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Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2007 14:19:24 -0400 (EDT)
To: bethany soule <bsoule &AElig gmail.com>
cc: improvetheworld &AElig umich.edu
From: Daniel Reeves <dreeves &AElig umich.edu>
Subject: Re: candidate calculator

> I'll endorse the endorsement pact. We can be like our own little
> electoral college. Sorta.

Awesome, thanks Bethany!

Also, on second thought, even if you're a Bush supporter and you know 
you're throwing your vote away by joining the pact you'll still in 
expectation convert more than one non pact member in your futile attempt 
to sway the endorsement.  Sure, you could make the futile attempt without 
being in the pact, but surely the anguished tone of "please don't make me 
vote for Hillary" will win you one additional convert, not to mention your 
greater motivation to engage in the debate at all.

And if you're *not* a Bush supporter I really don't see what's holding you 
back!

The original proposal is below.


>>>> I want to clarify my Official Endorsement proposal. True that the debate
>>>> will be plenty vigorous without this pact. The value is that the
>>>> endorsement itself will be more meaningful the more people participate in
>>>> the pact.
>>>>
>>>> Consider it decision-theoretically:
>>>>  With the endorsement pact there's some probability you'll have to vote for
>>>> the wrong person (in your view), but even then you'll probably have
>>>> convinced a couple people of your side in the process (and just one such
>>>> conversion breaks even).
>>>>  There's also some probability you'll vote for the right person, and also
>>>> have the official endorsement more meaningfully backing you and that you
>>>> can point people to. That stuff spreads around the meme-o/blog-o-sphere and
>>>> has a (small) chance of really mattering.  Compared to the chance of your
>>>> own vote mattering, it's a no-brainer.
>>>>
>>>> In other words, your participation in the pact strengthens the impact of
>>>> the endorsement and, even factoring in the risk that the endorsement goes
>>>> the wrong way, it's a greater expected benefit than your voting sovereignty
>>>> is.
>>>>
>>>> QED
>>>>
>>>> And it really can't hurt the debate either. Voting against my own
>>>> preference would be distinctly unpalatable and as such I would be
>>>> incentivized to argue my case a bit more carefully, to get the group
>>>> consensus in line with my opinion.  And this too contributes to making the
>>>> endorsement that much more meaningful.
>>>>
>>>> It's all about ideas, which spread, and influence, which snowballs. Your
>>>> own vote is simply inconsequential.  (But you still should feel ethically
>>>> bound to cast it, otherwise the whole system doesn't work.)
>>>>
>>>> (Another aside: the way to fix the 2-party system is with a different
>>>> voting mechanism, like yootling.  Just kidding (mostly).  Like Approval
>>>> Voting, Instant-Runoff Voting, Borda Count, or Range Voting.  Approval
>>>> Voting is simplest.  Just vote for as many candidates as you like. Still
>>>> one ballot per person but now if you want to vote "anyone but Bush", do it.
>>>> You can now vote for a 3rd-party candidate without wasting your vote.)
>>>>
>>>> (And speaking of endorsement pacts, the rabid supporters of the different
>>>> alternative voting schemes all agree that any one of these alternatives is
>>>> better than the brain-dead 2-party-supporting plurality voting system we
>>>> now use.  If they would just agree to pick one and all get behind it,
>>>> they'd have a better chance of changing the system.)

ORIGINAL PROPOSAL:

I have a radical idea.  Let's, through some democratic process, agree on
an official ImproveTheWorld endorsement of one candidate.  (That wasn't
the radical part.)  If we do that, I hereby promise to vote for that
candidate, regardless of whether I want to.  Why?  Because the truth is
that who you publicly support matters much more than who you actually vote
for. Committing myself to vote for whoever the ImproveTheWorld Endorsement
is means I have to argue persuasively for my favorite candidate.

So, I'm committed.  Anyone else?

-- 
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/dreeves  - -  search://"Daniel Reeves"