On Sat, Dec 07, 2002 at 07:44:55PM -0500, Raul Miller wrote: > On Sat, Dec 07, 2002 at 12:12:48PM -0500, Raul Miller wrote: > > > I'm critiquing the axiom, not the example. By his rules some elections > > > with quorums do not have a democratic outcome. > On Sun, Dec 08, 2002 at 09:40:21AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: > > That's not what's important: by his rules some elections that _meet_ > > quorum don't have a "democratic" outcome. The quorum issue's irrelevant. > ax·i·om NOUN: 1. A self-evident or universally recognized truth; a maxim: Raul, I did a degree in pure maths, I know what an axiom is. If you're aiming to be insulting, you're going about it in just the right way. If you're aiming to demonstrate you know what you're talking about, or if you're trying to understand what I'm saying you're not. > It's not fair to base an argument on an axiom which is known to be false. It doesn't matter whether the axiom is false as written: it's trivial to salvage its intended meaning (by either dropping quorum requirements, or qualifying the axiom to apply only when the quorum requirements have already been met for all the options listed). > The argument may be perfectly well formed, but if the underlying axioms > are not unconditionally true the argument itself is meaningless. Yes, you can refuse to talk to people who dare to end sentences in prepositions, or otherwise don't make "correctly formed" arguments, but you just end up missing the point. > The clause I would add to his axioms, to make them always true, is: > "unless the election is defaulted". You could do that, but it entirely defeats the point that's trying to be made, which is to examine when the election should be defaulted and when it shouldn't be. You have a situation where the majority of voters think the _worst_ possible option is to default the election. The question is why you would want to go ahead and default the election anyway, when there is an option that can be accepted (it meets quorum, doesn't require a supermajority, and obviously a majority prefer it to defaulting the election)? > Let's take the example you proposed in > http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2000/debian-vote-200011/msg00203.html > and examine its outcome using Clinton's > proposed resolution system as defined in > http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2002/debian-vote-200212/msg00020.html I haven't read through Clinton's proposed resolution system; it started making up too many arbitrary new terms without any justification. It's _much_ better to work out the principles first, then the mechanisms. > > > > Which is to say that "if option X doesn't defeat the default option by > > > > its supermajority requirement, it is ignored" seems to be fairer than > > > > considering defeats by the default option as especially strong. > > > Define "fairer" -- the definition of "fair" is the crux of this issue. > > That's easy: most in line with what the voters actually want. > And what does "most in line" mean in the context of: We already have a context: "what does it mean in terms of the given election"? I don't see how you can say anything other than: "it means that we go with the majority decision that B is better than defaulting". > * multiple elections [which may change the rules about how votes are > conducted] and/or I have no idea what you mean. > * elections which have supermajority requirements [which is a way > we reduce the risk of changes in the rules by which we determine > fairness]? I've already indicated what I think this should be: that any sufficiently sized "super" minority should be able to block any given options with supermajority requirements. Cheers, aj -- Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/> I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred. ``If you don't do it now, you'll be one year older when you do.''
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