Journey 3 of 9 · Day two · 06:40 · The grain depot, and a day of loads for two towns

The Distribution

What does fairness require?

Day two of the flood: a day of loads for two hungry towns, Alder and Brook across the river. At seven Brook holds the narrow bridge and offers Alder fifteen tonnes of a hundred: take it, or the train goes back. By half past nine the coal is on your side and the offer is yours; by eleven Brook cannot refuse the water. Then a field one town mostly dug, a storehouse the river takes, and a rule chalked on the depot door for the army’s reserve, before you know which town did the work.

Six calls in one day about fair shares, earned shares and need, and what you would give up to refuse an unfair one. The last asks you to choose the rule before you know where your town stands.

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How it opens

The first scene, in the game’s own words. In the game each line is written into the drawing as you tap.

1. You speak for Alder, and nobody in its shelter has eaten since the water came.
2. Brook, across the river, is the same size, and just as hungry.
3. Behind the barrier Brook’s people wait with empty sacks, Jonah and his three children among them.
4. The first grain train stands at Brook’s end of the narrow bridge, the only way in, with 100 tonnes aboard.
5. Hedda, who speaks for Brook’s council, has the barrier down across the rails.
6. She has chalked the shares on the wagon door: 15 tonnes for Alder.
7. 85 tonnes for Brook, and she says it is that or nothing.
8. The driver unloads only with both towns’ marks. Refuse, and both towns get nothing; no other train is promised.

What arrangement do you choose?

The six calls

After the first, each call changes one fact, and one of them turns the question on you.

1. The barrier
2. The coal barge
3. The last crossing
4. The high field
5. Brook’s storehouse
6. The foreman’s envelope

The long night

When you have finished the journey you can play it whole: all twelve calls. These are the other six.

• Thirty
• More for both, more for them
• A fair chance or a fair share
• The cost of punishment
• She did it for your family
• The only driver

It happened

The valley is invented. This is not: The Seattle “God committee” of 1962: who gets the machine?

What the research says

This journey adapts questions that have been studied. These pages say what the studies found, with their sources.

• The ultimatum game: would you refuse an unfair offer?Take a small share, or refuse and both get nothing. Many people refuse.
• The dictator game: what people give when nobody can refuseYou split the money and the other side must take it. Most people still give something.
• Third-party punishment: paying to punish a strangerWould you pay to punish someone who cheated a person you will never meet?

Play The Distribution →Free. No account. Your place is saved on your device.

Next journey: The Hospital What risks will you accept?