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At Issue In a Massachusetts Town, the Value of Two-Thirds
An anonymous reader writes "In Truro, Massachusetts (a town on Cape Cod), a zoning decision came up for vote, where the results were 136 for, 70 against. The vote required 2/3 approval to pass. The Town Clerk and Town Accountant believe that since .66 * 206 is less than 136, the vote passes. However, an 'anonymous caller' noted that a more accurate value of 2/3 would require 137 (or perhaps even 138 votes) for the measure to be considered passed. The MA Secretary of State and State Attorney General are hard at work to resolve this issue." Updated 20100422 23:55 by timothy: Oops! This story is a year old (rounding up), which I didn't spot quickly enough. Hope they've got it all worked out in the meantime.
can't these people do simple math?
2 / 3 = 0.66666666...
106 / 236 = 0.660194175
Whats the problem here? It didn't pass.
Significant figures are important. In this case, the 2/3rds rule, being a constant, MUST be taken to at least 3 digits. Otherwise why not just use 0.6 instead of 0.667 - that way all you need is 124 votes.
0.6 * 206 = 123.6
0.66 * 206 = 135.96
0.666 * 206 = 137.196
Mathematics should not be subject to politics. Some idiot legislators want to twist the law to get their stupid agenda passed. Instead they should call for a re-vote if their rules allow it, or ADMIT DEFEAT DAMN IT. This attitude makes a mockery of democracy.
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Rounding is not relevent here. They need 2/3 * 206 votes to pass. 137 is less than that value. 138 is more than that value.
137 votes fails to be more than 2/3 of 206. Why would rounding even be a topic for discussion?
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Yeah, this strikes me as a pretty trivial problem to solve.
If the process requires the approval of 2/3 of the voters or more, then the lowest whole number that satisfies this requirement is the lowest number of votes which can pass the motion.
Fucking duh, Massachusetts.
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Clearly 70 times 2 is greater than 136 Therefore there is NOT a 2/3 majority. The matematics of politics, however, is not like the math we all know and love....
The ratio of 2/3 to 1/3 is 2:1. In order for a measure to pass by a two-thirds vote, the majority must have more than twice as many as the minority. 136 is less than two times 70, so the vote does not pass.
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The engineer pulls out his calculator, types in the results, and gives the answer.
The mathematician goes to the whiteboard, and writes a proof for the answer.
The politician whispers, "What do you want the answer to be . . . ?"
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Really? Long division has been lost to the ages?
>>the results were 136 for, 70 against. The vote required 2/3 approval to
the question: is 136 / 206 >= 2 / 3 ??
is the same as: is 3*136 >= 2 * 206 (multiple each side by 206 * 3)
or: is 408 >= 412
or: DID NOT PASS
I think somebody needs to teach them that .66 != 2/3
The scariest part is their accountant is the one who things .66 is 2/3. I'll bet their books are ALL MESSED UP
No, they definitely didn't round up, they truncated a number that was never accurate to begin with. 206*2/3 takes a half second longer to punch in than 206*0.66, if that. Why were they ever using 0.66 to begin with?
The law says 2/3, use 2/3. It's not hard.
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... gets 137.333...(repeating). So 137 votes is not even enough. 136 is clearly not.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
But I think it's amusing to say the least -- splitting hairs on a vote.
Really, the who notion of voting is severely flawed from a mathematical point of view. One extra vote makes all the difference between whether or not a bill is implemented. What is the intrinsic importance of making it 2/3rds? Why not 3/4ths? 1/2? 5/8ths? What is the significance of 2/3? Seems arbitrary.
But then, that is the difference between law and mathematics, I suppose. 20 years and 364 days old, you're too young to drink, it's illegal, and there are sanctions. 20 years and 365 days -- 21 years old, and it's perfectly legal. But what is the significant difference in a person at 20 years 364 days vs. 20 years 365 days? Is there some sort of "maturity switch" that is magically flipped? Do the gods of time descend upon you and bestow you with something special?
We humans make so much ado over meaningless arbitrary demarcations. Life situations are fuzzy and spread out, not the digital of "on/off". It all seems rather a bit silly! Splitting arbitrary hairs without real meaning.
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Updated 20100422 23:55 by timothy: Oops! This story is a year old (rounding up), which I didn't spot quickly enough. Hope they've got it all worked out in the meantime.
Generating news isn't simple. You have to investigate, contact the sources, write the article, correct it, publish it in a readable way, etc, etc.
Agregating news isn't that hard. All you have to do is check the source, the date and place of the article, if it's serious and still relevant, write a small summary (or cut and past it from the article) and submit. Not that hard at all. Google news does a better job than Slashdot at it. A damn perl script does a better job than 20+ slashdot editors. Even Fark is doing better than slashdot. If you post some old copypasta on the randomness and caos that is /b/, it'll be spotted instantly. The 13 year old kids at /b/ do a better job than slashdot's team of editors.
I usually don't complain about article quality, dups, etc. I believe it's better to just let it go and move on. I say "hey, anyone can make a mistake". But it just gets worse everyday. We trust slashdot. We just spent a lot of our time discussing this issue, and trying to provide meaningful answers. It turned out to be an issue that happened almost a year ago. That is worse than reading slashdot on April 1st (at least you KNOW it's all bullshit on April fools day).
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WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
This is so incredibly simple that I can't believe I'm reading scores of responses about significant digits and rounding, etc. For a motion to be passed by a 2/3 majority, at least twice as many people have to vote in favour as those who vote against. Since 136 is less than 70*2, the vote fails. No calculator required, no consideration of significant digits. It's the kind of thing a reflective schoolchild should be able to reason out, frankly.
I think this is a symptom of a generation raised with calculators...
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While drawing these arbitrary lines is silly, it is often far sillier to not draw them in the universe we live in.
Making silly arbitrary decisions is a necessary part of life. Life situations aren't that fuzzy except at the quantum level. Even little things like which hand to use, whether to breath in or out. And even if the Many Worlds Interpretation is correct, it's not that fuzzy in each path of the universe.
Say a car is about to hit you, you could jump either left or right to save yourself. The neurons in your brain are going to have to make a decision. Say you jump right, you think all the neurons participating in the decision wanted to go right? I doubt it, some would have wanted to go left. But you cannot satisfy all of them. You can't go both left and right, unless you wait for the car to split you in two.
Back to your question, there is no magical maturity switch. Some people never even become mature. So what? With our current technology we are not able to practically put you 60% in jail and 40% out of jail at the same time, just because you are actually "60% mature".
And it's costly to put in all the shades of gray for the different percentages of "maturity". Some countries do cater for a few categories: juvenile prisons, probation, etc.
So there are very many arbitrary lines in laws: when it's legal to abort a fetus/baby, when does a child become an adult.
There's definitely much silliness that should perhaps be fixed. For example, in many countries you might be legally considered old enough to sign up as a soldier, but not do other "adult things". This to me is silly. If you are going to be old enough to kill others and risk your own life, you should be considered old enough to do the other adult stuff. Otherwise, you shouldn't be considered old enough to be a soldier (unless the country is in such a bad/desperate state that you might as be allowed to be a soldier).
OR, you could not be retarded and just realize that a 2/3 majority means that the number of yes votes will be double the number of no votes or greater.
All you do is double count the no votes. If the measure still passes, it had a 2/3 majority.
It's not that fucking hard.