On trolleys, losing and commons
Three concepts you’ll meet in many MOOCs
Imagine you see a train coming. You stand along the track, and see five people being tied down on it. Unable to move, and unable to escape the oncoming train. If nothing happens, they will certainly die. However, there’s a lever you can pull. It will make the train switch tracks. There’s a catch, though: on the other track, there’s one person, unable to move. The train will kill this person if it goes down the other track. What will you do?
This is the basic version of the Trolley Problem. A thought experiment designed to explore ethics and morality. There’s no right or wrong answer to it, the goal of this thought experiment is to understand what people consider to be the right thing to do. It doesn’t come alone, though. There are multiple variations to follow up the basic version, all with an increasing involvement of the actor.
The Trolley Problem is a concept I have met in many MOOCs, especially those related to morality or ethics, such as Moralities of Everyday Life and Responsible Innovation.
Now, you see the train coming. What would you do?
Losing hurts
Let’s say your manager and you sit down every year to talk about the goals for the year, and 10 things you are going to deliver. You agree that for each deliverable, you get a 100 Euro bonus, a potential extra income of 1000 Euro. Will that motivate you to work hard this year? Could there be a better way? Now, it turns out that if your boss gives you the 1000 Euro at the start of the year, and you both agree that for every deliverable you don’t produce, you give back 100 Euro at the end of it, you will be more likely to deliver all 10 things. Even if the financial incentive is the same, apparently, we humans are programmed in such a way that we like earning money, but we dislike losing it even more. This concept is called loss aversion, and likely the best MOOC to teach it is A Beginners Guide to Irrational Behavior by Dan Ariely.
Future Tuna
For the third concept, imagine you love tuna. And that you’re a parent of a newborn. One day, you hope to share the experience of eating tuna with your child. However, fish stocks are rapidly dwindling, because the fishing industry is doing what it can in its best interest to take as many fish as possible out of the oceans. The more fish they catch, the more they can sell, the more profit they will make. With that, of course, come jobs. But it’s not in the best interest of you or your child. Because in a few years, there might be no tuna left to eat. Or to fish. So it’s actually also not in the best interest of future fishermen.
The tuna, and other fish, in the sea can be seen as a common good. It’s there, and we can all benefit from it. But, for some, this benefit is now, which means that it is in their best interest to deplete the source of common good, before someone else does it. And when this common good is depleted, there’s no tuna left for your child to enjoy. That is the tragedy of the commons. The MOOC How To Change The World addresses this tragedy, among many other topics, and inspires you to find solutions.
What’s your favorite concept you met in MOOCs? I’m looking forward to learning about them!
Arjan Tupan is a MOOCthusiast, blogger, entrepreneur and dad. He has enrolled in many MOOCs and can still claim he has completed most of them. He has served as a Community TA in Understanding Europe, and is currently a Community Mentor in the Beyond Silicon Valley MOOC. He’s a pioneer in combining MOOCs and Meetups, and enriching that experience.
