In 2004 Richard Branson had a reality TV show called “The Rebel Billionaire: Branson’s Quest for the Best.” I would give you a link to the show, but I can only find the season finale on YouTube and the show isn’t streaming anywhere. Premiering the same year as Trump’s “The Apprentice,” this standard reality TV show had a similar theme: a billionaire searching for someone worthy of his time and energy using a series of challenges. Where Trump’s challenges were all about the board room, sales, deals, and New York City; Branson took the contestants to exotic locations to do charity and physical challenges. Branson’s show was arguably less linked to business skills and more closely aligned with the action-adventure philanthropist brand that he had spent decades developing.

The episode that stuck with me was the third episode with its trip to Victoria Falls. The twelve remaining contestants, four having already been eliminated, traveled to the falls. There, with some breathtaking helicopter footage of the falls and everyone standing on top, Branson let the contestants know the next challenge: go over Victoria Falls in a barrel. Well, not really a barrel. A crane pulled up a sphere that looked a great deal like an old-school bathysphere built for two. Branson said he was going and there is only one more seat. Who will go with him? A guy (for the life of me I can’t remember who he was or his background) volunteers while everyone else stands around awkwardly, clearly not keen. On little more than Branson’s word that this is the most advanced barrel ever designed, the contestant straps into the seat next to Branson.

No one can be an expert in everything, so we depend on people to tell us what is safe or not safe. We believe one expert over another based on where they went to school as if Prinston has never graduated a fool or two. Our narratives of who to trust are driven by our personal experiences and the stories we tell ourselves. We trust folks who are part of our affinity group (class, race, ethnicity, or even hobbies) because we believe they hold our values. We distrust people who have made things difficult for our affinity group in the past. Then there are the social narratives we have internalized: If someone owns a business, they must know what they are doing. If someone has $25 million net worth (top 0.5% of wealth), they must be smart. And regulation and certifying bodies inhibit innovation and get in the way of progress. If you are a wealthy person, you are aware that the cost of many things suddenly gets more expensive when people see the size of your house–for the ultra-wealthy there is a legitimate fear that everyone around you is on the take. These narratives might have a basis in truth, but as a way of assessing individual trustworthiness, it is useless–especially when that narrative includes a dismissal of experts in the field.

Stockton Rush and his OceanGate submersible, which imploded on a descent to the Titanic, is a study in hubris. Rush felt that the other experts in his field were overly cautious and made statements that the “obscenely safe” regulations had been holding back his “innovations.” He billed himself as a Princeton University-educated aerospace engineer–and he was educated at Princeton University, but his master’s degree was in Business Administration from Berkley. He was not more qualified, with more peer-reviewed papers than those who were cautioning him. He was, however, richer than the engineers and scientists who tried to hold him back. He was conventionally handsome and had all the advantages a person would need to convince others that he was right, even without evidence.

In his recent Washington Post Opinion piece, Sam Howe Verhovek made an impassioned plea to not ignore the value of exploration and pushing the limits. And he has a good point if the CEO, and victim of the sub, was the only person who died. Even if the submersible, made of fiberglass and controlled with an off-the-rack game controller, was packed with scientists, there would be a justification for the risks. The problem of OceanGate lands with Stockton Rush funding exploration with tourist dollars. He was the image of the self-funded, adventure-seeking millionaire with credentials that looked amazing unless you looked closer. He came from a life of privilege, was reported to have a net worth of $25 million, and was positioned to be trusted as a member of his customer’s affinity group. They knew what they were doing was dangerous but they also believed it wasn’t because he was there and he was one of them.

In the Victoria Falls episode of “The Rebel Billionaire: Branson’s Quest for the Best,” Branson, strapped into a steal bubble next to his contestant gives him one last chance to back out. The contestant says he’s ready to go. That is when Branson tells him he’s been eliminated from the competition. Under Branson’s logic, risktaking is important but you also have to ask questions and be willing to walk away from unacceptable risks. Branson outlines for him all the questions he didn’t ask, like design and testing questions. I had mixed feelings on the stunt. On a reality show, asking reasonable questions is a good way to get eliminated and it’s easy to see how the challenge could have gone the other way, being eliminated for not taking an opportunity when it is handed to you. But Branson is also right. You just can’t assume the person handing you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity has thought it through–even when his own life is on the line.

As someone who shares very little in common with Richard Branson, and a deep personal skepticism of the meritocracy of wealth, I have no trouble saying no to going over Victoria Falls in a barrel (or taking a sub to the Titanic)–I’ve said no to far less risky things, like an island helicopter tour and under far more family pressure to say yes. But, how often have I bought an overprice cleaning cloth because a friend, who of course did home sales, said it was awesome or subscribed to a podcast because the host was a lot like me? We easily turn off our critical thinking functions when we identify a person as part of our group. Most of the time, it’s fine, but sometimes it has consequences and, in rare cases, the results can be deadly. Skepticism has value, especially when backed with quality evidence (and, no, someone from your affinity groups agreeing with you isn’t evidence even if they have 190 million loyal listeners). Sometimes it is best to pass up an opportunity.

