Election Data

On Mon, 2008-07-28 at 12:38 -0700, CLAY S wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 12:33, Tom spot Callaway <tcallawa@redhat.com>
> wrote:
> I think it is rather self-inflated and narrow to correlate the
>
> propogation of a specific type of voting with "the fate of the
> planet".
>
> I'm not inflating anything. I'm going off the best available data.
>
> http://rangevoting.org/UniqBest.html
> http://rangevoting.org/RelImport.html
> http://rangevoting.org/LivesSaved.html

That is some fascinating extrapolation you've got going on there. By
fascinating, I mean horrifying.

+1 to keeping Fedora's data as far away as possible from such absurd
leaps of statistics.

~spot


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On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 12:40, Tom spot Callaway <tcallawa@redhat.com> wrote:

That is some fascinating extrapolation you've got going on there. By

fascinating, I mean horrifying.



+1 to keeping Fedora's data as far away as possible from such absurd

leaps of statistics.
You could provide even a single objective scientific/mathematical flaw instead of using emotional descriptors like horrifying?

The co-founder of RangeVoting.org is a Princeton math Ph.D. and the protagonist of the William Poundstone book _Gaming the Vote_.* He's far from being an idiot who makes "absurd leaps of statistics".* And how would shedding light on the issue with data be harmful?* If it refutes ideas that you believe to be absurd leaps of statistics, isn't that a good thing?


What I really sense is at work here is that humans have a natural amount of skepticism built in, which is evolutionarily advantageous for obvious reasons (to a lesser extent in some people than others, of course).* Seeing that such incredible differences would result from something so superficially simple as a change in voting method, usually triggers that incredulity instinct.* It's a nice defense mechanism, but once you've analyzed the data, it's deprecated and irrational.


Regards,
Clay

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On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 12:40, seth vidal <skvidal@fedoraproject.org> wrote:

okay, then I'll state it differently.



I do not care about the state of voting on the planet.



Nor do I believe that voting in fedora will positively or negatively

impact the planet.
What is your expertise in the field of social choice theory?

Do you know the history of how Australia got improved election systems?* It has begins as humble as being used in organizations.


Are you also aware that approval voting opponents often cite the fact that the IEEE dropped it as evidence that it didn't work well?* This is completely illogical and unfounded, but because the information from those elections they did hold is not available, this charge is hard to combat, and is accepted by a lot of people who really should know better.


I appreciate your natural skepticism.* But I implore you to go beyond your gut instinct and research this issue for a few years (like I and others in my group have) before you feel much certainty in your views.* Much of what I have learned in the course of studying social choice theory has completely turned many of my old ideas on their heads.* I began thinking I really had a clue, and I didn't.* And I'm still surprised by new discoveries all the time.


We recently had a huge insight that was borne by IMDB.com's use of weightings in their scoring system.* But who would have thought that gifted mathematicians who've been studying this topic for years would gain valuable new insights from a movie rating web site?


Clay

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On Mon, 2008-07-28 at 12:52 -0700, CLAY S wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 12:40, seth vidal <skvidal@fedoraproject.org>
> wrote:
> okay, then I'll state it differently.
>
> I do not care about the state of voting on the planet.
>
> Nor do I believe that voting in fedora will positively or
> negatively
> impact the planet.
>
> What is your expertise in the field of social choice theory?

Don't care.

We're done.

-sv



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On Mon, 2008-07-28 at 12:47 -0700, CLAY S wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 12:40, Tom spot Callaway <tcallawa@redhat.com>
> wrote:
> That is some fascinating extrapolation you've got going on
> there. By
>
> fascinating, I mean horrifying.
>
> +1 to keeping Fedora's data as far away as possible from such
> absurd
> leaps of statistics.
>
> You could provide even a single objective scientific/mathematical flaw
> instead of using emotional descriptors like horrifying?

Alright. Lets start with:
"1. Suppose the USA, by adopting range voting, lowers the risk of a
2-billion population crash in 50 years, by 5%. I consider this a
conservative estimate."

