True story.
Last night I had a dream that I was a participant in something called the "Kindness Games." A group of strangers were put in a massive warehouse full of every material good imaginable: from books to food to artisanal loofahs; it was like an Amazon.com hub. The catch was, you couldn't take anything for yourself. You could only acquire something if someone else bought it for you (and no re-gifting). Instead of money, each participant was given a set number of "Kindness Points": spend your points to help someone else, but if you run out of Kindness Points (or die), you lose.
Need water? Better hope the guy next to you will pick up the tab on your Evian.
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Want to buy water for the guy next to you? Better hope you have the points to spend.
I don't remember how things ended, but taken to its logical conclusion it seems the only way to win the Kindness Games is to be the most selfish person there, while at the same time ensuring that the others don't resent you and will buy you what you need to survive. Indeed, the best people, the true givers, would likely lose the game the fastest. The cunning ones would form alliances to buy goods for one another: a form of collusion that's not really in the spirit of the game.
On what I swear is a totally unrelated note, the median number of participants in a large health policy rose between 2009 and 2010 by 3.7 percent. In that same period, fees and commissions paid to brokers only rose 2.2 percent. Your final percentage of the day is 5.7 percent: the total amount premiums paid to carriers rose on those same policies.
Oh, those cunning, cunning carriers.
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