Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The "overlearning the game" problem

andrewoneverything.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 144 posts

Re: The "overlearning the game" problem

#41

Post by jacques_chester »

david927 wrote: post #38
jacques_chester wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is, and it remains, that the problem is not technological. Is it possible now to instantly poll all citizens, at any moment, on a question of law? Absolutely. Indeed we've had that technology for decades -- since the 50s at least with tabulators and telephones. The point I am making, and which I was originally being downvoted for making, is that technology is not the point . Social dynamics are the point. An…

The proxies are what we have today with Congress: elected representatives. It's my understanding that the reason it was created is because technically it was too difficult to allow everyone to vote on every law. I'm saying: eliminate Congress. Allow people to vote directly on all bills. They can read various opinions online (no advertising allowed).

Pedantically, what we have in a Congress or a Parliament is trustees. They exercise but do not own the power.

> It's my understanding that the reason it was created is because technically it was too difficult to allow everyone to vote on every law.

It was created that way to prevent the tyranny of the majority.

"A pure democracy can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party. Hence it is, that democracies have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."

- Federalist No. 10.

Think of it as defence in depth. Do you pin all your security hopes in file permissions? Of course not: you demand randomised address layout, auditing tools and so on and so forth.

In short, you want defence in depth. Representative democracy is a defence against majoritarianism.

> I'm saying: eliminate Congress. Allow people to vote directly on all bills.

Who will write these bills? How will they be proposed? Is there a minimum number of sponsors required, if so, how many? How do bills lapse? How are they amended during discussion?

Re: The "overlearning the game" problem

#42

Post by jacques_chester »

david927 wrote: post #39
jacques_chester wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That there would be separate legislative and executive branches doesn't stop a direct democracy from passing laws that would punish Socrates again.

Sure it does: laws are held to be constitutional by the judicial branch. Such laws as killed Socrates are not constitutional.

You're still missing the point. Unpopular people would be made subject to laws meant to get them. This already happens in representative democracies, it would get much worse.

Socrates might not be executed (depending on the constitution in question), but he might still find himself prisoner for life because the law had mandatory sentencing provisions.

Re: The "overlearning the game" problem

#43

Post by jorleif »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #37

I think "overlearning" is not a good term (edit: it is quite accurate, though), because it tend to suggest the worst solution of all: that we refrain from learning. I prefer "lost purposes"[1]. The primary purpose of a game is generally to Have Fun. This purpose is lost if you have "solved" the game. The stated purpose of patents is to foster innovation. However it doesn't work[2]. The purpose of schools is learning.…

Overlearning/Overfitting is a term from machine learning/statistics that means that a learning system fits its learning data so well that it does not generalize to new data. The examples given in the article seem like perfect examples of this, e.g. elected officials fit the election process very well, but do not "generalize" to leading a country.

Re: The "overlearning the game" problem

#44

Post by danssig »

tomjen3 wrote: post #26
wisty wrote: post #10

It's related to Goodhart's Law: Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes. This is often the result of attempting to overoptimize a system. You can optimize a race car to a huge degree, because you know exactly what you want it to do. You can't optimize a schooling system, because you don't know exactly what you want it to do. A little noise is a go…

I don't think it is a good idea at all. If the political power boiled down to picking paper over scissors, the loosing side may very well ascribed no legitimacy to the outcome. That is almost certainly going to end far worse than actually counting all the votes (i am looking at you, supreme court). The same problem happens with your exam example. Why is it fair that someone less competent than you got in? A better so…

The losing side will always find some reason to claim the outcome is illegitimate and if you don't get in you will always be able to find someone you think you are better than.

Re: The "overlearning the game" problem

#45

Post by roel_v »

sendos wrote: post #15
drewcrawford wrote: post #12

If you pay a man by the hour, he'll work a lot of hours. If you pay him by the brick, he'll lay a lot of bricks. These "games" are basically the equivalent of counting lines of code or checkins. We're measuring poor proxies instead of the things we're actually interested in. The solution isn't an arms race to build bigger and better proxies, the solution is to measure real things instead of artificial ones. Here's ju…

I love the idea that electing representatives every X years to decide the laws of the land may not be the best way forward, and a new approach that takes into account modern technology may be a better way to go about this. However, based on human nature, I think that given long enough time of your proposed system in place, some people will overlearn it and find a way to exploit it, e.g. to gather tons of votes for th…

Of course, you already see this in indirect form in professional PR firms whose sole job it is to influence public opinion on a narrow issue, and in direct form in places where 'direct voting' is implemented in some form, like in California's referendum system for which on almost each issue specific lobbying groups have a major influence on the outcome.

