I feel like this structure could be improved, as I don’t think it would press the right psychological buttons. If I’m enthusiastic about the charity, it’s strange to be (effectively) playing against it—especially if there’s a relatively large amount of money at stake, most of it conditionally donated by people other than me, so the altruistic benefit of losing the game clearly outweighs the selfish benefit of winning it.
That’s a good point. Maybe it’d be better if it were like one team of humans against another. Although I could also see it being the case that people are in fact motivated to win: competitiveness, social pressure, not enough money to be particularly driven to have it donated to the charity.
find someone (or offer yourself) to match (or at least significantly augment) the donation if the human team wins
Yes, sorry—‘magically find more money’ was not exactly a helpful suggestion! (I think I was more confident in the negative part of my critique, but wanted to at least try to offer something constructive.) I do think it could potentially work for quite small values of ‘significantly augment’, though, if that is an option; just enough to take the game from from zero sum to non-negligibly positive sum.
Thanks for the feedback!
That’s a good point. Maybe it’d be better if it were like one team of humans against another. Although I could also see it being the case that people are in fact motivated to win: competitiveness, social pressure, not enough money to be particularly driven to have it donated to the charity.
That sounds difficult.
Yes, sorry—‘magically find more money’ was not exactly a helpful suggestion! (I think I was more confident in the negative part of my critique, but wanted to at least try to offer something constructive.) I do think it could potentially work for quite small values of ‘significantly augment’, though, if that is an option; just enough to take the game from from zero sum to non-negligibly positive sum.