2011/11/8 Kevin Venzke <step...@yahoo.fr> > Speaking of quoting messages, I have to admit I don't understand how it is > even supposed to be done under Yahoo. I can indent the message, and I used > to be able to correctly quote plain text messages. But usually when I try > to quote an html message I just end up destroying the formatting somehow. > > Anyway, to Jameson: > > > *De :* Jameson Quinn <jameson.qu...@gmail.com> > *À :* kathy.d...@gmail.com > *Cc :* EM <election-methods@lists.electorama.com> > *Envoyé le :* Dimanche 6 Novembre 2011 20h23 > *Objet :* Re: [EM] Toy election model: 2D IQ (ideology/quality) model > > > > > 3. It is therefore reasonable to hope for a voting system that tends to > > elect centrists, but slightly less so than a Condorcet system. > > Why would utility be considered more important than centrist? Or would it? > > Utility is *the* goal, almost tautologically. I mean yeah, there's plenty > of ways you could criticize the model, or even the idea that the votes have > anything at all to do with the utility that the voters will gain from a > given candidate winning; but until someone comes up with something better, > for democracy at least, utility is the best paradigm we have. > > > > I don't think I agree. Utilities are everpresent in simulations because > they are a convenient way to represent the priorities of the voters. They > can easily be generated from distances in space. But, it's not obvious that > these priorities need to be aggregable (we could use a system where the > "addition" of different voters' priorities isn't even a straightforward > task) and it's not obvious that maximizing the aggregation should even be a > goal. You don't need to do it. >
I know there are proofs for a single agent that something equivalent to utility is the only way to have consistent priorities and avoid being "money pumped". ("You have A? OK, will you trade that and $1 for B? Now will you trade that and $1 for C? OK, now will you trade that and $1 for A? Heh heh heh, you just gave me $3 for nothing, fool.") I suspect you could prove something similar for aggregate agents (societies). Basically, utilities are the only way to avoid the Condorcet paradox. I do not think that this means that utilities are somehow real. I do think that it is a pretty good argument for using a utility-based model. > I've said before that I prefer to look at sincere Condorcet efficiency and > strategic incentives. > While I'm advocating using utilities, I must say that we could do a lot worse than your plan. In particular, as I've said elsewhere, using utilities is no substitute for looking at strategic incentives. > So you don't get one clean number from me, sorry. But I think it may be > less artificial than aggregated utility. > > Furthermore I doubt that aggregate utility is likely to get you anywhere > unique. Electorates in practice try to get sincere CWs elected. If someone > ever pointed to a simulation and a scenario and a rule and said, "here is a > concrete method by which we can favor higher utility candidates over > sincere Condorcet efficiency" my intuition would be that their tools are > underestimating the voters. When the sincere CW loses, it represents an > error from the standpoint of what the electorate was trying to do. I think > it would take some genius work to capitalize consistently on such errors, > and gain more than is lost. > I suspect that Majority Judgment does exactly that. My evidence? B+L's study that shows that MJ is the only system which does not elect almost solely centrists nor almost solely extremists, in a model based on 2007 France. That is to say, where Condorcet elected centrists, MJ sometimes elected extremists. And in my toy model, that is sometimes the right answer. > > All that said, I would be interested to hear if someone has made an > argument that majority rule, as a sensible principle, depends on some other > more fundamental principle. > OK, here goes: utility is happiness and is the true goal. Majority rule is just the most strategy-proof principle which tends to agree with maximum utility. That wasn't too hard. I'm not actually a utility fundamentalist; I don't think that it's necessarily real. But yes, I do think that on the whole, it's closer to being a fundamental principle than Condorcet. I also think that, even if it's not truer, people's brains are more set up to understand comparing some quality measure for each candidate, than comprehending a Condorcet matrix-based procedure. So even if the Condorcet criterion itself is easy to state so that people "understand" it, they're going to naturally feel more comfortable with a quality measure procedure (such as Approval, Range, MJ, SODA), than with a comparison-based one (such as any Condorcet, MMPO, IBIFA). Even IRV is seen as "less complicated" than Copeland//Approval because it's a linear, not a parallel, process, not because the rules are simpler. Jameson > > Kevin > > > ---- > Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info > >
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