Branden Robinson wrote: > > Supermajority requirements don't retard mistakes, just change.
On Wed, Nov 20, 2002 at 11:04:10PM -0800, John H. Robinson, IV wrote: > i tend to agree with the philosophy that you need to convince at least > half of the voting populous. [1] Who is the voting populous? [2] Why are they the voting populous? [3] Is competence an issue? Why or why not? [4] Is involvement an issue? Why or why not? [Hint: for most things in Debian, you need to convince at least one person who happens to be the package maintainer.] > Condorecet seems pretty resilient to insincere voting. for each method > of counting Supermajorities, it has been shown to where it possible, in > some cases almost trivial, for an insincere vote to change the result of > an election. that appears to defeat the whole purpose of using Condorcet > to begin with. For some methods, this is true. You seem to be assuming this is true for all methods, but you offer no proof. > just out of idle curiosity, has anyone asked the electionmethods people > about Condorcet+Supermajority? Yes. Unfortunately, most of them seemed to lose interest in the discussion before we had much discussed the underlying issues. > should someone? > > a google search produced this: > http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:4wJT-1c0FykC:www.democ.uci.edu/democ/papers/McGann02.pdf+condorcet+supermajority&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 > > this paper seems to say that supermajorities produce a tyranny of the > status quo, *at the expense of the minority* Before our constitution, Debian required near unanimous agreement on all issues. The constitution was introduced as a somewhat formalized relaxation of that principle. Tyranny \Tyr"an*ny\ (?), n. [OE. tirannye, OF. tirannie, F. tyrannie; cf. It. tirannia; Gr. &?;, &?;, L. tyrannis. See Tyrant.] 1. The government or authority of a tyrant; a country governed by an absolute ruler; hence, arbitrary or despotic exercise of power; exercise of power over subjects and others with a rigor not authorized by law or justice, or not requisite for the purposes of government. "Sir," would he [Seneca] say, "an emperor mote need Be virtuous and hate tyranny." --Chaucer. 2. Cruel government or discipline; as, the tyranny of a schoolmaster. 3. Severity; rigor; inclemency. The tyranny of the open night's too rough For nature to endure. --Shak. None of the definitions of "tyranny" don't really make sense in our context. That said: Debian 3:1 supermajority is LESS OF A CONSTRAINT than a requirement that a majority of the voting population agree. Are you suggesting that we prefer majority rule because it's more of a constraint ["more tyranical"] than supermajority? Or are you defining "tyranical" as anything other than "majority rule" and are you advocating "majority rule" over "debian 3:1 supermajority" because "majority rule" is more like "majority rule" than our supermajority is? Or are you saying something else that I've completely misunderstood? -- Raul