I'd argue that referenda are more even susceptible to the problems described in the article than transparent representative democratic systems are; laymen are easy to influence, and groups of laymen even easier. In the end it depends on the population that is being ruled though - people get the rulers they deserve, and blaming the elected people while still participating in bribery, nepotism etc (while rational! classic prisoners dilemma!) is useless. But of course somebody needs to step up, like the Indian guy is doing now.

Re: The "overlearning the game" problem

#46

Post by danssig »

tomjen3 wrote: post #30
drewcrawford wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US founders specifically rejected that system because it leads to majoritarianism. It would be wonderful if you could cite a few primary sources discussing a direct vs indirect legislative branch as leading to majoritarianism, whether a longitudinal study or quotation of the appropriate historical person. You can still have separation of powers, judicial oversight, bills of rights, local governments, federalism…

Direct democracy killed Socraties. The current system, flawed as it is, does a reasonable job of prevention the most stupid ideas from getting Mainstream attention. The people deciding political issues wouldn't be the reasonable and smart people who hang around here. It will be the people who stand around picking funerals, people who never graduated high school, functional illiterates and the drug dealers in the inne…

>does a reasonable job of prevention the most stupid ideas from getting Mainstream attention.

Citation needed? Some pretty stupid ideas get through and lots of corruption (e.g. "bridge to nowhere").

>The people deciding political issues wouldn't be the reasonable and smart people who hang around here.

What kind of people do think are in the Senate/Congress? They're not the reasonable and smart people who hang around here either. And in any case, those people you so happily deride are choosing said representatives anyway.

Any problems you see with giving everyone a say exist with giving a subset of those people a say. In fact I would say the problem is exaggerated with the smaller group because the kind of people who would be good for government are the kind who would never be willing to do that job. I bet they would be willing to voice their opinions though.

Re: The "overlearning the game" problem

#47

Post by roel_v »

jacques_chester wrote: post #41
david927 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The proxies are what we have today with Congress: elected representatives. It's my understanding that the reason it was created is because technically it was too difficult to allow everyone to vote on every law. I'm saying: eliminate Congress. Allow people to vote directly on all bills. They can read various opinions online (no advertising allowed).

Pedantically, what we have in a Congress or a Parliament is trustees . They exercise but do not own the power. > It's my understanding that the reason it was created is because technically it was too difficult to allow everyone to vote on every law. It was created that way to prevent the tyranny of the majority. "A pure democracy can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will be fel…

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted, because you give realistic objections to the simplistic 'solutions' being proposed. It's easy to be 'contra' something, but it's juvenile to be against something without have a better alternative.

Re: The "overlearning the game" problem

#48

Post by roel_v »

david927 wrote: post #39
jacques_chester wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That there would be separate legislative and executive branches doesn't stop a direct democracy from passing laws that would punish Socrates again.

Sure it does: laws are held to be constitutional by the judicial branch. Such laws as killed Socrates are not constitutional.

sigh OK then, so who is going to pass the laws that the judicial branch will uphold, and/or who is going to appoint the people in the judicial branch? Are they going to be elected by the same people who elect the officials?

Re: The "overlearning the game" problem

#50

Post by david927 »

jacques_chester wrote: post #28
jowiar wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Further along these lines, modern communication has caused the US political system to more closely approach direct democracy, causing problems along the lines of those foreseen.

I think polling is what has done it, because it shortcuts the feedback cycle between representative and represented. Edmund Burke made the point eloquently in his speech to the voters of Bristol: "Certainly, gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to…

That's an interesting link, Jacques; thanks.

Remember, though, at that time the world was ruled by monarchies and it was thought that people were too stupid and illiterate to be part of their own governing.

It's 2011, and no one can debate this: It's up to the people to decide themselves whether they want to someone to override their will or to respect it. No one has the power to say, "Should we trust the will of the people?" The Enlightenment happened. You and I can debate, but we, the people, will decide.

Post reply on HN