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Willingness to Bear Risk The level of an individual's willingness to bear risks definitely affects a society's ability to produce technological innovations. Let's face it, innovation and invention carry a huge amount of risk. What would have happened if something had gone wrong with either Fat Man or Little Boy in that infamous stretch of New Mexico desert? That's right...boom. Changing a known (and trusted) tool or production method by even the slightest margin involves something of a gamble. In the past, when social safety nets were either imperfect or simply nonexistent, the dangers of failing in a technological venture were far greater than they are today. Toying with something as critical as agricultural production could easily have resulted in something as serious as starvation. Most people will agree that humans, at least those who don't engage in pastimes such as jumping out of planes, have an aversion to risk. However, little is knows about the factors that determine the degree of risk aversion. At what point will people engage in an activity that they previously thoughts was unacceptably risky? Most anthropologists believe that the level of institutional complexity within a society (such as the presence of institutions that make diversification possible or act as a social safety net upon failure) determine an individual's willingness to bear risk. Another possibility is the level and position of a given individual within society. For example, all things being equal, heads of extended families will naturally be more cautious than heads of small nuclear families. Conversely, individuals whose position in society is threatened and have little to lose will be far more willing to take risks. So, if willingness to bear risk is an important variable in technological innovation, why isn't it incorporated in more games? Well, in some cases it is. Activision's Civilization: Call to Power challenges players to finish the Alien Life Project while being constantly threatened by the risk of explosion in the X-Lab. The players, however, are only limited in the amount of times they rebuild the Lab (after it accidentally detonates) by the amount of money they possess. No matter how much money is available to rebuild, do you think that any scientist or technician worth their salt would continue to be involved in a project if their life was always in peril…probably not. Would politicians continue to fund a project if they constantly saw tax dollars being funneled into an impossible undertaking…not likely. So, how could we go about making an individual's willingness to bear risk more of an important factor in technological innovation and change? The secret lies in providing incentives so that the individual will participate in risky behavior. Let's say that each technological undertaking, whether it's building a blacksmithy or a spacecraft, has an initial risk value. Granted, the designer would arbitrarily choose this value, but it would be set in relation to all other activities in the game. As time went on, the player could build institutions and facilities (such as hospitals) that would lower the technologies' risk value. People would be a lot more likely to participate in risky behavior if they knew that they had ready access to good medical treatment (even happier if that health care was socialized) if something went wrong and they were injured. Another incentive would be to increase the wages of those who participated in the dangerous undertaking. Through history, humans have done some amazingly dangerous things in order to make more money than they normally would. In time, the technology would become much more accepted and attract more workers. The whole cycle would start anew when the player encouraged the development of a new technological innovation. ________________________________________________________ |
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