Binary Choices on a Spectrum of Positions
Two. Simple. Questions. Just ask two simple questions. And Kevin blew it.
At the first annual Agreeable Persons Conference, Kevin, wanting to be ever so agreeable, strolled onto the stage to ask two simple questions before introducing the opening speaker. He wanted to make the 100 attendees as comfortable as possible.
Kevin asked two simple questions. First, Kevin asked, “Do you want the lights bright or dim?” And, with barely a pause, asked the second question, “Do you want the room warm or cool?” Kevin waited for what he assumed would be a quick response from the audience. The first speaker waited expectantly behind the curtain to Kevin’s right. But a strange thing happened.
Origins of Political Parties
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Why did all those political parties form?
- Warm and Bright
- Warm and Dim
- Cool and Dim
- Cool and Bright
Team Mentality
What happened next caught Kevin by surprise. The members of the Cool and Bright group and the Warm and Dim group attempted to entice members of the Cool and Dim group and members of the Warm and Bright group to join them in their respective corners of the room.
Members of the two largest groups realized they needed 21 members of the two smaller groups to join their cause to tilt the outcome of the debate regarding the environment of the auditorium in their favor.
The people who preferred a cool, brightly lit room talked up the benefits of a chilly room to the members of the Cool and Dim group. To the members of the Warm and Bright group, they minimized the need for a warm room and listed the ways a brightly lit room would enhance the experience.
Across the room, those people who wished to watch the speakers in a dimly lit, cozy-warm room put in just as much effort encouraging supporters of a warm room to come over from the Warm and Bright group and supporters of a dim room to come over from the Cool and Dim group.
Members of the larger groups offered bribes and services. They wooed supporters and insulted opponents. Kevin, feeling the friendly atmosphere of the first annual Agreeable Persons Conference slipping away, realized his mistake.
Kevin had asked two questions, each with two outcomes. Four possible endings. The 100 people in the room divided into two large groups, but neither group had the majority, because some people split off into two smaller groups. The people in the two larger groups had to somehow entice the people in the smaller groups to join them.
Unhappy Majority
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Are we really so divided as we seem?
Of the 100 people in the room, only 30 are coming out of this process happy. 30 people will feel completely defeated. And 40 people will have varying degrees of satisfaction, knowing they compromised one of their principles to promote the other.
This is your Congress. Two political parties in perpetual trench warfare, moving the battle lines a little one direction this election and a little back in the next election. The “Cool and Bright” party and the “Warm and Dim” party, forever locked in battle.
Kevin’s first annual Agreeable Persons Conference ended poorly, with half the people in the room at odds with the other half before the first speaker even walked on stage.
More Than Two Questions
What if Kevin had thrown in a third question? If Kevin had asked, “Do we end the conference early tonight and begin early in the morning, or shall we go late into the night and begin again late tomorrow morning?” Another simple binary question. But with three binary questions you have now eight possible answers.
- Cold, Bright, Early Night
- Cold, Bright, Late Night
- Cold, Dim, Early Night
- Cold, Dim, Late Night
- Warm, Dim, Early Night
- Warm, Dim, Late Night
- Warm, Bright, Early Night
- Warm, Bright, Late Night
Only one outcome of the eight can prevail. If the 100 conference attendees had split into eight groups, the results would be the same. The two groups with the most people would begin enticing the people in the six groups with fewer people to join them.
Again, two political parties, but now eight possible positions on just three binary issues. At this point, each political party has an even smaller core group entirely happy with the party platform (say, Cool, Bright, Late Night versus Warm, Dim, Early Night).
Countless Questions, Infinite Possibilities
And that core group of people in full agreement with the party platform diminishes as the number of binary issues increase. With just ten binary issues, the number of possible outcomes skyrockets to 1024. I’ll not list those here. You get the point. Very few people in a political party are happy with the entire party agenda.
And that’s just ten issues with a mere two possible options each. What if each issue had three or more possible options? And many political issues can be broken down into six or ten possible positions. Nobody can possibly be satisfied by the political platform of either major party.
But that’s where we find ourselves, forced to join one of two teams made up mostly of people who are no more aligned with the beliefs of their chosen group than are you.
So could this disaster have turned out more to the liking of most of the people in the room if Kevin had employed a different technique for his survey? Almost certainly.
A Better Way to Find the Majority
Kevin went home and sobbed for a week straight, analyzed what went wrong with the first conference, and —against the advice of his well-meaning mother— the next year invited a hundred people to attend the second annual Agreeable Persons Conference.
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How does America function with more than two
political parties?
On the opening day of the conference, Kevin walked out on stage to welcome the guests and ask them three very important questions. Wishing to avoid the disaster that was the conference last year, Kevin had a plan.
Kevin asked the audience to stand along a line drawn on the floor from one side of the room to the other. He stated, “As you move to the left, the room temperature you feel will decrease. As you move to the right, the room temperature you feel will increase. Once you are standing where the temperature is most comfortable for you, mark your position on the line and go sit down.”
Once each person had marked a spot on the line, Kevin averaged the position of each person’s mark on the floor, and set the thermostat to match that value. In this way, most of the people in the room were comfortable or, at least, close enough.
Kevin again asked the audience to rise and make their way to a line on the floor. Kevin explained that as each person moved left or right along the line, they would see the light level in the room adjust. Kevin asked each participant to mark the line where they stood when they brought the room light level to just the right spot for them.
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‘Tribalism’ is an apt description, but what’s the fix?
