The Path Forward

There is a lot to debate about the path forward, but we can be sure that path will be unfair and will not involve equal responsibility. To expect fairness and equal responsibility would create an obstacle.

Fairness and responsibility are two of the universal core values (along with honesty, respect, and compassion) identified by Rushworth Kidder in his book Moral Courage. They were prominent themes in President Obama's 2012 State of the Union Address, and here's how we know that address was directed to the naive:    

The public goods game is a classic economics experiment. The rules of the game go something like this: 

1. Each player starts with one token
2. Players can put as many of their tokens in the public pot as they like
3. At the end of each round, the experimenter doubles the tokens in the pot, and distributes them equally among all players
4. Tokens are worth real cash at the end of the game. 

For example, if everyone contributes in the first round, they end it with two tokens each. If every player always put all their tokens in the pot, each would have 1024 at the end of ten rounds. But different people play differently: 20% of us are altruistic leaders, and 20% are selfish leaders. The altruistic leaders always contribute, and the selfish leaders always maximize their personal take for each round. For example, if selfish leaders withhold their contribution in the first round (while everyone else contributes) they end it with three tokens, instead of only two. If everyone else imitated altruistic leaders, they would have about 136 token each at the end of ten rounds, and selfish leaders would have about three times that. But the 60% in the middle cannot tolerate unfairness, so altruistic leaders are the only ones who keep contributing. Altruistic leaders go broke, selfish leaders end with about thirteen tokens, and the rest an average of eight (less than 1% of their potential winnings).

The real tragedy of this experiment is not that some humans are selfish (it's only 20%), but that the 60% in the middle will let a minority block their path forward. Ending with 136 tokens is not as good as ending with 1024, but it would still be seventeen times better than ending with only eight! Most humans are good people, but also too weak to tolerate badness, and that intolerance is our doom.

So the game is modified: a new rule empowers contributors to burn the winnings of non-contributors by burning an equal amount of their own. At the end of round two, the altruistic leaders burn their own winnings to punish the selfish leaders. The altruistic leaders end the round broke, the selfish leaders end round two with the same two tokens from round one, while everyone else ends with three. From here on out, everyone always contributes. The altruistic leaders end with 561, the selfish leaders with 563, and the others with 564.

This improved result supposedly justifies the expense of prisons, but the big lesson for me is the observation that rules always turn-out to be biased, despite applying to everyone equally. The game is never fair--either empower the selfish leaders to leech off everyone else, or empower the altruistic leaders to make an unfair sacrifice--in either case, the leaders control the game. The inequity explodes from the mere fact that people are fundamentally different--that is unavoidable. The path forward is to choose which leaders to empower; what holds us back is the fantasy of aiming for equality. Anyone in President Obama's position must be aware of this science, so his State of the Union Address makes me wonder whether politicians can survive being honest.