Re: [Election-Methods] Challenge: Elect the comprom ise when there're only 2 factions
Dear Rob! It is possible (otherwise I would not have posted this challenge :-) But of course it is not possible with a majoritarian method (that's what you observed). Keep on, one of the possible solutions is really simple (though not very good in other respects)... > -Ursprüngliche Nachricht- > Von: "rob brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Gesendet: 22.08.07 21:43:36 > An: > CC: election-methods@lists.electorama.com > Betreff: Re: [Election-Methods] Challenge: Elect the compromise when there're > only 2 factions (temporarily exiting lurk mode since this one grabbed my attention) > > I don't think it's possible, assuming the voters know what other voters' > preferences are, and that they know that the other voters have the same > information and will also vote optimally. > > > The 55% in the first group will know that candidate B will never win, period. > So they have no incentive to compromise. Since they don't have to worry > about B, their only motivation is to make sure A, not C, wins, and any > deterministic system will allow them to do just that. > > > Howard's suggestion, that you prevent them from knowing other's preferences, > is the only way it could select C. But that is unrealistic and inherently > unstable in the real world. > > -rob > > > On 8/21/07, Jobst Heitzig <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > A common situation: 2 factions & 1 good compromise. > > The goal: Make sure the compromise wins. > > The problem: One of the 2 factions has a majority. > > A concrete example: true ratings are >55 voters: A 100, C 80, B 0 > >45 voters: B 100, C 80, A 0 > > THE CHALLENGE: FIND A METHOD THAT WILL ELECT THE COMPROMISE (C)! > > The fine-print: voters are selfish and will vote strategically... > > Good luck & have fun :-) > > Jobst > > > - > > Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info > ___ Jetzt neu! Schützen Sie Ihren PC mit McAfee und WEB.DE. 3 Monate kostenlos testen. http://www.pc-sicherheit.web.de/startseite/?mc=00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [Election-Methods] Challenge: Elect the comprom ise when there're only 2 factions
Dear Abd ul-Rahman, > Oh! You want a democratic election method! You got the point! I am not thinking a method that gives all power to one person is democratic. By the way, I also don't think a method which gives all power to 51% of the voters is democratic. This is what the challenge is all about! > "True ratings," I've been pointing out, is not clear in meaning. > These ratings are obviously normalized, so they are not absolute > ratings, and therefore we cannot tell what the SU winner would be. Right. As you know I don't believe in interpersonally comparable utilities. What I intended to suggest with those numbers was that the voters consider the compromise as largely as good as a lottery which elects their favourite in 80% of the cases and the other's favourite in 20%. > The method, of course, is a Range method. Ranked methods cannot > detect the compromise winner, who, incidentally, violates the > Majority and Condorcet Criteria. A winner does not violate a criterion, a method does. But you're right that the method we're searching for cannot possibly meet the majority criterion since that criterion is the core of the problem. > (And, contrary to the assumptions, most people will *change* their > preference if they understand that others have strong preferences > compared to their own weak ones. We are social animals. So, again, if > the utilities given were accurate, and the electorate now knows this, > there is even more force toward C winning. A voters will change their > vote, and B voters will not, plus many A voters will abstain whereas > B voters will be highly motivated to turn out and vote. If I lived in > this society, I certainly would not be betting on A. If I were, I > would also be buying a ticket out with my winnings. This society > would be headed for major disaster, on the Ruanda scale. -- and if I > lost the bet, I'd breathe a huge sigh of relief.) That would be so wonderful if you were right here. My experience is different, however. Yours, Jobst __ Jetzt neu! Im riesigen WEB.DE Club SmartDrive Dateien freigeben und mit Freunden teilen! http://www.freemail.web.de/club/smartdrive_ttc.htm/?mc=021134 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [Election-Methods] Challenge: Elect the comprom ise when there're only 2 factions
> I dislike any undeterministic method, except for tie-braking And I dislike methods that give all power to only one half of the voters and can be used to oppress 49% of the electorate :-) _ In 5 Schritten zur eigenen Homepage. Jetzt Domain sichern und gestalten! Nur 3,99 EUR/Monat! http://www.maildomain.web.de/?mc=021114 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [Election-Methods] Challenge: Elect the comprom ise when there're only 2 factions
Dear Diego, > In most societies, the "majority dictatorship" is not a major problem because > electors' preferences shift along time, and the 49% can became the > majoritarian faction in the next elections. They may become a majority but often they are not for a long time. As you don't seem to like chance, why do you suggest to base political participation on chance? > In divided societies for ethnic, cultural or religious system, where > consensus is desirable, proprotional representation for legislatures and > supermajoritarian methods for single-winner elections (as for head of state > in many parliamentary republics) are better than probabilistic methods. Are they? Why do you think so? And what exactly do you think a proportional representation will help when the representative body decides with a majoritarian method? Yours, Jobst __ Jetzt neu! Im riesigen WEB.DE Club SmartDrive Dateien freigeben und mit Freunden teilen! http://www.freemail.web.de/club/smartdrive_ttc.htm/?mc=021134 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [Election-Methods] Challenge: Elect the comprom ise when there're only 2 factions
Dear Brian!
