6 ms·
Number 3 is a valid criticism, but criticizing the theorem on the basis of people using it to support the status quo is like criticizing water because some peop
by aaron-lebo 12y ago
Number 3 is a valid criticism, but criticizing the theorem on the basis of people using it to support the status quo is like criticizing water because some people drown.
His theorem says nothing about the way things should be, but rather about how things are. I mentioned Poundstone's Gaming the Vote in another post, but that book in particular discusses the implications of the theorem and analyzes better alternatives to current systems.
- Retric 12y agoThe problem is people assume it means more than it does. It's like someone using Godel's incompleteness theorem to argue that math is pointless.
- robbrown451 12y agoWell he said it was overhyped, which isn't so much a criticism of the theorem, but a criticism of the hypers.
- tunesmith 12y agoThe problem is that the flaw in thinking is everywhere. Even wikipedia unfairly lumps in Condorcet voting with its various "tiebreaker methods" - it's the tiebreaker methods that run afoul of Arrow's criteria, while the Condorcet method itself does not. And so the Condorcet method gets unfairly lumped together with voting techniques like plurality and IRV.