Electoral College II

 
Alma Mater

Alma Mater, we hail thee
With loyal devotion
And bring to thine altar
Our off 'ring of praise

We love our college, but do we love the Electoral College?

The Electoral College was created  because the Slave States wanted to include slaves among the population that determines federal voting strength, but still wanted to control the vote of their slaves. The compromise was that federal voting strength was based an enslaved person being counted as 3/5 of a person, and the establishment of the Electoral College. Given that history, and the fact that slavery was abolished, does the  Electoral College serve any purpose today?

The Electoral College is also a reminder that the winner of a Presidential election also represents those states from which the winning candidate for President received no votes.The President represents not only all of the people, but he must represent ALL of the States as well. A President needs to be backed not only by a plurality of voters, but by a plurality of States as well.

The Electoral College membership is set as equal to the number of Congressional (House and Senate) seats,  plus a few electoral votes for federal districts and territories. It is arguable that the number of seats in the House, the largest share of Electoral College votes is out of whack, but that is a different matter and can and should be solved by a different process. https://dbeagan.blogspot.com/2024/04/zero-sum.html. 

The problem is the size of the Electoral College, not the College itself.  Arguably, the Electoral College still serves a purpose and let us  bring "our off'ring of praise", and not call for its abolishment. 

Election 2024

 

Centerfield

Oh, put me in, coach

I'm ready to play today

Put me in, coach

I'm ready to play today

Look at me, I can be centerfield

How does a coach decide who will play?

It has been said that over a baseball season you will win 1/3 of your games and lose 1/3 of your games and it is what happens in that remaining 1/3 that determines the success of your season. In a season of 162 games, then you should lose no more than 2/3 of 162, or 108 games. Tell that to the 2024 Chicago White Sox! This statement should be in REGULATION games, those NOT going to extra innings, you will win 1/3, etc. Losses in extra innings only prove the point and tie breakers should be deducted from the total of 162 games played.

The reason is that there are three outcomes to every game win, loss, AND tie. The games that end in a tie after regulation are NOT being counted as ties. It is the same in any contest such as an election, but in elections policies AND character are being considered. 2/3 will chose policy, and 1/3 will chose character as the tie breaker because they can’t decide on policy alone. There are those elections that are only about policies. Arguably the 1972 election of Richard Nixon vs, George McGovern was on policy ( Nixon’s character was not widely known until AFTER the election.)  And the 1964 election of Lyndon Johnson vs, Barry Goldwater was on character. This means that unless the opinion on policies and character changed between 1964 and 1972, that 60% of the population prefer Republican policies and 60% of the voters will choose on character.

If we start with the premise that 2/3 will choose Republican policies, then that means that the Republican base is 60% of the 2/3 electorate. Similarly 40% of 2.3 of the electorate will chose Democrat policies. This means that one-third will of the voters will be unwilling or unable to decide on policies alone and will revert to character as a tiebreaker. If 60% of those voters think that Kamala Harris has the better character, then she  should receive 60% of that 1/3, or an additional 19.8%, for a total of 52.8% while  Donald Trump will only receive 40% of that 1/3 or an additional 13.3% for a total of 46.2%. A larger difference than that indicates that the character is more than an 60/40 split. But it must be remembered that a Harris victory does NOT mean a victory of Democratic policies. It only means that Harris won on character.

Debates and elections are illustrative of character, not policies. How you debate is more important than what you debate. Does this mean that the election has been decided?  It might be. (Pennsylvania started early voting on Sept 11^th. November 5^th is just the finish line.) But electoral college voting strength is not the popular vote. Play ball!

Listen

 

Joy to the World

Singin' joy to the world
All the boys and girls now
Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea
Joy to you and me

Did you watch the Hariis-Trump debate last night!

James Carville was wrong. " It is the economy, stupid" only if you are concerned with policies.  But if a voter is also concerned with who is going to represent him, IT'S CHARACTER, STUPID. And I am so relieved that Kamala concentrated on her character and not her policies. 

You might chose on history, but you are counting on that history being a trend to indicate the future, because elections are about the future, not the past.  Picking only on the past is like being the MLB Yankees in their free-agent binging mode.  How has that worked out for them?  The Yankees need to remember that you play Old Timers Games before the real game, not during the real game.  When you are voting, will you remember?

Discontinuity II

 

Crossroads

I went down to the crossroads
Fell down on my knees
Down to the crossroads
Fell down on my knees
Asked the Lord above for mercy
Take me, if you please

A discontinuity is a crossroads.

