Poverty simulator game.

Yeah, as my quote from Set says below, no **** sherlock. Really, I don't mean that in a nasty way, but yeah, I think everyone realizes this is a program, and not real people. Hopefully we don't have to go over that again.

Sooooo.....knowing these are not real people , but at the same time interested in how it would work within the limitations imposed, I found the following...

Actually though, personalities did come into play. You could have 2 people doing the same thing, but one person's happiness would suffer, and the other one would be fine. I guess the happiness gage was to judge if their personality needs were being met, or something like that.

To start, the only way it worked out was to bank all their hopes for the future into one person. There simply was not enough money to provide for education for all three children.

But which child?

BTW, for those who haven't looked, this is a family in Haiti, extreme poverty all around, not just within the family.

As far as health, it seemed to work out best if at least the 2 adults just sucked it up and realized one or the other wasn't going to be doing as well at any particular time, and would literally have to take turns being sick, going to the hosptial, and recovering. Then, the other could collapse.

A big part of what I discovered was that you could not have it all. To keep anyone, or everyone from dying, sometimes it had to be really rough for one person, or 2. The objective was to keep that one shining jewel of a child, the hope for the future, as well and happy as possible.
Keeping that child happy kept others more happy as well, more than any of the material things that could help the family could.

Which child was the best pick for the future?

The oldest son?
The middle daughter?
The youngest son?

Not only did it depend on the type of work the other 2 could do, but which child enjoyed school?
There was one child, that when chosen, whose happiness decreased while in school, which resulted in health going down. Finally quitting school to work, but by then all that time was wasted.

I'm not talking about this as far as game strategy, but looking at people I've known in real life, and how they related to their feelings about work vs school.
If school makes you unhappy, and you can be a support for someone else, does it make sense for that person to get education beyond a certain level?

This reminds me of a book I read a few years ago, called "nickle and dimed" I had heard the author on the radio, and was really excited about reading it. She was a journalist and was going to live for a specific period of time on the street as it were.

I was so disappointed in the book. It had the possibility of offering individual solutions/suggestions to people truly living in poverty, but this woman literally couldn't avoid tripping over herself from day one.

For instance, she started the experiment with a certain amount of cash to use until she got a job, which was her big priority. It wasn't a lot of money at all. She had enough to get a cheap room for the week, one with a hot plate. That was good, a roof over your head. Then she decided she had to eat.
Dried lentils...very good...cheap and nutritious.

Then she immediately went off the deep end. She goes to walmart to buy a pot because she needed to cook her lentil, and got one for $10 or something. She needed a bowl, a spoon, a potholder, salt, I don't know, a couple other things. She ended up spending let's say $15 or more.

That's bullshit. No survivor instinct at all.

You see if you can find an old pot in the trash, or buy one for a dollar at the dollar store or goodwill (ok, 2 dollars) while you're walking by a fast food place you ask them to give you a plastic spoon, or pick one out of the trash...ditto with salt packets. Maybe you found a metal spoon in the trash with the pot. You go to the hotel, clean off the spoon with soap and water, use that to stir your lentils, use a hotel towel for a pot holder, and eat out of the pot.

Of course having kids makes this much harder, but they could eat out of the pot too.



I played the game just one more time this morning, and was surprised at the results. I guess all the information had percolated into my brain, because this time, everyoneone ended up under the "ok" catagory.

I'd figured out the following:

The mother and father needn't waste any of their time going to vocational school. It didn't matter if they took multiple courses, they still never had enough education to qualify for a better job. They needed to concentrate of work, and staying as well as possible.

I thought the oldest son Patrick should go to school. There were a younger sister and brother, Jacqueline and Yves. They could work around the family farm while the parents went to town to work. I figured when Patrick had been educated, it could be the other kids turn. Sometimes the younger kids would also work in town.

It didn't matter if I put Patrick in the Lottery School (which is called that because you have as much of a chance of getting an education there as winning the lottery), or the middle of the road Protestant School, or the best education, highest price Catholic School. There was never enough being earned before a family member would get sick to be able to keep him in school.
Patrick was getting educated, but his health wasn't good, and he wasn't happy. He kept having to leave because of health, or money. Parents would get exhausted, and sick. Kids maybe did all right physically, but were not happy, which made them sick. Patrick left school to go to hard labor, and being weak, and feeling like a failure, would get really ill.

OK, so maybe we'll send the girl to school instead. I liked to optimistically think a girl getting a good education would be a coup.
The problem was there was a certain type of work only a woman could do, as acceptable in their society. That was working in the market place. Doing that didn't pay well, but you would not get sicker than you already may have been. Not having the girl available to take the sometimes available job made the others work when they should have been home resting, or getting medical care.
Trying all different ways, it became apparant that unfortunately the girl wasn't going to be educated, she was just needed to much in the workforce so the family could get by.

