Re: supermajority options
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
Reply to: