• silliewous@feddit.nl
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    7 months ago

    Situation A you vote for 3rd party

    • candidate T gets t votes
    • candidate B gets b-1 votes
    • candidate 3 gets 1 vote

    candidate 3 loses for sure winner is biggest of ‘t’ and ‘b-1’. Which we can rewrite as biggest of ‘t+1’ and ‘b’

    Where is my money?!

      • Zuberi 👀@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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        7 months ago

        The insane fact that you genuinely thought his math worked out correctly.

        Although, the US is generically the worst “first” world country in maths so I guess this is to be expected…

        • Tartas1995@discuss.tchncs.de
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          7 months ago

          The argument is quite simple while it carries an assumption.

          If you have 3 options, and depending on how you want to frame it, one is outlandish or the other 2 are simplify more similar. You have following issue.

          In this example A and B are similar and C is the outlandish one.

          Let’s say: A has 15 votes, B has 3 and C has 17 votes.

          Then C wins while it would be reasonable to assume that B voters would have chosen A over C, as A is more similar to B than C. So now the A and B voters get together and talk about the situation. A voters argue that A had historically far better results than B and B voters should have expected A to get more votes than B, and as B voters prefer A over C, B voters risk that C wins as A is missing the votes from B voters. So while not voting for C, B voters voted in a way that is unlikely to result in B winning, while hurting A winning chances as they didn’t vote for A, which results in C requiring less votes to win and could help C in winning

          So in other words, if not C, is a shared interest of A and B, voting B is expected to reduce the amount of required votes for C.

          If C needs 18 votes and a “not C” voter votes B, A cann’t reach 18 anymore, ofc B can reach 18 but historically B never got close, so effectively C requires 1 less additional vote to win, just like when someone would have voted c.

          • Zuberi 👀@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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            7 months ago

            You seem to not understand that assumptions are not how math proofs work mate.

            Again, where is his total +1 exactly?

            • Tartas1995@discuss.tchncs.de
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              7 months ago

              Math works with assumptions all the time. Math itself is based on assumptions. Logic is based on assumptions.

              And I have explained that going from 10/20 to 11/20 or 10/19 is functionally the same as in both cases, the person only needs 9 more. If you don’t understand that, I can’t help you

                • Tartas1995@discuss.tchncs.de
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                  7 months ago

                  In percentage/fractions, yes. As you asked about absolute numbers, it is a difference of 9 missing votes for both. I am sorry that you don’t understand that. No one taught you that, I guess.

                  But let’s say that your ridiculous goal post move is a fair critic, then let’s talk about details in the American election system. It is not a popular vote, as the electoral college decides who will be the president and the vote of the elector in the electoral college doesn’t have to follow the popular vote held in the state, while some states require them to. How many electors each state has, is based on a system that is a bit too complicated to explain here but you can Google Huntington hill method. But the result of that system is that 1 elector in Wyoming is 193.000 votes but over 700.000 in Texas and California. Which means that a single Wyoming vote is 3 times as valuable as a Texas vote. So in other words, the whole percentage thing is more complicated than just a popular vote. But you didn’t actually want to have a conversation about how valuable a vote is (assuming that the elector doesn’t ignore your popular vote which they might can) otherwise you would have pointed that out in my response.

                  And you would have known all of this, if you would actually care about the question and the elections. Like I am not even American, but even I know that little.

                  Edit: why are you dming me? You asked a public question. Why move into private one now?

                  Also in case, someone doesn’t know how he doesn’t understand how voting work and how the whole .05, .02 is moving the goal post, basically if people always case whole votes, so in a normal popular vote, if you need 9 votes, you need 9 votes. There is no practical difference between 0.5 and 0.02 in this case. People cast whole votes. Now in my response, I make clear that Wyoming are more valuable but that is only the case if you treat the system as if it was a popular vote as commonly done, both in these comments and the general public discussion. If you look on the election on a state level which is a totally reasonable thing to do as generally speaking, the statement that he asked you to prove, could have been state between to people from the same state. If you do so, then my point about the value of the vote is irrelevant but then we can talk about votes are a static value and then a vote is always a whole vote and my point about people cast whole votes apply, then we have to realize that if we save he needs 20 votes to win, that technically he doesn’t need 20 votes to win but only 19.0000000000001 votes to win but as people cast whole votes, you “can’t” get e.g. 19.32 votes. So we say 20. By reducing the required votes to win, we morph the value of a singular vote. Because A and B still needs the 20 votes to win but C only needs 19. So 1/20 is .05 but 1/19 is .052… So now we can take the .052 can create a fraction for it, that would be 1.04/20. Oh look, trump can win with 19.04 now. The difference between 0.05 and .052 is irrelevant for this situation.

