I am not going to lie, as I read the article, I already knew I would be confused during the game. The article stated, “The fate of the environmental conscious town demonstrates how human planning and decision-making process can go awry if we do not pay attention to possible side effects and long term repercussions, if we apply corrective measures too aggressively or too timidly, or if we ignore premises we should have considered.” The fact lies that we are not able to just make a decision in the moment without thinking about the effects and difficulties that could come into play and hurt in the long run. It was also said that human beings tend to deal with situations and problems as they happen in the present moment also referred to as “ad hoc basis.” There is always a chance to choose an action that will result in causing negative impacts to the world since small mistakes can occur but if enough continue to be made, they will make an impact by adding up and can equal the same as one big mistake.

It is important to note that even well thought out good intentions are able to result with negative impacts that can harm us in the long run if we miss some visible or invisible holes in the action being pursued. I am excited to use the simulator and see not only what actions I will take but also how many blind spots or holes in my choice can exist and impact the simulation in  a positive or negative manner. I have a feeling that after reading the article, I will be overthinking any action I take during the simulation as I will attempt to figure out what will come out of the decision especially how the negative affects will be hurtful in the long run of the simulator.

We used this game in one of high school classes a few years ago, but this was much harder than I remember it being. The first couple rounds I was really just trying to figure out how I could best divide up the family work hours to produce enough crops/food and collect enough firewood and water. I think eventually I found a good balance, but it took a little while. When the firewood was low in the town, I limited the amount that each family in the village could collect. I also tried to invest in a small business every game so the family could earn more income. Honestly, some parts of the game were very frustrating and I am not sure if it was because I didn’t know how to play that well or if the game was just really challenging to begin with. Every game my maize production was too low, no matter how hard I tried to increase our farming and resources. Also, every single time that I grew any cotton, it wouldn’t sell at the market and I would lose hundreds if not thousands of dollars on the crop going bad or not selling and loss of transportation money. Towards the end of the game, I just decided never to grow cotton again. I also struggled with keeping Kodjo and Fatou alive at times. They would get a sickness or disease, and health would be around 60%, so I would take them to the doctor and make sure they had enough food and water, and then they died. This happened many times and I didn’t know what to do or how to fix that. By the last game I played, Kodjo and Fatou were able to have a child. When Fatou was pregnant, I significantly decreased her work hours and gave her more calories to eat, but unfortunately the child died pretty quickly. Overall, the game was a good learning experience to show how difficult it is to get out of poverty and even just to survive within poverty, and I can’t imagine experiencing these burdens in real life, because this is not just a game.

I loved the nerve explanation of systems that was explained in Podcast 7 because it illustrated how even slight biases and issues in a system can have massive long term, and sometimes painful effects.  Dr. Bezio’s point that systems management should not be done by one leader, or even by a small team, reminded me of what we’re discussing in my Stalin history class right now. (Not to sound like a Stalin apologist because he was horrible and made a lot of terrible and influential decisions in the USSR), but some scholars want to frame history by placing all of the state’s power and decision making on him, when in reality the USSR was essentially a giant bureaucratic state that could only function with lots of collaborative work. In the US, our tendency to idolize our leaders (something I’m guilty of, I have a picture of RBG on my wall) can become problematic because we fall into the trap of oversimplifying situations and missing the nuances of how systems really work.

I also liked her comparison of twisting your ankle while climbing a mountain and being allowed to adapt to new conditions to the unrealistic expectations we put on leaders to stick to their original stance even in new situations. Especially in light of the January 6th riots at the US Capital, the idea of term limits can way to transition systems without breaking them seems very relevant and important. Dr. Bezio points out that it’s hard to stop a system once it’s started running, which is called a homeostatic feedback loop. Updating a system can be difficult and slightly destabilizing, but there are ways to cope with that. The best ways to adapt and create positive system change, which Dr. Bezio says are long term thinking, not oversimplifying issues, and proactivity, all seem at odds with natural human instincts of reactivity. However, I’m interested in further exploring how we can encourage people to push back on our reactive instincts to solve larger problems like climate change. Understanding how systems really work means that we actually know what are the most effective areas to target for change, and that might not always be the most visible leader. In terms of social justice organizing, understanding that distinction can be vital for success.

