EM list members: I'm grateful to Markus for this posting. Apparently Markus wanted to show you why I said the things about Markus that Blake quoted. Markus, I really appreciate that. Yes I've been known to lose patience with some twit like Markus, and say something uncomplimentary. Check the following message to judge if I do unjustifiably. Another thing that this helps clarify: Sometimes I've said things like "Either this person is an idiot or is arguing dishonestly." Anytime I say that someone might be dishonest, Blake calls that paranoid. No, regrettably dishonesty isn't at all unusual. Statistically, it's common human nature. Notice that the above sentence doesn't "ascribe" anything to dishonesty, but merely mentions it as one theory, the alternative to idiocy. Blake always seems to miss that. Well, the letter that I'm replying to here is one about which I could say that either its writer is an idiot or is arguing dishonestly. No, I don't say that because I'm mean. I bring it up because it relates to Blake's charges. I'd said: >Since I didn't say anything about >how the others vote, and since I said that given a certain premise >a certain requirement must be met, then any conditions that isn't >in the criterion's premise is not part of the criterion's premise. Markus said: (1) If I understand your comment correctly, then "it ensures that B cannot win" simply means: "B doesn't win." I reply: In general, I'm not interested in hearing various of the innumerable possible rewordings of my criteria, with a question about whether the rewording means the same thing. But this time, I think we can say that your wording above could be substituted in the criterion if one wanted to, though my wording is clearer. Markus continues: Then your WDSC looks as follows: If a majority of the voters strictly prefers A to B then there is always a situation where B doesn't win and where no member of that majority votes a less-liked candidate over a more-liked candidate. I reply: Correction: It may look that way to you. I don't know what your point is. Now we know how WDSC looks to you. Are you asking me if your way of looking at WDSC is what I mean? It isn't what I mean. I meant what I said. There are innumerable things that you could write, to ask me if they're the same as WDSC. Obviously I don't have time to deal with every question of that type that you could ask. I must admit that I _don't_ notice a similarity between how WDSC looks to you, and the actual WDSC that I wrote. You're saying that if a majority prefer A to B, then there's always a situation where B doesn't win. I don't know what it means to say there's always a situation where B doesn't win. Maybe you mean it's possible to contrive a set of preferences & ballots for which B doesn't win and for which the members of that majority don't reverse a preference. If so, then your criterion is passed if we can find any configuration of the all the votes that makes B lose without that majority reversing any preferences. Ok, say a majority prefer Gore to Bush. With Plurality, can we contrive a ballot-set in which Bush loses and the none of the Gore>Bush majority reverse a preference? Sure. Write an example in which all of that Gore>Bush majority have Gore as their favorite. The example writer can configure any variables that aren't specified in the criterion's premise. In fact, we could even say that in our example, 100% of the voters have Gore as their favorite, and they all vote for Gore. And so Plurality meets your criterion. We have an example in which a majority prefer Gore to Bush, and Bush loses, and no member of that majority reverses a preference. So Plurality passes your criterion. But I'm not going to keep evaluating your every rewording of my criteria. If you think you can find a problem, then tell me what it is. But don't keep wasting my time with your rewordings. By the way, it should be obvious to anyone that your rewording doesn't have the same meaning as WDSC's actual wording. Markus continues: (2) You wrote that you "didn't say anything about how the others vote." Does that mean that it is sufficient when there is at least one (not necessarily sincere) voting behaviour of the voters of the minority so that B doesn't win and no member of the majority votes a less-liked candidate over a more-liked candidate? I reply: No. It means that I didn't say anything about how the others vote. Or maybe your asking if what you're saying is a consequence of the fact that I didn't say anything about how the others vote. I could answer that better if I knew what you were trying to say in that paragraph. I don't know if what you say is a consequence of WDSC not saying anything about how the others vote. But let me tell you what the consequence is: Because the criterion doesn't mention how the others vote, then, no matter how the others vote, if the criterion's premise is met, then the criterion's requirement must be met. Let me say that for you again: Because the criterion makes no mention or specification or stipulation about how the others vote, then, if the criterion's premise is complied with, then the criterion's requirement must be met in order for the criterion to be complied with, regardless of how other people vote. In other words, if we find an example, with a particular method, in which the criterion's premise is met, and the criterion's requirement is failed, then the method fails the criterion, no matter how the other voters voted. No matter how the other voters voted, and no matter what sign of the zodiac the moon is in, and no matter whether your dog has fleas, etc. That's what it means to apply a criterion. The premise tells the conditions under which the requirement must be met. If the premise is met and the requrirement is not met, that's what it means to fail a criterion. Do you understand now? If you still don't know what it means to meet a criterion, then you should be asking some more elementary questions about that before asking about specific criteria. But let's take a closer look at Markus's question, and try to guess what he means: (2) You wrote that you "didn't say anything about how the others vote." Does that mean that it is sufficient when there is at least one (not necessarily sincere) voting behaviour of the voters of the minority so that B doesn't win and no member of the majority votes a less-liked candidate over a more-liked candidate? I reply: My best guess is that Markus is asking if WDSC is met as long as it is possible to write some configuration of all the votes of voters outside the majority referred to in the criterion, such that B doesn't win and no member of the majority reverses a preference. Again let's test Plurality. A majority prefer Gore to Bush. Only one voter isn't part of that majority. He votes for Bush. The majority have Gore as their favorite. They vote for Gore. Bush loses. The majority hasn't reversed any preferences. Plurality passes. In fact, this is pretty much the same asinine question that Markus asked before, isn't it. And Blake wonders why I become impatient with someone like Markus, with his inane questions that he sometimes continues & repeats on & on. Now, I should tell why Plurality fails WDSC: Say a majority prefer A to B, as the premise stipulates. 60% prefer A to B. But, 5/6 of those have C as their favorite. Say the other 40% of the voters vote for B. Can the A>B 60% make B lose without reversing a preference? If the 5/6 vote for A, they're reversing their preference for C over A. And if they don't vote for A, then A only gets the votes of 10% of the voters. So even if a majority prefer A to B, we can devise an example in which B wins, with Plurality, unless members of the A>B majority reverse a preference. Plurality fails WDSC, though it meets Markus's criterion. Mike Ossipoff _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com