Blog Post #2: The Condorcet Quandary: Deciphering Apartment Priorities
My future roommates for the 23-24 academic year and I are currently in the process of figuring out our living situation. Since there are three of us it should be pretty easy to settle disputes right? If two of us disagree on a particular location, amenity, or floor plan, then the third can break the tie. Right? Wrong.
There are three of us: Jacob, Tyler, and myself (Chase). To make things easier for us all (or so he thought) Jacob asked Tyler and I to rank our top three “must haves” for next year’s apartment: location, big bedroom, and patio area. Surprisingly in Charlottesville it is difficult to have all three, so we had to prioritize one of them:
As you can see, for us as a group our preferences are intransitive. If we were to vote on what to prioritize repeatedly, we would end up in a cycle unless someone changes their vote and therefore their preference. This Condorcet paradox demonstrates the limitations of our apartment voting system. If Jacob were in Public Choice, he likely would have proposed an alternative method of voting such as ranked choice voting.
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