On Jun 9, 2010, at 12:42 AM, Warren Smith wrote:
1. I think using utility=-distance
is not as realistic as something like
utility=1/sqrt(1+distance^2)
I claim the latter is more realistic both near 0 distance
and near
infinite distance.
Why would that be? Do you mean it's more intuitive?
--because utility is not unboundedly large. If a candidate gets
further from you, utility does not get worse and worse dropping to
-infinity.
No. Eventually the candidate as he moves away approaches the worst
he can be for you, which is, say, advocating your death,
:-)
and then
moving the candidate twice as far away doesn't make him twice as bad
from your perspective, and 10X as far doesn't make him 10X worse. It
only makes him a little worse.
i dunno, Warren. maybe if the candidate advocates for starving,
torturing, and then killing your kids and other descendants,
relatives. a holocaust for your ethnic group. then fouls the entire
environment of your homeland to extract resources for he and his
unworthy buddies. but i agree, there might be a limit.
i'll have to confess, that i have trouble with the presumptions of
these simulations in the first place. i have done simulations of
physical processes and communications systems (and have used all three
L^1, L^2, and L^inf norms) but i just am not confident of the
assumptions of social behavior (without first getting some empirical
results from actual social sampling - like getting a handle on how
many voters would change their vote from their favorite candidate if
he/she changed her position on just 1 particular issue, or 2 issues).
--
r b-j [email protected]
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
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