake," "wrong," etc. even where those words do not apply. In your initial "Resonance" message, you start by (mistakenly) claiming I'm wrong, and afterward you say you weren't sure what I meant. When you don't understand what I write, please ask -- first. This is related to the pattern I've seen repeatedly. You ask for feedback, but then you dismiss that feedback, then you "invite" more feedback, and then you pretend that a lack of further responses to your "invitations" implies that you are correct. We (the participants here) don't want to waste time arguing with you about fully supported statements -- such as those on Wikipedia -- that are backed by lots of academically published articles. Instead, here, we want to explore what isn't as well known. Some other participants here have expressed wonder as to why I'm so patient in responding to some of your messages. Optimistically I hope that you will wake up to what's going on. In addition, I want to clarify to readers of this forum who don't understand all of what's going on here, that silence does not imply that we agree with your statements and claims. Your words "if true" suggest that you have doubts about my academic claim, so I'll specify that I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from the University of California at Davis. Additional credentials (electronics technician, contract technical writer specializing in documenting especially complex technology, and more) are available on my LinkedIn page. Your I-am-right-and-you-are-wrong comments (below) about resonance and oscillation are not worthy of a reply. Richard Fobes Author of "The Creative Problem Solver's Toolbox" and "Ending The Hidden Unfairness In U.S. Elections" On 1/20/2013 9:33 AM, Michael Ossipoff wrote: > Richard says: > > Michael Ossipoff, you don't seem to take the time to carefully read the > messages posted here. > > In this case it appears that you failed to notice my use of the word > "component. > > [endquote] > > Ok, here is what you said: > > "Such over-runs are a component of the concept of "resonance" in Physics. > This over-extended "state" quickly lead to an ever-increasing push > back to center. > > [endquote] > > You're using the word "resonance" to mean "oscillation". You're > confused about the difference between what resonance is, and what > oscillation is. > > As I've already explained to you, "resonance" is about a frequency. > Your "over-runs", displacements opposed by a restoring-force, can > result in oscillation, and are a necessary condition for it. ...a > "component" of it, if you want to say it that way. > > But resonance is a frequency-match between a system's natural > frequency (which I defined for you in a previous post) and the > frequency of an oscillatory driving force. > > A system's natural frequency, the frequency at which it would > oscillate without external influence, is sometimes referred to as its > "resonant frequency", for that reason. > > If you don't want to admit that you were confused, then suit yourself. > > You'd continued: > > Yet, overall, the result is an oscillation that > averages out to be centered. > > [endquote] > > Poorly and confusedly worded. > > What you're trying to say is that the average position of an object > that is in harmonic oscillation is at the "center" of the oscillation, > the point toward which the restoring-force acts. > > > ...harmonic oscillation, or any oscillatory motion resulting from a > restoring force whose variation with respect to displacement is > symmetrical about the "center" defined above. > > > [endquote] > > Richard continued; > > I have a degree in Physics > > [endquote] > > That's fine, if true. I was merely commenting about your confusion > regarding the difference between resonance and oscillation. > > Mike Ossipoff > > Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] IRV, JITW, Asset, optional delegation.
