Win All You Can

[OldGreyEagle]

So xlpanel, what critter are you?

[theysawyoucomin']

I thought the game was valid given the context of the WB course.

 

I don't believe there will ever be world peace though it is something to strive for.

 

The game does bring out emotions and is symbolic in it's teaching.

 

Google Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal". I think he had a point to make I think the game does too.

 

I wish you had not divulged the entire game here because I think it has worth and you have basically ruined the value to those heading for the course.

 

As a commissioned sales rep I have a very stressful job that I feel is one of the last bastions of capitalism left in a "strong carry the weak" world. I agree it is against the laws of nature not to be in competition. I am not at all for the everybody gets a trophy mindset. I thought the game was more about honor and keeping your word to others.

 

That is what I left the game with.

[xlpanel]

I can certainly say our team kept our word.

 

At the caucuses we explicitly stated that we were not going to follow a scheme in which everyone holds up the same color.

 

I was a buffalo.

 

 

And I am familiar with a Modest Proposal, if I remember what it is correctly. I think it is about the benefits of eating young kids or something? Its been a couple of year since I read it.

 

And for whomever got mad that I posted stuff about what happens at WB, how would you have discussed this game....

 

"I played a game at woodbadge, um, can't tell you which one it was, and I didn't like it. I can't tell you why I didn't like it because that would reveal what happens in it. I don't even know why I made this thread because no one can tell what I am talking about, and if they can, they can't post anything constructive as they, too, cannot reveal any secrets."

 

This whole section is for discussing WB. If I can't post what happens it it, how can I discuss it?

[boomerscout]

wealth can always be created. Examples: couple guys go out & find some gold. they sell it to the mint in return for some of the newly produced coinage, couple other guys go over the mountain to cut down some trees on unclaimed land. Town can now replace its straw huts with wooden shacks--town becomes wealthier. Scouts help monastery monks go fishing. They bring back enough fish that people can stop raising turnips in their home garden and have time for other things. Someone else invents the Internet; people use it to educate themselves-town becomes wealthier. The pie can always be made bigger if you've the will

[scoutldr]

Boomer...your example depends on someone getting off their duffs and creating something of value from a raw material. That's the piece that's missing from today's society. Wealth cannot be "created"...it is merely a raw material (supply) which is transformed into something that someone else thinks has value (demand). When the "supply" becomes available for free (i.e., redistributed to those who don't pay for it), it ceases to have value (wealth), and there is no longer an incentive for someone to get off their duffs. And that will be the end of our society as we know it.

[boomerscout]

Scoutleader: I agree with all your sentences except the third. The wealth of this nation seems to have shrunk while its supply of money has increased. I sure don't have any answers.

[John-in-KC]

From my experience, playing a "Hobson's Choice" or "Monte Carlo" game is rarely a wise thing to do without well-formed teams, and without superior game leaders and observers.

 

We plowed this ground before a couple years ago. I cannot find the threads, but they are out there.

 

xl, you're being asked about your experience because frankly, many of us wonder about your credibility. Most of us enjoyed our WB course, are proud of the patrols we're linked to, and have strong Scouting friendships as a result.

 

I personally do not like the game because we've just spent a couple days forming Patrols and teaching cooperation (with a bit of competition), then we tear that down and go for the jugular in the game.

 

John

I used to be an Owl

C-40-05

[ChaiAdventure]

I have to agree with John.

 

My course had so much good in it, and I made so many bonds for life, that I could not imagine one simple event having enough of an impact to cause such a visceral reactions as yours.

 

We played the game, got the concept, and moved on. I suggest the same for you....

 

It is not about a game at WB, it is about molding youth to be good citizens, make ethical decisions and to have them live their lives by the Scout Oath and Law...

[theysawyoucomin']

X,

There is not a Woodbadger alive that will EVER forget that game.

 

Mention win all you can to anybody that has played they are not going to forget the lesson or the moral.

