tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8514697283760344361.post3355550240742970395..comments2023-10-30T05:29:45.972-07:00Comments on Trolley Problem: What does it mean to say "This motion is fair"?Shengwuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16630425357806403766noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8514697283760344361.post-25018542629606032362012-05-31T14:01:32.349-07:002012-05-31T14:01:32.349-07:00I'm glad to see you're back to posting.
H...I'm glad to see you're back to posting.<br /><br />Here's my two cents.<br />First, I don't think we necessarily need a line which fits the statement "This motion is not fair". What's true regarding the statistics should also be true about the dialogue regarding fair and unfair motions: The fairness of a motion is a continuous quality, and some motions are simply more or less fair than others.<br /><br />However, if one would like to define a binary definition of fair and unfair motions, then I think I can offer a scoring method that would solve most of the problems raised in the last few paragraphs, and intuitively induces such a threshold.<br /><br />One could give scores to debates according to the relatively-harsh-but-accurate method number 4. Then we follow the distribution of debates along this scoring method, and judge motions according to their percentile in this distribution instead of their objective score. This way we remove all effects of the inherent flaws of the format, and rank only the value of this motion instead of ranking how hard it is to set motions in general.<br /><br />The exact threshold percentile (Whether its 60% or 80%, etc.) could be decided to fit our intuitive concept of whether a motion is "unfair". This should be relatively easy (and requires no understanding in statistics) once you have even a moderate set of motions and their relative ordering. You simply draw the intuitive line between the last "fair" motion and the first "unfair" motion.<br /><br />I'm not sure such a binary distinction is necessary, but if it is, this is most accurate and relatively easy method I have in mind.Sellahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16186439761637387634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8514697283760344361.post-31223530997730599192012-05-30T10:25:52.352-07:002012-05-30T10:25:52.352-07:00You need more than just the distributions of posit...You need more than just the distributions of positions for each team - it is very likely that there are correlations between each teams results (for example there may be motions where, if OG win, OO is more likely to take 4th than otherwise). <br />So for a given skill level of a tournament we can characterise each motion with 24 numbers. Each represents the fraction of debates which end in a given result. 24 because there are 24 different ways to order 4 things.<br />How about a fair motion is one where each of these outcomes is equally likely.<br />So, we expect the result 1-OG, 2-OO, 3-CG, 4-CO to happen 1 in 24 times. <br />Given a set of data you can then find out to what confidence interval this is true. Obviously 24 outcomes means you'd need a larger number of rooms than a simple 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th analysis to have statistically significant outcomes but I think in the ideal case it characterises all of the information you'd want (speaker points being something else entirely).James Cloughhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03849214412541384702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8514697283760344361.post-73529470888903392082012-05-24T16:19:12.396-07:002012-05-24T16:19:12.396-07:00The difficulty here is that motions that have a re...The difficulty here is that motions that have a relatively clear clash - so for instance "THW Invade Zimbabwe" leave very little room for closing half teams to move. However, very broad debates, "TH Regrets the norm of Monogamy" becomes very easy for back half teams to walk through and take victory given the ability they have to watch the debate unfold, see weaknesses in the original case, and build a single persuasive extension, while not being pinned for the conceptual difficulty of setting up the debate.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com