[liberationtech] Flaming on the List? vs. Information Theory's application to the Social Decision Process.!

[Rohan Dixit]

hey Peter,

yes- ((n^2)/2 - n) = n(n-1)/2. I'm still struck by the fact that the
resulting network, cycles or no, looks a lot like a *directed graph* or
directed network from "graph theory".

The assumption is that cycles imply "irrationality" or some other flaw in
the voting paradigm. But I'm pointing out, being a newcomer to this field,
that could be interpreted as a directed network, similar to a social network
a la Twitter. Each politician is then like a node in Twitter network, where
her "followers" are politicians preferred less in binary rankings by voters,
and those she "follows" are politicians preferred more. Analyzing this
network for in-degree hubs and community groupings could lead us to
automatically determine seniority (as is currently doled out by, for
example, membership and rank on important Congressional sub-committees) and
"real" party affiliation as we normally view in terms of
"Democratic/Republican", for example.

Maybe you can explain your paper more conversationally here given the
context of the above ideas. Thank you

R

On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 4:30 PM, Peter Lindener <lindener.peter at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hi
>     Rohan -
>
>     You mention (n^2/2 - n) ... I gather you ment (n^2/2 - n/2) =
> n(N-1)/2..
> In any case,   Ive figured out how to keep the computational loading
> associated with Ranked Choice Ballot Tallying such that n is the number of
> candidates (policy alternatives), mentioned on each voters ballot, no the
> total number of alternatives being Tallyed...
>
>    In a 32bit address machine, memory space will permit tallying an
> alternative space of aprox 16K ( often leaf nodes of a document version
> system )...  64 bit machines would possibly permit larger choice spaces....
> So while Memory requirements grow
> as you mention by the square,   Tallying computations can still be
> contained quite well over effectively wide open choice spaces....   I will
> cover more of how to do this
> in a practical system later.
>
>    _peter
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 12:34 PM, Rohan Dixit <rohandixit86 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> hey Peter,
>>
>> Thanks for posting your paper- I am currently reading it through. The
>> pair-wise ranking rapidly gets to be a lot of comparisons (as the number of
>> comparisons increases linearly, the number of needed rankings increases as
>> (n^2/2 - n)). But it's interesting especially in that the result is a
>> "directed" network (or graph) for every *election*, with an edge leading
>> from one candidate to another if the voters preferred that candidate over
>> his competitor. Can detailed network structure like that be used to, say,
>> organize the U.S. congress pecking order of committee chairs and seniority?
>>
>> I'm pretty new to voting methodologies and, as I'm sure many would agree,
>> it's an interesting topic that deserves more scrutiny. Regarding the
>> Anonymous posting/flame, I'll just say: It takes only a few bad apples to
>> sour the punch, and it would be a shame to allow the equivalent to occur on
>> this list-serve-- it's the source of a lot of great crosspollination of
>> ideas and often diametrically opposed viewpoints. Stick around.
>>
>> Cheers
>> Rohan
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 2:36 PM, Peter Lindener <lindener.peter at gmail.com
>> > wrote:
>>
>>>    Dear fellow Lib-Techys -
>>>
>>>     I don't want place a damper on robust discussion of real issues
>>> regarding the critical need for transparency of Government from a more
>>> Information Theoretic point of view.... That is.. If government is to be
>>> effectively regulated, It kind of goes with out saying that the true nature
>>> of that government, by necessity would need to be properly visible to those
>>> who are doing the regulation.
>>>
>>>    Then, Stanford tends to be a place where fairly bright people, tend to
>>> cover topics in more thoughtful ways.... and the "On Anonymous" thread
>>> seems to be a bit more charged than truly leaves me feeling
>>> comfortable.....
>>>
>>>   The topic I bring to this thread, The nature of Information Theory's
>>> relationship to the very definition of genuin democracy, and the Internet
>>> era ramifications,  Is in deed (for some) a seemingly charged topic.....
>>> mostly because it promises to profoundly reshape our socio-political
>>> landscape.  On the other hand, It is the intelect, and inclination towards
>>> very thoughtful, mutually respecting discussion that is apt to be the reason
>>> most all of us have subscribed to this list.
>>>
>>>    My own preference is that if there is a conflict going on between
>>> someone on the list and "Anonymous", that dragging the conflict into
>>> Stanford's more thoughtful community for discussion should be done with
>>> hesitation....   I value the possibility that those choosing to think more
>>> deeply about how Information as well as Game theory may come to profoundly
>>> shape our world in the internet era,  Thus I feel it would be a true shame
>>> for this list to instead be taken over by those who would might just be
>>> wanting to flame about there already established conflict on the web..
>>>
>>>    Did any one see my Intro titled "Lib-tech list Intro, Information
>>> Theoretic Democracy..."
>>> I tend to be a bit dryer in my analysis of things....  prioritization of
>>> edges in cyclical ranked pairwise majority's,   probability density
>>> functions representing Voter uncertainty over wide open Ranked Choice spaces
>>> resolved from crowed sourced distillation process of the very best
>>> thinking...and the like.
>>>
>>> I cherish the privilege of also enjoying and being part of Stanford's
>>> intellectual community.
>>>     It would be great if someone were to respond with some sense of a
>>> welcome response.
>>>
>>>     -Peter
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
>
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