I played this game for way too long. Before starting I saw the high score list, so I knew it was at least possible to do well. Unfortunately, my villagers ended up dying every round I played. On one of my higher rounds, I had a child, but then my partner died after childbirth, and the child kept getting sick and died. I thought that another person would give me more labor resources, but it was also another mouth to feed and came with expensive medical costs. I wanted to reach the point where I could add infrastructure to the village because it should’ve made things easier, but it was extremely difficult to get that much money. I thought I had figured out the right limits for fish and wood collection, but it made me more reliant on the harvest. All it took was a couple bad harvests and sickness and I lost a lot of money. When you have almost nothing, it makes it nearly impossible to progress. I guess that’s the point of the game, which sounds weird saying considering that some people face things like this every day.

It was frustrating that sometimes the government in the game would offer to subsidize things that the village still didn’t even come close to being able to afford. It would’ve been much better to inject that discount as cash into the community. When there is no time or resources to develop a small business, you can’t create more wealth for yourself or the community. That left only wood and fish as constants to sell, but without limits, people would take too many and everyone would be left with nothing. I’ve seen some others mention it in their posts, but this whole simulation is great at showcasing poverty traps. Lack of education, poor healthcare, zero infrastructure, and severely limited labor choices are just some of the things working together to prevent progress. It makes me wonder how humans have been able to get as far as we have but leave so many people behind.

I went through three different simulations of the Millennium Village. I ran into the same problem all three times. I kept running out of money. As a finance major this has me worried for my future both academically and professionally. Luckily I was never fully intending on going into finance as a career. I tried three different approaches to solve my money issues. I took out no loans in the first run through, the maximum loans in the second run through, and only the necessary amount to buy bed-netting, a better stove, and good seeds the third time. Nothing worked. I also experimented with the small business investment option. I tried three different approaches, but again none of them really worked. My largest struggle was raising money for the town. My initial thought was to build up a strong infrastructure for the citizens to have by taking on debt and repaying it when the economy got strong. However, I was never able to get to the point where I was able to properly invest in the town’s infrastructure. If I had to identify my biggest problem it would probably be my lack of patience. The issue is twofold. I am not a naturally very patient person and I happened to be doing the simulation late at night after a long day. I knew going into the simulation that I would probably fail miserably. But, I did not think it was going to be because of money. I figured I would end up creating a barren landscape devoid of any resources. I am pretty sure I was well on my way to that outcome but alas money was my limiting factor. The simulation was pretty fun to do and I intend on trying it again before class on Tuesday.

My respect for decision makers has risen. I was tasked with caring for virtual people in a made up place and I failed miserably within a few years. It really puts it into perspective that our leaders are trying their best but will still inevitably fail or encounter bumps along the way. We are all only human. While I understand it can be hard to break through the partisan curtain, I believe that if we see each other as people first and what we believe comes second that the world would be a better place. Obviously exceptions exist to seeing others as people first, namely if they are fascist, antisemitic, racist, etc. As I write this I realize the unlikeliness of the ideal outlined above to come to pass. Every individual has a different set of values and threshold to which they can and cannot overlook certain views to see another individual as an equal. Hopefully we all can just make our best effort to show each other a little kindness and see where the world comes out on the other side. (I am aware that most of this probably makes no sense).

I found the Millennium Village Simulator very interesting and informative. At first I started with both Kodjo and Fatou having full health and allocated my hours to start making a little money off of the surplus of food I made. However as I started to try to adjust the hours I spent on the family tasks to make more money, I quickly lost health or did not have enough water or nourishment for both Kodjo and Fatou. Very quickly the simulation became much harder than I originally thought it would be, which I am assuming is the point behind the simulation. It is very hard to decide how to allocate resources when your resources are so scarce. I found it hard to decide what to spend my hours doing when my health kept going down and my maize crop was bad season after season. Additionally I found it hard to balance how much to tax the community and restrict certain resources, such as wood, when they were becoming depleted. At one point I realized that there was an option to attempt to have a child which I did not even consider because I was already struggling to make enough food for just Kodjo and Fatou and did not have a lot of money to spend on a child. Ultimately both Kodjo and Fatou died much quicker than I thought they would and it felt like there was almost nothing I could do to avoid it. 

This simulation made me think of my Justice and Civil Society class where we have previously talked about poverty traps meaning people who lack the capital to make an income which makes it very hard to even “get your foot on the ladder” to get out. I definitely felt that with this simulation. There was not enough hours for me to allocate to the various tasks to make enough money to buy helpful products and maintain good health to elevate the quality of life of Kodjo and Fatou and the larger community.

