If it's too long, don't read it :)
Glitch is a game in which the choices that players make influence each other: If Player A decides to go one way in the Ancestral Lands, Player B might decide to go another way. How Player A harvests barnacles might depend on how Player B harvests barnacles. What tree Player A plants in an empty patch may depend on what trees other players have planted in other patches. In his book "Micromotives and Macrobehavior" nobel prize winner Thomas Schelling uses the term interdependent decision making to describe situations in which people make choices based on what they know or believe about the choices of others.
Interdependent decision making can produce some interesting outcomes. Consider, for example, the case of 10 people having a meal together in a restaurant, all of whom prefer steak, but none of whom is willing to be the only person ordering steak. For purposes of the example, assume that they're not able to discuss what they'd like to order or say things like "I'll order steak if you will" while orders are being taken. So when the waiter comes, the first person to order chooses chicken, so as to be sure they are not the only person ordering steak. The same thing happens with every other person, and so all 10 people end up eating chicken. I've used this example because it's simple and easy to understand. If you read Schelling's book, you will find more complicated real-life examples which illustrate how interdependent decision making leads to a variety of cases in which choices that seem neutral or desirable at an individual level lead to a collective outcome that's negative or undesirable for everyone.
Here's one way in which such a negative outcome may occur: (1) There is a choice Q that will produce a negative outcome if many people make that choice, but will have no impact, little impact, or positive impact if only a few people make that choice. (2) Some people choose Q, believing that this is a choice that few people will make. (3) The choice of Q is seen by others as giving an advantage to those who make it. (4) This leads others to make choice Q in order to avoid being at a disadvantage. (5) As the percentage of people making a choice that's seen to give an advantage increases, more people alter their choice to avoid being at a disadvantage relative to others. (5) In the end, many people have chosen Q, even though most think it a negative thing that many people have chosen Q.*
Is the negative outcome the "fault" of those who chose Q for what they believed to be good reasons having nothing to do with gaining an advantage, or is it the negative outcome the "fault" of those who then chose Q to avoid being at a disadvantage? Is the "fault" with those see the relative advantage as something important, or is the "fault" with those who believe the perceived advantage is not important and will not or should not be the basis for making choices?
The answer is "none of the above" if you understand that a system designed to provide choice Q is a system in which some people might make choice Q, and others might then respond to that choice by changing their choices, and so on. Just because a negative outcome might occur doesn't mean it will occur -- but it might. So if you are the designer of the system, you have to be careful about offering choices like Q, especially if the potential negative consequences are more like toothpaste than chicken.
Now you might think I had a specific thing in mind when I wrote this, and you might be right about that, but you also might be wrong about what the specific thing is that I had in mind. So just for the record: I wrote most of this months back. I had wanted the option of making a part of my house (or a second house) open to the public, but with some controls. It seemed to me there were a lot of great things players could do if we had this option, especially if it was combined with a more flexible permission system. For example, I had what I thought was a great plan for setting up a Community Kitchen. However, discussions with others resulted in my thinking further about all the things TS has to take into account when considering such requests, and I wrote the above to help me in thinking things through.
I still think some of us could do great things if we had more options for privacy and permissions, but I also understand that adding such choices may have consequences that are difficult to predict or control or undo. So I found a different way to pursue the goal of setting up a Community Kitchen.
----------
*When the negative outcome from this kind of choice process results in the depletion or degradation of a shared resource, this is referred to as The Tragedy of the Commons. Schelling's book describes other ways in which interdependent decision making can lead to unexpected negative outcomes, one of the most interesting examples being that of ethnically segregated neighborhoods.