Parable of the Polygons

Vi Hart partnered with game designer Nicky Case to create Parable of the Polygons, a game that illustrates how human nature (and math) makes diversification difficult, whether it’s a neighborhood, school, work place, or even a circle of friends. Your goal is to make everyone happy by moving the unhappy polygons into a group that makes them happy. They all prefer a diverse group, but are unhappy if less than a third of the others in the group resemble themselves. Sounds easy, right? It’s not.   

What's up with that? These are good shapes, nice shapes. And yet, though every individual only has a slight bias, the entire shape society cracks and splits.

Small individual bias can lead to large collective bias.

There are several playing boards, in which you can adjust the polygons’ bias or happiness standards. Try out all the different scenarios to see how flexibility makes all the difference -but only if you can get everyone on board. In the real world, there will always be those who are never happy, even if we somehow achieved a shared standard of happiness. -via Metafilter


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