 

I just think you should reserve the details for those going to the course, there's no secrets but we had one person in my Patrol that talked about a lot of phases of the course.

 

I don't wsnt to know how the movie ends while I'm watching it. Titanic is and exception also and WW2 movie. I know Hitler dies in the end.

[dg98adams]

uz2bnowl,

 

I know I posted that I didn't "get" the game...and certainly did not remember any Moral or Reason to play it. I was a WB participant and on staff.

 

IMHO, the game is less than useful... it's forgettable.

[Vicki]

Wood Badge experiences differ - I can tell you that half of the troop figured out what was going on in my course. We Bears were sitting in the back, of course, and had the opportunity to observe how odd this appeared and decided this wasn't a hill worth taking. Having had some management courses as well as an Outward Bound type experience, I mused, "what doesn't fit here"? With the questioning process started it was short work to get to the answer and pass it around. Wood Badge was a blast for me - both as a participant and a staffer.

 

The other half of the troop didn't get it and refused to get it - one patrol member got so mad she ripped up the cards and threw them at the rest of her patrol. That patrol, and her, are now a Wood Badge horror story. Wood Badge was not fun for them.

 

As far as economics is concerned, read less Keynes and more Adam Smith, Friedrich Hayek, and Milton Friedman. Wealth is NOT a zero-sum game, with a "set amount" available in the world.

 

Vicki

 

[gcnphkr]

I disliked the game, although complaining about the economy of the game is silly. It is a game, not a model of the real world.

 

My problem was that it did not really teach what it claimed. The patrol with the most points tends to be the patrol that went along most of the time but which would occasionally stab the others. This is what it really taught: "Be good most of the time and you can get away with screwing others now and then."

 

 

[Fester281]

Always wondered why the game wasn't set up as pairs of two groups, A vs B and C vs D, with cooperate/don't divvied up secretly between the two. That way, a better comparison could be made.

 

Haven't done WB yet, but encountered the game elsewhere. Took me about 5 minutes to figure it out. Spent half the remaining time watching to see when others would "get it", and the other half wondering if the few remaining would ever get it at all.

 

Applicable? Yes. I've told crossover Webelos, "Hey look, we really don't have the equipment and adult help to do some of the things that you're all excited about doing. But, check out the troop over at Saint Velcro; you'll find a dozen kids over there who LIVE what you want to do." I don't recall many kids being sent by the St Velcro crowd over to US, but it doesn't matter. We do no favors to a kid by putting him in an unhappy, ill-fitting situation just to pump up our numbers, and one more happy Scout making it down the trail ups the final score for everyone.

 

 

[Greg Nelson]

Wealth can't be created???? You're joking, right?

 

What did Bill Gates do? Did he go out and mine $30 billion worth of gold?

 

Did Henry Ford rob banks to make his vast fortune?

 

Let's tie this in to two of the most popular starter merit badges - Leatherwork and Basketry.

 

Wind the clock back 100,000 years to two guys - Hunter and Gatherer.

 

Hunter kills animals and makes blankets and pelts.

 

Gatherer takes reeds and weaves baskets and chairs.

 

By trading with each other, both Hunter and Gatherer have access to the goods the other can produce. If Hunter goes and kills Gatherer, he can take Gatherer's store of goods, but will lose access to the continued stream of wealth Gatherer will produce in the future.

 

Scale this up times a billion with millions of possible occupations, and you have today's society. Every morning you or I wake up is another opportunity to create wealth out of the efforts of our minds and/or bodies.

[scoutldr]

Bill Gates used a raw material...his brain. Intellectual capital is a raw material too. The point is, he didn't sit around and wait for the Govt to dump money in his lap...he got off his duff, teamed up with Ballmer and developed a product. As did Jobs and Wozniak.

 

And if Hunter had sat in his cave and waited for a Mammoth to throw itself on the fire, none of us would be here. Survival requires individual effort, not handouts.