Todd Chritien, Greens, Choice Voting

[pavelthegeek]

Sentence long update on life: I'm at Berkeley studying Vision Science now.

I've started getting involved with the (currently small) Campus Greens organization (which meets Mondays at 7:10 in 200 Wheeler).

So today I heard Todd Chritien, Green senatorial candidate speak to a group of about 30 as part of the ASUC Speaker Series. Todd titled his

Comments

IRV

[hydroai]

While pretty much any other voting system is better than the one we have, I think just reducing people's choice down to whether they want IRV or what they currently have oversimplifies things. Who chose IRV as the voting method that should be promoted? Is it simply because it has a good sounding name? It seems to me after much investigation that IRV is not the best of alternative voting methods -- it violates monotonicity, which to me seems like it's pretty important property (and yes, I'm aware of Arrow's Theorem). I haven't really studied voting method statistics all that much, but one quote I saw while browsing the internet (unfortunately I forget where) was something like "IRV makes me feel better if I vote for Nader above Gore even though Gore needs the vote more." This isn't to say that I'm against IRV, since it's better than what we have, but it does leave me wondering who decided that IRV should be the alternative choice.

[hajenso]

Thanks Paul(vel). This post is making me reconsider the way I talk and think about some things.

} kenji

i was thinking about the same thing last night...

[anonymous]

I've never understood why believing in something comes with "baggage". Baggage that requires you to be crazy and piss people off (as well as mention a conspiracy theory or two) to have progressive beliefs. It’s not a fad or a style; you can be calm and reasonable when trying to get your ideas across. Some of the people speaking for the Greens just don't get it. The only thing that keeps me going is that I like the ideas and the Greens aren't one big monotonous blob. Like I said, a little bit of internal struggle is healthy for any organization to thrive. Hopefully more people will question the way Green ideas are espoused.

And he had to mention Hitler didn't he? That doesn’t make him sound crazy or anything.

[crystalridge]

Hi Paul,

Unlike your more politically informed commentors, I don't have anything to say about the content of this post. However, I was very impressed with this line : Most of my life I, too, have been a big ideas person, but I can't say I've accomplished much with them, which is why I'm trying something new. It made me realize that I have a lot of respect for you and for the way you can constructively learn from your experiences.

-Julia