Interesting Links for 18-1-2011

[andrewducker]

• Cigarettes and alcohol responsible for 80% of the difference in longevity between genders
  (tags: health smoking gender_equality alcohol uk europe)
• How complicated is the Alternative Vote?
  (tags: voting av visualization)
• Head of RBS agrees that many investment bankers are paid too much.
  (tags: banking rbs pay uk)
• Nick Clegg promises 'properly flexible' system of parental leave
  (tags: parenting children government uk)
• iPhone v Android debate 'not important'
  (tags: android iphone mobile technology funny)

Comments

[matgb]

The problem with the flowchart is it assumes people actually think througu preferences.

Some don't, ever. Expressive voters that pick their party or candidate and vote for that one regardless. Many of them vote for one of the top two, so won't be swayed by that sort of argument.

It's good, but the first step assumes people actually make preferential choices.

[andrewducker]

If people didn't care about the order then there wouldn't currently be any tactical voting, and political parties wouldn't bother to advertise, because everyone's minds would already be made up.

I'm sure there are some people who are intensely tribal, but I think a lot of people have reasonably nuanced opinions.

[matgb]

This is the problem though.

A chunk of people always vote tactically, or will consider it given circumstances (I've done it more than once).

Another, large, chunk of people, won't, at all. It's impossible to measure it, but it looks like about a third of voters vote expressively, always.

Another third or so pretty much vote tactically, the rest sometimes do so on a case by case basis.

Old post I made--thank god for the web archive
Voting TaKtiX: Tactical Voting: Myths and reality

[andrewducker]

Absolutely. But that's 2/3 of people who this graph applies to.

And some of them will hopefully appreciate that AV will lead people to vote for their party more. Or that they'll be able to use a second vote if their party isn't going to win.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

In a previous post, the complexity of a voting system was measured by how easily you can work out the outcome given the votes. Now that's changed to working out how to vote. I think this newer measure is the right one, and I think that to do well on it, a voting system needs to not have properties like "moving a candidate from first to last on your ballot can cause them to win where they would otherwise have lost".

[marrog.livejournal.com]

John Cleese's wee vid for the SDP/Liberal alliance back in the day took this approach - the "You rank your preferred candidates, we do the rest."

I think maybe it falls foul of the average-person-on-the-street's desire to look like they know what they're talking about, and general distrust of complicated maths they don't get.

That being said I just don't understand why instant run-off is so hard to get.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Again, I'd be interested to know if anyone's tried to gather evidence on how people trade off "knowing how to vote" vs "understanding how the whole system works"...

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Hard to say, largely because Brits have never had to handle a system they didn't understand - or at least couldn't pretend they did. The general attitude I've seen is, "It may be rubbish but at least I know the tactics for trying to get it to do what I want." This is anecdotal of course - who knows what some actual research would find?

My feeling is that the attitude is that tactical voting is a sad reality with FPTP - people are used to it and because the system is so shitty and broken, it's also easy to play. AV is harder because there are tactics to making AV do what you want, but they're much more complicated and subtle. That puts playing the system out of the reach of the average voter - at least for a while, and that isn't going to go down well.

I guess what it boils down to is: if you don't understand a system, how can you trust that it's actually fair, even if you know how to vote on it?

[andlosers.livejournal.com]

That first link is one of the most reassuring things I've seen in a long time.

[andrewducker]

You and me both. Especially as a non-smoker who rarely drinks much!

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

currently having a People vs Apple debate on _that other place_

and rapidly coming to conclude that, indeed, it doesn't matter in the slightest.
what *does* surprise me is that while I'm pro-competition and not anti-Android, there is a lot of anti-Apple sentiment, some of it amounting to genuine anger.
Strange how Apple invokes an emotional response, whereas Android in particular seems to be a purely practical choice.


-----
I, too, am mightily happy that I don't smoke or drink.

[andrewducker]

Yeah - people get very emotional about some things, and Apple versus whoever tends to be one of the big ones.