On a separate track through the lattice of knowledge, a new idea may now be introduced on those foundations, the notion of a fair trade between black jellychips and blue jellychips. 

It begins by showing the children a way to rearrange their understanding of jellychip preferences, as a quantitative relation and not just an ordering, through the concept of indifferences, which state equalities of preference.  Not just, "I like purple jellychips more than black jellychips, and black jellychips more than blue jellychips" but "I am indifferent between having 5 purple jellychips, or 6 black jellychips, or 8 blue jellychips."

But then, of course, you might be able to execute multi-agent-beneficial trades that aren't 1-to-1.  If someone is indifferent between having 6 black jellychips and 8 blue jellychips, then trading 7 blue jellychips for 6 black jellychips will leave them better off than before.  Right?

A lot of children will say 'No!' at this point, and try to find some reason why that couldn't possibly be valid, because they know how economics lessons work, by this point in their lives.  They expect that somebody's about to lead them down a pathway that takes them down to 6 black jellychips and then 5 purple jellychips and so on until they only have one jellychip left.  

But you can, with a bit more work, convince them that it's totally valid to want 6 black jellychips more than 7 blue jellychips, and valid to trade things according to your wants, and tell them that in fact this does not necessarily always expose them to a set of clever trades that take them down to 1 jellychip which, it will then be proven to them, they must want to trade for nothing.  That's not actually going to happen!  You're thinking it's going to be the point of the economics lesson, but it's not!  Adults actually trade 6 hours of labor for 7 fancy shirts all the time, without ending up with 0 shirts, and this is isomorphic.

The children are then asked if they think they can get to a more multi-agent-optimal state by trading uneven numbers of jellychips amongst themselves.

The children approach this warily; or with a burst of initial enthusiasm that fades, after many children prove rather suspicious of attempts to get them to trade more jellychips for less jellychips.

Dath ilan having an average Intelligence of 18, it doesn't take long for somebody to point out that, even if one person likes some jellychips more than others, that's no reason for them to end up with less jellychips.  Other kids also like some jellychips more than others.  Why shouldn't they be the one to end up with less jellychips, and I, be the one who ends up with more, if that's how we're going to play it?

Why yes, Keltham was the first one to say it in those terms, in his own class, when he was very young.

On a separate track through the lattice of knowledge, a new idea may now be introduced on those foundations, the notion of a fair trade between black jellychips and blue jellychips. 

It begins by showing the children a way to rearrange their understanding of jellychip preferences, as a quantitative relation and not just an ordering, through the concept of indifferences, which state equalities of preference.  Not just, "I like purple jellychips more than black jellychips, and black jellychips more than blue jellychips" but "I am indifferent between having 5 purple jellychips, or 6 black jellychips, or 8 blue jellychips."

But then, of course, you might be able to execute multi-agent-beneficial trades that aren't 1-to-1.  If someone is indifferent between having 6 black jellychips and 8 blue jellychips, then trading 7 blue jellychips for 6 black jellychips will leave them better off than before.  Right?

A lot of children will say 'No!' at this point, and try to find some reason why that couldn't possibly be valid, because they know how economics lessons work, by this point in their lives.  They expect that somebody's about to lead them down a pathway that takes them down to 6 black jellychips and then 5 purple jellychips and so on until they only have one jellychip left.  

But you can, with a bit more work, convince them that it's totally valid to want 6 black jellychips more than 7 blue jellychips, and valid to trade things according to your wants, and tell them that in fact this does not necessarily always expose them to a set of clever trades that take them down to 1 jellychip which, it will then be proven to them, they must want to trade for nothing.  That's not actually going to happen!  You're thinking it's going to be the point of the economics lesson, but it's not!  Adults actually trade 7 hours of labor for 6 fancy shirts all the time, without ending up with 0 shirts, and this is isomorphic.

The children are then asked if they think they can get to a more multi-agent-optimal state by trading uneven numbers of jellychips amongst themselves.

The children approach this warily; or with a burst of initial enthusiasm that fades, after many children prove rather suspicious of attempts to get them to trade more jellychips for less jellychips.

Dath ilan having an average Intelligence of 18, it doesn't take long for somebody to point out that, even if one person likes some jellychips more than others, that's no reason for them to end up with less jellychips.  Other kids also like some jellychips more than others.  Why shouldn't they be the one to end up with less jellychips, and I, be the one who ends up with more, if that's how we're going to play it?

Why yes, Keltham was the first one to say it in those terms, in his own class, when he was very young.

On a separate track through the lattice of knowledge, a new idea may now be introduced on those foundations, the notion of a fair trade between black jellychips and blue jellychips. 

It begins by showing the children a way to rearrange their understanding of jellychip preferences, as a quantitative relation and not just an ordering, through the concept of indifferences, which state equalities of preference.  Not just, "I like purple jellychips more than black jellychips, and black jellychips more than blue jellychips" but "I am indifferent between having 5 purple jellychips, or 6 black jellychips, or 8 blue jellychips."

But then, of course, you might be able to execute multi-agent-beneficial trades that aren't 1-to-1.  If someone is indifferent between having 6 black jellychips and 8 blue jellychips, then trading 7 blue jellychips for 6 black jellychips will leave them better off than before.  Right?

A lot of children will say 'No!' at this point, and try to find some reason why that couldn't possibly be valid, because they know how economics lessons work, by this point in their lives.  They expect that somebody's about to lead them down a pathway that takes them down to 6 black jellychips and then 5 purple jellychips and so on until they only have one jellychip left.  

But you can, with a bit more work, convince them that it's totally valid to want 6 black jellychips more than 7 blue jellychips, and valid to trade things according to your wants, and tell them that in fact this does not necessarily always expose them to a set of clever trades that take them down to 1 jellychip which, it will then be proven to them, they must want to trade for nothing.  That's not actually going to happen!  You're thinking it's going to be the point of the economics lesson, but it's not!  Adults actually trade 7 hours of labor for 6 fancy shirts all the time, without ending up with 0 shirts, and this is isomorphic.

The children are then asked if they think they can get to a more multi-agent-optimal state by trading uneven numbers of jellychips amongst themselves.

The children approach this warily; or with a burst of initial enthusiasm that fades, after many children prove rather suspicious of attempts to get them to trade more jellychips for less jellychips.

Dath ilan having an average Intelligence of 16 or 17, it doesn't take long for somebody to point out that, even if one person likes some jellychips more than others, that's no reason for them to end up with less jellychips.  Other kids also like some jellychips more than others.  Why shouldn't they be the one to end up with less jellychips, and I, be the one who ends up with more, if that's how we're going to play it?

Why yes, Keltham was the first one to say it in those terms, in his own class, when he was very young.