Our Cognitive Surplus

Today I was in the library, and on my way to lunch I went to the bathroom. Sitting on a shelf above the throne was a wallet. I picked it up and checked it out. I.D in the flap section from an Asian student. About $300 in it. That’s quite a lot of money.

This leaves me with something to contemplate while I do my business. Do I take the wallet, take the money and chuck the wallet in the bin somewhere? Pretty risk-free exercise, free $300. Do I take the wallet, take the money and hand just the wallet in at lost property? Win-win situation. The student doesn’t waste a week canceling cards and getting new ones, I get $300. Consider the money a fee. Perhaps slightly more risk, but still pretty safe in the scheme of things. Do I hand the wallet in contents in tact? Above-board play by me, but what’s to say the librarians won’t just flog the money? Do I just put the wallet back on the shelf and have nothing to do with it?

The Cost/Benefit Debate (If you’re lazy, skip to the conclusion)

If I believed in Santa (or god) it would follow that I was under constant surveillance and there was a magic ledger which would score -300 points if I took the money. Fortunately I don’t think that anyone is watching me when I’m on the throne, so I don’t have access to an easy answer.

Generally my approach to moral calculations is to do a cost-benefit but stack, perhaps artificially, the return I get from being nice to those close to me. So if I go to a mate’s place and spend a weekend helping him paint, it may have ‘cost’ me a weekend but it’s ‘benefited’ me a deeper relationship with my friend. The value of friendship is huge.

Problem here is that it’s a stranger. A stranger relatively distant from me, assuming he’s an overseas student. And the risk is much lower than your average crime. In rational criminal activity people weigh the magnitude of punishment against the probability of being caught. So most people don’t drink drive because it’ll land you before a magistrate if you’re caught or bankrupt if you stack into a Ferrari. Drink driving is pretty bad news. Whereas many people do speed because the bill is only a few bucks and your insurance will probably pay-out if you stack.

The next lever is ’social cache’. If I take $300 and announce to people I know ‘I took $300′ they’d think I was a serious douche. That’s bad. But naturally I could take the money without saying a word. Needless to say I wouldn’t be posting here if I had $300 in my wallet. The problem is that losing social cache is a lot easier than gaining it. I.e. if I give the wallet in tact to the library front desk, and then announce to my friends (and readers) that I returned $300, they’ll probably also think I’m a douche for blowing my own trumpet.

Conclusion – Choose your own adventure morality

So what I’m doing is shifting the moral problem. I returned the money and I’m blowing my own trumpet. If you read this (or my facebook status) and think ‘Greg’s a dick because he’s being vocal about returning the money’ then it follows I did the wrong thing by returning the money and you only have yourself to blame. If, on the other hand, you think ‘hey, that Greg guy is a good bloke’ then I did the right thing and you have yourself to thank! We’ll call it ‘choose-your-own-adventure morality’.