I replied to this message some days ago, and sent my reply in, but maybe I sent it to the old list address, because it isn't in the archives:
I'd said:
Majority matters because it's a group of people whose need for defensive strategy can be minimized to a degree qualitatively better than
can be said for a submajority group of people. As described by the
definitions of the majority defensive strategy criteria.
Blake replied:
That's certainly a unique way of defending majority rule.
It shouldn't be surprising if the wishes of most of the voters can be important in more than 1 way. I doubt that my majority arguments here are "unique", since there are others here who value the voted preferences of most of the voters, and who agree with the goal of minimizing need for defensive strategy.
But, though majority rule matters with regard to defensive strategy need & SU, maybe majority rule is mostly a fundamental standard, one that many people value for its own sake.
As such, it really doesn't make sense to argue with it.
Either you consider important a voted preference of
most of the voters, or you don't. If Blake doesn't, that's ok. Largely, Blake is fighting about issues on
which I don't really dispute him.
Blake continued:
> That's a strategic, not a majoritarian argument.
You wanted a majoritarian argument to justify majority?
Here's my point. Sometimes one of your arguments for wv is that it protects the only true majorities
I reply:
Blake is the only one who keeps referring to something
that he calls "true majorities". He's still playing
"dueling majorities". Blake's "majority" is a pairwise
defeat. No one disputes the imporance of pairwise
defeats. But the problem is that sometimes it's impossible to honor all of them, when there's no unbeatn
candidate. Then, unavoidably, we must elect a candidate
who has a pairwise defeat against him, who has Blake's
"majority" against him. Then, it's reasonable to compare these "majorities". What if one candidate has
a defeat voted for by most of the voters, and the
others don't?
But I re-emphasize that it isn't a question of "should". Some consider it important when most of the voters vote a certain same preference. Some want to minimize defensive strategy need. No one's saying that Blake should agree that those are important, and so it isn't quite clear what Blake's arguing against.
Blake continued:
, and that since everybody (or at least a lot of people) believes in majority rule, we should use wv.
I reply:
No, I don't say what Blake should use, or what he should propose to committees of which he's a member.
I do suggest that if someone cares about a voted preference of most of the voters, or about the goal of minimizing the need for defensive strategy, then that person would prefer wv to margins.
But I say nothing about what Blake should believe or use.
Blake continued:
This is what I call the majoritarian argument
I reply:
Well, the argument wasn't quite as you quoted it. Yes, lots of people value a preference voted by most of the voters. You'll have a difficult time selling margins to them, because margins so often violates, ignores, erases such majority information. But that's your business, your problem, and not something for me to argue against.
Blake continued:
Arguments about how wv is good at preventing strategic voting are a different kind of argument.
I reply:
You keep saying that, but it isn't about preventing strategic voting. It's about minimizing the need for defensive strategic voting. Defensive strategy means voting in a way that doesn't express all of your sincere pairwise preferences, and in a way intended to protect the win of a CW or to protect majority rule (as I defined majority rule on EM).
Sure, wv deters offensive strategy, but avoiding or minimizing the need for defensive strategy is what I & some others have been emphasizing.
Blake continued:
I feel I dealt with this adequately in the page I originally linked to.
I reply:
Blake has a right to feel like that. I've replied to his website arguments about strategic voting. Basically, Blake said that wv too can have strategy incentive. Of course. Gibbard & Satterthwaite showed that all nonprobabilisitc methods must have situations with strategy incentive. But, if we consider the need for defensive strategy, then we find a big difference between wv & margins. Margins is the method that does poorly in that regard.
Blake continued:
I agree that the pairwise preferences of a majority group matter. I even agree that the pairwise preferences of a majority group, as you define it, matter. I just don't agree that the majorities as you define them should always take precedence over other majorities, as I define them.
I reply:
It depends on what criteria and standards one considers important. You value, more than I do, the number of losing voters, voters who lost the public vote on whether candidate X is better than Y. You believe that they're important enough to overrule the fact that most of the voters indicated that they'd rather elect X than Y. Again, I don't argue with you on that. You should be able to believe or value what you want to.
Blake continued:
Furthermore, "can't be good for social utility" isn't much of an argument. Personally, I don't think it can be good for social utility to favour a lower margin majority over a higher margin of majority. So there!
I reply:
Your margins are meaningless for SU unless voting is sincere. And if voting is sincere and we're judging by SU, then Borda is the best rank-count, and CR is the best method. So there! Maybe insincerity won't be as rampant in margins as in Borda, but margins has more need for it than wv does.
You're claiming SU advantages, manifested only under sincere voting, for a method that avoidably creates a relatively great need for insincere voting.
I'd said:
MMC doesn't apply
generally to the classic lesser-of-2-evils problem example.
Blake replied:
You have a point, but as I understand it, the lesser-of-2-evils problem isn't really solvable in a general case. So, its really an argument about what special cases you want to solve it for.
I reply:
No, it's also a question of how general you want the
LO2E guarantees to be, how drastic you want the strategies to be, and how necessary you want the strategy to be to the voter. Margins has no LO2E guarantees
that compare in their generality or power to the
defensive strategy criteria. MMC is met by Margins, wv
, & IRV. We can do a lot better than that.
As I said, your strategy criticisms of wv aren't
about defensive strategy need. They're about strategy
incentive, something that's unavoidable for nonprobabilisitic methods. Defensive strategy need is
where margins does so poorly in comparison to wv.
I'd said:
It's often said that Plurality fails Condorcet
Loser. No it doesn't, when that criterion is defined in terms of actual votes.
We've had this discussion before. I could define all the criteria in terms of sincere votes, but this would rely on a precise definition of what constitutes a sincere vote
I reply:
I've posted such a definition here.
Blake continued:
, possibly on a method by method basis.
I reply:
No, my definition is universally applicable. I don't know if you could come up with an unproposable method that it wouldn't apply to intuitively, but it applies as expected to all proposed methods.
A voter votes sincerely if s/he doesn't falsify a preference, or fail to vote a sincere preference that
the balloting system in use would allow him/her to vote
in addition to the preferences that s/he actually did
vote.
(A preference is a pairwise preference)
[end of definition]
Blake continued:
Also, it would make my definitions much different from those found in academic literature.
I reply:
And we don't want that! :-)
Mike Ossipoff
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