There is no evidence whatsoever to correlate the type of voting
mechanism used with the risk of a "2-billion population crash in 50
years".

I could just as reliably say:

"1. Suppose the USA, by eating Cheezy Poofs, lowers the risk of a
2-billion population crash in 50 years, by 5%. I consider this a
conservative estimate."

Well, hot damn. Let's start eating more Cheezy Poofs.

The fact that such nonsense came out of the mouth (or keyboard) of
someone with a PhD doesn't make it more (or to be fair, less)
reasonable.

If I wanted anyone to take me seriously, I would first have to show some
kind of concrete proof that the consumption of Cheezy Poofs has any
effect on a "2-billion population crash in 50 years", not to tell people
that it just does (damnit!). Haven't you read anything published in the
snack food academia in the last twenty years? It's obvious!

"Figures often beguile me," Twain wrote, "particularly when I have the
arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to
Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: 'There are three
kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.'"

And now, like Seth, I am off this thread like a dirty shirt.

~spot

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On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 12:58, Tom spot Callaway <tcallawa@redhat.com> wrote:

Alright. Lets start with:

"1. Suppose the USA, by adopting range voting, lowers the risk of a

2-billion population crash in 50 years, by 5%. I consider this a

conservative estimate."



There is no evidence whatsoever to correlate the type of voting

mechanism used with the risk of a "2-billion population crash in 50

years".
Yes there is.* That multiple lines of evidence are presented that justify a plausible derivation of that figure.
*

I could just as reliably say:



"1. Suppose the USA, by eating Cheezy Poofs, lowers the risk of a

2-billion population crash in 50 years, by 5%. I consider this a

conservative estimate."
Only if you had evidence to back that up.* Do you?


The fact that such nonsense came out of the mouth (or keyboard) of

someone with a PhD doesn't make it more (or to be fair, less)

reasonable.
Do you have any evidence that it's "nonsense"? All I hear is adjectives, not any actual factual analysis of the justifications for these figures.


If I wanted anyone to take me seriously, I would first have to show some

kind of concrete proof that the consumption of Cheezy Poofs has any

effect on a "2-billion population crash in 50 years", not to tell people

that it just does (damnit!). Haven't you read anything published in the

snack food academia in the last twenty years? It's obvious!
See points 2, 3, 4, and 5.* I would make the reasonable request that you _read_ the piece you're criticizing before criticizing it.


I know that grandiose claims absolutely trigger the skepticism instinct, and that these figures are highly approximate.* But the fact that similar numbers can be obtained through several completely independent lines of estimation is substantial.


The Bayesian regret figures are much less approximate, because they are the combined result of millions of trials over a range of values among 5 fundamental parameters.* And they say scoring essentially _doubles_ the effect of democracy.* If it's hard to translate that into lives saved, it's still huge in the economic/happiness sense.* People constantly prove (via e.g. Ron Paul and Barack Obama) that increased happiness with election results is worth a huge amount of value to them - even more than the benefit that could be gotten by donating that money to charities like the Red Cross (that actually do save lives).


In either case, whether you think we're quacks or not, I don't think this diminishes the potential value of releasing election data.* Even if it's just a random sample, like 10% of the ballots, that's informative.* Even if it's just a list of what percentage of the voters used intermediate values vs. only extremes - that's valuable.


At the end of the day, there are a lot of people working hard to better the world, and naively pursuing much less efficacious reforms.* But as long as those reforms really are benificial and those people are trying to improve humanity's lot, it seems nice to appreciate them rather than treat them as lunatics on the basis of a very superficial view of their principles and rationales.


Thanks,
Clay

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On Mon, 2008-07-28 at 10:06 -0700, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
> CLAY S wrote:
> > Considering what's at stake, I believe it is
> > not too unreasonable for the Fedora community to change policy to make
> > future election data available to the public
>
> Really, I'd like this to be put to a vote by Fedora Contributors.
> Because the real question for releasing anonymized election data for the
> future is: will people continue to vote if they know the data will be
> released anonymously.
To me, the real question is a different one: Does anybody involved into
the election processes possess/host non-anonymized election data?

Ralf


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