May 1, 2002

6:50 PM

Don't you just hate a winner? You don't? A study by Professors Oswald and Zizzo showed 62% of us are willing to pay to burn some of the winners' cash. Let's ignore danf and extrapolate all sorts of wild conclusions about the nature of mankind. Maybe envy explains a lot of things.
posted by Geo (9 comments total)

more evidence to support the theory that a society with small disparities in wealth is a happier, more stable place than one with large wealth disparities.
posted by boltman at 6:55 PM on May 1, 2002

So why don't we just use leaves for money? That'd solve everyone's financial woes. No more burning leaves. Deforestation wouldn't be a problem anymore. People would go out of their way to grow trees.

That was sarcasm, by the way.
posted by ZachsMind at 7:36 PM on May 1, 2002

The game involves a small group of people exchanging money. So if someone else ends up wealthier than you there's a good chance that they took some money from you. So in the context of this game it's not so suprising that people would retaliate.

If this study had any validity, then in the real world there would be huge, well funded political action commitees dedicated to screwing the wealthy and there just aren't.
posted by rdr at 7:56 PM on May 1, 2002

Deforestation wouldn't be a problem anymore.

No, deforestation would be embarked upon fairly soon as an inflation-staving measure. Haven't you read your Douglas Adams?
posted by kindall at 8:04 PM on May 1, 2002

If this study had any validity, then in the real world there would be huge, well funded political action commitees dedicated to screwing the wealthy and there just aren't.

I don't think this really reflects on the study's validity. It seems to be a well designed, carefully controlled study. Sure, you can't make massive sociopolitical generalizations based on the results, but I don't think the researchers would ever suggest that you could. Studies like this are strictly micro, not macro.
posted by mr_roboto at 8:10 PM on May 1, 2002

Sure, you can't make massive sociopolitical generalizations based on the results, but I don't think the researchers would ever suggest that you could. Studies like this are strictly micro, not macro.


Ok, that seems reasonable.
posted by rdr at 8:21 PM on May 1, 2002

This reminds me of a recent study on altruistic punishment.
posted by D.C. at 12:25 PM on May 2, 2002

Which reminds me of a MetaFilter Thread.
posted by NortonDC at 12:47 PM on May 2, 2002

Feh. I'm surprised that the phrase "altruistic punishment" doesn't appear anywhere in that thread. At least I tried.
posted by D.C. at 6:14 PM on May 2, 2002