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Some more thoughts after having discussed the video with someone else:
– Instant runoff elections are only mathematically equivalent to an (more costly) actual series of runoffs, if one assumes that voters do not change their ranking of candidates between rounds. Since voters will obviously adapt strategically to each round of a series of runoff elections, that assumption is a poor one.
– The argument made against Condorcet, is that you can end up in a loop. But this is a pure mathematics problem only. In practice the odds of that ever arising are so astronomically small that they don’t need to be worried about.
– While the argument made against Borda, is that candidates with no chance of winning would influence the outcome of the election. As I mentioned before, I don’t see why that would necessarily be undesirable: it’s a feature not a bug. More on that in a moment.
– A similar argument can be made regarding FPTP voting leading to strategic voting: that’s a feature not a bug.
– Arrow’s five premises cannot all be simultaneously true, but they also do not need to be.
– “Condition 5: Independence of irrelevant alternatives” is unnecessary at best and harmful at worst, because the alternatives are never really irrelevant. Take for example a voter who preferred Kamala Harris to Donald Trump. Then Kennedy entered the race and they preferred him to both Harris or Trump. Harris does everything possible to prevent Kennedy from appearing on the ballot and refuses to even speak with him, while Trump asks to enlist Kennedy in his administration. It does not take much imagination to see how that voter who originally preferred Harris to Trump, now prefers Trump to Harris. But this fifth premise of Arrow’s does not allow for that, because it is an overly limited static model for a complex dynamic reality.
– “Condition 2: No dictators” is of questionable value. First off, the term “dictator” here is a slight misnomer. What is meant is an individual who on their own can change – or dictate – the election outcome. So what? So can an assassin. In practice, this “pivotal voter” will not be one specific individual, as there would be multiple interchangeable voters with the same ranked choice. But even if it were one single voter with a unique ranked choice, they would not be aware that they were the “pivotal voter” determining the outcome of the election – how could they? – so what would it really matter that they unwittingly wielded such influence? It seems to be a fallacy of perspective/paradigm. In Black’s mono-axial model, one could similarly argue that the “median voter” is pivotal in determining the outcome (albeit with less total control to dictate whichever candidate). But nobody would think to call the “1” in “50%+1” a “dictator”.
– One of the alleged “advantages” given for ranked choice voting and approval voting, is that it gets rid of negative campaigning and leads to candidates all trying to appear the nicest to each other. But if anything, incentivizing candidates to be even more dishonest towards voters than during their usual vote grubbing, is a huge disadvantage. Much better to let candidates fight it out with as much or as little vitriol as they deem appropriate.
An interesting recent quasi-viral video advocating – somewhat unfairly IMHO* – for approval voting over ranked choice voting over first past the post voting:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=qf7ws2DF-zk
*In particular, I do not think that candidates with “no chance of winning” affecting the outcome of an election, is necessarily undesirable.
Despite Nader and Gore both being climate hoaxers, I am cautiously skeptical about the claim that “almost all Nader voters preferred Gore to Bush”.
And I feel pretty confident that “most countries in the world” do NOT use RCV to elect their leaders.
I’m curious to hear what other people think – with the exception of dungfly, of course.
Dark but very funny: https://babylonbee.com/news/trump-adds-a-kennedy-in-hopes-he-will-draw-all-the-sniper-fire
Suddenly it makes more sense :p
Dark and not the least bit funny: https://notthebee.com/article/judge-rules-that-brionna-taylors-death-was-caused-by-her-boyfriend-some-of-the-charges-against-former-police-officers-dropped
I hold no love for the racist and socialist terrorists who identify themselves as “BLM”, but what judge Simpson is doing here, is infringing on people’s right to defend themselves against home invasion. And he is doing so in order to protect the police’s (ab)use of unconstitutional no-knock search warrants.
How often have we seen police raiding the wrong address and killing unarmed adults, children or pets? How often have we seen them being held accountable? And how often have we seen criminals dressing up and impersonating cops to facilitate their crimes?
I don’t care if Taylor’s boyfriend was an armed criminal. I don’t care if Taylor herself was an armed criminal. Because guess what? Being a criminal does not magically annul your right to defend yourself against home invasion.
If police break someone’s door down, then they should always expect to get shot at. They get paid obscene amounts of our tax dollars and are entitled to insane benefits with the excuse that they run that risk. They get access to equipment and training that most civilians can only dream of, at absolutely no personal expense, with the excuse that they run that risk.
Police should always announce themselves. And if they get shot in the line of duty, that’s tough shit. Should have been more skillful, should have prepared better. That’s just the price you pay for enriching yourself at tax payers’ expense as a jackboot for the state.
Prosecute criminals for the crimes you are serving a warrant for (if there turns out to even be any actual crime), not because they successfully defended themselves when you bungled serving a warrant despite having the entire financial and legal weight of the state behind you.
The fact that shooting a cop is punished more harshly than shooting an innocent civilian is an abomination; as is the fact that cops shooting innocent civilians are punished less harshly (if at all) than civilians shooting innocent civilians.
The Kennedy campaign said it will hold a press conference in Arizona on Friday to discuss “the present historical moment and his path forward.” The event will take place at 2:00 PM EST and will be live-streamed on several platforms.
Link: https://www.kennedy24.com/kennedy_to_address_the_nation
The Libertarian National Committee filed FEC paperwork on 8/11/2024 updating its email and physical address. However, this change was reverted to the original email and location several days later.
Document link: https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/C00255695/1809378/
Searching the address from the initial amended filing will bring up a printing business, and judging from the use of units, I take that to mean it’s the type of location that accommodates multiple businesses. The email is associated with ISPolitical.com, which the FEC lists as a filing compliance company. At this point, I presume it’s just an error.
You want an IN-active third/minor party campaign?
Where is Bill Stodden/SPUSA? Claudia de la Cruz of PSL is more visible than him.
And, this, my advance support for the pro-Palestinian protestors at the DNC, and noting that Shepard Fairey has doubled down on his “Hope” = “Nope” with “Forward” = “Backward” https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2024/08/these-boots-were-made-for-protesting.html
Jordan, this from a Substack I follow, about Colorado Dems exempting the Lege from state open meeting laws. https://coloradomedia.substack.com/p/colorado-journalists-get-ghosted
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On the Colorado LP contretemps, shock me that McAwful folded her hand after the latest round of her needle-threading failed.
Jordan, thanks for sending us the information. It is sad we have these divisions and this is going on. But here we are.
Probably nonconsensually, unless they have scat fetishes. But then they work for the state, so being human toilets for the allegedly libertarian party’s internal dysfunction byproducts is arguably justifiable for them.
The Colorado Secretary of State’s staff members were kept very busy during this process!
A Google Drive containing several dozen pages of emails between the Colorado Secretary of State’s office and various state and national Libertarian Party figures was publicly shared via X by Libertarian National Committee Secretary Caryn Ann Harlos on Thursday. Harlos said she obtained the emails through a Colorado Open Records Act request.
There is more to come, but readers can access the emails here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1X5Lvqiv8LcA62zM2fgXjMmjxT0D7gD-D/view
National treasure, folk (anti-)hero and sporadic “thin blue line”-bootlicker Kyle Rittenhouse, first wisely announced he would not vote for anti-Second Amendment candidate Donald Trump, and instead write-in Ron Paul. But then foolishly backtracked following a massive outpouring of abuse and harassment from RINO Trump sycophants. Never give bullies what they want, lest they start believing that “bullying works”.