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Ross Perot Has Died

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Re: Ross Perot Has Died

#71

Post by bzbz »

espeed wrote: post #60
davidw wrote: post #25

> ran into the establishment What he ran into was the inevitable math of a first past the post electoral system. You want third parties, you need ranked choice voting or something similar. Even if you're fine with the main parties, RCV is probably better in terms of electing who most people want. You could argue that Bush senior might have won with it if the Perot voters ranked 1) Perot 2) Bush. Bush junior might hav…

> You want third parties, you need ranked choice voting or something similar. Arrow's Impossibility Theorem : "When voters have three or more distinct alternatives (options), no ranked voting electoral system can convert the ranked preferences of individuals into a community-wide (complete and transitive) ranking while also meeting a specified set of criteria: unrestricted domain, non-dictatorship, Pareto efficiency,…

Look at the theorem you linked. What is its point? Its “dictator” exists in majority vote as well, and is merely anyone who has not determined their vote yet in a close election, e.g. the “swing states.”

Correct me if I’m misreading, but how does this favor majority vote over ranked voting?

Re: Ross Perot Has Died

#72

Post by bg4 »

nsxwolf wrote: post #59
protomyth wrote: post #20

You can call him "goofy", but he was anything but. I got to watch him give a speech in Fargo during the 92 campaign and it was amazing. At the time, I got into the habit of reading each candidates "book" they put out during the election. His was short, to the point, and very specific on what needed fixing. He was a serious man that ran into the establishment and got hammered.

He was a nicer Donald Trump.

This isn't true at all, Perot actually succeeded at business.

Re: Ross Perot Has Died

#73

Post by paulddraper »

espeed wrote: post #60
davidw wrote: post #25

> ran into the establishment What he ran into was the inevitable math of a first past the post electoral system. You want third parties, you need ranked choice voting or something similar. Even if you're fine with the main parties, RCV is probably better in terms of electing who most people want. You could argue that Bush senior might have won with it if the Perot voters ranked 1) Perot 2) Bush. Bush junior might hav…

> You want third parties, you need ranked choice voting or something similar. Arrow's Impossibility Theorem : "When voters have three or more distinct alternatives (options), no ranked voting electoral system can convert the ranked preferences of individuals into a community-wide (complete and transitive) ranking while also meeting a specified set of criteria: unrestricted domain, non-dictatorship, Pareto efficiency,…

Nor can you exactly know an object's momentum and position, nor construct a non-trivial wholly sound type system, nor create an ML algorithm that learns all data sets.

There's no free lunches, but there are better and worse lunches.

Re: Ross Perot Has Died

#74

Post by sampo »

munk-a wrote: post #68
sampo wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You want third parties, you need ranked choice voting or something similar. Ranked choice or similar would only give you an occasional third party win here and there, in some small number of electoral districts. It will not give you serious and viable third parties with long living organizations. What you'd need is, proportional voting for the House. Electoral districts the size of at least 10 House representatives…

Ranked voting actually does enable third party candidate wins (assuming they can garner sufficient public support) with ranked choice voting the stigma of voting third party is removed and people can safely vote primarily for who they want instead of primarily voting strategically.

Where does it work?

Australia has single-representative voting districts with instant-runoff voting, and they seem to have something that looks to me being close to a two-party system in practice. I admit, I didn't browse though all possible countries, so perhaps you know a better example?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Representatives_(Aust...

Re: Ross Perot Has Died

#75

Post by sampo »

davidw wrote: post #70
sampo wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You want third parties, you need ranked choice voting or something similar. Ranked choice or similar would only give you an occasional third party win here and there, in some small number of electoral districts. It will not give you serious and viable third parties with long living organizations. What you'd need is, proportional voting for the House. Electoral districts the size of at least 10 House representatives…

I lived in Italy for a number of years and am not enamored of proportional systems for several reasons: * Small parties sometimes have disproportionate power in coalitions. * Coalitions tend to not be real stable, leading to unstable governments that can't get much done (ok, for some this is a feature, but for some things, I think it isn't). * People matter, but with a proportional system, the party picks the candida…

> I lived in Italy

I don't know, Italy might be chaotic under any system. What do you think of e.g. Germany, Denmark?

