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I disagree. Some kind of new system that isn't first-past-the-post is definitely necessary, but it won't solve partisanship right here and now. The state we are

by kedean 7y ago

I disagree. Some kind of new system that isn't first-past-the-post is definitely necessary, but it won't solve partisanship right here and now. The state we are in has a huge portion of people literally hating the guts of anyone who is in a different party from them. The republican senators who are claiming they won't vote out Trump are largely doing it because they fear not getting re-elected, and a different voting system right now won't solve that, because republicans will still be republicans and see a vote for removal as "betrayal". It would take years before sufficient numbers of new parties would form and start to gain enough traction to get anywhere (I don't think groups like the libertarian party will do great, because they tend to be pretty polarizing, but I could be wrong). I don't call that an easy solve. A different style of voting might have lead to different election results though, due to the huge number of people who either abstained or voted for Trump because they disliked HRC, and the people who only voted Trump because they are registered republicans and that's that. It would not have lead to people voting in a non-partisan way. It's gotten so bad that there's a top subreddit, r/ENLIGHTEDCENTRISM, dedicated to making fun of people who don't vehemently subscribe to either Democrat or Republican ideologies.

robbrown451 7y ago
"The state we are in has a huge portion of people literally hating the guts of anyone who is in a different party from them" And how did this happen? With a voting system that elects the first choice of the median voter, there wouldn't be two opposing parties. There would more likely be people who organize around specific candidates, or that support specific issues, but not an artificial "right vs left" or "republican vs democrate"or "conservative vs liberal". And there wouldn't be big surprises on election day. A good way to visualize it is a hypothetical situation where you are voting for a number. Say it is a big office, and everyone votes on the temperature to set the thermostat. You could imagine a bad voting system, where the cold natured people and the warm natured people start to cluster into groups for strategic purposes, and they end up hating each other. Or a good system where everyone just writes down their preferred temperature, and the median temperature is chosen. Never a surprise after a vote, no one is particularly disgruntled. The ones that are extremely cold natured might dress warmer, etc, but that makes sense, right? That's how it could be. The problem is we are so used to it the way it has been for a long time, it is hard to realize it mostly comes from the voting system. Obviously it would take a bit of time for the effects of partisanship to fade, but that's expected.
- hirundo 7y ago
  > Or a good system where everyone just writes down their preferred temperature, and the median temperature is chosen. Why wouldn't people game the system by entering temperatures as low or as high as allowed? If I want 68F but think the mean will be 72F, I can vote for 45F, or whatever the limit is. Likely this would spawn cool and warm "parties" that will campaign for others to do the same. You might find the votes bifurcating into the opposite extremes. If you put no limit on the temperatures the warmists would win, because the coolists have a hard limit of zero Kelvin. But if you actually follow the results of that election you may freeze or incinerate everyone. Isn't democracy great?
  - kstenerud 7y ago
    Now you're attacking the analogy, which adds nothing useful to the conversation because the real thing doesn't work that way.
    - robbrown451 7y ago
      Actually he's just wrong about the analogy, since it is median, not average. You can't game median. That was the whole point of my analogy.
  - robbrown451 7y ago
    "Why wouldn't people game the system by entering temperatures as low or as high as allowed?" Because it is median, not average. That does nothing. Demonstrated here: https://pianop.ly/voting/median.html https://pianop.ly/voting/median.html I think you are wrong about parties forming, there would be no benefit whatsoever. There is no reason anyone would have any incentive to do anything other than vote for their preferred value.
    - hirundo 7y ago
      > There is no reason anyone would have any incentive to do anything other than vote for their preferred value. I think people would quickly come to see voting for their preferred value as wasting their vote, as is often the case with presidential elections. Good point about median vs average, I missed that. But there would be benefit in converging the votes on popular numbers to make them the median. E.g. if I want 70 but think the contest will come down to 72 vs 76, it may make perfect sense to change my vote to 72.

by kedean 7y ago

robbrown451 7y ago

"The state we are in has a huge portion of people literally hating the guts of anyone who is in a different party from them" And how did this happen? With a voting system that elects the first choice of the median voter, there wouldn't be two opposing parties. There would more likely be people who organize around specific candidates, or that support specific issues, but not an artificial "right vs left" or "republican vs democrate"or "conservative vs liberal". And there wouldn't be big surprises on election day. A good way to visualize it is a hypothetical situation where you are voting for a number. Say it is a big office, and everyone votes on the temperature to set the thermostat. You could imagine a bad voting system, where the cold natured people and the warm natured people start to cluster into groups for strategic purposes, and they end up hating each other. Or a good system where everyone just writes down their preferred temperature, and the median temperature is chosen. Never a surprise after a vote, no one is particularly disgruntled. The ones that are extremely cold natured might dress warmer, etc, but that makes sense, right? That's how it could be. The problem is we are so used to it the way it has been for a long time, it is hard to realize it mostly comes from the voting system. Obviously it would take a bit of time for the effects of partisanship to fade, but that's expected.

hirundo 7y ago
> Or a good system where everyone just writes down their preferred temperature, and the median temperature is chosen. Why wouldn't people game the system by entering temperatures as low or as high as allowed? If I want 68F but think the mean will be 72F, I can vote for 45F, or whatever the limit is. Likely this would spawn cool and warm "parties" that will campaign for others to do the same. You might find the votes bifurcating into the opposite extremes. If you put no limit on the temperatures the warmists would win, because the coolists have a hard limit of zero Kelvin. But if you actually follow the results of that election you may freeze or incinerate everyone. Isn't democracy great?
- kstenerud 7y ago
  Now you're attacking the analogy, which adds nothing useful to the conversation because the real thing doesn't work that way.
  - robbrown451 7y ago
    Actually he's just wrong about the analogy, since it is median, not average. You can't game median. That was the whole point of my analogy.
- robbrown451 7y ago
  "Why wouldn't people game the system by entering temperatures as low or as high as allowed?" Because it is median, not average. That does nothing. Demonstrated here: https://pianop.ly/voting/median.html https://pianop.ly/voting/median.html I think you are wrong about parties forming, there would be no benefit whatsoever. There is no reason anyone would have any incentive to do anything other than vote for their preferred value.
  - hirundo 7y ago
    > There is no reason anyone would have any incentive to do anything other than vote for their preferred value. I think people would quickly come to see voting for their preferred value as wasting their vote, as is often the case with presidential elections. Good point about median vs average, I missed that. But there would be benefit in converging the votes on popular numbers to make them the median. E.g. if I want 70 but think the contest will come down to 72 vs 76, it may make perfect sense to change my vote to 72.