So who won? (day 158)

If you had lots of money and you were suddenly faced with a vote for or against the redistribution of wealth, which way would you go?  What if the majority of your neighbours were quite poor?  I faced that decision today, with my avatar.  I was a wealthy flagger (had invested some money) and healthy enough though I had been injured in a random shooting by some of my fellow avatars.  I had made good choices along the way and though I had tried all the drugs presented to me, I stayed away from teen pregnancy and marriage with kids, and didn't sink my money into a house.   I considered myself a compassionate avatar for equal opportunity and justice for all.   But when the vote was called, I was surprised to feel a quite palpable twinge of entitlement.  I deserved that money.  The fact that chance had favoured me had been forgotten in a frenzy of selective memory.   Exposed, I sheepishly voted for equalization of wealth.  I consoled myself with the cheers of the many who got richer.  I then secretly hoped that winning was not tied to wealth.

My avatar was a little ball in the game "Best Before", a 200 person video game currently playing at The Cultch.  I say 'playing' because it does involve a measure of theatre from the game's creators.  This theatre game has heart.  It was not what I expected and certainly steers away from the usual tropes of video games.  It was folky and funny and thought-provoking in a surprising way.  It was sometimes socially edgy yet undependable as a social barometer.  Were people making decisions based on what they would really do in real life or were they trying something new because the consequences were temporary?  Starting with the decision to be male or female, that dilemma came up often.

A song for this post.