I have suggested that there is a discontinuity that is formed when a function crosses its inverse. When this happens at a physical surface it is a physical discontinuity. But there are instances when it is NOT a physical discontinuity but only an apparent discontinuity.
https://dbeagan.blogspot.com/2024/09/rebound.html

At this crossroads there is the decision of  to whether to continue, or take the road which turns back, because the inverse goes in the opposite direction so one of its legs is in the direction from which the original function came. I have suggested that when this is the situation, such as occurs for example when the capacity of a road is reached, or the capacity of a water channel is reached, this crossroads is also the intersection between what is observable and that which is unobservable. At the crossroads there is the option of continuing into the unobservable or changing to the path at that takes you back to the observable. Lord, take me please into the unobservable.

Ceilings

 

One Man’s Ceiling is Another Man’s Floor

I was walking with my dogs
And the night was black with smog
When I thought I heard somebody call my name
Remember: one man's ceiling is another man's floor, goddamn
One man's ceiling is another man's floor

It’s just apartment house rules.

A Nash Equilibrium says that to ensure that 95.8% of the individuals will join the group, that 4.2% have to be blocked from achieving their User Optimal. It does not say that those 4.2% are being punished, only that they are being capped at the mean/median of the group plus two Standard Deviations. So those 4.2% are being capped at 45.8% MORE than the median. This includes anyone among that 95.8% who might have otherwise been among that 4.2%.

A minimum wage, standard deduction, earned income credit, poverty line, etc. is a floor below which individuals in the group should not be allowed to fall. In order for the group to have decent shelter, shouldn’t there also be a ceiling. A ceiling is neither good nor bad. It can prevent you from climbing, but it also can provide you with protection. A ceiling that is imposed only on a selected group, like a Glass Ceiling on women, is bad. But a ceiling that is imposed by the group, for the good of the group, as long as it applies to all members of that group, can be good.

Groups

 

United We Stand

For united we stand, divided we fall
And if our backs should ever be against the wall
We'll be together, together, you and I

We will hang together, or we will  hang separately.

Anything that increases the size of the group, unites us, is good. Anything that decreases the size of the group, divides us, is bad. This includes :

Voter suppression

The group making decisions should be as large as possible. Anything that limits voting in the group, when only voters make decisions for the group, including those excluded from voting, is bad.

Discriminatory laws or any segregation.

There always will be wards of the state. If the state is the people, then wards are the children who have not yet become the people. But excluding anyone from the group, making them wards, on the basis of race, sex, income, sexual orientation, immigration status, ethnicity, caste, etc. has the same impact as voter suppression.

Opposing Anti-trust

Monopolies (only one seller) and monopsonies (only one buyer) are bad for a reason. They decrease competition, choices, of the group. That is why mergers are looked at askance. They are a first step on the road towards monopolies/ monopsonies. 

Anti Union Activities

This includes right to work, firing union organizers, opposing the minimum wage,child labor, OHSA, etc.  The people uniting is good.  Their organizing does not make you bad.  If it offends you, but does not effect you, try to remember this is about the other guy.

Stock-buy backs

They only increase the value per existing investors, they do NOT increase the number of investors.

Market Segmentation

Market segmentation that directs advertising towards certain markets is good. It offers more choices to those markets as buyers. Market segmentation that only offers price differentiation by market when the product has no reason to be segmented, is bad.

Eliminating Competition

Actions to buy up competitors to put then out of business, pricing at a loss to drive competitors our of business, or anything that decreases the number of competitors. It may be good for you , but it is bad not only for that competitor, but anyone working for that competitor as well as your existing and potential customers.

Focusing on the short term and not the long term

The future, long term is where growth of the group will occur.  The short term is only the current group, with no increase. Since members of the group will be  constantly dying, focusing on the short term is accepting that the group will get smaller.

Solutions

 

1, 2, 3

1-2-3, oh, that's how elementary it's going to be
C'mon, let's fall in love, it's easy
Like takin' candy from a baby

1-2-3 is elementary, NOT deterministic.

I am a fan of three. For example https://dbeagan.blogspot.com/2024/02/three.html. A system  has three part: 1) an input; 2) a process; and 3) an output. Just because an input is deterministic, it does NOT mean that the process has to be deterministic, or the output has to be deterministic. For example take a coin. It has only two sides. What could be more deterministic than that. Flipping that coin is random NOT deterministic. The outcome is NOT deterministic either. It is 50% the coin is heads AND 50% that the coin is tails. So while the input was 100%, a coin,  the output AND the process are random.

When the input and process are combined into a scenario,  that also does not mean that the scenario has therefore become deterministic and therefore the output is deterministic. It still depends on the process. If the process was not deterministic, the output won’t be deterministic because the scenario can’t be deterministic. If a process is random, then it has a variance of more than zero. Goldilocks is a solution when the process is deterministic: not too hot, and not too cold; not too hard, and not too soft; just right, halfway between the two extremes. But if a process is random, its variance is NOT zero, then the output can not be Goldilocks, and Nash Equilibriums govern. At equilibrium the solution is 5/6 of the variance, σ², which is identical to the mean, μ, plus two times the square root of the variance, σ. Only when the variance is zero, will the solution be the mean, just right.