Jobst, 2008/10/16 Jobst Heitzig <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Dear Raph, > > you wrote: > >> The thing is that in such a case, it isn't really a single 'demos'. It is >> two groups voting as one. >> > > Do you mean to say democracy is only for societies which are > sufficiently homogeneous? > > >> That doesn't help because then the majority on issue A will still >>> overrule the rest in every single decision on that issue. So a >>> compromise option for that issue will have no chance. >>> >> >> You can still have compromises. >> > > Only if the majority for some reason prefers to elect the compromise > than their favourite. But in that it seems the "favourite" was just not > the true favourite of the majority but the compromise was. So, still the > minority has no influence on the decision but can only hope that the > majority is nice enough to decide for the compromise. > > In fact, it can be helpful if multiple issues are voted as a single unit. >> This allows negotiation between factions in order to make up the majority. >> > > This common behavious is a pretty artificial construct to overcome the > discussed drawbacks of majoritarian rules. > > A faction can make compromises on issues that it doesn't care about >> in order to get things that it does. This requires there is no solid >> bloc though. >> > > And when both factions care about both issues? > > A split society will only function poorly when a majoritarian >>> method is used. When they use a method like FAWRB instead, they >>> will function well because then they will care what the other >>> faction wants, will try to devise good compromise options, and will >>> vote in a way which makes sure the good compromises are elected >>> instead of the random ballot result. This is possible *precisely* >>> because with a non-majoritarian method the majority cannot simply >>> ignore the minority but has to figure out how to get them to >>> approve a compromise that is sufficiently near to their favourite. >>> Non-majoritarian methods encourage discourse and cooperation. >>> >> >> Sounds reasonable, the problem is that a) people don't like random methods >> b) it will result in certain outlier elements in society getting some power. >> > > a) FAWRB is not a random but a very specific and quite sophisticated > method. It only uses a certain amount of chance, just as many things in > our life do. Chance should not be mixed up with arbitrariness. Used in a > rational way, FAWRB will usually elect good compromise options with near > certainty, not leading to significant amounts of randomness. > But randomness of FAWRB can cause institutional conflicts, especially if the minority faction leader was the winner. My suggestion if your scenario exists is: 1. Perform simultaneously an approval election and a PR election for an electoral college 2. If the approval winner has approval higher than a threshold (e.g. 2/3), s(he) is elected. 3. Otherwise the electoral college performs a multi-round approval election until some candidate has a score higher than the threshold. Communication and cooperation are easier in a small electoral college than in a large electorate. > > Perhaps a threshold could be set before a candidate can participate. >> > > Yes, I agree. The version I just proposed to Terry incorporates such a > threshold. > > Also, the citizens of the US didn't get to vote on the restrictions >> of civil rights directly. It was handled by Congress. >> > > Using majority rule? > > That someone was me. >> >> Sorry, Greg didn't include your name in his post (or I couldn't find >> it). >> > > No need to be sorry. > > Yours, Jobst > > ---- > Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info > -- ________________________________ Diego Renato dos Santos Mestrando em Ciência da Computação COPIN - UFCG
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