    • Cyclohexane@lemmy.mlM
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      7 months ago

      Why b-1 instead of just b votes? “because the vote could’ve otherwise went to B” well it could’ve also went to T, but I don’t see you accounting for it as t-1.

      This math has a double standard.

        • Cyclohexane@lemmy.mlM
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          7 months ago

          they are also clearly not a Biden supporter. They do not support either candidate, so the two options should be treated equally.

          • WolfLink@lemmy.ml
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            6 months ago

            This is that “enlightened centrism” false equivalence.

            I honestly can’t believe that in good faith you can compare Biden and Trump as equals.

            One is a president whos platform is making minimal change.

            The other is a president whos platform is to tear down democracy and human rights.

            If you honestly can look at these two and say they are equal than I have to conclude you are at least indifferent to maintaining democracy and human rights.

            I know the “counter argument” is about Biden and Israel/Gaza, but the thing is, that’s not really up for debate because I don’t believe there’s any chance Trump would be better about Gaza.

            There are 2 options:

            • death in Gaza and status quo in the US
            • death in Gaza and loss of human rights and possibly our democracy in the US
            • Cyclohexane@lemmy.mlM
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              6 months ago

              maintaining democracy

              What definition of democracy are we using here? Just so we’re on the same page.

              I do not think trump was making a meaningful change on that level, in any case. The US never had a true people’s rule it that’s what you mean, for trump to take it away.

              Gaza is not the only issue.

            • Cyclohexane@lemmy.mlM
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              6 months ago

              maintaining democracy

              What definition of democracy are we using here? Just so we’re on the same page.

              I do not think trump was making a meaningful change on that level, in any case. The US never had a true people’s rule it that’s what you mean, for trump to take it away.

              Gaza is not the only issue.

      • Umbrias@beehaw.org
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        7 months ago

        Spoiler votes are hardly smoke or even a controversial concept. They are a natural consequence of first past the post elections.

        Star voting would solve almost all of these issues.

          • Umbrias@beehaw.org
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            7 months ago

            I’d more likely agree that it’s a cold way to put it. Hardly flowery, and hardly is someone trying to convince you to vote a certain way voter suppression. That’s just called politics. That’s like, the core conceit of an election, no less.

            If you’re going to protest vote at least be honest about what it is, “it’s not a spoiler vote, I’m just intentionally not voting for the candidate I [most likely] prefer on this candidate I know won’t win.”

    • TheLastHero [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      7 months ago

      wrong. a cast vote for candidate 3 is not a lost vote for candidate B. Furthermore variable b decreasing doesn’t increase the total of variable t so no you can’t “rewrite” it like that with magic math. This is how it works, it’s actually very simple:

      candidate T gets t votes

      candidate B gets b votes

      candidate X gets x votes

    • Zuzak [fae/faer, she/her]@hexbear.net
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      7 months ago

      Define your variables. Wtf is “b,” the number of votes candidate B would have, plus one for no reason? Why is candidate T getting t votes and not t-1 votes? Terrible math, try again.

      • AVincentInSpace@pawb.social
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        7 months ago

        What is the leftist alternative then? To not vote?

        Please tell me you’re not one of those people who believes not voting will make neither candidate win?

          • AVincentInSpace@pawb.social
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            7 months ago

            Oh, pardon me. My bad. I was engaging with your hypothetical about who you would vote for in the absence of third parties.

            Would you care to answer that?

            • Zuberi 👀@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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              7 months ago

              Completely irrelevant point my guy. There ARE 3rd parties lmao.

              The math I am asking for does not include a binary choice.

              • AVincentInSpace@pawb.social
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                7 months ago

                How many fucking times do I have to explain it?

                No one knows your chosen third party candidate exists, and unless you want to become their campaign manager that will still be true in November. Even if you did, they still wouldn’t win.

                In the last election, Biden got 50% of the popular vote, and Trump got 45%. Say for the sake of argument that if nothing else happens, 2024 will have the exact same spread. Suppose you’re the best campaign manager ever and manage to convince 2/3 of the people who would have voted for Biden, plus everyone who was going to vote third party, to vote for your candidate instead. (Given the current state of money in politics I should not need to explain why this is infeasible, but suppose it is.) Congratulations! Your candidate now has 37% of the nationwide vote. Unfortunately, that’s not good enough, because Trump’s voter base, who care not for your leftist policies, still gave 45% of the vote to him, and he wins the election.

                All voting third party instead of Biden does is make it more likely that Trump will win.

                Where’s my $100?