At it's core, Arrow's Impossibility Theorem says that there is no ranked preference a group larger than 2 with at least 3 policy choices.
I don't know what "will of the people" means if not a ranked preference. Maybe you can explain?
I don't know what "will of the people" means if not a ranked preference. Maybe you can explain?
The "people", not being an individual or an AI or whatever, has a more complex preference vector than a ranked list. The real world is more complex than that.
So can we now agree that Arrow's Impossibility Theorem doesn't apply to all of democracy, that these things are nuanced and there is a long and deep conversation about this kind of topic that has been going on in the human race for centuries, and that frankly, pointing to technical flaws in established, stable enough systems that were set up by people with a hell of a lot less information about anything than us hundreds of years go is not going to do anything to prevent that system from operating in the way that it does or to convince people who have vested interests in it remaining stable?
That's basically what Arrow's impossibility theorem says. Due to its limited inputs, a preferential voting system will necessarily fail one of the three fairness criteria.
There are far better voting schemes out there, none of which are affected by Arrow's impossibility theorem.
As it applies to this situation, it's moot - Portland did not express any cardinal preferences.
[1] Non-private goods introduce other incentives that prevent spending from tracking desire.
For example, if a group of people by some social process comes to a consensus then arguably this represents the "will of the people". Thus it makes sense to reason about this concept without requiring the existence of ranked preferences.
The whole point of Arrow is that you need some very strong assumptions (e.g., cardinal preferences) to define a "will of the people". The only real world expression of cardinal preferences is a set of supply&demand curves, however - based on this the "will of the people" says Uber should exist.
The point I am trying to make through the last n posts is that Arrow's theorem does concerns the impossibility of a certain, narrow-minded formalization. It is therefore incorrect to conclude that 'the "will of the people" is a nonsensical concept by Arrow's Impossibility Theorem', which is what you had claimed.
I have nothing to say about the people and churches of England.
You either have a coherent definition of "will of the people" that goes beyond consensus, or you don't. If you do, give the definition.