[GPSCC-chat] Libertarians spoiling it for Trump?

[cls]

Once more with feeling.  The "spoiler effect" is mathematical nonsense.  
Any argument that takes the spoiler effect as reality is also 
mathematical nonsense.

1.  No candidate can "take votes away" from another candidate.  A vote 
belongs to the voter until it is cast.  Then it belongs to the 
candidate.  It's up to each candidate to earn each vote.

2.  There is no "would have voted for B /had A not been in the race/."  
Hundreds of Nader voters may well have told exit pollsters they "would 
have" done something in a universe other than the one they inhabit.  
Those hundreds of Nader voters were unaware of the arithmetic of 
infinite numbers and therefore did not realize they had given a 
nonsensical answer to a nonsensical question.  Mathematicians should 
know better.  They should be familiar with the logical concept of 
"time's arrow," which states that at any time there is only one true 
past and an infinite number of possible futures.  When Nader was 
deciding, in '98, whether to run in 2000, there was an infinite number 
(aleph two) of ways that election could have gone.  Gore's agents could 
have assassinated Nader and got caught, or not.  Nader could have gotten 
too sick to run, and without the pressure from Nader Gore could have 
triangulated towards the DLC neoliberals and lost by a landslide.  But 
by the time that Nader voter was talking to an exit pollster, none of 
those alternative universes existed any more.  The second after she 
voted for Nader, and today, they are just an infinite set of science 
fiction stories.  And according to the counterintuitive arithmetic of 
infinite numbers, there is /exactly the same number/ of those stories 
where Nader didn't run and Gore lost by a landslide, or Nader ran and 
won, as where Nader didn't run and Gore won.  There is no mathematical 
justification for insisting the last kind is any more "likely" or 
"common sense" than the others.  It's wishful thinking, nothing more.  
It doesn't matter how many /Nation/ magazine pundits don't realize 
mathematical logic applies to and solves this kind of problem.  If they 
all insist on analyzing the spoiler effect, they are /all/ babbling 
nonsense.

When we discuss politics we should always be aware of accepting 
questions framed in nonsense.  When someone asks won't you feel guilty 
for voting for a spoiler, answering "yes but what about Gary Johnson" is 
accepting the nonsense frame.  The logically valid answer is "that 
question is nonsense because /there is no spoiler effect/."

You can forward this message as you see fit.

-Cameron



On 09/05/2016 01:51 PM, Gerry Gras wrote:
>
> Here's a story about "spoiling" in the other direction,
> (Libertarians "giving election" to Hillary).
>
> "Arizona could be a spoiler on the road to 270"
> http://www.bigstory.ap.org/article/3e055508785d4dc9947639a91cadb8ab/arizona-could-be-spoiler-road-270 
>
>
> Gerry
>
> P.S. I am always offended by statements to the effect
> that a third party takes votes away from one of the
> two major parties.  There's the implicit assumption
> that the two major parties somehow own all the votes,
> and have a right to the votes.  I think if we had a
> decent system, other than the winner take all system
> we have, the third parties would get MORE votes, so
> the "lesser-of-two-evils" idea steals votes from the
> third parties for the two major parties.
>
> Which means that Jill is not stealing votes from
> Hillary, instead Hillary is stealing votes from Jill.
>
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