The Philosophy Behind
Better Group Decisions
Three principles that guide how we think about collective decision-making.
Use the Best Technology to Understand Preferences
The entire point of social decision-making is to make the best decision based on the preferences of the group. If that's the goal, why wouldn't we use the best available technology to truly understand what people want?
Traditional voting was designed for a different era:
- •Hand-counting made complexity impossible
- •Communication was limited to physical gatherings
- •Recording nuanced preferences was impractical
Today, we can do better:
- ✓AI can have natural conversations at scale
- ✓Knowledge graphs can capture complex relationships
- ✓We can preserve context, conditions, and trade-offs
> If we have the technology to understand preferences better, we have a responsibility to use it. Simple vote counting is a constraint of the past, not a feature.
Traditional Voting Is Gameable
Many traditional voting procedures are vulnerable to strategic voting—where people vote differently than their true preferences to influence the outcome. This undermines the entire purpose of voting.
Common Problems with Traditional Voting
Arrow's Impossibility Theorem
Kenneth Arrow proved in 1951 that no ranked voting system can perfectly satisfy all fairness criteria simultaneously. There is no perfect voting procedure.
> So what do we do?
If no voting system is perfect, let's at least make one that's harder to game and captures true preferences. By understanding the context and reasoning behind preferences—not just rankings—we make strategic voting less effective and gather more useful information for decision-making.
Extra Effort Builds Trust
The entire point of voting is to create trust in the final decision. When participants see that you've gone the extra mile to truly understand their preferences, they trust the outcome more—even if it's not their first choice.
Why people distrust voting results:
- •"My reasoning wasn't captured"
- •"The decision-maker didn't really listen"
- •"Important context was lost"
- •"The process was just checking a box"
How Deep Vote Builds Trust
> Trust is the whole point
We vote not just to pick an option, but to ensure everyone can trust and support the decision. By showing participants that you genuinely worked to understand their preferences, you earn that trust—regardless of which option wins.
The Three Principles Together
Use Best Technology
If the goal is understanding preferences, use tools that actually understand preferences—not just count hands.
Minimize Gaming
No voting system is perfect, but capturing reasoning and context makes strategic voting less effective.
Build Trust
The extra effort to truly understand preferences signals respect and builds trust in the final decision.