The Carnivale Barker’s Shell Game

“Once upon a time – long, long ago and in a land far, far away lived a King who reigned over many thousands of citizens.

Some of these citizens lived alone or had organized themselves into groups called families and they inhabited structures they called tents. Those who had a tent to live in were secure and happy.

To conduct the affairs of his Kingdom, the King recognized that he needed to organize his affairs into ‘budgets’ of how he would gather and allocate needed resources. These resources, were gathered only from among those who owned their own tents, and all collections were counted in “ducats”. Depending upon the size of ones tent, and how much land surrounded the tent was the measure of how many ducats each tent owner had to provide.

The King soon came to understand that he could not reign alone over all these multitudes of thousands, spread over such a vast kingdom. He concluded that he had to transfer some power to helpful facilitators. Therefore, he proclaimed that the Kingdom shall be divided up into 444 areas to be called Duchies. In each of these Duchies there was to be a place set aside where his helpful facilitators could gather together to conduct the business of managing the finances and operating the Duchy.

This site would be located in a central spot, and the structure in which all business was conducted would be a large tent, called the “Carnivale”.

The citizens in the Duchy would be permitted, every 4 years, to choose those from among themselves who would lead the Duchy. This group was called the “Council of Wise Ones”. One of those so selected by the Duchy’s citizens would serve as their head, and was granted the title of “Barker”. And so each of the 444 Duchies within the Kingdom had a “Council of Wise Ones” and a “Carnivale Barker”.

The King, in his infinite wisdom and benevolence, had granted to each of his citizens the opportunity to provide complaints and suggestions to him by placing their opinions, requests and suggestions in wheel barrows. Each barrow was dedicated to a separate topic of concern. One of the wheel barrows had become overloaded with its huge pile of common concern.

It had come to pass that many of his citizens were unable to gather enough ducats to be able to find a tent in which to live, and so be protected from the sometimes, harsh conditions of the climate. These “tentless”, as they soon came to be known, were becoming a nuisance to the King. The tentless, and some of their fellow citizens who did have tents, were demanding of the King that he provide the tentless with tents.

His wheel barrow tally told him that his priority, now, was to provide 1.5, one million five hundred thousand, more tents for his citizens.

The King did not want to spend his own resources, so he decided that he would now dump that wheel barrow of headaches onto the 444 Councils of Wise Ones. It would now be their responsibility to find tents for the tentless.

To encourage the Carnivale Barkers, who often faced the messy business of differing opinions among their “Councils of Wise Ones” about how to resolve issues in the best interests of their citizens, especially the tent owners’, to find tents for the tentless, the King granted the Barkers previously unknown and unique powers that they could choose to use, if they wanted, to – just to carry out his special priorities. This priority was, “Provide more tents for the tentless.”

To implement his special priority of finding tents for the tentless, the King granted his Carnivale Barkers the power to make local policies and bylaws that might resolve his problem of the “tentless. However, knowing that in the real world in and outside his Kingdom, no one can implement any fancy-worded policies and bylaws without the ducats to pay for it, he granted the Barker’s the option of creating their own budget.

Therefore, to get more tents put up, he declared that the Carnivale Barkers could now also choose, if they wanted, to determine how each Duchy’s resources would be allocated. They could, if they chose, create their own plan for how the Duchy was going to spend its ducats, and, of course, how many ducats each tent owner would have to contribute to pay for it. The Barkers could choose to take this power alone, or, to instead, share this power with the Council of Wise Ones.

Now, over the years of passing time each Duchy had created its own ways, its own procedures, for deciding how to do the business of the Duchy and make decisions about how to spend the ducats, which it gathered from their tent owning citizens. This usual practice, of participating in the decision making process,  still existed as a perception of ‘best practice’ in the minds of the tent owners, other citizens and many of the elected members of the “Councils of Wise Ones”.