Raph: > Suppose the method is IRV, with JITW. Say the candidates are a Green, > a Democrat, and a Republican. > > Most or all Dem preferrers would rank Repub 2nd, because Dem & Repub > are incomparably closer to eachother than either is to Green. You replied: If you assume that a majority prefer both major parties to the 3rd party, then obviously one should win. > There's no chicken dilemma there either. You are assuming centre squeeze. That pretty much only happens to a minor party. [endquote] Sure, a relatively unfavorite CW gets eliminated. IRV isn't good at electing CWs or good compromises. For that reason, and because of its FBC-failure, you don't want iRV unless you're sure that you're in a mutual majority (or are risk-tolerant, and want an adventurous, ambitious gamble). But if you're definitely in a mutual majority (especially if you're in the larger faction of that mutual majority), then IRV would work fine for you. Though I'm certain that this country has a progressive majority (if people would read the platforms and vote for what they like best), I'm not certain that it's a _mutual_ majority. There's some dissention and division among the progressive parties. There might be a progressive party that would have strategic motivation to tell its voters to rank a Democrat over the other progressives. If so, then IRV would be bad news for all progressives, including that hypothetically mutualilty-defecting party. I've mentioned that, if we elected a Green government, IRV would be the initial default voting system, because it's what their platform offers. But there'd surely be initiatives and/or referenda, maybe a national one, about a choice of voting system. Whether progressives should support IRV, or Approval/Score, would depend on what is known at that time about whether the progressives' majority is _mutual_. I'd hope that there could public choice of a voting system, before the first next Congressional and presidential elections, in the new Green government, so that people could support the voting system that is in their best interest. You wrote: Anyway, you make a good point, the chicken dilemma doesn't seem to apply to IRV. Maybe it might still happen in more complex situations, but not with 3 candidates. [endquote] IRV can't have a chicken dilemma, under any circumstances, because IRV meets Later-No-Harm (LNHa). Very few methods meet that critrerion. It's mostly the combination of IRV's compliance with Mutual Majority (MMC) and LNHa, that makes it so interesting. But Later-No-Help is nice too, and Clone-Independence. Whether supporting IRV in a Green govt. referendum would be a good idea for progressives, given the election of a Green government, remains to be seen, because it isn't known if the progressive majority is cohesive (mutual). And, of course IRV is completely inadequate for the currently existing electorate, with its current beliefs about winnability and acceptability. No FBC-failing method could be any good for us now. >> However, I am not entirely convinced that candidates would put their >> voters first in such a situation. > > If not, then they could kiss their political career goodbye. I was thinking of the chicken situation, so if that doesn't apply, withdrawal would have no disadvantages to candidate. [endquote] Not with IRV. You wrote: The only reason would be that they want an easier shot at the seat next time. They don't want an incumbent with similar views, but that would be harder to explain to the voters. [endquote] Most definitely. If they refused to withdraw for that reason, they could forget all about getting any voter support next time. >> This is also a problem with Asset voting. > > Well, with Asset, or (better) with Approval or Score with optional > delegation, there could, and often would, be negotiation among the > candidates, to decide the placement of delegated votes. It might work > well. Chicken can definitely happen with Asset, especially if the voters vote directly for candidates (or more accurately, if proxies can vote for themselves). For the candidates' decisions, negotiation would tremendously ease the problem. I'm talking about binding, publicly-observed, written-down negotiated agreements. For a voter, if s/he perceives a chicken dilemma, then s/he could let hir delegated favorite candidate deal with it by negotiation. Asset would be ok. I'd prefer that voters have a choice about whether or not to delegate, or to just instead cast an ordinary Approval or Score ballot. But, in any case, Asset, or optional-delegation with Approval or Score, would be a drastic big change in voting. Asking for bigger changes is harder. In the household voting-systems poll that i recently did, everyone but me rejected the delegation option. That's why I don't talk much about Asset or optional delegation. Better to discuss the more winnable proposals. Mike Ossipoff Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for lis
Re: [EM] Clean Government Alliance
(For context, see message that follows.) When looking for "overrun" or "wild swings" in politics, keep in mind that politics involves multiple dimensions. This concept is conveyed in the "pencil metaphor" at: http://www.votefair.org/pencil_metaphor.html Specifically, left-to-right (or liberal-versus-conservative) shifts are just one dimension. (As a further complication, different people have different opinions about what that one dimension refers to.) Yet there are other dimensions too. One is the money-fueled shift away from voters toward special interests (votes-versus-money). As the pencil metaphor suggests, this dimension is "orthogonal" (i.e. sort of "perpedicular") to the left-versus-right dimension. Also consider that a "system" (either physical or political) can resonate at several different frequencies. And those oscillations (at different frequencies) can occur simultaneously. If "plotted" in along more than one axis, the results can be "Lissajous curves" (which are nicely shown in the Wikipedia article by that name). Such