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The election of the doge

generalist.academy

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Re: The election of the doge

#91

Post by tsimionescu »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #55
tsimionescu wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They probably mean exactly one vote being the deciding vote for an election - 13567 votes for the winner, 13566 votes for the runner-up. Which would be the case where each and every voter's vote mattered.

> Which would be the case where each and every voter's vote mattered. Why do the votes for the runner-up matter in that case?

If the vote ends 1000 to 0, then 999 votes haven't mattered at all, all those people could have stayed home and the result would have been the same. If it ends 1000 to 999, then if even one person had stayed home the result would have been different, so each vote was necessary for the current result.

Re: The election of the doge

#92

Post by thaumasiotes »

tsimionescu wrote: post #91
thaumasiotes wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which would be the case where each and every voter's vote mattered. Why do the votes for the runner-up matter in that case?

If the vote ends 1000 to 0, then 999 votes haven't mattered at all, all those people could have stayed home and the result would have been the same. If it ends 1000 to 999, then if even one person had stayed home the result would have been different, so each vote was necessary for the current result.

Something's getting confused somewhere.

If the vote is 1000 to 0, then the result (vote count) will be different if one person stays home -- 999 to 0 -- but the result (victor) will be the same.

Exactly the same thing is true in the case where it's 1000 to 999. If one of the losing voters stays home, you get a different vote count --- 1000 to 998 -- and the same victor. There are 999 people, half the entire electorate, who can stay home without making any meaningful difference at all.

What is the difference that you see?

Re: The election of the doge

#94

Post by tsimionescu »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #92
tsimionescu wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the vote ends 1000 to 0, then 999 votes haven't mattered at all, all those people could have stayed home and the result would have been the same. If it ends 1000 to 999, then if even one person had stayed home the result would have been different, so each vote was necessary for the current result.

Something's getting confused somewhere. If the vote is 1000 to 0, then the result (vote count) will be different if one person stays home -- 999 to 0 -- but the result (victor) will be the same. Exactly the same thing is true in the case where it's 1000 to 999. If one of the losing voters stays home, you get a different vote count --- 1000 to 998 -- and the same victor. There are 999 people, half the entire electorat…

Yes, I should have defined my terms, sorry.

To me, the vote count is not the result. The result is one of A won, B won, or that there is a draw. So if the vote count ends up 1 to 0 or 1000 to 0, A still wins, so the 999 votes don't really matter.

In the 1000 to 999 case, yes, everyone whose candidate lost could have stayed at home. But everyone whose candidate won had to come and vote, otherwise there would have been a draw and their candidate would have lost (or at least there would have been a draw).

Also, to be clear, all that I'm describing is more of an emotional argument - analyzing whose vote counts in an election or not is better done through game thelry. If you take the reasoning I laid down further, it sort of breaks down, and it only 'works' retroactively anyway. But I think it captures the feel of what it means for your vote to matter pretty decently.

I would bet that people who voted Biden in Georgia or Pensylvania in last week's elections feel that their personal vote was much more important than people who did the same in NYC do.

Re: The election of the doge

#95

Post by throw0101a »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #89
specialist wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even Cornel West parrots Athenian era warnings about majoritarian tyranny, mob rule, etc. I have near religious faith in democracy. I'm so out of step. I don't know why. My enthusiasm for democracy originated in my workplace experiments. Ideas gleaned from Peter Drucker, Deming, and probably some others. I just needed an efficient, effective way to get my coworkers to step up and contribute their knowledge and expert…

Democracy works when you have an educated and informed group trying to make rational choices in a limited context. It falls apart as soon as you have huge disparities in privilege, wealth, and education in a nation state - manipulated by industrial narrative management techniques engineered by small privileged castes fighting hard to keep and enhance their caste privileges at the expense of everyone else. They're not…

> Democracy works when you have an educated and informed group trying to make rational choices in a limited context.

Madison:

> Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks--no form of government can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea. If there be sufficient virtue and intelligence in the community, it will be exercised in the selection of these men. So that we do not depend on their virtue, or put confidence in our rulers, but in the people who are to choose them.

