Comments on: The $10 billion voter

By: Best Computer Science Blogs of 2012

Best Computer Science Blogs of 2012 — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 22:02:06 +0000

[...] to Begin: Check out The $10 Billion Voter for an extended technical argument in favor of the concept that it is rational for citizens to vote [...]

By: asdf

asdf — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 01:45:47 +0000

Florida strikes again — we’re seeing something like Bush v. Gore 2000 playing out in the Allen West vs. Patrick Murphy congressional election in Florida’s 18th district. Anyone interested can websearch for details so I’ll skip them.

By: Jay

Jay — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 00:42:12 +0000

ain´t over till it´s over

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/11/13/woman-runs-down-husband-because-he-failed-to-vote-and-let-obama-to-win/

By: Jay

Jay — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 21:54:59 +0000

Scott, now the party is over, could you explain the PCP theorem and its consequences? More specifically, I do not understand why it has not been used to verify mathematical proofs as the four-color theorem, and why it is so useful for studying approximation problems?

By: Sudip

Sudip — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 01:41:00 +0000

Concerning the expected profit calculation, I think that the $600,000 should be divided by 300 million to come to a per capita figure. Then it gets totally beaten by the $20 that I can save by not voting.

By: Wanda Tinasky

Wanda Tinasky — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 01:09:59 +0000

Great, so you’re arguing that voting is rational if you have the ABILITY TO PERFECTLY PREDICT THE FUTURE. In which case I would argue that your opportunity cost for driving to the voting both goes up drastically since what you should really be doing is forming an optimal stock-trading strategy based on prescience.

The true justification for not voting is:

1) I have no idea what a candidate would really do once elected. Campaign promises are always vague and politicians are all professional liars anyway.

2) Even if I _did_ know what a candidate would do I have little-to-no ability to predict the long-term consequences of those actions. (Is raising taxes the answer? Is cutting spending the answer? Not even trained economists agree). You may view this as a corollary to Rice’s Theorem.

The purpose of voting is to inject randomness into the system and to keep the obvious wackos out.

By: John Sidles

John Sidles — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 20:56:34 +0000

A concise and well-reviewed summary of lessons-learned regarding health-care, that has acquired increasing relevance in light of the election result, is Herzlinger and Parsa-Parsi Consumer-driven health care: lessons from Switzerland (2007). Conclusion At least some paths-forward for the evolution of Romney/Obamacare may be acceptable to conservatives and progressives alike.

By: Kenneth W. Regan

Kenneth W. Regan — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 18:38:14 +0000

Ad "asdf": Arguably right, but the number is still highly symbolic. The real number that would have headed off the ability to keep any partial count showing Gore ahead off the board would have been about 800 extra in the initial automatically mandated machine recount. Incidentally, I was active in 538.com threads during the 2008-09 MN Franken-Coleman recount. The Star-Tribune kept a running tally, but did not include ballots challenged by the other side, which made an incentive to challenge more to prevent its ever showing the other guy ahead. From initial results and some geography I worked out the respective rates at which each side was making challenges that were unlikely to be successful, and thus projected a "true" total. I publicly projected Franken ahead in January and was within 50 of the final margin. Blovious lawyering shamefully delayed the resolution to June, but at least I have that experience of it not altering the numbers (on optical ballots, mind you). Most topical "Nate Silver Fact" here by Jacobo Tarrio: "Nate Silver knows the position AND the speed." (Read "momentum" for "speed":-)

By: lylebot

lylebot — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 13:33:45 +0000

I hope Michael Brazier will return to explain why he thought the party affiliation numbers reported by polls, and the turnout predicted by polls, were “completely crazy”. And also to tell us whether he’s changed his mind now.

By: darfferrara

darfferrara — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 01:47:18 +0000

I don’t disagree with the cost estimate you provide, but you do assume away the problem of knowing who the ‘costly’ candidate is a priori. It reminds me of a quote attibuted to William F Buckley, “They told me if I voted for Goldwater, he would get us into a war in Vietnam. Well, I voted for Goldwater and that’s exactly what happened.”

I believe that Peter Shor is working on a quantum algorithm that will solve this problem though. Unfortunately, it requires quantum hardware that supports ten qubits, so it will be a long time before it is practical