> But to me the end of the strategy discussion is that the A faction
> could simply bullet vote and no system can recover from a simple
> majority of votes {A=100,B=0,C=0}.
If that was so, I would not have posed the question :-)
There are methods that will lead to the election of the compromise when all
voters use "optimal" strategies (i.e. maximizing expected rating/utility).
And they need not even be randomized (although that makes the solution much
easier).
Let's see who will find the answer...
Yours, Jobst
_
Der WEB.DE SmartSurfer hilft bis zu 70% Ihrer Onlinekosten zu sparen!
http://smartsurfer.web.de/?mc=100071&distributionid=0066
Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [Election-Methods] Challenge: Elect the comprom ise when there're only 2 factions
Dear Abd ul-Rahman, > Okay, here is my solution. The B voters gain some very substantial > advantage for the election of C over the favorite of the A voters, > who have only a substantially smaller preference for A over C. > > So the B voters offer something of value to the A voters to > compensate them for their loss. That is certainly an interesting proposal. It seems to be based on the assumption that the "just" solution is to elect A and that in order to get the compromise, the minority should pay for it. Although that would probably solve the problem, this is not how I think society should work: I don't think nearly half of the electorate should pay the other half for getting what is the more just solution in my eyes. Perhaps that is a difference in culture? > The original conditions assume commensurability of utilities, No, definitely not! I would never propose such a thing! I only said that those who believe in such measures may interpret the given numbers in that way... Yours, Jobst __ Erweitern Sie FreeMail zu einem noch leistungsstärkeren E-Mail-Postfach! Mehr Infos unter http://produkte.web.de/club/?mc=021131 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [Election-Methods] Challenge: Elect the comprom ise when there're only 2 factions
Dear Abd ul-Rahman, > No. It's an understanding of what utilities mean. If you think so... > If A does not win, > the supporters of A lose something. They are in the majority. If each > of them grabs a B supporter and wrestles with him, or her, I suppose, > the excess A supporters can then arrange things the way they like. A > drastic picture, but actually part of the theory behind majority rule. That's more or less the point I try to make over and over again: A democratic decision system should not reproduce what would happen in an anarchic world such as you describe but should instead protect the weaker parts of society against the majority by giving them their just share of power instead of letting the majority always overrule them. > If C wins, the B supporters gain 60% utility, that's large. If they > pay the A voters the equivalent of the A loss, 20%, they are still > way ahead. You still assume that their is a "loss" to the A voters. But that is just wrong: the A voters have no right to the election of A, it is not their property which they can "loose". > It is a very good deal for the B voters No, they would have to pay for a solution which I think they have a right to! > Jobst regards it as unjust that the majority should be paid by the > minority to get an outcome he regards as more just. However, he isn't > looking at the utilities No. Why must I repeat over and over again that I don't believe in measurable utility. I interpret the numbers I gave in the example in the way I describes several times: as representing preferences over lotteries! > The actual > consequences of the election are irrelevant to him. What do you think you do here? Where did I say such a thing? The actual consequences should of course be that the obvious compromise solution C should be elected without anyone having to "pay" for it! > But this is a democracy. What is the "this" you are referring to? > Sure, one can imagine systems where majority > rule is not sufficient for making decisions, I cannot imagine a system where majority rule *is* sufficient for making really *democratic* decisions. > Contrary to what Jobst might assume, I have a lot of experience > with consensus communities, both positive and negative. I don't assume anything about your experience and have never said so. But please keep in mind that consensus is a much different thing from majority rule. I should think my example makes this very clear: No consensus about A nor about B, only consensus about B being nearly as good! > However, when you get down to the nuts and bolts of a system, > *including how the system is implemented,* majority rule has proven > itself to be practical *and* sustainable. Could you give any evidence for this fact? > Point is, when you don't have majority rule, you have decisions being > made by something *other* than the majority, even if it is only the > default "decision" to change nothing. And a determined minority can > then hold its right to withhold consent over the rest of the > community, in order to get what it wants. Again, it would never, in > that context, blatantly do this, but it happens, social dynamics do > not disappear in consensus communities. Therefore I don't consider consensus as a parcticable idea in all situations. > There is nothing magic about 50%, it is simply the point where there > are more people on one side than another, there are more saying Yes > to a motion than No. Or the reverse. In real communities, other than > seriously unhealthy ones, the majority is restrained. It does not > make decisions based on mere majority, ordinarily, it seeks broader > consent, and