PHILOSOPHY|WRITING|CREATIVE WRITING

Is Competition Ever Useful?

Why racing towards the finish line might slow us down in the long-term

Mario López-Goicoechea
Cogito Corner
Published in
5 min readSep 23, 2024

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Just you wait until I grab one of you and I tie both their hands and feet Photo by Victoire Joncheray on Unsplash

Here’s an experiment for you, lovely, deep-thinking people:

Imagine a couple of people, all right, two blokes (just for the sake of simplicity), racing each other. Both of them are average-looking, not athletic but not on the pudgy side either, healthy and able-bodied. They are roughly the same age. Their race is a straightforward one: they must run as fast as they can for about fifty or sixty metres. Off they go. They both cross the finish line almost at the same time, give or take a second or two.

Now for the second part of the experiment, one of the men has his right hand tied behind his back. His left one is still free but his right hand is suddenly immobile. The other fella keeps both his hands free. They are asked to race each other again. You know what happens. The man with free hands beats the bloke whose right hand is tied behind his back. Not by a large margin, mind you, but still, he wins.

Now for the third part of the experiment. This time, the same man whose right hand we tied before will have his left one bound, too. Meanwhile his opponent still gets to keep both his hands free. They race each other. You…

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