Thursday, November 15, 2007

HW 30: Citizenship Symposium II

The Citizenship Symposium is an event that was happening all of last week here at Keene State College. After attending one of the sessions titled “Voting Theory and the Questions of Fairness”. The speaker at the session was Vincent Ferlini who is an associate professor of mathematics here at Keene State College. The topic of the lecture was about voting, the different methods of voting, and which types were the best to use in different situations. The other topic touched upon was about fair voting, and the question of fairness. Ferlini discussed sample voting methods, fairness, and Kenneth Arrow’s mathematical theorem, which consists of different methods that produce different results. Although I was upset with my feelings after the presentation because I felt like I hadn’t acquired any knowledge, I did learn a couple of interesting things. I learned that voting was instituted in Greece in 509BCE, people originally voted for people they liked the least, and that the politician that won went into exile for 10 years. My sentence of proof that I attended is that Ferlini’s first choice for exile would be Brittany Spears, then Paris Hilton, then Lindsey Lohan, then finally Kevin Federline. Also a quote from Ferlini:

“We tend to vote majority rules, but sometimes it doesn’t always work that way”.

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