That treasure chest hidden in the West. Here's the story.
The amount of time and money spent by treasure hunters completely dwarfs the treasure. Of course that's not the point.
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Improbably, Fenn recovered from the cancer, but he decided to hide the treasure anyway, unaccompanied by his bones. Often, when Preston visited, Fenn would take him into his walk-in vault and show him the latest configuration of booty. “He took stuff out and put stuff in,” Preston remembers. “He was having a lot of fun thinking about what was going to be in that chest.” Early versions contained antique silver and gold watches and gemstones, including an amethyst, a topaz, and a star ruby. Fenn added a bunch of $1,000 bills. Then he removed them, realizing they would rot over time.
One of Fenn’s concerns was how he would know whether the treasure had been found, should that occur in his lifetime. He pondered various strategies, at one point including a document (a bearer bond or bank letter in an amount Preston recalls as $100,000) that a finder would need to present at a bank, triggering Fenn’s notification. Then Fenn removed that, too, figuring that banks might no longer be around to honor the obligation. He ended up putting something else in the chest, an unknown item he never revealed to anyone, which would somehow let him know when the treasure was discovered.
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the game of oligarchy
Brewster strikes again
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I just invented and played a game today with my family, and it worked great– it was fun and we learned an important lesson. Similar to the game “Monopoly” which shows that one person ends up monopolizing even though you think the rules are “fair,” the game of Oligarchy shows that the “free market” leads inexorably to one person getting all the money and everyone else going broke. And fast.
The reason this is important is that it disproves one basic tenet of the free-market idea– that it is a game with many winners. Rather the free market, without redistribution, puts everyone (except one) in debt bondage, and quickly. We joked that those that were run out of money had to sell organs. Our game broke up into social classes– it was not worth it to the rich to play with the poor. It was all very real for a simple game.
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It's sort of obvious this works.. less obvious is it is also how parts of society work - more now than ever
a tip of the hat to Greg
06:49 in Current Affairs, Games, General Commentary | Permalink | Comments (0)