ashok, May 2, 2002 at 1:12:23 PM CEST

Scruples, anyone

Here's a game that promises to test our values. I think it can be played on a collaborative blog. Here's how it works. Every player on his turn gets two things: a question and an answer. The answer could be yes, no, perhaps. The question will relate to an ambigious situation in life. Like for instance player A gets the question: "You make a major mistake in your work. It results in a loss for your company. No one knows you did it. The management believes a colleague of yours did it. He cannot prove he didn't do it. The thing is you don't like your colleage at all. And he may well lose his job. If you own up you will lose your job and it will be difficult for you to find another one. On the other hand, your colleague was anyway planning to leave the company in a while. Will you own up to your mistake and save your colleague the embarrassment?" The answer provided to player A is Yes. The interesting thing here is that the player has to ask this question to any one of the other players who he thinks will answer Yes. Now if he asks Player B the question. And player B answers Yes, then that player will have to justify the answer. If the rest of the players are satisfied with the answer, player A gets a point. In case player B answers No or Depends. He has to justify that too. Then Player A gets the chance to argue with player B that player B's answer should have been a yes. They get one more chance each to settle their argument. After which it is put to vote to the rest of the players. The rest of the players can put forth their own arguments for either side... and after a reasonable duration we vote. If we vote for player A, he gets 1 point. If we vote for player B, player A loses a point. The thing is there is no obligation to speak the truth. You can lie about the options you will take so long as you can defend your position. I have played this on numerous occassions, and it has often resulted in healthy debate and discussion. We have to ensure that none of it gets controversial. I can think of any number of questions. It could be an interesting concept to try out. What do you say?