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Overcoming Arrow's impossibility: Honeybee sidestep

'Equality—impossible,' cry social choice theorists. This note reviews seminal results by Borda, Condorcet, Arrow. Walks through the impossibility theorem, teaches ranked voting unfair. Concludes by sidestepping impossibility, with inspiration from honeybees.

Abstract

"Equality—impossible," cry social choice theorists. First-past-the-post plagued by vote splitting. Borda dismissing, championing ranked voting. "Bound to lead to error," muses Condorcet. Arrow discovering far more sinister defects. This note reviews their seminal results. Walks through Arrow's impossibility theorem—teaching ranked voting is fallible. And concludes with Smith sidestepping Arrow, guided by dancing honeybees, proclaiming range/score voting to be "a larger improvement in 'democracy' than the entire invention of democracy."

$ curl -s https://publications.bensmyth.com/files/Smyth22-sidestepping-arrow-impossibility.bib | cat
@unpublished{Smyth22-sidestepping-arrow-impossibility,
  title = {{Overcoming Arrow's impossibility:}}
        # {{ Honeybee sidestep}},
  year = {2022}, author = {Ben Smyth},
  url = {./},
  url-pdf = {./files/sidestepping-arrow-impossibility.pdf},
  url-bib = {./files/sidestepping-arrow-impossibility.bib},
  url-yaml = {./files/sidestepping-arrow-impossibility.yml}
}