[0965] This Strip Is (Only) Semi-Autobiographical
└ posted on Monday, 19 February 2018, by Novil
- Zoey: Mr. Carter, I’d like to talk to you about our class rep election.
- Mr. Carter: Class rep election, huh? That reminds me of what happened to Oliver, my best friend in fourth grade.
- Mr. Carter: He received the most votes. But then the teacher suddenly announced a second round between him and the girl in second place.
- Mr. Carter: Oliver lost the second round. He was heartbroken and never got over this injustice. As if he lost his faith in justice that day.
- Mr. Carter: He became a troublemaker and was eventually expelled. Later, he took to the bottle and was jailed several times.
- Mr. Carter: Last thing I heard is that he now draws an online comic for a living. Truly a wasted life…
- Mr. Carter: Sorry about the rant. What did you want to talk about?
- Zoey: Never mind…
![[0965] This Strip Is (Only) Semi-Autobiographical](/comics/2018-02-19-0965-this-strip-is-only-semi-autobiographical.png "[0965] This Strip Is (Only) Semi-Autobiographical")
That girl’s name? Albert Einstein.
Nice use of the guilt trip
Also online comics, like this one, are what kept me from spiralling a few years ago
So thanks and keep up the good work 🙂 I’m sure there are other readers that feel the same.
She’d better start drawing online comics and raking in the millions.
Seems like a classic case of needing to have the rules and contingencies all laid out in advance … if there’s going to be a run-off, or if certain circumstances would trigger a run-off, then everyone needs to know before they cast the first lot of votes.
Then when Oliver wins round 1, he knows there’s a runoff coming, and it doesn’t feel like a betrayal, because he was expecting it.
Or in other words, don’t (try to) change the rules part way through the game.
And Oliver’s pseudonym? Novil.
@ Anon:
Interesting theory.
Easy on the fourth wall there, Mr. Knorzer…
Sooooo . . . we’re getting autobiographical here?
demarion wrote:
semi-autobiographical
…why don’t they just use preferences? Put numbers 1-4 from most wanted to least wanted. No need for follow up votes.
err…..huh……wut…wtf…
Love it! 😀
@Thisguy: probably because of the condorcet paradox ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoAnYQZrNrQ ).
Did panel 4 actually happen, Novil?
@ Formedras:
That’s the “semi-” part
Oh if only Sandra and Woo would overhear that… they have some sort of awareness of 4th wall. I wonder what their reactions would be.
@ oledakaajel:
Novil’s real name is Oliver Knörzer.
@ Jack:
Yeah… semi.
Now tell us, how much do you know about Novil?
(I admit that I don’t really know anything, therefore I may consider any part of the “semi-autobiographic” part as potentially truthful. But just because the title of the comics says that it is partially biographical doesn’t convince me that ANY of it has to be truth. As I said, I don’t know enough about authors background to state: “This part has happened and this hasn’t.” No offence intended. This is just my point of view… how I assess given information.)
@ Elizar:
I guess I could have tried to do some research beforehand… maybe I should have.
But me trying doesn’t mean me succeeding. Also… time. (Maybe I’ll try to do some snooping after work. I doubt I’ll find anything though.)
Ouch… That’s gotta hurt.
See Zoey, I told you to let it go already. Now you’re going to go the webcomic route now. LOL
*head turn to the side looks at the 4th wall viewers*
@ Thisguy:
That does not work that well either. You can read on Arrow’s theorem. It more or less says that there is no “fair” electoral system with at least three possible choices. And it takes a very loose sense of fairness.
“He never go beyond this injustice”
When you think about it, a one turn election is a really bad way to elect someone. A two-turn election is better (but not that much better), so that’s not where the injustice lies.
The real problem here is that the people who vote have no idea whether they’re voting in a one-turn election or a two-turn election…
@ Elizar:
We do know that (an) Oliver writes a web-comic.
We don’t know if that same Oliver lost a class election on a re-run, or if that caused depression leading to jail-time.
@ Thisguy:
No, that wouldn’t work. Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem tells us that no ranked system will work fairly all of the time.
For instance, the problem with Instant Runoff Voting is that it’s possible for a winning candidate to lose, paradoxically, by getting more popular. (This can shift the votes so that the previous loser is now a stronger runner-up that the previously-winning candidate loses against.)
Borda Count has a reverse spoiler effect, where the worst candidate, by gaining more popularity, can end up affecting the competition between the winning and runner-up candidates.
Condorcet doesn’t always reach a consensus.
Anyway, point is, we should switch to Approval Voting since that’s not a ranked system.
Novil… should I call a psychiatrist?
Awwwwwww! For some reason, Zoey is gathering some sympathy points. Character arc? >:D (I know I know, something about audience pandering.)
I wonder if “draws an online comic” was added to allow the interpretation that only this part is false and everything else true. (Novil doesn’t do the drawing.)
Some scars never truly heal, huh…
@ Old Brit:
We also know that there is some Oliver in the “semi-autobiographic” strip written by The Oliver.
Therefore we may assume that The Oliver took part in class elections and received most votes. AND/OR we may assume that The Oliver lost the second round, if there was any (here it doesn’t matter whether he had most votes in the first round though) AND/OR we may assume that The Oliver has some past.
