On Sat, Nov 01, 2003 at 09:38:38AM -0500, Anthony DeRobertis wrote: > On Fri, 2003-10-31 at 23:18, Branden Robinson wrote: > > > I *am* making the assumption that a signficant number of voters will, even > > within a slate of options preferred over the do-nothing default, vote > > conservatively. > > Then we can say nothing besides "that is the will of the electorate."
See my reply to Lukas Geyer for why I think this is a fallacious conclusion. > However, even so, that means (given): > > Option A: strike SC 5 > Option B: trivial, editorial change > Option C: A + B > Option D: Further Discussion > > we're going to get the 'activists' voting CABD and the insecure voting > BCAD. No, they might vote BACD because this sorts the substantive options in increasing order of disruption to the Social Contract. It is irrational to rank A above C if you're trying to be "conservative" (but not so conservative that you rank D first, saying "damn all changes")? (Of course, this presumes that "conservatives" act rationally, which I admit is ill-supported by observation.) > The insecure won't vote against (rank below default) the real > changes if they like them[1]. So, as long as there are sufficient > 'activists', I conclude[2] that C will still win. Hmm. If my scenario is correct, B wins because the activists ranking C above A are cancelled by the insecure moderates ranking A above C. So B might win, validating the utility of the manipulative strategy. > I fear the alternative is to have someone arbitrarily refuse to put > options on the ballot, and that that would prevent free and fair > elections. Well, not necessarily, but it's certainly an awesome power that could be awesomely abused. > Condorcet can give an arbitrary number of winners. Cloneproof SSD > attempts to resolve that. Cloneproof SSD is _supposed_ to be essentially > immune to "cloned" candidates, like how B is a clone of D. I admit I'm fuzzy on how that part of Cloneproof works. Guess I'd better go re-browse electionmethods.org. :) -- G. Branden Robinson | If you have the slightest bit of Debian GNU/Linux | intellectual integrity you cannot [EMAIL PROTECTED] | support the government. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- anonymous
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