Re: Ross Perot Has Died

#76

Post by armadsen »

lizknope wrote: post #6
gdubs wrote: post #2

Many remember Perot as the goofy rich guy who ran for president in 92, but what many don’t know is that he funded NeXT computer - Steve Jobs’ post-Apple venture that was later acquired by Apple and transformed computing for the next decade. Interface Builder and the NextStep core libraries were arguably one of the biggest catalysts of the iPhone App ecosystem. In many ways iOS exists because of NeXT. So while it was…

Nothing you said is wrong except that NeXTSTEP was first ported to Mac hardware and became Mac OS X which in turn led to iOS.

OP didn't say otherwise.

Re: Ross Perot Has Died

#77

Post by davidw »

sampo wrote: post #75
davidw wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in Italy for a number of years and am not enamored of proportional systems for several reasons: * Small parties sometimes have disproportionate power in coalitions. * Coalitions tend to not be real stable, leading to unstable governments that can't get much done (ok, for some this is a feature, but for some things, I think it isn't). * People matter, but with a proportional system, the party picks the candida…

> I lived in Italy I don't know, Italy might be chaotic under any system. What do you think of e.g. Germany, Denmark?

There's a certain amount of that in any system. I mean the US doesn't have a great system but still does....ok-ish.

I don't know the details of politics in Germany or Denmark well enough to know whether there were elections, parties, issues or areas where things didn't work out very well and a different electoral system might have been an improvement. There are a lot of "what if's" to consider even in places I know well.

Re: Ross Perot Has Died

#78

Post by tunesmith »

espeed wrote: post #60
davidw wrote: post #25

> ran into the establishment What he ran into was the inevitable math of a first past the post electoral system. You want third parties, you need ranked choice voting or something similar. Even if you're fine with the main parties, RCV is probably better in terms of electing who most people want. You could argue that Bush senior might have won with it if the Perot voters ranked 1) Perot 2) Bush. Bush junior might hav…

> You want third parties, you need ranked choice voting or something similar. Arrow's Impossibility Theorem : "When voters have three or more distinct alternatives (options), no ranked voting electoral system can convert the ranked preferences of individuals into a community-wide (complete and transitive) ranking while also meeting a specified set of criteria: unrestricted domain, non-dictatorship, Pareto efficiency,…

Arrow's is one of those theorems that is useful for its own purposes, but completely abused in a pop culture sense. All it proves is that you can't simultaneously meet those particular criteria, but it doesn't establish that those criteria are required in any sense. The IIA criteria is especially problematic.

A lot of vote arguments comes down to a lack of consensus on what we're even trying to solve for. For instance, say that you have a two-candidate race. 50.1% pick A, but their support is lukewarm. 49.9% pick B, but they're extremely passionate. Who should win? We can't really even get a consensus agreement on that question. I think that when it comes to American democracy and one-person-one-vote, the answer should be A, but plenty of others disagree with me.

As for the Perot scenario, you'd need both some form of ranked choice voting (not necessarily IRV), and the elimination of the electoral college. Having RCV with an electoral college doesn't help because if you split the EC, the election still goes to the House.

Re: Ross Perot Has Died

#79

Post by basch »

thomasjudge wrote: post #19
fdavison wrote: post #12

None of what I've read today on his passing have mentioned this interesting story of the rescue of his employees from Iran during the revolution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Wings_of_Eagles A mini-series was produced about it starring Burt Lancaster

I enjoyed the book, never saw the tv program, although I also just found this counter-narrative: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1992-07-09-920302...

Back when the Chicago Tribune thought it was Buzzfeed, I dont think they liked him.

"26 REASONS WHY ROSS PEROT DOESN`T DESERVE YOUR VOTE"

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1992-10-08-920401...

Re: Ross Perot Has Died

#80

Post by tunesmith »

davidw wrote: post #38
protomyth wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the United States has an Electoral College for very specific reasons that are just as true today and they were when the Constitution was written. It is a shame that political parties formed in the first place, but George Washington couldn't have his way all the time. It has nothing to do with the voting. It had a lot to do with the who controlled information. I get the feeling with the internet of today he would…

The EC and ranked choice voting are two different, and compatible things. You could have RCV within each state, for instance.

Fine for state and house/state elections, but doesn't work for presidential elections. Splitting the EC below a strict majority of EVs sends the election to the House.
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