2002-10-01|10:57 a.m.
Yesterday was my first day of school at UCSD. It is really a wonderful campus. Everything is so green and alive. Even the air about it smells clean and fragrant. When I am there I can�t help but feel happy.
In the center of campus is a set of small buildings where there are student-run bookshops, vegetarian food shops, a bike shop, and other things. I love the idea of them. Yesterday during our long lunch break, we got vegi-sandwiches and juice for lunch from the food co-op for almost six dollars for the two of us total. And there is one bookshop that sells social and political books (some of which have been banned) and all the students are completely knowledgeable about their merchandise. And in that bookstore, there is a small rack of documentaries to rent for free and for as long as you like. I was very pleased that they trusted people enough to do this.
A and I also sneaked into the Jewish club meeting taking place on some spot of grass and listened to this college band called the �Rabbinical School Drop Outs.� The band consisted of a bass guitar, bass clarinet, clarinet, oboe, and drums. They played a mixture of traditional Jewish music and a more modern pop style. The best part was when the bass clarinetist was overcome with musical zeal, I am guessing, and fell to the ground gyrating and tooting his horn. I bet that left you a nice picture in your head.
Then, we left that and slept in the grass until we had to be off to class again.
All of my classes are pretty interesting. One of them has an insane amount of reading to do. Two of the classes have two books and the third has eight. The insane one is comparative politics, so I guess that isn�t so strange. We�ll see how I hold up, I guess.
At UC�s it is typically set up so that you have lecture twice a week for about an hour and discussion in smaller groups with the T.A. once a week for about an hour. One of these discussions was particularly interesting. I was sitting in my American politics discussion when the TA announced that he was willing to make us an offer on our participation points, which is 10% of our grade in the class.
He said that he�d allow us to make a business deal and use two of our existing theoretical points in a market. There were 30 people in the room and he needed to have 50 points to make the deal work. He said that we could either give our two points and gain one if it worked or not give anything and gain one point as well if it worked. He said that it was like a toll system in which some people offer money for something that eventually everyone, even if they didn�t originally give money for, gets to use. So, either way, if it worked, we�d all end up with an extra point which would allow us to miss a day of discussion. But, if it didn�t work and he didn�t get 50 points, those who gave the two points would lose their points and start the quarter off with a �B+� in this area and those who gave nothing would lose nothing.
Then, he said we had thirty seconds to decide our deposit and we could not converse with anyone in the class about it. Then, he collected the note cards we wrote our deposits on and he began placing them in piles of 2�s and 0�s, but we couldn�t tell which was which. One pile immediately had a lot of cards and the other slowly gained six. We knew once that small pile had over five, the deal was lost. The TA laughed at our trying to guess the outcome.
He said, �Yeah, you just barely made it. Made being completely all �0� contributers that is.�
The room was shocked. And so was I. The room was shocked because they all thought everyone else would deposit and they would gain without having to participate. I was shocked because I was one of those six people who naively believed in a group of people.
He told us that this happens every time in all situations. That it is called the �collective action problem� and that political scientists have to deal with it primarily in issues of conflict. He asked us why it happened just then. Almost none of the six made comment, I think they felt cheated. But, a lot of the non-contributors were very defensive. They said that they couldn�t take a chance that wasn�t an obvious gain to them. Others said that they didn�t want the chance of lowering their grade. Others said that they just hoped everyone else would do it so that they wouldn�t have to. I kept thinking in my head that they had everything to gain had they just seen that if we all gave we would have had a sure chance of gaining a point. I also thought it showed that people as a whole don�t trust the judgment of others and then lose their own good judgment. I wanted to say all this, but knew it�d be pointless. As the TA explained, it was intrinsic to human behavior.
I knew my own reasons were because I really believed in the group. I saw only our benefit if we worked together. Plus, I thought, I�d rather give and if it didn�t work, I�d just have to work much harder in another aspect of the class. In short, I was puerile; I suppose.
He went into some real life examples and theories about it that pertained to the chapter. There is a concept called �tragedy of the commons.� It dates back to the time before people privatized the sale of land to individuals in Europe. At that time, people would all own grazing-type animals and they would all have a communal piece of pasture. Everyone could use it at any time they wanted. It failed when everyone did use it all of the time. The pastures basically died because they couldn�t support all of the animals all of the time. So, they started selling off the land to individuals.
Before we left, he told us our grades were unchanged and that everyone would get an extra point for whatever they wanted. He said our group was the most unusual, because it had the least amount of people who gave two and of those people none of them complained that they lost the points. In other sessions, he said those who gave were really upset at their loss and said it was because others were morally corrupt. And many of them demanded their points back. This made me even more disheartened.
I walked out of class and it all came flooding into me and it seemed so tragic. I kept wondering why. Then, I felt a fool. And later, I felt better and accepted it. I just realized that I do make decisions like the others do sometimes and that it is something that we have to deal with.
I didn�t just learn a new political concept. I learned something I had to strive for.