In the Disney movie Strange World, our main character, Searcher, is playing a game called Primal Outpost with his father, Jaeger, and his son, Ethan. Ethan is deeply frustrated because his father and grandfather keep trying to individually “win” a game that is designed to be played cooperatively. The older players just can’t wrap their brains around a game where all parties work together to solve a problem instead of one person taking advantage and coming out on top. Primal Outpost has an important thematic place in the movie because, like the game, the crisis of the story can only be solved through collective action. But I find the game, and the generational divide over how to win a game interesting all by itself.

Cooperative games were rare for a long time in the US. Card games with cooperative elements (Bridge and Euker for example) are played by one team against another, so still competitive. Even a game for children too young to count, like Candy Land, is competitive, where one person wins instead of cooperative where everyone works to solve a problem. Snakes and Ladders, another rather old children’s game that is also, strictly speaking, random, has a winner at the end of the game. I don’t know what lesson we were trying to teach our children, but intended or not, the lesson is life isn’t worth trying because victory is completely a matter of chance.

Playing the game Apples to Apples it’s common for players to not keep score or for the game to not end at the winning condition outlined in the rules. Folks play until something happens to pull them away from the game or everyone just agrees it’s time to end. Sometimes people play the game with an invisible player, Rando Calrissian (also known as Mr. Nobody), where the judge adds a random red card to the played cards. It’s interesting how often Rando can win the hand, often giving the real players, who know each other, a run for their money. That is, I think, the key to why Apples to Apples most often isn’t played to win. Apples to Apples is a very random game. You often don’t have a red card that matches the green one in play. The better strategy is to play to the funnies answer. As gratifying as it is to take the trick, the real fun is in seeing the funny combinations that are put together and the surprise of what your friends will select. In short, no matter how well you play the game, Apples to Apples is as random as Candyland (a game where your ability to “win” is entirely dictated by a little spinner selecting colors for you to match). Rando Calrissian exists as a variation because Apples to Apples isn’t a game played to win tricks. Winning is when you make your friends laugh.

In 1904, Elizabeth Magie patented The Landlord’s Game (the progenitor of Monopoly) with variation rules called “Prosperity“, where everyone plays until the poorest player is twice as rich. Some people cite this as one of the oldest cooperative board games. My only quibble in calling “Prosperity” a cooperative game, despite all players working towards everyone winning, is that there is no way for one player to assist another. The “Prosperity” rules are driven entirely by systemic changes to the rules–which was the point of the game. The game most associated with unbridled capitalist greed, Monopoly, was birthed from a game designed to advocate for the abolishment of land ownership.

There was a cooperative game movement in schools for physical education in the 1960s, motivated by a desire to teach children how to work better in teams and be kinder to each other. I do wish my gym teachers had gotten that memo. I still have PTSD from dodgeball. Then again, having done several ropes courses over my lifetime, maybe it is best not to do trust exercises with tween girls. And, despite what you might have heard, apparently, participation trophies have been a thing since the 1920s. In general, though, despite movements to change it, physical sports have remained competitive.

Then in 1974 Dungeons and Dragons was released. Prior to that, miniature games were about reenacting historic wars or creating new war scenarios to play through with players moving their armies against each other until only one army is left. Tabletop roleplaying games changed that. In more dysfunctional groups, the players are playing against the Game Master (GM), but by design, the game is intended to be the players against the story, solving complex problems through cooperative action.

I asked my husband what was the source of the boom in cooperative European-style board games. He pulled out The Lord of the Rings, created by Reiner Knizia. And he might be right. There was a smattering of cooperative board games from the 1970s onward, but in the wake of The Lord of the Rings, we get Pandemic and a slowly growing boom of other cooperative games building to our current crescendo where if feels like more cooperative European-style board games are being published than competitive.

Like most things created by humans, games reflect the values of the people who designed them. They highlight our assumptions about how the world works and are used as tools to teach our children. You can see the evolution of games in the US. The Landlord’s Game was coopted by capitalists to shore up the idea that the only way to win in life was to drain the other players dry. The Game of Life was about getting a car, getting, married, and having kids (and getting rich). However, in the last decade or so, there has been an uptick in the articles and books about the true origins of Monopoly and the intention of the original game designer. This follows the increase in cooperative board games in general. When the current divide in our nation over politics depresses me, I look at what games this generation of students might be playing and I feel a little hope that they are learning that success isn’t a matter of chance or of draining everyone else dry of resources, but rather true victory comes from working together to save the world.