The method of making decisions, within a Duchy, about how to spend the tent owners’ ducats, was deemed to include each citizen, including the tent owner / ducat payers, in the process. Each citizen, not just tent owners could present themselves, at a predetermined time at the Carnivale, and provide their advice. This advice was to agree or disagree with the spending plan of the Barker, and to give suggestions for a different way to gather and spend their ducats.

This process, of a citizen meeting with the Barker, to consult on the size of each ducat spending item, was called “The Shell Game”. It was so called because the Barker had devised a system of decision making that used walnut shells cut in half. The Barker used 3 halved walnut shells turned upside down so that the opening was hidden on a table top.

The Barker would place a pea, with the number of ducats to be spent on that budget item written on it, underneath one of the walnut shell halves, where it would be hidden from the citizen’s view. If the citizen could guess under which shell the pea was hidden, then the citizen could give their opinion to the Barker of what number of ducats the pea should be calculated as.

The Carnivale Barker would place the pea under one shell. They would then move the shells, in line, from one spot to another so that the shells changed their spot in line, and thus so did the pea.

The Barker placed the pea chosen for discussion by the citizen under a half shell and moved them about slowly. The citizen had been focusing closely on the shell with their chosen pea under it. But, before the citizen could choose, the Barker lifted the shell off the spot, and sure enough there still was the pea.

The Barker said that that was too easy. They would again shuffle the shells from place to place and determine whether the citizen could keep track of where the pea was, and so be able to make suggestions. The citizen agreed to a practice try.

The Barker moved the shells from place to place slowly and after several shuffles took their hand off the shells. They asked the citizen to choose. The citizen had been again keeping very close attention to how and where the shells were moved and confidently chose a shell.

The Carnivale Barker lifted the chosen shell, and sure enough, there was the pea. The Barker said that was easy, but reminded the citizen that it was just a practice try. Do you want to try for real this time?

The citizen agreed and the Barker placed a pea with the number 9.1 on it under the centre walnut shell. The citizen asked how the Barker chose the number 9.1. The Barker replied that the pea was 9.22 last week,and 9.7 the week before, but someone told one of the members on the Council of Wise Ones that we had made a couple of mistakes and it should be 9.1 this week. We updated it.

“Oh really”, replied the tax paying citizen, “you didn’t tell me.”

The citizen agreed to try to keep track of the moving pea. The Barker started moving the shells from spot to spot in the line, moving their hands and the shells quickly. After the Barker stopped the citizen chose a shell. The citizen had had some difficulty keeping track of the ever-moving pea, but made a guess. The Barker lifted the chosen shell, and it was empty.

Too bad, you lose said the Barker, but because you are a tent owner and have been paying so many ducats over the years, I’ll give you another chance to guess the spot and discuss changing the size of the pea.

The citizen was much appreciative of the Carnivale Barker’s apparent benevolence, and agreed.

The Carnivale Barker repeated their shuffling of the position of the pea. Their hands moved quickly, faster and faster, the position of the pea was changing ever so quickly that the citizen could not keep track of where the pea was. Finally, the Carnivale Barker stopped. All 3 half shells were stationary. The pea was under one of them. But the ducat payer had no idea of where it could be.

The citizen looked at the Carnivale Barker and said that they were not playing fair. The citizen complained that the Carnivale Barker was changing the pea so often and so quickly, that they could not keep track. It wasn’t a fair game.

The Carnivale Barker replied that they had told everyone the rules of the game. That the rules were written inside the entrance flap of the Carnivale tent. Not knowing the rules, that we have told you of ahead of time, is not an excuse. Now pick your shell.

But those rules are so small, and they’re near the floor, and no one notices them. And you don’t follow your own rules, either. You keep changing the values of all your peas without telling us ahead of time.

It’s not my fault that you can’t keep up. Now pick your shell.

The citizen picked a shell. It was empty.

The Carnivale Barker told the citizen, Thank you for coming. I win. You can pay your 9.1 ducats on your way out.

The Carnivale Barker then called out, “Next citizen, please. Oh, there’s no one else in line to play. This Carnivale Barker’s Shell game is a lot of fun for me. I wonder why no one wants to play this game with me?”