patterns are more difficult to comprehend than simple one-dimensional "waveforms" (such as an audio signal). So, indeed, it can be very difficult to clearly identify examples of the oscillations in current-day and recent politics. Yet some patterns become clear in an historical context. As an example, the U.S. stock market has large cycles with mathematically determined "periods," such as a big 90-year-or-so cycle and a smaller 20-year-or-so cycle, both occurring "together" (along with other cycles at other frequencies). Such boom-and-bust cycles have what I, and others, believe is the same cause: people with lots of money learn how to "game" the system in their favor without realizing that those changes are not sustainable, and then the "house of cards" collapses, and then the cycle starts again with a different way to game the system (and maybe with a new category of people gaming the system). Kristofer asks what I suggest as a way to "dampen" such resonant/oscillation effects. I recommend VoteFair ranking (including VoteFair representation ranking and VoteFair partial-proportional ranking) for electing political leaders, and I recommend VoteFair negotiation ranking for voting within legislatures. By design, together they would produce laws and enforcement priorities that would much more closely match what voters really want. Also they would _relatively_ _smoothly_ track changes in what voters want. That contrasts with jerkily responding to voter shifts as happens now, and which makes oscillations more likely. As a result, there would be no need for term limits. Richard Fobes On 1/20/2013 12:41 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: On 01/18/2013 06:46 PM, Richard Fobes wrote: On 1/17/2013 10:49 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: The general pattern I was trying to think of, in any case, was this: the society is too far in one direction (according to the people). Candidate X has a position solidly on the other side and brings the policies in that direction. As X pushes policies towards the center, he gains reputation for doing something well. Then as X goes past the center, the people think "we'll give him some time; he's been right in the past, why shouldn't he still know what he's doing?" And so it takes time before the people recognize how far off the other side X really wants to go. Term limits mitigate this ... I have also been reading about predictor or ensemble systems (like weighted majority voting). In that context, it's like an expert that tends to be very right, but situations change and he suddenly stops being right. It then takes some time for his weight to be reduced, because he has such a high weight already. In dynamic situations (where experts may often shift from being very good to not being good at all), sliding window versions of WMV (or UCB) do better than non-sliding versions. I can find papers for this if you're interested :-) Currently, in politics there is not a close correlation between voter preferences and who ends up in office, so the tendency you claim does tend to occur. However, if elections are improved so that there is a high correlation between voter preferences and who ends up in office, then such "over-runs" would quickly lead to a push back to center. Such over-runs are a component of the concept of "resonance" in Physics. This over-extended "state" quickly lead to an ever-increasing push back to center. Yet, overall, the result is an oscillation that averages out to be centered. In my description, the problem is that the people trust the politician as he shifts from interests aligned with the people to interests not aligned with the people. They say "he's done right things in the past, so he knows what he's doing now, too". So the effect is one of people's judgement of the politician, rather than how that judgement is being distorted by the election method. Do you t
Re: [EM] Steve Eppley's Just-In-Time Withdrawal (JITW)
On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 5:19 AM, Michael Ossipoff wrote: > In a 3-candidate Condorcet cycle, for any pair of candidates, only one > of those could elect the other by withdrawing. If the other withdrew, > that would elect the 3rd candidate. Fair enough, I was thinking of IRV (or Asset), but looks like it doesn't apply to IRV. > Suppose the method is IRV, with JITW. Say the candidates are a Green, > a Democrat, and a Republican. > > Most or all Dem preferrers would rank Repub 2nd, because Dem & Repub > are incomparably closer to eachother than either is to Green. If you assume that a majority prefer both major parties to the 3rd party, then obviously one should win. > There's no chicken dilemma there either. You are assuming centre squeeze. That pretty much only happens to a minor party. Anyway, you make a good point, the chicken dilemma doesn't seem to apply to IRV. Maybe it might still happen in more complex situations, but not with 3 candidates. >> However, I am not entirely convinced that candidates would put their >> voters first in such a situation. > > If not, then they could kiss their political career goodbye. I was thinking of the chicken situation, so if that doesn't apply, withdrawal would have no disadvantages to candidate. The only reason would be that they want an easier shot at the seat next time. They don't want an incumbent with similar views, but that would be harder to explain to the voters. >> This is also a problem with Asset voting. > > Well, with Asset, or (better) with Approval or Score with optional > delegation, there could, and often would, be negotiation among the > candidates, to decide the placement of delegated votes. It might work > well. Chicken can definitely happen with Asset, especially if the voters vote directly for candidates (or more accurately, if proxies can vote for themselves). >> Maybe the withdrawal decision could be taken by someone other than the >> candidate themselves. > > Maybe, but the candidate would be responsive to hir voters' wishes, > and would, in fact, likely share them. If there is no chicken, then no big deal. > If someone wins by 1st-count majority, then there'd be no need for > anyone to withdraw. Right. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] Listening, and answering people's points of view
