Utilitarian social choice rule

Okay kiddo, so imagine you and your friends have a big decision to make - what game to play together. Let's say there are five of you, and you each have a different game you'd like to play. One way to figure out which game to play is to use something called a utilitarian social choice rule.

This rule says that we should pick the game that will make the most people happy, or bring the most joy to the group as a whole. So, we need to figure out how much each game will make each person happy, and then add up all those happiness points to see which game has the highest total.

For example, let's say your friend Sally really wants to play a game called "Unicorns and Rainbows", and she'll be super duper happy if you all play it. But, you and two other friends don't really like unicorns and rainbows that much, so you'll only be a little bit happy if you play it. On the other hand, your friend Timmy really wants to play a game called "Robots vs. Aliens", and he'll be really happy if you all play it. You and your other friend love that game too, so you'll be super duper happy if you play it.

So, using the utilitarian social choice rule, we can see that more people will be happier with "Robots vs. Aliens" than with "Unicorns and Rainbows". The happiness points add up to be higher for the robots game, so we should pick that one to play.

Basically, the utilitarian social choice rule is about making decisions that will make the most people happy, rather than just one or two individuals. We look at everyone's wants and needs, and try to find the option that will bring the most overall joy to the group.