The Chain Letter Dilemma

 

In the early 1980s I received a postcard from my friend Bob. He promised I would get hundreds of postcards from all over the world send to me. By people I'd never heard of. It was a chain letter. It worked like this: on the card is a list of 5 names and addresses. You are supposed to send a postcard with your name and greetings to the first address. Than you invite five of your friends to participate , in the same way Bob did to me. And here comes the twist: on the invitation you'll write a list of 5 addresses: the first four are the last ones on your invitation to participate (in my case Bobs card) and you put your own name and address at the bottom.

If each of your five friends sends invites to five of their friends your name will be on spot number four on 5x5=25 invites. When you reach the number one position on the list, that specific list will be on 5x5x5x5x5=3125 invites. And each will send a postcard to the top of the list: you. That's the promise of a full mailbox.

I knew Bob. I wasn't supposed to take him too seriously as he was mostly fun and games. The promise of 3125 postcards was too good to be true, so I wasn't going to take his word literally. But with all those numbers, you should be able to get some exotic postcards, right? I decided I was going to participate. It would only cost me six stamps, so even if I wouldn't receive anything, the cost wasn't going to kill me. For a short moment I hesitated to send something to the first person on my list, I could con the system easily. But for some reason I participated exactly as instructed. Sent six postcards and waited.

In the course of three months I received four postcards. Three from The Netherlands, and one from exotic Germany.

Two years later I received an important looking document sent to me by a professor with an unpronounceable name. He promised me I would become rich. People I didn't know, from all over the world would sent me money. It was another chain letter, also sent by my friend Bob, who had copied a letter from a professor, or at least someone with a lot of acronyms before and after his, unpronounceable, name. This time I wasn't suppose to sent a postcard, but 10 US Dollars to the first name on the list, and there were 10 names on the list, instead of five, and should invite 10 friends. 10.000.000.000 ten dollar bills was the promise. That is serious money.

For a fifteen your old child at that point of time, around 1985, that Xeroxed document looked very impressive. It had stamps and names of important sounding people. I decided to go for it. Sent 10 bucks to the first name on the list. Not only because I wanted to get rich, but also because all the cool kids in my school had entered, and they got together every day to talk about what they were going to do when the money-train would roll in. I wanted to participate in that chat. Because it was the cool thing to do.

We talked for almost a year. No one got any money what so ever.

Of course in the face of today's digital world, with scam artist filling your mailbox every hour, this might sound pretty naive. Well, it is. But in my defense, some of these chain letters actually worked to some degree. And that is fascinating. You have to give something to someone you don't know, based upon a piece of paper. Your reward is depending on the individual decisions of members in the chain: "Am I going to give something to an unknown individual based upon a piece of paper?"

The chain letter might be dead, this dilemma isn't. Actually, the Internet has turned almost the majority of social interactions into a Chain Letter Dilemma. Digital media allows you easy and fast access to people you don't know. It also allows them access to you.

Do you recognize the Chain Letter Dilemma?