Kevin again averaged the marks on the line, calculated the light level that satisfied the most people in the room, and set the light level accordingly.
Finally, Kevin offered the people in the room a third line, with this line spanning a time range between 4 PM and 11 PM. Kevin asked that each person stand on the line at a point representing the time they wished to finish the conference for the day. And by doing so, Kevin found the most acceptable time to end the conference for the day.
With the three decisions made, Kevin introduced the first speaker and took his seat.
As he looked over the audience, Kevin saw that most people were pleased with the outcome of his experiment. Most people chose a position on each line close enough to the average they were satisfied with the results. And everybody knew the results came from a fair vote.
Voting on the Spectrum
So, what changed? Each question came up individually for a vote, and the vote was for a position on a spectrum rather than a choice between two contrasting options.
Voting on each issue individually eliminated the need for teams. People simply marked their position on a line, which allowed Kevin to determine the point closest to perfect for most people.
Of course, every vote resulted in some outliers, people who were so far out of the norm they’d find themselves uncomfortable with the environment set by the majority.
Most issues in American politics fall along a spectrum; they are few binary options. Kevin’s method of polling his audience left the majority of the attendees satisfied with the environment in the room.
Negotiations
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Is government reform possible?
During breaks between speakers, the attendees talked to each other about their options. Many realized they cared little about some questions and a lot about others. They wanted a way to influence the outcome of the votes that mattered most to them.
Kevin noted these requests. At the third annual Agreeable Persons Conference, Kevin told the audience he’d ask the questions just as he did in the previous year. But, this year, the members of the audience could “trade votes”. How does one trade votes? You agree you’ll stand on a spot of my choosing on one line and in return I’ll agree to stand in a spot of your choosing on another line. In this way, you get an extra vote for the brightness you want and I get an extra vote for the temperature I want. You care more about the light level in the room and I care more about the temperature of the room. We both win.
Congress Should Work This Way
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More representation
is the answer.
In the winner-take-all House of Representatives, the majority party can push legislation through without input from the minority party. Two political parties to represent countless positions on hundreds of issues.
How much more cooperation in writing legislation would you expect to see in the absence of political parties, if congresspeople negotiated the most acceptable point on the spectrum of each issue?
The Representation Amendment adds so many seats to the House the current bill-writing system cannot continue. Members of the Representation House must establish a new way to submit, filter, debate, and pass legislation. The book, The Representation Amendment – Because We Don’t have Enough People in Congress and the People Already There are the Wrong Ones, offers one means to streamline legislation moving through a legislative body with so many delegates. The proposal is somewhat along the lines of the solution Kevin offered in the story above.
In the third annual Agreeable Persons Conference, the people simply made clear where they stood on each issue, but they could negotiate with others to boost the odds their position gathered more votes. Give and take. Negotiation without teams. Recognition that issues extend across a spectrum of positions.
Solutions
If Congress approached every issue individually, allowing people to stake their position on the spectrum, while providing the opportunity to negotiate on the issues, the American people will get solutions that work.
Granted, this is a simplified example. Life is never so clean-cut as an example in a blog post. But we have the ability to do so much more with Congress than was possible a century ago when the American people set our current system or more than two centuries ago when the first members of Congress came together.
Our representatives can occupy an office in their own districts permanently and still conduct business. Members of the House can crowdsource legislation rather than (politically) beat each other to a (figurative) bloody pulp to pass legislation. We can have a system designed so the people get what they want from their representatives.
Key Take-Aways
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Read what a former senator says ails Congress.
Step away from the political trench warfare in Congress today. The only winners in the winner-take-all battles between the two political parties are the lobbyists, the politicians, and the political parties themselves. Not you.
Your House delegates can write legislation cooperatively. Yes, people will be on the losing side when a bill passes. A nation of three hundred million people won’t agree on everything. The point is that any legislation delivered from the House of Representatives should be undeniably the will of the American people.
Most people will get the solution they hoped for and the rest will see they lost a fair fight. And know they can try again later. People can respect that.
And, once the House takes a vote along the spectrum, that issue is settled. The American people spoke. Still, if conditions change, members of the House may revisit the issue.
Fourth Annual Agreeable Persons Conference
Kevin returned for a fourth year to host his popular conference. And, always wanting to make as many people happy as possible, Kevin suggested the negotiations go a little deeper this year. He wanted those voting to negotiate using more than simple vote-swaps.
Some people with legitimate needs for a specific temperature, or a specific light level, or a specific wrap-up time in the evening lacked the means to sway the group to support their individual needs. Kevin pointed out these people were available for negotiations on their votes as well.
One person with a sensitivity to light agreed to stand with people seeking a brighter room in exchange for a stylish pair of sunglasses. A person who always seems to be the coldest person in the room exchanged a vote for a cooler temperature for a blanket to sit under in a room cooler than would otherwise be comfortable.
The majority found the room temperature and the light level and the wrap-up time moved slightly more in their favor when the group accommodated the needs of some of the outliers.
Another interesting thing happened. The majority of people, having recognized they were getting the bulk of their needs met, happily assisted those they saw with valid needs. People are generous. Voting on the spectrum of an issue hardly means majority wins and all others suffer. Having established the position of the majority, those in the majority will seek to offset the discomfort of others with reasonable accommodations. Americans do that.
The Representation Amendment leaves how the House runs to the members of the House. The book (The Representation Amendment – Because We Don’t have Enough People in Congress and the People Already There are the Wrong Ones) proposes a system by which members of the House write legislation to resolve issues along a spectrum. See Congress as it could be.
