What a Raft-building Game Taught Me About Practical Reasoning
On Sunday, I attended a camp where we were instructed to build a raft from an array of floatable tubes, PVC pipes, and some ropes. We were given 200 credits to “purchase” these items from the game masters. Each of these items were also assigned a specific value in accordance with their perceived usefulness. The tubes cost 20 credits, pipes cost 10 to 15 credits depending on their lengths, and ropes cost a measly 5 credits. We were given 10 minutes to strategise before embarking on our raft-building adventures. Our rafts had to float all 5 of us and some other additional “survivors”.
My group quickly came up with a devious plan — to buy out as many tubes as possible (10 of them) — leaving the other two groups with only 3 tubes for which most of their planned rafts would fail. After all, the tubes were the most buoyant and helpful of the three materials. We initially brought this idea up as a joke.
Yet, it quickly turned into a seriously viable strategy. We could buy them and attempt to resell them at a much higher price, or even barter with the resources of the other groups to gain much more material than we could get with 200 credits. Moreover, we knew the game masters had no extra tubes to which they could throw curveballs at us with. We knew that with the tubes alone, we could still sustain and group ourselves into a sort of makeshift raft, whereas the other groups would struggle making good rafts with only PVC pipes and ropes.
The first objection that came to mind was this: what if the rest of the groups decided to follow suit and monopolise a resource too? This was deemed a “pessimistic outlook” where everyone fought for their own self-interest. That said, monopolising PVC pipes didn’t seem to be very bright, given that these were rather heavy in themselves and worked better as ballast than floats. Moreover, these PVC pipes had to joined somehow. Unlike our tubes, a single pipe could not float a single human. Ropes were an even worse idea, given that almost nothing could be done with just ropes alone. This first “pessimistic outlook” objection thus fails.
The second objection was this: what if the two groups, on top of monopolising each of the resources, decided to team up and impose retaliatory trade barriers against us? In this second pessimistic outlook, they would still be able to use the ropes and PVC pipes to build a decent raft. Even so, this would not impede our ability to use the tubes as sole flotation devices. Remember that in our case, we only needed the ropes to make our structure more convenient, and the PVC pipes as a stabilising ballast. In essence, these were only optional components of our raft. This response would also work if they decided not to do trade with us as individual groups.
The flip side to this was that if they did decide to trade, that we could overcharge them, just as in a capitalist economy where we had the competitive advantage. We could then use these same funds to buy off more ropes or pipes that we needed. To top it all off, we knew that we only needed, at most, 5 of these tubes. The rest of them would be neatly stacked in the corner to taunt the rest for their inability to act quickly. After all, our plan came to fruition within the first two minutes of planning. This all sounded like an amazing plan.
In the end however, we decided to buy only 4 tubes, 4 pipes and 16 ropes. We decided that it was against better judgement to pull of the “monopolising move” and instead play by the “fair rules” of the game and give others a chance.
And while we did not overcharge the groups for tubes, it is worth noting that due to our expertise and quick action, we got to choose our ropes first. That meant that we picked ropes that could be unfurled into smaller, narrower ropes if we needed it down the line. We also knew that the other groups would need more ropes to tie their whole structure together. Thus, it was with this strategy that we had enough rope for ourselves, and created a surplus to sell to others. Needless to say, we overcharged them for it too. They did not buy any rope from us, instead choosing to go into debt.
When we reflected upon all of this, it came to our realisation that while we had an instinctive drive to immediately kill off the rest of the groups chances at this game, it would not be very “nice” to do so. For one, we weighed the implications of our actions on the experiences for the rest of the group. In a move that would be very unlike the character and disposition of the typical Yale-NUS College student, we would sabotage the game for everyone, encouraging a kind of — in familiar jargon — “snake-like behaviour”; at atmosphere of self-interested groups that would attempt to manoeuvre around and put down others to get ahead. We were also implicitly aware, from our experiences in other settings, that this distrust might extend to later instances where we might find ourselves alone when needing help. In all, it was encouraging isolated and self-seeking behaviours amongst everyone. I realise however, this only carries a negative connotation within my biases as a Yale-NUS College student that insists that we ought to help everyone the best we can. Yet, we knew that everyone treated this only as a game, and that winning was almost inconsequential anyway.
At this point then, I shall end this note by mentioning that this game was never a competition anyway. And even when we deliberately handicapped ourselves by making me, the heaviest member of the group, as the casualty to be “rescued”, we still won this little build-a-raft-to-rescue-someone game. The larger takeaway is that at each decision point, we weighed the practical rationalities of our actions, making this an interesting, albeit simplified application of game theory in actual situations for all of us.