To be honest, I was a little confused about how to run the village. I don’t think I maximized my resources to the fullest as I decided to play it safe. In my first round, the village received no rainfall and so I prioritized supplying water to the village. I did not engage in any of the small businesses and I taxed at 50%. I should have taken out a loan sooner but the interest rate was too high in the first couple of rounds so I decided against it. At one point one of my villagers became very sick and I had to cut their labor and take them to the doctor. This did not hurt me too horribly but definitely took out a toll on the efficiency of my labor.
Overall, the game showed me how to allocate my resources. It was very hard choosing between scarce objects and the littlest of things that could impact my success such as sickness or pregnancy. The game was very easy to die in and could be a big representation of several impoverished communities.
When listening to the podcast, I find the discussion about systems to be very interesting. Many things have the ability to impact all other things it is connected to. Within Universities and Governments, if one person makes a mistake or wrong decision, it has the power to negatively impact everyone else. I also find it fascinating that people study systems and their interactions. I wonder how systems have impacted roles in society. Such as gender roles or roles in the workplace. Roles in the classroom or in athletics? How has it impacted the world we live in? Has it created ideas that some people are below others?
You mentioned not maximizing your resources because you wanted to “play it safe.” You echoed what tons of leaders experience daily when they have to respond to crises or outbreaks of things. It’s human for us to avoid risks because we all don’t want to be the “bad guy” in someone else’s book; though, if we don’t take risks, as you’ve seen from your simulation, this can be just as detrimental to society’s welfare.
You make a great point that one person’s decision can affect so many other things, I think that makes our school special when it comes to discussions about COVID and of our History as we have the Web metaphor on lock. Unfortunately, it also means we can see the bad decisions spread quickly.