Richard says; Jameson, I support your move to ignore someone who doesn't listen. Debate is supposed to involve actually wanting to understand other points of view. But some people aren't really interested in understanding. [endquote] This vagueness--implications about unspecified instances of not listening or disinterest in understanding the other person's point--is hardly surprising, coming from someone who has shown himself to be not so good at saying what he means in physics. I'm going to comment on the above-quoted statements, because they refer to, and exemplify, some of the most typical and common deficiencies in EM discussion. Richard says that I don't listen. ...to what? I'm not just kidding when I say that saying what you mean, and knowing what you mean, are really all-important in discussions at discussion forums, including EM. It's tempting to want to make angry noises, to imply errors or wrongdoings. But specifying what one actually means or is referring to is a bit more demanding, and so many people, including Richard, are tempted to delude themselves that they've adequately made their point when they've been entirely vague about what they mean. I've sometimes been criticized, at various forums, on various topics, for introducing new definitions...sometimes of new terms, sometimes supplying a clear and precise definition for a term already in use. Sorry, but clear, complete and precise definitions are needed for discussions. For example, Richard complained that I'd defined new criteria, and introduced new terms (to refer to new distinctions). Some of the criteria that I've defined are in wide use. The winning-votes Condorcet class of methods, introduced and initially advocated by me, has widespread popularity (...unfortunately. I no longer recommend it). But it isn't important what definitions we use, as long as we're consistent, and as long as we're quite clear about what definition we're using. That's the problem, of course--we often aren't. Anyway, when you want to say that someone doesn't listen, that statement is entirely without meaning unless you can be a bit more specific. What, in particular, hasn't that person listened to? Richard continued: Debate is supposed to involve actually wanting to understand other points of view. But some people aren't really interested in understanding. [endquote] Another instance of flinging charges around, without any support, justification, or specification of an instance of what the speaker is referring to. Because Richard made that comment in regards to a discussion with Jameson, then I'll point out that I've made as much effort as can be reasonably expected, to try to find out what Jameson was trying to say, to try to find out what his point was, and how he justified it. How many times did I ask him for that justification? Several times I clarified, and re-clarified, that it would be great if a method as easily-counted as Majority-Judgment (MJ) could significantly avoid, alleviate, ameliorate or solve the chicken dilemma. So, interestedly, I asked Jameson to tell how it would do that (He'd previously claimed, a few times, that MJ accomplishes that). Evasion doesn't accomplish anything worthwhile. The only worthwhile way to answer an argument is to answer in terms of what the person meant, in terms of what that person believes &/or means. I've always answered in that way. And, unlike Richard and Jameson, I haven't evaded answering. I've answered everything. And whenever someone claimed that I didn't answer what he meant, I asked him to better specify what he meant. Richard says I don't try to understand other people's point of view? Before starting my "Properties" article-series at Democracy Chronicles, and for the purpose of that article, I asked some questions at EM. Wanting to give a fair opportunity to state their position, to advocates of traditional unimproved Condorcet (TUC), I asked them, at EM, to answer some questions about what advantages TUC has, to counter some specified disadvantages that TUC has, in comparison with Approval, and in comparison with Symmetrical ICT. I asked. But only you can answer. I did my part by asking. Receiving no answers for a fair amount of time, I began the article-series without the TUC defenses that I'd invited. Afterwards, one person did cite two advantages of (some but not all) TUC methods: Clone Independence and Reversal Symmetry. I immediately answered that. I told why I didn't consider those criterion-failures to be important for Approval, Score, ICT and Symmetrical ICT. Citing criteria isn't enough. Someone should always be prepared to tell why the criteria that he cites are important...specifically what problems must result from failing those criteria. Telling why I didn't consider the criterion-failures to be important is an essential part of the use of criteria to evaluate methods. I briefly mention here that Kemeny fails Clone-Independence. I took the time, and devoted the
Re: [EM] Resonance
On 1/20/13 2:40 AM, Richard Fobes wrote: Michael Ossipoff, you don't seem to take the time to carefully read the messages posted here. filters (or kill files) are useful. i guess i have much less patience that Richard and most other folks here. i kill-filed Michael O and Abd and Kathy Dopp after a reasonably short period of noticing what Richard observes above. (and the way that the filter is written, i should be able to receive email sent to me and not the list, but anything they post to the list gets filtered to the trash.) -- r b-j r...@audioimagination.com "Imagination is more important than knowledge." Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] "Fobes" was accidental posting while combining two Fobes posts for comparison and comment..
