re:[EM] Strong FBC

Alex Small asmall at physics.ucsb.edu
Thu May 2 18:32:15 PDT 2002


Demorep wrote:

>D- What will John/Mary Q. Citizen-Voter think of the machinations involved
>(in addition to the various politicians in power and the great minds on
the
>U.S.A. Supreme Court) ???
>
>Let us guess/ estimate (without using any computer strategies) ???

I'm not proposing this as something to implement.  I'm asking whether it is
possible in principle to satisfy strong FBC.  If we can't even satisfy FBC
by entering preferences into a machine which assigns strategies based on
FULL knowledge of the electorate, then there's no way to satisfy strong FBC.

I think I could make that into a theorem, at which point strong FBC
becomes "The Small Conjecture:  Prove that voters have an incentive to
input insincere data into a Small Voting Machine."  If proven true then
strong FBC can never be satisfied.

What I'm doing, Demorep, is similar to some of the abstractions used in
thermodynamics and computer science.  In thermodynamics there's an
abstraction called the Carnot Engine:  It's the most efficient engine that
can operate between two heat reservoirs.  No machine can actually operate
as well as a Carnot engine, but if you can determine that a Carnot engine
cannot do something then no engine can.

In computer science there's an abstraction called the Universal Turing
Machine.  I'll let somebody more knowledgeable describe it.  I just know
that in computer science they use this abstraction to establish the
feasibility of certain tasks.

Personally, I think the question of strong FBC is worth answering, since it
will give more insight on just "how good" a voting system can or cannot be.

Alex

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