Blog 16: Article 1

The first article I chose to read for my Analytical Research Paper is called “Too good to live.” The argument that I feel the author of it tried to make was simply this: No one likes people who are selfish, and no one favors people who are selfless, also.

This article was based on an experiment. The experiment was that a person would play a computer game with three other computers, thinking the computers are actually other human beings participating. In the game, the players were given 10 points in each round. During the game, the players could put points in a combined back called “Kitty.” Doing this doubles the points in the Kitty and then each player is allowed to take a quarter of the points from the Kitty to put in their own personal bank. I’m not sure what the actual game was about because it was lacking some information about the game, but at the end of it, the points would be turned into lottery tickets for meals.

After having participants participate in this experiment, a survey was done. The survey concluded that people should only take from the kitty as much as they’re willing to put in. However, the participants didn’t like the selfless players (the computers) because it makes anyone else look bad for taking points out of the Kitty.
Maybe this doesn’t necessarily relate to the topic I want to discuss for my paper, but I can relate it in certain ways. For instance, I don’t think Jayne liked the fact that the community still thought of him as a good person in “Jaynestown” after they found out what he had actually done. This caused him to destroy his statue and call a boy that jumped in front of a bullet for him “stupid.” As a viewer myself, I did not like that Mal and his crew are crooks. The part that bothers me is that there are other ways to go about money.

It was an alright article.