It’s Saturday night & I don’t have much work to do. In other words, it’s movie night. I tell my housemate Charlie I’m thinking about watching Phantom Thread, but Charlie says he actually wants to watch Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Hmm… Chitty Chitty Bang Bang… not really what I want to watch tonight. We ask our 3rd housemate John to break the tie, but instead, he throws in a 3rd option: Avengers: Endgame!
Good news: I have a trick up my sleeve. I’m pretty sure I know everyone’s preferences, so I say: “Would we rather watch Chitty Chitty Bang Bang or Avengers?” Avengers wins 2-1. “Ok, now that we know that, would we rather watch Avengers or Phantom Thread?” Phantom Thread wins 2-1. (See diagram below). Just when I think I’m a genius, Charlie calls me out. I forgot I told him about the Condorcet Paradox, Vote Ordering, and Cycling not long ago (they would both rather watch Chitty Chitty Bang Bang than Phantom Thread). Seems like simple majority isn’t working. I thought about trying to reach a Coasian-esque solution by paying John (& Charlie) to watch Phantom Thread, but I concluded I wouldn’t like that since we have interdependent utility (I wouldn’t enjoy pressuring John to watch a film he doesn’t want to).
After realizing that each film imposes a moderately strong negative cost on the person who least prefers it, we begin discussing alternatives. We deliberated and watched trailers for about 30 minutes, checked lists that don’t match our Saturday night preferences, and scrolled through my personalized preferences on Netflix. Eventually we landed on Airplane 2.
In our household, vote-rigging gets called out & unanimity rules for movie selection. We would rather incur high decision-making costs to chose a movie we’ll all enjoy than chose one that only 2 of us will. We’re just a simple, 3 person household with vaguely interdependent utilities.
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