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Mike Kidron

The Presence of the Future

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Extract 9 – Coda:The Evolution Game
(Consciousness v. Extrapolation)

The game is about survival and the moral choices that underlie it.

The game lasts about forty minutes.
 

Components

• 160 playing cards divided into 112 Prompt cards (covering environmental, social and technical events, real or anticipated) and 48 Choice cards (32 jokers which are used strategically, 12 neutralizers which nullify the effect of any other card when invoked, and 4 terminators, which end the game forthwith)
   
• A supply of Academy tokens (50 ones, 20 tens, 20 hundreds, and 1 thousand)
   

Players

The game can be played by any number (although four is optimum).

Players divide (by lot, consensus or fiat) into:

• Biches (representing big, rich countries) endowed with 100 million people and 1,000 academies;
   
• Boors (big, poor countries) with 100 million people and 100 academies;
   
• Smiches (small, rich countries) with 20 million people and 100 academies; and
   
• Smoors (small, poor countries) with 20 million people and 10 academies.
   

Setup

Shuffle the cards and place them face downwards on a central deck.

Players take their quota of tokens from the Chest, always keeping them visible to all.

Bich opens the game, followed by the player to the left. Later rounds are opened by players in the same sequence.
 

The Play

Each player in turn takes a card from the central deck. If it is a Prompt card the player reads it aloud and all follow its instructions (by taking tokens from the Chest or returning them to it). If a player takes a Choice card it is played when the player deems it expedient to do so.

Once used a card is returned to the bottom of the deck.
 

Course of the game

The game consists of several rounds in each of which the number of a player’s Academies changes, and with it the balance between Population and Academies. This balance can move towards or away from the Critical Ratio when a player makes the transition to ecological society. If any one player makes that transition, all win.

Players can influence each other’s movement towards or away from the Critical Ratio by the use to which they put their choice cards.
 

Aim of the game

The aim of the game is to increase the ratio of Academies to Population.
 

End of the game

The game can be won in either of two ways: by achieving a one win situation in which all other players are forced to drop out (when the number of his or her Academies falls below half the starting position, namely below 500 for a Bich, 50 for a Smich, 50 for a Boor, and 5 for a Smoor. (The assets of the dropout are then divided equally amongst the survivors) Or by contriving an all win situation, Academies to Population for any one player doubles, i.e. when the number of Academies reaches 2,000 for a Bich, 200 for a Boor, 200 for a Smich, or 20 for a Smoor.

There is also an abort situation in which all lose (when a terminator card is drawn and not neutralized).
 

The Winner

Depending on the way the game ends, the winner is either a standalone ‘me’ who has to entertain the other players (with a round of something – a restaurant meal, or an exotic weekend in Bangkok or Birmingham) as the price of victory, or a convivial ‘us’ who share the costs of mutual entertainment.

This extract is the Appendix of the book – a table game based around the ideas in the book.

 
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Last updated on 13 November 2019