altruism
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Humble Music Bundle shows charity disparity among Mac, Linux and Windows users
I bet that behavioral economists get rather excited when they see pay-what-you-want offers going viral. Assuming the seller is collecting some basic demographic detail, the resulting statistics might deliver some interesting insights into the relative altruism (or discretionary cash reserves) of different sorts of folks. The Humble Bundle team (responsible for the Humble Indie gaming bundles that we've covered before) is running a Humble Music bundle, accessible to all sorts of music fans. Featured artists include Jonathan Coulton, They Might Be Giants and MC Frontalot; a flexible portion of the purchase price goes toward not-for-profit cause groups like Child's Play Charity and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The bundle price is entirely up to the buyer, although suggested pricing goes from $100 down to $15. If you pay more than the rolling average price (currently around $8.28) you get a bonus album of remixes from viral-video darlings OK Go. You can also define the split between the artists and the charities, and contribute a "Humble Tip" for the bundle organizers. Given that buyers can pay what they want, what sort of variance do the Humble Bundlers see among their contributors/customers? It's not scientific, and there could be a whole horde of confounding factors, but take a look at the stats in the image above. Mac users (representing about 1/5 of the 45K total customer count) are paying an average of $9.84 for the bundle, more than $1.50 above the average price and $2.40 above the average Windows user. That might be skewed by a few "whales" who are contributing $100 or more from the Mac side, but even so the population is large enough that the differences would seem to be significant. Before you start forwarding this post to your penny-pinching Windows-using wealthy relatives, note that the Mac users aren't the most likely to empty their wallets for tunes. Linux users, with a slightly smaller share of the overall purchases, are coughing up a stunning $11.94 per transaction -- more than $3.50 higher than the average cost. This might be an artifact of the Humble Bundle's past service to Linux gamers, who may be feeling especially supportive of HB's efforts here, or maybe Linux users feel more strongly about the charities/artists involved. Or they just really are more generous by nature. With the recently finished Humble Indie Bundle 5, Linux users donated an average of $12.51 per transaction. It would be really interesting to do a deeper dive into the HB sales data, especially from the perspective of Dan Ariely or the Freakonomics guys. Most sellers aren't this transparent about their customers, and what they do with the behavioral data they collect -- and there's good PR reasons why they don't share more. In June, travel site Orbitz caught some flak for acknowledging that it showed different search results to Mac users (skewed towards the higher-end properties that they apparently prefer to book) than to PC users. While both sets of searchers would pay the same price for the same room, Mac users responded better to upscale hotels and slightly more expensive stays. The Humble Music Bundle is available until Thursday, August 9.
Robots learn to share, try to repair bad rep (video)
We've been told time and time again to fear our mechanical friends, so imagine our relief when we heard that some Swiss scientists had a batch of bots that displayed altruism. What's more, these little two-wheeled foragers weren't programmed to share, they evolved the trait. Researchers at EPFL infused Alice microbots with digital "genes" that mutated over time as well as color sensors that allow them to navigate their environment. The robots were tasked with collecting "food" and given the option to keep it for themselves or split it amongst their silicon-brained relatives. The more they decided to give to others with similar genetic makeup the more those virtual genes were passed on to future generations -- including the one for altruism. The experiment is an example of Hamilton's Rule, an evolutionary model for how the seemingly counter-intuitive trait of selflessness could arise through natural selection. Don't let your guard down just yet, though -- the robots are only sharing with each other for now.
The Daily Grind: Brother, can you lend me a hand?
MMOs occasionally appear to be the mother of all oxymorons. On one hand, you have games specifically designed for many, many people to play simultaneously and work together for increased rewards; on the other, loot and personal advancement tend to cultivate greed and jerkish behavior. So by the games' designs, players are pulled between the extremes of selfishness and selflessness. Here at Massively we'd like to focus on the good that bubbles out of our games, which is why we'd like to know of a time when someone went out of his way to help you when you least expected it. Have you ever encountered a Good Samaritan who took pity on you when others ran by? Do you have fond memories of a mentor who took you under his or her wing and showed you the ropes? When have you seen someone drop what he were doing for himself and devote his time to helping a fellow gamer in the spirit of altruism?
Virtual bicycles, real cause
Second Life is a great place for nonprofits and altruistic causes to connect with like-minded people. Real conversations can be had there, and real friendships have formed through working toward a common goal. In that spirit, Virtual Africa is the SL build currently under development by Uthango Social Investments, a charity based in Capetown, South Africa. They're currently running a fundraising drive through SL for a new Opportunity Center for unemployed job seekers. "The Opportunity Centre is a revamped cow shed that we need to equip with computers, office resources and mentors to assist job seekers, small entrepreneurs and community members in making their own way out of poverty by actively pursuing their dreams," said Dorette Steenkamp, co-executive director of Uthango. "The [e]bizikile fundraising event is meant to bring attention to how bicycles fit into the economy in African cities and rural towns." Basically, residents can buy a bicycle designed by Shukran Fahid of !BooPeRFunK! for L$250, and choose to contribute to a fund for buying a real Capetown resident a bicycle. SL charity organization Charitable Hearts is helping to organize this effort to get the SL community involved in making a real world difference in someone's life. For more information on this fundraiser, contact Enakai Ultsch or Alanagh Recreant in-world.[Thanks, Cybergrrl!]