I was combining two Fobes posts, to include text from both in one reply. To do that, I was sending a copy of one to myself. Then I'd paste the 2nd Fobes post into that message, while forwarding it to myself. Then I'd copy the whole thing and paste it into a posting. But I accidentally sent the initial text to EM instead. I'll post the combined text, with comparison and comments, in a few minutes. Sorry about the accidental post. Mike Ossipoff Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Canadian politician supports "a preferential ballot, or a ranked ballot"
On 01/18/2013 05:18 PM, Jameson Quinn wrote: 2013/1/18 Kristofer Munsterhjelm mailto:km_el...@lavabit.com>> On 01/17/2013 06:07 PM, Richard Fobes wrote: Soon enough, just as has happened in Aspen (CO) and Burlington (VT), the weaknesses of IRV counting will get exposed. In the meantime, just getting people to talk about, and think about, the possibility of better ballots and better counting methods is a wonderful development. I just hope that won't lead to a false confusion of IRV with ranked balloting itself and thus thoughts that ranked balloting can't work because IRV blows up spectacularly in an n-way race with n > 2. I'd say it works until n>=2.5, but yes, you're right in general. Yeah, I was thinking of n integer. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Clean Government Alliance
On 01/18/2013 06:46 PM, Richard Fobes wrote: On 1/17/2013 10:49 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: The general pattern I was trying to think of, in any case, was this: the society is too far in one direction (according to the people). Candidate X has a position solidly on the other side and brings the policies in that direction. As X pushes policies towards the center, he gains reputation for doing something well. Then as X goes past the center, the people think "we'll give him some time; he's been right in the past, why shouldn't he still know what he's doing?" And so it takes time before the people recognize how far off the other side X really wants to go. Term limits mitigate this ... I have also been reading about predictor or ensemble systems (like weighted majority voting). In that context, it's like an expert that tends to be very right, but situations change and he suddenly stops being right. It then takes some time for his weight to be reduced, because he has such a high weight already. In dynamic situations (where experts may often shift from being very good to not being good at all), sliding window versions of WMV (or UCB) do better than non-sliding versions. I can find papers for this if you're interested :-) Currently, in politics there is not a close correlation between voter preferences and who ends up in office, so the tendency you claim does tend to occur. However, if elections are improved so that there is a high correlation between voter preferences and who ends up in office, then such "over-runs" would quickly lead to a push back to center. Such over-runs are a component of the concept of "resonance" in Physics. This over-extended "state" quickly lead to an ever-increasing push back to center. Yet, overall, the result is an oscillation that averages out to be centered. In my description, the problem is that the people trust the politician as he shifts from interests aligned with the people to interests not aligned with the people. They say "he's done right things in the past, so he knows what he's doing now, too". So the effect is one of people's judgement of the politician, rather than how that judgement is being distorted by the election method. Do you think people are actually quick to react against overrun and the method is the problem, rather than the people's estimates? I suppose one way to find out which is the case would be to check if such overruns have happened in PR countries. However, this might complicate the situation, because PR countries - at least parliamentary ones - don't have a Micawberian "50% + 1, I win, 50% - 1, I lose" situation, so the gradual feedback from the parts of the people that do change their opinions often might inform the parties currently in power that if they don't do something, more people will follow. (I think this is part of the reason the Labor Party here is moving to the right. Their coalition will most likely lose their majority in the next election anyway, though.) So it would look like the way to find out which is right would be to find a country with an advanced election method but not PR. But I don't know of any such countries since I don't consider IRV an advanced election method. One might stretch it by considering TTR advanced - it is certainly better than IRV in my eyes... so have there been any overruns in France? I'm not sure. If, after election-method reform, there should be a need to "dampen" such wild swings, there other -- and I believe wiser -- ways to do so. Which methods or ways would you suggest? My background, such as it is, regarding these problems is more a cybernetics and CS one rather than a Physics one - though I don't have any degrees in either and therefore work more on intuition than actual calculation. In any case, I have been thinking about methods to dampen raw populism in more responsive democratic systems like Liquid Democracy. Here the problem (if there is one; we don't know for sure since there haven't been any public experiments with the thing that I know of) would be that the people react too quickly rather than too slowly. Now, a traditional response would be to say that "this is the problem of too frequent elections". To me, that seems to be like saying that a thermostat that regulates temperature and oscillates too wildly around the setpoint has a problem because it samples temperature too often. You *could* say that, but you could also just slow the response of the controller. It seems a waste to force less information to be gathered instead of more just so that the system should work. In a LD case, that might take the shape of using a statistical method with a high breakdown point instead of sum or average for the power calculations, or by gradually adding/removing the voting power given by a subscription rather than just going directly to 0% or 100%. So I can definitely understand that more sophisticated methods could do better. I'm thu
