MIKE OSSIPOFF nkklrp-at-hotmail.com |EMlist| wrote:
You havenīt looked at much voting system literature imuch if you havenīt found articles in which voting system academics say some astoundingly ridiculous things. Both Bruce Anderson and Niemi have written that Approval is worse than Plurality. Niemi said thatīs because Approval gives to the voter too many choices. I mean look, when the voter decides how far s/he needs to compromise in Approval, just as s/he must in Plurality, then s/he has the agonizing dilemma of whether or not to vote for the candidates whom s/he likes better than her/his compromise :-) It seems to me that Bruceīs justification for the claim was the same or similar.
Riker recommended Plurality for U.S. presidential elections, because plurality preserves the 2-party system.
But another academic, whose name I donīt remember, only that it was a German name beginning with G, apparently hadnīt read Riker about that, because Prof G said that Approval isnīt needed, because we have a 2-party system.
I can sympathize with your frustration, Mike. Yes, there is a lot of baloney out there in the academic world, although it is *much* more rampant in the humanities and liberal arts world than in engineering and the "hard" sciences. Consider Ward Churchill, the clown who called the victims of the WTC attack "little Eichmanns" who got what they deserved. And he was *tenured*, no less. He may be an extreme case, but he is no exception.
I don't really know much about the state of academia with regard to voting systems, but I suspect it is roughly in the middle of the bullshit/rigorous spectrum.
Those people all have PhDs. Some teach university courses on voting systems. This uneducated pitiful amateur humbly suggests that maybe a degree doesnīt prove that someone can be allowed to cross the street without supervision, or that someone is an authority. Well, Russ is proof that a degree is no guarantee against pretentious ignorance.
Thanks for teeing that up for me, Mike. I don't usually brag about myself, but when I am insulted like that I feel that I have the right to brag to some extent. I scored in the top 1% of the Graduate Records Exam (GRE), which is taken by engineering graduates to get into graduate school. (If Mike doubts it, maybe I may scan the test results and post them on my website.) That puts me in perhaps in the top 0.1% of the general adult population in mathematical ability. I also scored in the top 12% on the verbal section, by the way. How did you do on your tests, Mighty Mike?
I actually do have something in common with Mike. With only a Master's Degree (from Stanford), I am actually a bit under-educated for the work I do. I am not nearly as under-educated as Mike, of course, but you get the point. I am probably one of relatively few non-Ph.Ds who publish in the journals I publish in. My mentor and close working associate is perhaps the most respected name in the imoportant and growing field of air traffic management, and I believe that my 20+ years of experience in innovative research and development makes me the functional equivalent off a Ph.D. But I am naturally biased in that assessment, of course!
In any case, one small advantage of not having a Ph.D. is that it keeps me somewhat humble. Maybe not here, where Mike incites me to brag, but at work. What amazes me about Mike is that he has no such humulity. He has no concept of where he stands in the pecking order. What is he -- a friggin' janitor or something? Did he even finish high school? Yet he throws around insults as if he were a nasty version of Albert Einstein and we were all schoolboys.
Oh, and he likes to pick on me in particular. Apparently all that time I was trying to help him get his ideas aired he imagined that he was the grand master and I was his lowly assistant. The reality was simply that I didn't have full time to devote to election methods and I was trying to leverage what little time I had by working with him and leveraging his massive time committments on the subject.
Mike, I got news for you. Your ideas may or may not have merit, but even if they do, you are not the legend you think you are. And even if you eventually succeed in getting your little criteria ideas accepted (and that's a big if), they will never compare to what I have already accomplished in my career. Yet my career is still on the rise. Your pathetic little "career" never got off the ground and probably never will. You are a loser and you always will be. You are nothing, Mike, except perhaps a good janitor. I'll bet you clean toilets well. Keep up the good work, Mighty Mike.
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