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It's not, anybody can write a bullshit paper today. There is a reason this hard won democracy exist and why we dealt away with lesser systems where less people

It's not, anybody can write a bullshit paper today. There is a reason this hard won democracy exist and why we dealt away with lesser systems where less people are in power. The author of the papern should go visit North Korea or Saudin Arabia and perhaps live there if he thinks the majority is tyranising him with their voting rights.

LolWolf 9y ago
Wait, this argument makes no sense. It wasn't until 1950 that we had game theory to analyze voting systems directly, and it wasn't really until much later that people looked at more efficient systems. It's not hard to show that the 1-1 voting scheme is pretty useless in that its Nash equilibrium isn't guaranteed to be reflective of the population's general desires. So, fine, while the current form of democracy may have somewhat worked until now, that definitely does not imply that we reached an optimal voting system. If we can make the world a little bit better, why not? (This paper looks interesting, but, of course the devil is in the details of implementation; would I personally want this system? No idea.)
- quickben 9y ago
  Well, why wouldn't it make sense? People were governed and had different levels of say through the history. Perhaps the most extreme example would be the French Revolution where the aristocracy had more votes per person than the common peasant, and we know whose heads rolled afterwards. The problem isn't game theory. The problem is that power attracts certain personalities that are not altruistic. The current iteration of having say in common decisions is explicitly trying to curb the maniacs from reaching/staying in power. > If we can make the world a little bit better, why not? Sure. But right now, will Trump sing Kumbaya, or is USA regretting the decision? If it was 40-40, imagine him buying 20% of the votes. "Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…" - Churchill

LolWolf 9y ago

Wait, this argument makes no sense. It wasn't until 1950 that we had game theory to analyze voting systems directly, and it wasn't really until much later that people looked at more efficient systems. It's not hard to show that the 1-1 voting scheme is pretty useless in that its Nash equilibrium isn't guaranteed to be reflective of the population's general desires. So, fine, while the current form of democracy may have somewhat worked until now, that definitely does not imply that we reached an optimal voting system. If we can make the world a little bit better, why not? (This paper looks interesting, but, of course the devil is in the details of implementation; would I personally want this system? No idea.)

quickben 9y ago
Well, why wouldn't it make sense? People were governed and had different levels of say through the history. Perhaps the most extreme example would be the French Revolution where the aristocracy had more votes per person than the common peasant, and we know whose heads rolled afterwards. The problem isn't game theory. The problem is that power attracts certain personalities that are not altruistic. The current iteration of having say in common decisions is explicitly trying to curb the maniacs from reaching/staying in power. > If we can make the world a little bit better, why not? Sure. But right now, will Trump sing Kumbaya, or is USA regretting the decision? If it was 40-40, imagine him buying 20% of the votes. "Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…" - Churchill