Envy Always Loses

In chapter 12 Dawkins analyzed the idea of a nice and nasty player . His conclusion stated that nice guys always came out ahead from those who play nasty. He demonstrated this by using various high pathetical and real life examples.  It is crucial to mention that there are two different types of games. The first one is called the “zero sum”, this is when there can only be one winner at the end of the game.  The second type is the “nonzero sum”, meaning that two parties are able to unite and come out victorious.

            Since it was proven that nice players, “not envious” come out victorious and that nasty players “envious” ended up achieving less, it seems relevant to analyze why this happened. First it is critical to know the difference between the two. Those “non envious” players are the once that are more forgiving and are happy if the other player wins as much money as they do. On the other hand “envious” players are only satisfied if they achieve more money than their opponent.  There is a very famous tale told to Colombian children so that they realize that being selfish in life accomplishes nothing. The tale tells the story of an American fisherman who was trying to find the best fishing technique in the world. He then went to Colombia to learn the secret of an important fisherman globally known. As they both went out fishing for crabs he noticed that the Colombian fisherman never put a led on the bucket were he was holding his crabs. The American then asked the Colombia why he was doing such thing since he was giving the crabs the opportunity to escape. The Colombian then answered: “They all try to escape, but they never accomplish it, this is because as soon as a crab sees another one half way up the bucket he will pull him down”.  This tale focuses on the thoughts of all those “envois” players, and how at the end of the day they accomplish nothing.  However, if humanity were to follow Dawkins theory and people started becoming less “envious” the world would become a better places were everyone’s priority would be for the greater good rather than personal accomplishments.