At 11:07 AM 7/16/2007, warren_d_smith31 wrote:
>My previous comments/summary were based on chapters 1-2.
>But I've got a low opinion of chapters 3-7.
>
>Brams rather grandly titles his book "mathematics and democracy"
>(appropriating
>the title I wanted for MY book darn it...)

I'll agree that Brams has apparently misappropriated that title,
because it would seem to suggest a general approach, regarding the
application of Mathematics to democracy, rather than focusing on a
few specific proposals.

If he doesn't consider Range, he's a dodo.

Ditto Asset Voting.

Both of these are very simple solutions that address, deeply, basic
problems in democracy. But Asset isn't particularly "math." It's a
social solution, it isn't really an "election method" in the same way
as Approval and Range or IRV.

I find it rather frustrating, reading political scientists in
general. It's as if they never heard of a proxy. So we see
discussions of representative democracy, even with mathematical
analysis, showing the problems, that completely neglect what is, in
fact, an already functioning method for mass representation that
doesn't involve elections as such! It's not like it's a new invention!

It's the elephant in the living room.

Warren, your simulations are apparently the best tool we have for
comparing election methods. I'm going to guess that he totally
neglects the field. What are the standards that he uses to compare
various forms of Approval?

If he's like the rest, he uses "election criteria," if that. I.e.,
*assumptions* about what constitutes good election performance, not
basic assumptions like "the greatest good for the greatest number,"
or the like, but assumptions about *process,* an example of which
would be the Majority Criterion or FB.

Only by looking at more direct measures of election success can we
begin to truly evaluate the social benefit of election methods. Is
that the goal of election methods? Or is it to produce flights of
ecstasy in mathematicians contemplating the beauty of their theorems?

(Nothing wrong with that beauty or ecstasy itself, but.... grand
theories have been known to ruin societies in the past, when
implemented with hubris.)