* 20 June 1788, Papers 11:163

> It falls apart as soon as you have huge disparities in privilege, wealth, and education in a nation state

I'm not sure that inequality is any worse now than it was, say, during the Gilded Age. Certainly more people have the vote now than ever in the past (especially because of the Civil Rights Act, which the USSC conveniently neutered a few years back).

Re: The election of the doge

#96

Post by zeveb »

earthboundkid wrote: post #83
zeveb wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it would be interesting to have three Houses: Senate, with individual senators appointed by the state legislatures; Representatives, with individuals elected by popular vote; and Citizens, selected by sortition. Legislation could originate in either the Senate or the House of Representatives, but would have to be ratified by the House of Citizens, unless their veto were overridden by super-majorities. The num…

There are a lot of potential roles for citizen juries, but adding a third house is just a solution looking for a problem. A good arrangement would be: - Elect 50 Senators nationally by proportional representation (2% party vote = 1 senate seat) - The Senate works with parliamentary style vote of no confidence system instead of fixed term lengths (fixed term lengths have repeatedly been a disaster for the US). Let's s…

Issue there is that the House and Senate would just represent the people, and no-one would represent the states. That seems contrary to point of a government whose title is the United States.

Agreed on adding more representatives.

Re: The election of the doge

#97

Post by specialist »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #89
specialist wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even Cornel West parrots Athenian era warnings about majoritarian tyranny, mob rule, etc. I have near religious faith in democracy. I'm so out of step. I don't know why. My enthusiasm for democracy originated in my workplace experiments. Ideas gleaned from Peter Drucker, Deming, and probably some others. I just needed an efficient, effective way to get my coworkers to step up and contribute their knowledge and expert…

Democracy works when you have an educated and informed group trying to make rational choices in a limited context. It falls apart as soon as you have huge disparities in privilege, wealth, and education in a nation state - manipulated by industrial narrative management techniques engineered by small privileged castes fighting hard to keep and enhance their caste privileges at the expense of everyone else. They're not…

Thanks. Been chewing on how to respond.

I still buy into the rational choice theories. Despite the growing evidence to the contrary. Democracy for Realists, folk theory of democracy, and all that.

As I said upthread, I focus on process and feedback loops. Blame my tour of duty as a SQA manager.

I empowered my teams thru delegation. They owned the product. Not me. It was their success. Not mine.

I built trust over time by honoring their decisions. And probably more importantly, fending off attacks on their efforts. Like the helpful SVP PHB giving "suggestions" and shaking the ant farm.

I'm currently totally on board with Stacy Abrams' view of democracy. People buy-in when they see their actions have impact, consequences. They check out when they're ignored.

My own former teammates told me as much. Next manager comes in, asks for input, does their own thing. Completely alienated the team. They never leaned in again.

It takes time, real effort, commitment. Trust is so hard to earn, so easily lost.

YMMV.

Re: The election of the doge

#98

Post by Hammershaft »

gen220 wrote: post #63
Hammershaft wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if you roll a high salary your employer has an incentive to get rid of you and replace you with someone who rolled a 2.

I’m not sure... the difference between a 20 and a 2 shouldn’t be too large. An example of a large range in my head is like 120-140k, a more typical one would be like 120-130k. If you’re good, you could negotiate a bigger range. That’s an appreciable difference to the employee, but basically a rounding error to the employer. If you have a high salary today your employer already has an incentive to get rid of you and r…

In aggregate what appears to be rounding errors to the employer ultimately makes up an appreciable difference in expenditures.

> If you have a high salary today your employer already has an incentive to get rid of you and replace you with a new grad. It already happens.

This is a little different as the employer is making a trade off between employee experience and employee cost. Employers don't have an incentive to replace an employee with an equally skilled employee at the same market rate, but when the salary is randomly chosen out of a range, employers do have an incentive to replace high rollers with new employees who are statistically likely to roll something lower.

Re: The election of the doge

#99

Post by devdas »

throwaway2245 wrote: post #42
EdwardDiego wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what an apolitical public service is for. America is rather an oddity where heads of federal agencies are political appointees whose terms are contingent on the ruling party.

So then I conclude that this version of sortition will shift the political power now held by experienced politicians onto experienced public servants (in addition to the power they already have). I am not sure if this would be worse, but it would be quite a different political power structure.

Yes Minister.
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