Jonathan B

• Jonathan B 14 Dec 2024 0:29 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  on: What small change in your self talk would make the world a bet­ter place if oth­ers adopted it too?

  But saying I prefer not to smoke helped me quit.

  Now I’m simply not a smoker.

  I’m trying to read Atomic Habits and it has a similar concept:

  Imagine two people resisting a cigarette. When offered a smoke, the first person says, “No thanks. I’m trying to quit.” It sounds like a reasonable response, but this person still believes they are a smoker who is trying to be something else. They are hoping their behavior will change while carrying around the same beliefs.
  
  The second person declines by saying, “No thanks. I’m not a smoker.” It’s a small difference, but this statement signals a shift in identity. Smoking was part of their former life, not their current one. They no longer identify as someone who smokes.
  
  Most people don’t even consider identity change when they set out to improve. They just think, “I want to be skinny (outcome) and if I stick to this diet, then I’ll be skinny (process).” They set goals and determine the actions they should take to achieve those goals without considering the beliefs that drive their actions. They never shift the way they look at themselves, and they don’t realize that their old identity can sabotage their new plans for change.

• Jonathan B 21 Nov 2024 21:29 UTC

  4 points

  1 ∶ 1

  in reply to: Dan Wahl’s comment on: Dona­tion Elec­tion Dis­cus­sion Thread

  Yes, the Instant-Runoff/​Hare form of RCV is a broken system that elects candidates based on incomplete information, which means it can eliminate the most-preferred candidates through vote-splitting.

  There are other ranked systems that are good, like Total Vote Runoff or Ranked Robin, but in an election like this with many candidates, it can be tedious to rank every one.

  A score-based ballot is probably a better choice, with less cognitive burden. (Though STAR is specifically designed for single-winner elections, not 3-winner elections. I’m not sure how well it performs in strategy-resistance in the multi-winner case. They have a proportional multi-winner variant, too.)

• Jonathan B 21 Nov 2024 20:51 UTC

  −4 points

  2 ∶ 1

  on: Dona­tion Elec­tion: How to vote

  The system for adding up the votes is very similar to the ranked choice/​instant runoff system that is used in some political elections

  Ugh, why?? This is an undemocratic voting system that suffers from vote-splitting. EAs should know better than to perpetuate this junk.

  If you want to eliminate candidates one-by-one in rounds, then eliminate them based on their total ranking, rather than counting only first-choice rankings and choosing a winner based on incomplete information.

  Alternatively, calculate a single-elimination bracket or round robin tournament.

  Any of these will ensure that the most-preferred candidates don’t get eliminated through vote-splitting.

  Please don’t give people the impression that IRV is a legitimate voting method. Election reform is supposed to be an EA cause area. Do good research and be a good example.

  What’s allowed

  • Tactical voting: Your vote doesn’t have to represent your true preference order. Perhaps you see that the candidate that is currently in 3rd place seems a lot worse to you than the candidate that is in 4th. In that case, you are free to change your vote to put the 4th place candidate in 1st (even if they wouldn’t be your top choice).

  You’re encouraging tactical voting? In an election with real money? Why?

• Jonathan B 30 Dec 2023 16:19 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Lizka’s comment on: Win­ners in the Fo­rum’s Dona­tion Elec­tion (2023)

  There are many different voting methods that use ranked ballots, and it’s frustrating that one of the worst gets all the attention, and is considered synonymous with the term “ranked choice voting”.

  Do the ranked ballots produce a Condorcet winner? A strict Condorcet ranking of the rest?

• Jonathan B 5 Dec 2023 15:52 UTC

  −2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Dona­tion Elec­tion: how vot­ing will work

  Note: this system is subject to change in the next week (I’m adding this provision in case someone finds obvious improvements or fundamental issues).

  Is there a name for this voting system? Has it been studied before?

  (Why does every important real-world election end up using ad-hoc voting systems invented by non-experts, while all the thoroughly-studied and high-quality vetted voting systems molder away in academic papers? 🤦)

  There is a whole field of research dedicated to this topic, and it’s ostensibly a branch of EA. Why not use a system that’s been studied and proven to have good properties?

  “Classical ranked-choice voting” is a pretty poor voting system, suffering from vote-splitting, spoiler effect, center-squeeze effect, etc. so I’m skeptical of anything based on it. The use of cardinal ratings and summing all voters’ ratings simultaneously probably makes yours better, making it more similar to Baldwin’s Method, for instance, but does the normalization step cause any similar problems?

  Also, what’s the point of limiting to 3 winners? Why not just distribute the donations proportionally?

• Jonathan B 21 Aug 2023 19:56 UTC

  4 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Daniel_Eth’s comment on: Trans­form­ing Democ­racy: A Unique Fund­ing Op­por­tu­nity for US Fed­eral Ap­proval Voting

  some approval voting in the past has had top-2 runoff

  https://​​en.wikipedia.org/​​wiki/​​Unified_primary

• Jonathan B 17 Aug 2023 16:46 UTC

  9 points

  2 ∶ 0

  on: Thoughts on far-UVC af­ter work­ing in the field for 8 months

  Forgive me if this is a dumb question, but … can’t you just shine the light in places where it won’t hit people? A wash of light that passes over people’s heads, between their cubicles, across vents and doors, but not shining directly on their skin and eyes? Presumably with a dark absorber at the other end. But it’s light; it goes in straight lines.