>Do you suggest the election system should rather declare one of the candidates which are not approved by anyone the winner than to demand a new election because of lack of approved candidates. (I certainly don't agree to that.)
--yes I do. The job of a single-winner election system is to produce a single winner. It is not to say "I refuse to do my job" and then the voters try again. Assuming the voters produce the same votes for the same candidates (and why should they not? can you produce examples from history when they have not?) the same thing then happens ad infinitum. > 1. Can you explain to me the difference >between assigning 64 or 65 points to the middle candidate? > 2...there is no such thing as Util(A) or Util(B). --1. Why should anybody have to explain it? Why should you have to understand it? Why should anybody have to feel they understand it? 2. There is such a thing. I have explained how to try to define it in terms of money, or brain chemicals, or neuron events. The latter (or even the former) may not be easily measureable. (And I did not claim it was.) But what we definitely know is a false claim is that there "is no such thing." 3. Furthermore, some Condorcet advocates - including, I think, you recently, go too far in trying to deny utility, and thus cause grevious harm to humanity. For example, you recently stated that if 60 voters say A=60 B=40, while the remainign 40 voters say A=0 B=100, then A should "obviously" win. 3A. So for example, assuming these are honest voters, and 60% of society votes to have slavery, but 40% (the slaves) vote to end slavery, then according to you, slavery is best for society! Wrong! I say, by denying the plain fact that utilities differ, you and your philosophy have just caused tremendous harm. 3B. For another example: if "B" is the choice: "remove $20 from 60 voters and give $100 to 40 voters" while "A" is "remove $100 from 40 and give $20 to 60" you would wrongly say A is superior. But plainly, since we can now redistribute the money as a postprocessing step, we can see that B is superior. 4. My view: There is no question that utility exists, and there is no question that we want to maximize it. The problem is not utility, the problem is dishonest (whether intentionally or unintentionally) voters who do not SAY their utility. (The problem of dishonest voters then is faced by both Condorcet and range systems.) I think you, when you unmuddle yourself, will concede that is the case... then we can try to make further progress. >Absolutely! I have often argued here that preferences are not linear and that we should allow voters to express undecidedness when one of their criteria says A>B and the other says B>A, instead of forcing them to either vote A=B or weigh their criteria in this case. In my view, when voter assigns equal ranks to two candidates, we should not interpret this as a statement that both are equivalent but rather as a statement that neither is preferred to the other. Writing "A=B" is just a handy shortcut on this list, it could also be written "A?B" instead. --I disagree. A=B and A?B are two distinct concepts, and I can readily imagine voting systems which try to act differently in these two cases, and I in fact think they SHOULD act differently. (In fact "range with blanks" is such a system, although in a kind of reduced-strength way.) Condorcet advocates who try to conflate the two are on dangerous ground. >So you suggest that when candidate A gives $200000 to 1 voter and nothing to the other 99 voters, but candidate B gives $1000 to each of the 100 voters, then candidate A should be considered best for society. --YES!! (at least, if utility=money.) >That's strange, isn't it? --NO!! And in fact the very fact that money is fungible (I assume we both are allowed to ignore, or have already factored in, inflation...) makes it quite clear A is better - if it were non-monetary utility this would be less clear. >What is an honest voter with RV? I would like to honestly assign ratings to candidates, but I seem to be too stupid for it, sorry. --most people are not too stupid (or at least, do not think they are) and accomplish the task basically about as fast as they can write. Furthermore, I think you are capable of estimating expected utility of different choices on an arbitrary scale. And if you are not, then you should not be in any decision-making position, especially governmental or corporate. For example, a decision faced by Bush soon after entering office was whether to change maximum-permitted-levels-of Arsenic-in-water standards. Different maximum arsenic levels lead to different amounts of cancer and health problems. We could totally eliminate the health consequences by demanding "at most 1 atom As per liter" but the cost would be enormous, and indeed if too much money were devoted to this then lives would be lost for lack of money in other areas, (for example mass starvation...) There is an optimum choice utility-wise here. Bush & the EPA basically attempted to find it, and in my estimate (I checked the math) correctly, but they then were placed under political pressure by Democrats and chose to make a revised (now wrong) decision. >> I often feel like there is some kind of drive to invent more complicated and >> crazier > methods so you can get a PhD, which obstructs the more-deserved attention on > the > simplest ones like range. >I have a PhD already, thanks. And I guess there are better reasons for developing election methods than for personal prestige. --well, I was not necessarily saying that was your personal motivation. But I do feel there is this pathology in the academic community - you are not "allowed" to do something (or get credit for it) if it is "too simple." That can be a bad thing because in my opinion the most important things are often the simplest. wds ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info