Looks like Zoey doesn’t want to risk putting that sort of life upon Sandra.
Y’know what this strip has? Layers. It’s got layers.
edderiofer wrote:
Instant Runoff Voting… I’m not sure how that would cause a loss by being _more_ popular. Add more votes for a candidate, that candidate is more likely to win. (any voting system that fails this is faulty)
The way I understand it IRV is the most reasonable:
4 candidates in this example, vote for who you favor, then pick a backup vote should that candidate have no chance of winning, then pick a third as your final vote (if your #2 has no chance too).
So everyone votes for 3 candidates in order (I suppose you could also vote for less or abstain from voting at all).
Evaluate the election based only on everyone’s #1. Find out who ended up in 4th place and switch them to their backup vote (#2). Re-evacuate with these backup votes and now eliminate candidate in #3 transfer those who voted for this eliminated candidate to their next backup.
Now we are down to 2 candidates, those who wanted to vote for a long shot could, but they still got to vote for their backup (if they wanted to) if the long shot lost. Seems quite fair to me
Condorcet is a total mess with common unresolvable paradoxes.
Approval Voting has a fairly major problem (as with all of these is very hard to explain)
If you have a candidate(A) you very much so approve of, one(B) that is fairly negative and one who is the worst you could imagine(C) you might find yourself torn on whether to vote “A” or “AB”. Just to ensure “C” doesn’t win. But both your votes count at the same time and “B” who was seeming a distant 3rd wins.
IRV allows you to vote “#1:A, #2:B”, your vote only switches to your distant second choice IF your #1 totally looses.
This may mean that if “C” (unexpectedly) comes in 3rd a lot of their votes may fall to “B” since it was their backup choice and “B” might win as a result, but that’s a good thing as in FPTP (aka one vote – candidate with the most votes wins, aka First-past-the-post voting) if you knew in advance your candidate can’t win (was in last place) you would (optionally) like to re-direct your vote to a secondary who has a chance of winning.
And Zoey STILL has that report to write….
@ username:
@ edderiofer:
Wow… this just went beyond my meager math skills and understanding (please don’t try to explain it, I don’t want to know that badly).
I don’t really understand the American voting system, I barely understand the Australian voting system, though we chose a party using the rating system.
I can’t really say if our system works well or not.
Looking at our current politics… well, our Prime Minister is currently upset with our Deputy PM because the Deputy PM had an affair with one of his staffers, and left his wife to marry her.
This is the same guy who had to be re-elected because he was a duel citizen, and who was very vocal about “traditional family values” during the gay marriage debate.
So I take the very cynical view that whatever system you use matters little in the end, because you still end up with a crazy government.
Something tells me he was alerted about this situation and made up the whole story to get her to drop it.
Òlafur Kristinn Hannesson wrote:
Perhaps it was Oliver who alerted him? 🙂
Old Brit wrote:
@ username:
What I understand about the instant runoff system is that you have people that does have your 1-2-3 decision system and the ones that just throughly support one character. If their character loses they might want to vote for the losing candidate as they relate more to him than to the winner. And also because they want to spite the winner
Now…. did the teacher give him a heads up or something?
oledakaajel wrote:
…which is to say, “autobiographical, delivered by a semi-truck.” 😉
The winner? Sandra’s mom.
Eternal wrote:
I disagree, I’d say the real problem is that unless it outlined beforehand, that there will be a second turn, then why not a third turn, or a ninth? And so on and so forth, until the person/people who decide how many turns to run get their preferred candidate pushed through.
The reason it would be completely unacceptable to suddenly have another “turn”, is because it would basically make a supposedly democratic election, undemocratic.
Oh my gosh, Novil. That’s really horrible. I’m so sorry that happened to you.
No one should get to the point where they draw online webcomics to survive.
She just found out the effect of changing the the rules when you lose on the original winner.
In any ellection or competition all rules should be decided at the start and not suddenly changed or added to part way through or at the end when the outcome is not what was desired by a participate or whome ever is in charge of the rules.
That escalated WAY too fast
Though if rules are changed in favor of you opponent or to make you lose and you still win, it is one of the best feelings.
Some people think that maniacal/super-villain laugh are only theatrical and in movies, but few times I won on those conditions, I just couldnt help myself. Crushing your opponents, defying organizer/judge, winning, seeing disbelief and shock on opponents faces and etc. There is no other outlet for emotions at that moment…
Thanatos wrote:
IRV lets a voter who has voted for someone in last place (who can’t win) choose between the remaining viable candidates instead. (It has to be a IRV election from the start because otherwise no one would have made any second/third choices)
In IRV there are a fixed predefined number of rounds based on the number of candidates and you don’t have to come back and revote each round (since you did that when you voted).
This comic right here says why Zoey is my favorite character in the comic. She has a heart about things, and even if she’s portrayed as the mean girl, still makes an attempt to show a little compassion about matters.
Ritch wrote:
Layers? Like Ogres and Onions?
Such an inspiring actor! With just a few tweeks his ‘rant’ could be used for OR against a run-off and defuse any candidate who complains! 🙂