Author Topic: Quadratic Voting  (Read 2349 times)

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Offline Spracne

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Quadratic Voting
« on: January 05, 2015, 09:07:06 PM »
Have you heard of it?  It has been called "the most important idea for law and public policy that has emerged from economics in (at least) the last ten years" (by one of the co-authors).  Still, in my view, quadratic voting is a procedure that a group of people can use to jointly choose a collective good for themselves. Each person can buy votes for or against a proposal by paying into a fund the square of the number of votes that he or she buys. The money is then returned to voters on a per capita basis. The collective decision rapidly approximates efficiency as the number of voters increases. By contrast, no extant voting procedure is efficient. Majority rule based on one-person-one-vote notoriously results in tyranny of the majority–a large number of people who care only a little about an outcome prevail over a minority that cares passionately, resulting in a reduction of aggregate welfare.

The applications to law and public policy are too numerous to count. In many areas of the law, we rely on highly imperfect voting systems (corporate governance, bankruptcy) that are inferior to quadratic voting. In other areas of the law, we require judges or bureaucrats to make valuations while knowing they are not in any position to do so (environmental regulation, eminent domain). Quadratic voting can be used to supply better valuations that aggregate private information of dispersed multitudes. But the most important setting is democracy itself. An incredibly complicated system of institutional self-checking (separation of powers, federalism) and judicially enforced constitutional rights try to correct for the defects of one-person-one-vote, but do so very badly. Can quadratic voting do better? Decide for yourself:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2396159_code249436.pdf?abstractid=2343956&mirid=1 <-- not a virus (free .pdf download of full article [.pdf does not contain viruses])


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Offline puniraptor

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Re: Quadratic Voting
« Reply #1 on: January 05, 2015, 09:10:48 PM »
What can I get for ten dollars?

Offline star seed 7

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Re: Quadratic Voting
« Reply #2 on: January 05, 2015, 09:11:10 PM »
Sounds like a terrible idea
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Re: Quadratic Voting
« Reply #3 on: January 05, 2015, 09:12:04 PM »
Pretty good idea for like American Idol or something like that tho
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Offline Spracne

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Re: Quadratic Voting
« Reply #4 on: January 05, 2015, 09:12:33 PM »
Sounds like a terrible idea

Damn, it took me like 30 minutes to read all 58 pages.

Offline _33

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Re: Quadratic Voting
« Reply #5 on: January 05, 2015, 09:14:26 PM »
It sounds interesting.  Although I'd like to know some details first.  Like for starters, what is it even talking about and what is it exactly because I have no idea.

Offline SdK

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Re: Quadratic Voting
« Reply #6 on: January 05, 2015, 09:14:37 PM »
I'm in.

#TheWesIsTheFuture


Offline star seed 7

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Re: Quadratic Voting
« Reply #7 on: January 05, 2015, 09:17:44 PM »
I had someone else read it for me and post the most relevant information #delegation
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Offline wetwillie

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Re: Quadratic Voting
« Reply #8 on: January 05, 2015, 09:38:05 PM »
What was the most important idea in law and politics inspired by economics 11 years ago?
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Offline bones129

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Re: Quadratic Voting
« Reply #9 on: January 05, 2015, 09:43:42 PM »
Sounds like a terrible idea

Damn, it took me like 30 minutes to read all 58 pages.

Is there a Cliff's Notes version? Executive summary?

Offline Kat Kid

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Re: Quadratic Voting
« Reply #10 on: January 05, 2015, 09:44:46 PM »
meh, I'd probably vote against it.  Don't really care though.

Offline Spracne

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Re: Quadratic Voting
« Reply #11 on: January 05, 2015, 09:47:18 PM »
It sounds interesting.  Although I'd like to know some details first.  Like for starters, what is it even talking about and what is it exactly because I have no idea.

It is an alternative to one-person-one-vote systems, be they corporate shareholders or voters in a local, state or general election.  The idea is that social welfare is not adequately promoted when the votes of a person who cares passionately about (and is disproportionately affected by) a proposal and a person who is pretty ambivalent about a proposal are counted as equal.  For example, 2 votes cost $4, 3 votes cost $9, 4 votes cost $16 and so on.  As the number of votes purchased increases, the marginal cost of each vote increases.  For example, for a person purchasing 1,000 votes, the 1,000th vote would cost a whopping $1,999, whereas a 2nd vote costs $3 and a 3rd $5.  Quadratic voting allows a person to clearly demonstrate her level of enthusiasm regarding an issue, and it allows a governing body to more clearly understand the collective desires of a population.  The funds are then redistributed back to the voters on a per capita basis, meaning a person who only spent $1 on votes receives the same share as a person who spent $1,000,000.

