Kaj_Sotala comments on Imperfect Voting Systems - Less Wrong

34 Post author: Yvain 20 July 2012 12:07AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (87)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 20 July 2012 09:12:50AM *  11 points [-]

This. In FPTP, tactical voting will have a major influence on the results, since it's so obvious and thus lots of people will end up doing it. In STV, most people won't even realize that the opportunity for tactical voting exists, so the amount of people doing it will be much smaller.

Comment author: TraderJoe 20 July 2012 11:41:36AM *  3 points [-]

[comment deleted]

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 21 July 2012 01:33:38AM 4 points [-]

Because in electoral politics, you are not a unique snowflake. Failure to take into account collective action of people thinking along the lines you're thinking drastically understates the influence of those thoughts.

Comment author: TraderJoe 24 July 2012 08:38:02AM *  0 points [-]

[comment deleted]

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 30 July 2012 02:40:39PM *  0 points [-]

It's not that your decision affects the others. That's messed up causality. It's that your decision shares a lot of its causes with other decisions in other people. If you take yours as typical of a particular subset, and decide not to vote, then that suggests that others in that subset might as well. Gathering a large bloc of equivalent voters raises the voting power from approximately 0 to... well, some nontrivial number. If it's really large, it's exactly 1 (voting power is not probability, so 1 is a legit answer).

Comment author: TraderJoe 31 July 2012 06:59:11AM *  0 points [-]

[comment deleted]

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 31 July 2012 02:10:19PM *  -1 points [-]

It's not 'will be the same regardless of which side I come down on', like we're in a state

A |Luke votes & Joe votes> + B|Luke doesn't vote & Joe doesn't vote>

It's 'Is this a good plan of action? Let's look at its consequences. First order (if I do it): OK. Second order (if everyone does it): not OK.'

Comment author: TraderJoe 02 August 2012 06:52:07AM *  0 points [-]

[comment deleted]