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I don't think that this is a meaningful complaint. Let's say that a minority population has a strong preference and a majority population has a much weaker opp

I don't think that this is a meaningful complaint. Let's say that a minority population has a strong preference and a majority population has a much weaker opposite preference. So first of all, regardless of the socio-economic status of the two, note that in pure representative systems, the majority wins. If, in the quadratic voting system, the majority still wins, it's not like that's any worse than the status quo. There's no rule of super-losing a vote. And the entire point of the quadratic voting system is that it allows fairly large minorities with strong preferences to triumph over fairly small majorities with weak preferences, without allowing a few billionaires to buy up all the votes. If the situation is that there are two minorities with strong preferences, and then a majority with weak preferences, then the QV system will quadratically favor the larger minority over the richer one, but if your point is just that there are minorities with strong preferences that you don't think are just, well, that's more or less Cowen's point. As he points out, a minority with a strong preference includes the pro-life lobby.

xnull2guest 12y ago
Right now minorities win against majorities without strong opinions by vote mobility within a base. There seems to be some weird underlying assumption in this QV stuff that everyone is forced to vote on every issue? That is to say I take issue with sentence three. I don't see how sentence four or five really add much - but I guess I get the argument you are attempting to make ("It's not worse"). I do think it is worse. Wealth distributions essentially everywhere in the world from the third to the first and from all data we have of all nations from all times historically have an exponential distribution, i.e. the wealthy have exponentially more wealth than those beneath them, and in fact fractions of countries today own the vast majority of wealth (in America, I've seen estimates of 1% or less owning 70% or more when shares, stocks, bonds [financial holdings], land ownership, and foreign investments are taken into account along with income). Not everyone comes out to vote (in America, for example, it is pitiful, sometimes barely two digits), voters are obscured from real issues and the 'wealthy' class is not necessarily the 'aggressor' or scenario we're talking about. Consider the examples I gave before: the working poor (who are often deeply in the red, meaning that they own 0% or less of national wealth - in America this makes up about a quarter of the country), transgender folk, child laborers, small unions, immigrants, or to the historical point similarly disenfranchised groups such as slaves, indentured servants, women, Native Americans, and poor Europeans.
- aetherson 12y ago
  Clearly there is a function in which an impassioned minority can overcome an apathetic majority in America right now (indeed, gay marriage, kind of the poster child for QV right now, was pretty much exactly that scenario). Presumably if you're the kind of person who wants QV, you regard the current method as insufficient or inefficient or both. (Personally, I think that QV is interesting, but I don't ultimately favor it). Again, though, you're kind of weirdly trying to talk about situations with impassioned majorities. They already win. If they really want to pay extra to win by tons more, well, they're wasting their money. If your ultimate point is that quadratic functions don't increase fast enough ("the wealthy have exponentially more wealth"), then just choose a faster-increasing function. As I pointed out in another sub-thread, 2^n means that the 20th extra vote you buy would cost 1,000,000 times as much as the first extra vote you buy, and the 100th vote you buy would cost more money than anyone has ever or will ever have. That should pretty solidly allay concerns that the top 5% or top 1% will ever buy a majority that way, while still leaving open some interesting things that happen with a minority of 20% or higher. (Personally, I doubt that an exponential function would be necessary, though a polynomial function of higher order than quadratic might).
  - xnull2guest 12y ago
    I'm not exactly sure what to say. From my point of view I've made a large number of arguments and points that haven't been addressed - and many that haven't been acknowledged at all...

xnull2guest 12y ago

Right now minorities win against majorities without strong opinions by vote mobility within a base. There seems to be some weird underlying assumption in this QV stuff that everyone is forced to vote on every issue? That is to say I take issue with sentence three. I don't see how sentence four or five really add much - but I guess I get the argument you are attempting to make ("It's not worse"). I do think it is worse. Wealth distributions essentially everywhere in the world from the third to the first and from all data we have of all nations from all times historically have an exponential distribution, i.e. the wealthy have exponentially more wealth than those beneath them, and in fact fractions of countries today own the vast majority of wealth (in America, I've seen estimates of 1% or less owning 70% or more when shares, stocks, bonds [financial holdings], land ownership, and foreign investments are taken into account along with income). Not everyone comes out to vote (in America, for example, it is pitiful, sometimes barely two digits), voters are obscured from real issues and the 'wealthy' class is not necessarily the 'aggressor' or scenario we're talking about. Consider the examples I gave before: the working poor (who are often deeply in the red, meaning that they own 0% or less of national wealth - in America this makes up about a quarter of the country), transgender folk, child laborers, small unions, immigrants, or to the historical point similarly disenfranchised groups such as slaves, indentured servants, women, Native Americans, and poor Europeans.

aetherson 12y ago
Clearly there is a function in which an impassioned minority can overcome an apathetic majority in America right now (indeed, gay marriage, kind of the poster child for QV right now, was pretty much exactly that scenario). Presumably if you're the kind of person who wants QV, you regard the current method as insufficient or inefficient or both. (Personally, I think that QV is interesting, but I don't ultimately favor it). Again, though, you're kind of weirdly trying to talk about situations with impassioned majorities. They already win. If they really want to pay extra to win by tons more, well, they're wasting their money. If your ultimate point is that quadratic functions don't increase fast enough ("the wealthy have exponentially more wealth"), then just choose a faster-increasing function. As I pointed out in another sub-thread, 2^n means that the 20th extra vote you buy would cost 1,000,000 times as much as the first extra vote you buy, and the 100th vote you buy would cost more money than anyone has ever or will ever have. That should pretty solidly allay concerns that the top 5% or top 1% will ever buy a majority that way, while still leaving open some interesting things that happen with a minority of 20% or higher. (Personally, I doubt that an exponential function would be necessary, though a polynomial function of higher order than quadratic might).
- xnull2guest 12y ago
  I'm not exactly sure what to say. From my point of view I've made a large number of arguments and points that haven't been addressed - and many that haven't been acknowledged at all...