"And let every man deal honestly, and be alike among this people, and receive alike, that ye may be one, even as I have commanded you." -Doctrine and Covenants 51:9
It was the 19th century, and a young religion on the American frontier was figuring out how to take care of its members.
Actually, it was 2007, and I was in seminary studying the Doctrine and Covenants. We had reached the sections about the Law of Consecration, and our teacher had concocted a game to make it more applicable to us.
Our class was in charge of a "fish farm." It didn't involve real fish, just graphics and spreadsheets. The purpose of the activity was to end up with as many fish as possible.
Each day, our teacher would show us how many fish there were in the pond. If we left the fish alone, they would grow up and reproduce. If anyone hoarded the daily allotment of fish, the supply would dwindle. (I don't quite remember how all of this worked, but it made sense back then. I hope it makes sense now.)
If someone hoarded fish, we had the option to vote them out to protect our fish supply. But the vote had to be unanimous. And that gave me an idea.
I raised my hand and said, "I don't think we should vote anyone out, ever. They are part of our class and deserve to stay with us." A few students looked really happy about that. A few looked annoyed.
The next day, the fish farm activity began. Our teacher showed us the state of our little fish farm. "What should we do with the daily allotment? Should we leave it alone?"
One student raised his hand and announced that he would take it all. My teacher noted that in a spreadsheet. "Okay, everyone. He gets all the fish for the day, so there won't be as many available to reproduce. Is there anyone you want to vote out?" The student was nominated.
But I hadn't had years of lessons on peer pressure for nothing. I kept my hand down. The student would get to stay.
"Anyone else you want to vote out?" my teacher asked.
"KYRA!" another guy said. "She's voting to keep everyone in!"
I began to laugh as my teacher asked the class if I should be kicked out. More than half the class wanted me gone, but the students who were interested in hoarding and my friends in the class let me stay.
That cemented it. We were stuck in this downward spiral.
The next day, a different student chose to hoard all the fish. A few of us voted to let him stay. I could see the anguish on some of my classmates' faces. They knew we were self-destructing and they had no power to stop it. I felt more pleasure at their frustration than I would have expected.
Over the next few days, a group of hoarders emerged. There were mostly boys but at least one girl joined in too. Our pond of fish dwindled and dwindled. Meanwhile, kids in other classes told us how their fish population was just growing and growing because no one was choosing to hoard. I might have been a bit jealous, but this was just too fun.
Then one day I missed seminary for some extracurricular event. I made it back to school in time to catch the bus home. One of my friends sat next to me. She said, "Someone hoarded again, but none of us voted them out even though you weren't there. They tried to vote you out, too, but we didn't let them." It was nice to know how safe I was.
The next week, the game came to an abrupt stop. "The fish population was depleted too much," our teacher said. "No one can get any more fish," he said.
We fell silent, shocked and ashamed at what had happened. I felt the guilt acutely. I had helped ruin the game for the rest of the class by not ever voting out the hoarders. I had been an enemy of Zion.
Then, class got back to normal. The game wasn't over for the other classes yet, but our section didn't talk about it much for the next few days since there was nothing any of us could do.
After about a week, there was a final reckoning. My teacher pulled up the data on our fish pond and showed a graph of the steep decline of the fish population.
"But, you went a week without hoarding. So, the fish had a chance to multiply."
(I don't know if that was supposed to happen or if he just took pity on us.)
How much had the fish pond produced? Not much. Each of us (except the hoarders) got 2 Swedish fish on our desk to represent the meager success of our efforts. I could only imagine the piles and piles of fish the other classes had gotten through their collective cooperation.
But that was it! After we ate our 2 Swedish fish each, we moved on, wading into other topics in the Doctrine and Covenants. I tried to make up for my prior silliness by being helpful and engaged in class. Other than a kind note the last day of class in my seminary yearbook from one of the most egregious hoarders in which he thanked me for not voting him out (just kidding . . . he wrote "I WANT YOUR BODY" and it took up half the page and I'd wished I'd voted him out), the game didn't ever really come up again.
And I still don't have any conclusions to draw from it. It's hard to have a collective mindset. It's hard to know what to do with uncooperative people. It's hard to do group projects.
And maybe that's the point of it all.
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