Offline star seed 7

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Re: Quadratic Voting
« Reply #12 on: January 05, 2015, 09:49:52 PM »
You can only be passionate if you are rich tho, great system  :jerk:
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Offline wetwillie

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Re: Quadratic Voting
« Reply #13 on: January 05, 2015, 09:54:44 PM »
Who holds the money in escrow
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Offline Spracne

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Re: Quadratic Voting
« Reply #14 on: January 05, 2015, 10:01:23 PM »
You can only be passionate if you are rich tho, great system  :jerk:

That was my initial reaction as well, but then I decided to apply a level of consideration consistent with an individual in possession of the proper number and quality of chromosomal pairs and realized that that would not be the outcome at all.

Offline Spracne

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Re: Quadratic Voting
« Reply #15 on: January 05, 2015, 10:07:18 PM »
You can only be passionate if you are rich tho, great system  :jerk:

That was my initial reaction as well, but then I decided to apply a level of consideration consistent with an individual in possession of the proper number and quality of chromosomal pairs and realized that that would not be the outcome at all.

I mean, 50,000 votes would cost $2,500,000,000.  How much do you think it costs to influence 50,000 votes, currently?  Far far less, and I think you would agree.  Jesus Christ, lib^7, exactly how many chromosomes are you lugging around?

Offline star seed 7

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Re: Quadratic Voting
« Reply #16 on: January 05, 2015, 10:17:37 PM »
It might even out eventually I suppose, but the very idea of buying votes with money is sickening. If instead this was some sort of system based on an even # of "pionts", like the creation of a video game character, I might get behind that. For example, a ballot with ten yes/no issues and you get 10 points to distribute how you want. You can put all ten on what you value the most, or spread them out if that's what you want, but everyone gets the same points.

My aversion is strictly for public elections though, I could see this being useful in other situations
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Re: Quadratic Voting
« Reply #17 on: January 05, 2015, 10:20:58 PM »
50k votes can buy a presidential election in some cycles if placed in the right place

*edit*
Mocated the math up here and read that as 2.5 billion  :blush:
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Offline star seed 7

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Re: Quadratic Voting
« Reply #18 on: January 05, 2015, 10:22:24 PM »
You can only be passionate if you are rich tho, great system  :jerk:

That was my initial reaction as well, but then I decided to apply a level of consideration consistent with an individual in possession of the proper number and quality of chromosomal pairs and realized that that would not be the outcome at all.

I mean, 50,000 votes would cost $2,500,000,000.  How much do you think it costs to influence 50,000 votes, currently?  Far far less, and I think you would agree.  Jesus Christ, lib^7, exactly how many chromosomes are you lugging around?

Yup, the solution would be to force more money into politics!
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Offline Spracne

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Re: Quadratic Voting
« Reply #19 on: January 05, 2015, 10:28:30 PM »
You can only be passionate if you are rich tho, great system  :jerk:

That was my initial reaction as well, but then I decided to apply a level of consideration consistent with an individual in possession of the proper number and quality of chromosomal pairs and realized that that would not be the outcome at all.

I mean, 50,000 votes would cost $2,500,000,000.  How much do you think it costs to influence 50,000 votes, currently?  Far far less, and I think you would agree.  Jesus Christ, lib^7, exactly how many chromosomes are you lugging around?

Yup, the solution would be to force more money into politics!

There would be a market clearing effect, true, true true.  Those of us who live in Realville accept the fact that money influences elections.  However, this system actually gives the less-capitalized entities more power than the current system.  1,000,000 voters who spend $9 each generate 3,000,000 votes.  Just now I tried to calculate how much money an evil corporation would have to spend to equal that number of votes, and my brain turned into a vat of spaghetti-0s.

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Re: Quadratic Voting
« Reply #20 on: January 05, 2015, 10:30:13 PM »
What was the most important idea in law and politics inspired by economics 11 years ago?

Cox and McCubbins: Setting the Agenda was published in 2004. The study did a lot to change the way people looked at the party.

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Re: Quadratic Voting
« Reply #21 on: January 05, 2015, 10:40:10 PM »
i wrote a program for this on my TI-83 plus silver edition in middle school, i dont have the transfer cable anymore if you want it tho

Offline star seed 7

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Re: Quadratic Voting
« Reply #22 on: January 05, 2015, 11:09:36 PM »
Good point Spracne! I still don't like it. What else Ya got?
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Offline Fldermaus

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Re: Quadratic Voting
« Reply #23 on: January 06, 2015, 07:36:33 AM »

"There was the educated Texan from Texas who looked like someone in Technicolor and felt, patriotically, that people of means – decent folk – should be given more votes than drifters, whores, criminals, degenerates, atheists and indecent folk – people without means."  Joseph Heller (Catch-22)

Offline puniraptor

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Re: Quadratic Voting
« Reply #24 on: January 06, 2015, 07:56:30 AM »
a rich person who cared could give many similar minded people money to vote thus increasing his votes without paying the quadratic costs