deliberative process makes this happen. You repeat this, but could you give evidence for this claim? > > > The original conditions assume commensurability of utilities, > > > >No, definitely not! I would never propose such a thing! I only said > >that those who believe in such measures may interpret the given > >numbers in that way... > > If the utilities are not commensurable, then there is no way to know > who is the best winner. If Jobst does not understand that, if he does > not understand how normalization -- and these are clearly normalized > utilities, can distort the results, we could explain it for him. I gave a reasoning why C is the better solution than A. Commensurable utilities are nonsense in my opinion. Nice for use in models but no evidence for them. > Essentially, the C-election 20% preference loss of the A voters could > have an absolute value greater than the 60% gain by the C voters. A > negotiation would expose that, because a negotiation, "You give us > this in exchange for that" causes the utilities to be translated to > commensurable units, the units of the negotiation. As I mentioned, it > does not have to be money. So what unit will it be then if not money? Please be more precise, > The assumption that Jobst easily makes, tha
Re: [Election-Methods] Challenge: Elect the comprom ise when there're only 2 factions
Dear Abd ul-Rahman, > No. That's consensus. Consent is individual acceptance of a result, > majority consent refers to consent by a majority. Yes, obviously I was confusing the two :-) > >It is not democratic whenever some group can impose its will on the > >others (in the sense of making their preferred outcome certain). No > >matter whether that group is a majority or a minority. From this it > >follows that a method which is always deterministic cannot possibly > >be democratic. > > This is a serious error. It treats democracy as an absolute, when, in > fact, it is relative. We have complete democracy, with respect to > some decision, when everyone consents. And we have no democracy if > nobody consents. > > A situation is more democratic when not when a majority consent. This > is the point where we can start to term the result "democratic." But > its not fully democratic unless everyone consents. Obviously, your definition of "democratic" is different from mine. It seems that by yours, one will seldom have what you call full democracy in a polarized situation since there will be no consensus. > >>Question: if the majority explicitly consents to this for a > >>specific election, does the election method satisfy the Majority Criterion? > > > >If the system would have allowed the majority to decide otherwise, > >the *system* is majoritarian. > > No, that was not the question, which was quite specific. It's a bit > rude not to answer the question! I did not ask if the system was > "majoritarian," and that is not clearly defined. Sorry for having appeared rude. I just don't care about the Majority Criterion but about whether a majority can impose its will (which makes a system majoritarian by definition). > >>> > I'm not sure at all what a "just share of power" is. > >>> > >>>Me neither. But no power at all is definitely not a just share of power. > >>>By posting on this topic I hope a discussion on this will eventually > >>>begin. > >>What I pointed out here was that the ratings given did not contain > >>sufficient information to determine justice. > > > >Yes it does. I gave a reasoning why I consider C the more just > >solution because everyone prefers it to the "democratic benchmark". > > But your "democratic benchmark", apparently, requires consensus. Why? The benchmark solution is to draw a ballot at random. With this lottery I compare other outcomes, be they deterministic or again lotteries. An outcome which everybody prefers to drawing a random ballot (like C in the example) is arguably a good solution since everybody gains from it, whereas an outcome which 45% like worse than drawing a random ballot (like A in the example) is arguably a bad solution since it places many voters in a worse situation than the pure democratic random ballot lottery. > Yet > you would, it appears, impose the result of C even if the A voters > don't consent. Yes, this is what it is all about. I'm searching for a method that will result in C when all voters vote "rationally" in the sense that they maximize their expected ratings until a group strategy equilibrium is established. D2MAC and some of the scoring methods discussed on this thread do this. Some of them require strategic voting and some even succeed at electing C with sincere votes (like D2MAC for instance). > The word "justice" does not refer to any "democratic > benchmark." Democracy and justice are not synonyms. Did I say that? What I mean is that in my interpretation of justice, random ballot is a more just solution than majority rule since it gives each voter equal chance to influence the outcome. > That's correct, a definition was given. My apologies. However, the > central point is that these are relative ratings, not absolute ones. > They are not commensurable, so aggregating them in this form is > vulnerable to imbalances that can represent injustice. Sorry, but I don't remember who did any aggregating of the ratings. Could you cite that again? > Real utilities can be discovered by various means, and so made > commensurable. Like how? > It's not difficult to think of schemes for this, At least for me, it is :-) Yours, Jobst __ XXL-Speicher, PC-Virenschutz, Spartarife & mehr: Nur im WEB.DE Club! Jetzt testen! http://produkte.web.de/club/?mc=021130 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
