[top-politics] Re: Lemming-DP

Mark Rosst — 2006-11-08 21:28:35+0100

Lomax wrote: >Mark wrote: > > >L: We are all lemmings, Mark. That you think you are not — and you do > > > think you are not — shows that you have bought your own exalted > > > image of yourself.

> >-M: I do have an exalted image of myself. > >I rock. How am I a lemming?

>L: You rock. You might be shocked to realize how much of what you have said and > written consists of ideas that you have absorbed and repeated without > original analysis. Let’s start with language itself.

Read more… / Lire plus…

-M: I think that I have thought deeply about all issues that I have discussed.

> > >L: And all of us can break out of leeminghood for times. We can’t do it > > > more than occasionally without the people in white coats taking us > > > away. Been there, done that, by the way.

> >-M: I hope that you were the one with the white coat. > >I want to be permenently out of lemminghood.

>L: You want to be dead. That’s what you’d be. No, I was not wearing a white coat. Probably jeans.

-M: I realize the group think is a very human characteristic, but I don’t always equate this with lemmingism.
Lemmingism is correlated with suicidal group think. Those who do group think within authoritative tradition aren’t necissarily lemmings.

> > >L: Garbage in, garbage out. If the voter is assigned a proxy, then > > > something provided by the system that assigns the proxy is adding > > > weight to that proxy without any input from the voter.

> >-M: In that case, its being added by other voters.

>L: In which case the proxy is just added power for those other voters. > It’s noise, taking one subset of the data that is missing and filling > it in from what surrounds it. It makes for a seamless picture, but > not for a full picture. It’s pretend data.

-M:‘…not for a full picture…’ – compared with what? The other option is missing data, which is not full picture either. So I make a seamless picture instead of an incomplete picture.

> >With your option, where no proxy is provided, its still other voters’ > >voice being provided instead(that is all that is counted).

>L: Yes. So what’s the difference? Mark below acknowledges that he > distorts the representation:

-M: Yes, representation is distorted, but:

distortion is the only option (it occurs with missing data too).
representation isn’t the final goal, republicanism is.

> >The only difference is that my approach attempts to smooth the rank > >distribution curve by giving bonus votes to underdogs. This makes the > >rank structure less clustered and entrenched.

>L: It makes it less representative.

-M: The parallel is administrators and legislators appointing others below them.
More often than not these appointees do not have the votes of others. By contrast, the SD2-S underdogs so have significant votes of others, and the SD2-S system is giving them small and temporary amounts of bonus points to rise and challange potentially entrenched rank clusters.
Again, the goal of representation is a small goal, (but one that SD2-S does better than competing systems) compared to the primary goal of principled governance(republicanism).

> >So SD2-S actually does something with the voter’s proxy power instead > >of ignoring it.

>L: It steals the voters proxy power and assigns it to someone.

-M: No, it takes freely given proxy power and makes constructive use of it.

>L: The voter has power directly in standard DP and may choose to (1) exercise it,…

-M: SD2-S does have this DD priciple, but it is for:

limiting decisions for deliberation
setting decision thresholds

>L: (2) delegate it…

-M: With SD2-S, delegation is manditory - the idea being that government is always done by others, therefore a voting system should be RD to reflect this fact. And proxy power that isn’t used isn’t merely ignored, but is reused to condition the voting data.

>L: …or (3) abstain. SD2-S excises the first and last option.

-M: SD2-S uses all these options, but tries to use abstained data instead of ignoring it.

>L: It reduces the freedom of the voter.

-M: No, with SD2-S, the voter has the utmost freedom. He/she is given close to 20 vote option combinations.

>L: On the argument that the voter is a “lemming.” (Or is probably a “lemming.”)

-M: The lemming argument is only to justify RD, not specificly SD2-S or its features.

>L: But true lemmings aren’t going to vote directly, most of the time. > Indeed, the hardest thing is going to be to get them to join, unless > most of their circle has joined. If they join, they will probably > delegate or abstain, most of the time….

-M: Any combination of lemmings and non-lemmings will render a:

popular vote
generalist vote
specialist vote

SD2-S will see this, and the decision will be made by the specialist vote(default 60%) as allowed by a threshold of a popular vote (default 40%).

> >L: This is not obvious to Mark because he does not respect the voter in > > > the first place.

> >-M: You are the one who wants to ignore the voter’s proxy power instead > >of doing something constructive with it.

>L: If I do something constructive with someone else’s voting power, I’ve > stolen their vote. Unless, of course, they authorized me to do it. In > other words, they named me as their proxy.

-M: If they are using the voting system, they have authorized the voting system to do something with their missing proxy data.

>L: Very much I don’t want to see this done automatically. It defeats the > major feature of Delegable Proxy, which is personal relationship and > accountability.

-M: Again, Lomax, your ignoring of the missing proxy data still does something automaticly with it by having the effect of redistributing to those who have voted for proxies. By contrast, I do something more useful with it by challenging rank clusters.

>L: […] I’m sure there is some value in there, Mark is one of the > relatively few people who have some understanding of delegable proxy. > So if I’ve missed something that others think I should address, by > all means, tell me. That is, let the others tell me, not Mark. Though > I suppose he could briefly ask for a specific response to a specific > question, if he has any.

-M: How about just conceding to my points?

shanti
Mark, Seattle WA USA

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