In “The Logic of Failure” Dorner discusses the cognitive methods in which we make decisions, both good and bad. He uses information from an experiment done where a handful of participants were asked to play a game. In the game, participants had dictatorial leadership over a region called Tanaland. Their objective was to make decisions about farming, water irrigation, livestock and much more to ensure the survival of the people in the area. It seemed like a simple task, but the biggest takeaway from his analyzation is that it was anything but.

This is how it felt to play the Millennium Village Simulation. I’m a HUGE fan of Sims, Tropico and other popular life simulation games, but this one was by far the hardest. I tried the demo, and both of my characters died from the flu in a whopping two seasons. After a few more attempts, I realized that many of the decisions I was (and was not) making were similar to concepts present in Dorner’s analyzation of the Tanaland experiment. One of the “good” things that I was doing is that I consistently made a decent amount of decisions each round. There was never a round where I didn’t change at least half of my village’s parameters so I could try out different scenarios. One of the “bad” things, however, is that I tend to jump around from one objective to the next as it comes to me. This generally results in me forgetting the task I originally set out to do.

To be honest, I was getting pretty frustrated with Millennium Village Simulator and only seemed to get worse. At first I thought I was getting the hang of keeping both Fatou and Kodjo healthy and fully satisfied, while still bringing in enough money for the family and the village. But as soon as other factors like a bad crop yield or an illness came into play each round/attempt, I seemed to continue to lose more and more control. It only goes to show that simulations are only that and as humans it is very difficult to predict/plan anything simply due to the presence of random/unpredictable factors. After reading Dorner and playing with the Simulator, I had myself question decisions that I had made – both looking at the short-term and long-term implications. It is very easy to get sucked into small factors/details and then almost entirely lose sight of the bigger, overall picture. Having to decide between feeding both people or sending one to the doctor is a decision that you don’t really want to make and it very easy to potentially let emotions/personal feelings get in the way of one’s better judgement.

I felt very isolated from the situation in the game as this is obviously not my day to day life. But as stated on the initial page of the simulation before starting the simulation’s creators “hope that, by immersing themselves in the daily life of a family, students will identify more deeply with the local experience of extreme poverty”. It certainly made me think about how fortunate I am that I do not have to fear that one poor harvest could potentially result in my family’s poor health, but this is the situation for many people around the world from the shortages of basic necessities to inadequate healthcare. I really had no idea how to keep these people alive and balance these many needs, and the fact that people at all and especially children younger than me is a scary thought.

Both the reading and podcast caused me to view current systemic issues in our world differently. I had never fully confronted the notion that even our society’s “experts,” such as government officials, educators, and the like, are prone to not making the best decisions to improve society’s overall welfare in the long run. Nonetheless, I believe that we- younger generations- have been conditioned to solve problems that might arise in the short-term than the long-term. For instance, in college, some students solve the problem of not feeling overwhelmed by their many assignments by consuming caffeine or other stimulants and staying up for hours on end without proper rest. In fact, this type of behavior is rewarded and lauded by other students as it is evidence of one’s ambition, grit, and determination. While the short-term benefits of this action would result in a major dopamine and serotonin boost for the individual, they do not always realize how staying up late cost them the longevity they needed to not feel “burnt out” so early on in a semester or cost them the opportunities they could have had to connect with others. This is not even to mention the consequences this would have on an individual’s mental health or the root causes of the issue at hand, which principally centers on how America’s higher education system does not normalize putting oneself well-being over academic and professional accolades. I know now that the aforementioned system is only part of a much larger socio-cultural system that needs serious re-evaluation: America’s toxic workaholic culture.

I say all this to say that I agree with Dr. Bezio and Dorner that we need to adopt a more holistic approach to solving systemic issues. Ideally, I feel that we all would need to take a second to reflect and analyze what things have worked for our society in the past and why before we start asking ourselves how we can build a better future. On top of this, I feel that it’s equally important to involve multiple stakeholders who are excluded from the Western world’s definition of expertise- being a skilled worker who holds prestigious degrees and has accolades attributed to one’s name. As most of us should know by now, diversity, equity, and inclusivity have positive consequences for our global society in both the short and long-term as people’s intersectional identities are the key to unraveling our world’s most complex problems that affect complex populations.

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?