BTW, I never decreased the family standard of living to "poor quality" that would have done them in for sure.
The older son Patrick could not get a job only his father or mother could get, working in the rum factory, but he could work as a construction worker if they bought a bike. Or else he could do day labor locally that paid less.

So, it finally fell to the youngest son Yves, to be the key out of this life. He was too young to get any other job but day labor, and many times none of those jobs were available, so he would have been making very little working on the farm, which meant he wasn't in school.

So little Yves goes to school. He goes to the Protestant School. I figured middle of the road was manageable.

Jacqueline works with her mother whenever 2 market jobs were available, otherwise she worked on the farm. Father worked at the rum factory, since he would ever get enough education to do anything else. Patrick did whatever was available.

When they were set up that way, they would stay remarkably happy for a long while, even as they started to get sick. It was like they were all working hard to keep Yves in school.
Watching the health of the parents, I'd put one or the other, whoever looked most exhausted or unhappy into the hosptial, which cost the most, but where they got the best care. That would take them completely out of commission as far as work for the entire season, but that parents health would vastly improve, and they could work as hard as at first. Then it was the other parents turn to crash and go to the hosptial. It made no sense to just let them stay home to rest, because they would get no better, and slowly get worse. Same if one of the kids got sick, put them in the hospital and pay for it.

During the summer months, little Yves would be tutored, unless he had been getting sick during the last school term.

One thing that kept the families spirits up was celebrating the holidays, spending what might be seen as more money than necessary. This would keep at least some of them healthier for a longer time.

The only extra thing they bought was a bike. I thought getting any of the other items, like toys, was a bullshit assumption of some that was needed, as endorced by our consumer oriented society. Kids make their own entertainment.

Now of course this is not the way it would acutally work. However, and I have a gut feeling of this being true for me at least, trying to keep everyone happy means everyone ends up in trouble. No one gets through any life always satisfied. Someone's got to take the bullet.

So when all was said and done, only 1 person made a small step ahead out of poverty, and that would happen once he was an adult, and went to work. However, it's better than everyone failing, or dying.

That part about taking turns to fall apart felt true in my life also. Someone's got to hang on long enough, until they can collapse.

Playing the game might do something for some folk I guess. I'd much rather people do real things.

Friends of Venilali (a group I've been involved with) sent a dozen or so sewing machines to East Timor with a sewing teacher. Just prior to xmas this year a bunch of cloth handbags appeared. My wife bought 2, one for herself and one as an xmas present for our daughter.

We dont drink a lot of percolated coffee here but when we do its Friends of venilale coffee.

I see this as being much more productive than playing a computer game.
Maybe the producers of the game would have done a lot more good going to Hati and sourcing saleable products or mentoring handcraft businesses and sales networks.

Well yes, people Doing things is always better.

Can you imagine perhaps, that someone investing various possibilities via this simualation might be inspired to take it into the realm of reality?

Did you miss that this game is not directed at adults, but at children? Children that will have to think about solutions as they move through the game?
Children that will grow up and become the Doers?

dadpad, you seem to be stuck on the aspect that this is not real. Have you never gained initial insight into something by reading words that are formed by black liquid on white paper?

I really thought my prior comment could have moved us away from your idea that this will cause people to disregard human plight because it is made of pixels.

When your wife is counseling people on their finances, doesn't she ever give them a sample budget for them to "play" with?

Accounting students (at least back in my day, when I was one) were routinely given faux business to run, so they could learn the pitfalls before going out into real life.

Medical students today are given virtual patients on which to practice their skills.
Scientists have complex simulators of all kinds to experiment with "what would happen if...."

Is this poverty game a well written, good game?

Probably not.

What if someone new came to your group and said, "I want to join your efforts to send sewing machines to those who need it. I was playing a game about different scenerios regarding poverty, and it inspired me."

You never know what will be the key to action in some people.

Do I intend to continue to play the simulator? No.
Has it raised some points in how perhaps someone could deal with poverty, made me think beyond the possibilities presented, maybe come up with an idea that may help? Did it per chance give me an idea of how to help just one person locally? Or maybe not so locally?

According to you, no.
But you're not everyone.

There are many paths up the mountain. You insist this his a stupid path, but I frankly found it worth while, and made me think.

Who's right?

It's a tool dadpad. Maybe it doesn't fit your hand. Maybe it fit someone elses.

Maybe you don't approve of this because, in your own words to me, which I will never forget "It's just the internet"
You said that once about a real live person with problems, that used to come one here.
You seemed to be the one who didn't understand there was flesh and blood behind the words.
For you perhaps, all of this is "just the internet" and isn't real.

This is no more than a possible tool to make someone think. The same way chalk marks on a blackboard may make someone think, and look past the white mineral deposits on a slate surface.

Not everyone moves in your way dadpad, or at your speed.