Farm Town!

Just a quick note about the Facebook app Farm Town. In case you haven't been sucked into it, it's an internet Flash game about being an imaginary farmer. You can grow just about anything you want, as well as raise animals and build fences or buildings. It's your own little plot of paradise!

Harvesting crops earns coins, which in turn can buy seeds and other things. It's simple. I started playing because my mom had become hopelessly addicted, and I wanted to see what the hubbub was about.

What I like about Farm Town is the community. I can send gifts (such as trees, flowers, and animals) to my friends. I can also go help out on my friends' farms. It doesn't sound fun, but it is. The other day, my good friend sent me a pig and I was tickled to death the first time I saw that thing flop over and fall asleep.

You may be wondering – what does this have to do with politics? Don't worry; I haven't given up politics, and there is a point to all this.

Here's the first part of the point: I love to give and do things for other people, and I think most people are the same way. Even if your motive is to improve the friendship so that your friend might send you a cherry tree or something later on, that's okay, the point is that people are giving to each other and enjoying it.

Here's the second part: No one has to give anything or help anyone. It's fun because people give for the sake of giving. Although the "gift" is really just a picture, and maybe some animation – in other words, of no real significance at all – it feels good to know your friend was thinking of you. I know it makes me smile.

What if the developers of Farm Town decided to impose a gift-giving rule to address the inequities between established farms and newcomers like me? Sure, I could go to the market and get work helping at someone else's farm, but why should I when my mom has over 250,000 farm coins (told you she's addicted)? Surely, she could give me some – then I wouldn't have to work for it.

If that happened, Farm Town wouldn't really be fun anymore. I wouldn't have as much motivation to work on my crops if I knew someone would make me give part of my harvest away. (Technically, the gifts on Farm Town don't cost anything except for the time it takes to send them, but they could just as easily impose a time quota for helping on others' farms. Same concept.)

If my friends were forced to spend a certain amount of time helping me, or give me a certain number of cherry trees, I wouldn't want it. Imagine the (imaginary) humiliation! That would mean the Farm Government decided that my little start-up farm was too pathetic to grow on its own, that I'm not capable enough as an imaginary farmer, and that everyone else would have to cough up some help for me.

No, thank you! I wouldn't want to be one of the farmers forced to give up my crops, and I certainly wouldn't want to receive spoils unwillingly given. That would make me a party in stealing from others. If the game developers decided to impose something like that, people would stop playing. No one wants to me told what to do.

It's so simple to understand in Farm Town, so why don't we apply the same reasoning to real life?