Democracy might be mathematically impossible – here’s why. Head to https://brilliant.org/veritasium to start your free 30-day trial and get 20% off an annual premium subscription.
adding in Jill Stein would change how Kamala and Trump are ranked in relation to each other (in a ranked-choice voting system)
But how does this make democracy “impossible”? As far as I can tell this would be a good thing IRL. Republicans would become powerless if someone installed an actual ranked vote electoral process overnight, because Democrats would suddenly get a significant flood of second or third place voters for them and general voter disillusionment would plummet. This would inevitably result in the Democrats becoming irrelevant too, because they need the big scary Republican threat to get any votes.
So democracy only seems “impossible” if you want to literally blackmail your voter base. Otherwise what kind of bullshit math wizardry are they pulling out of their ass to argue that the exact ranking of each individual candidate is what makes something “more democratic” rather than whether a system produces what’s wanted by popular demand?
bullshit math wizardry are they pulling out of their ass to argue that the exact ranking of each individual candidate
If you’re voting in an election with ten candidates, but you only like two of them and equally despise the other eight, the “maths impossibility” arises because you’ll have to put a candidate you hate third
Couldn’t you just not write a third? This makes no sense to me unless you strictly enforce having a third choice being necessary, which seems random and needless. If someone can just not have a third candidate, or not have a second candidate, I see no reason why that would negatively affect the system. Their vote is just lost if neither of their candidates win with their votes, same as if they didn’t go to vote in the first place.
Yes, in Australian Senate elections you only need to rank at least 6 parties above the line or at least 12 individual candidates below the line on the long ballot paper
In practice you might rank all ~100 candidates to try and avoid a couple candidates you hate the most
I mean, you’re making a political argument, and one I don’t disagree with. But the point of the theorem is about an idealized voting mechanism, absent ideology. There’s absolutely arguments to be made about the usefulness of studying things like pure math, and I’m sympathetic to some of them, but even so, I think it’s important to know how the system we use to implement democracy actually functions.
I think also the title is just pure clickbait, never take a youtuber at their word.
But how does this make democracy “impossible”? As far as I can tell this would be a good thing IRL. Republicans would become powerless if someone installed an actual ranked vote electoral process overnight, because Democrats would suddenly get a significant flood of second or third place voters for them and general voter disillusionment would plummet. This would inevitably result in the Democrats becoming irrelevant too, because they need the big scary Republican threat to get any votes.
So democracy only seems “impossible” if you want to literally blackmail your voter base. Otherwise what kind of bullshit math wizardry are they pulling out of their ass to argue that the exact ranking of each individual candidate is what makes something “more democratic” rather than whether a system produces what’s wanted by popular demand?
If you’re voting in an election with ten candidates, but you only like two of them and equally despise the other eight, the “maths impossibility” arises because you’ll have to put a candidate you hate third
Couldn’t you just not write a third? This makes no sense to me unless you strictly enforce having a third choice being necessary, which seems random and needless. If someone can just not have a third candidate, or not have a second candidate, I see no reason why that would negatively affect the system. Their vote is just lost if neither of their candidates win with their votes, same as if they didn’t go to vote in the first place.
Yes, in Australian Senate elections you only need to rank at least 6 parties above the line or at least 12 individual candidates below the line on the long ballot paper
In practice you might rank all ~100 candidates to try and avoid a couple candidates you hate the most
I usually just go with the party and stop at 6 or the first major party (that kinda acts like a big wall)
I mean, you’re making a political argument, and one I don’t disagree with. But the point of the theorem is about an idealized voting mechanism, absent ideology. There’s absolutely arguments to be made about the usefulness of studying things like pure math, and I’m sympathetic to some of them, but even so, I think it’s important to know how the system we use to implement democracy actually functions.
I think also the title is just pure clickbait, never take a youtuber at their word.