Please vote...Just wanna know what everyone thinks about this!





We had a pop quiz in my ES class today, and at the end of the class the Proffesor said that he's willing to give us an extra credit if we did one simple thing.

He said that he would give us an extra 4 or 10 points..
each person would get as many points as they request, on one simple condition that no more than 25% of the class requested the full 10 points but we're not suppose to discuss with anyone, cause after all it was a quiz. I thought about this for a long time.. shall I take a risk and ask for the full 10 point, or should I play it safe and just ask for 4, cause 4 is better than nothing at all.. After putting alot of thought into it, I wrote that I wanted 4 points.

As the papers were passed to the side I saw that some people did ask for a 10.. I felt a tinge of jealousy "what if he did get a 10 and I only got a 4, that's stupid, I could have got it and I just let the chance go"... and that was all that I could think of, how much I would loose... I learnt later that this is what is called a SOCIAL TRAP..

I was trying to think of how this is related to our real life.. lately we've discussing about whether we should limit the number of kids we have in order to avoid overpopulation in the future. I thought that birth limitations are so unnatural. I don't want to be limited to just have 2 children. I want to be able to have a big happy family, where the dining table is always full of family members and the living room is full of loved ones while we watch our favourite show together... I want my children to crowd around my bed reading the Yasin when I'm dying.. But is that a selfish request?

In some countries, they do limit their family members, such as in China. I remember that while I was in UK, 2.4 is the average number of children per couple. That's why there's a family comedy show called "2.4 kids".. not sure if it's still on in BBC.. In Amish communities, they would limit their group to 150 people, and whenever there's more than 150 people, they would split into two groups.. They believe that if groups get bigger than 150 people, then they will be strangers to one another.. if you think about it, this is true.. that's why it's sometimes nice to live in small villagers "where everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came"...

Anyway, while I was deep in my thought, a TA came to the Prof to give the result of our extra credit quiz.. 65 people requested 4 points, however 28 people requested 10 points....Over 30% of the class requested 10 points... So at the end of the day, we all got 0 points!!