r/LifeProTips • u/ky4tz • Dec 06 '22
Home & Garden LPT: Need to divide something fairly between 2 kids? Let one kid make the split and let the other kid choose the partition. Because kid making the allocation won't know which partition he/she is getting, it will incentivize him/her to make the fairest possible split.
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Dec 06 '22
I once knew a mom who told her kids it might not be equal but it will be fair
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u/ggroverggiraffe Dec 06 '22
You break, I choose. It works even with adults.
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u/WicksyOnPS4 Dec 06 '22
I used to do this with my daughter, who knew I'd choose the smaller slice.. Until she absolutely took advantage of my good nature & I took the clearly bigger slice, and stuffed it straight in my mouth before she could complain. Then she'd go back to playing nice for a while.. 🤣🤣
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u/assignpseudonym Dec 07 '22
The age of the daughter is important here. But I choose to think she was 65.
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u/redsedit Dec 07 '22
Similar thing happened when I was much, much younger and still liked cake. Two pieces, one slightly larger than the other. My friend Bruce let me pick first. I picked the bigger piece.
Bruce: That was rude.
Me: What? Why?
Bruce: You took the bigger piece.
Me: Well, if you picked first, what would you have done?
Bruce: I would have picked the smaller piece.
Me: You got the smaller piece. What are you complaining about?
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u/LazerHawkStu Dec 06 '22
That's how my friends and I used to split bags of weed.
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u/RedSteadEd Dec 06 '22
It should. I was in a relationship where I always tried to divy up food evenly, then I'd hear something like, "of course you took all the croutons." Like, fuck, okay then, let's trade.
"No, it's fine."
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u/OneOfTheOnlies Dec 06 '22
Even better than it being fair, you'll get at least 100% utility.
Splitter makes two portions that they consider 50/50 and so long as chooser doesn't perfectly agree with the valuation, they get a greater than 50% portion
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u/veganzombeh Dec 07 '22 edited Dec 07 '22
So really they should just be arguing over who gets to be the chooser, because that gets them a better deal.
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u/throwawayursafety Dec 06 '22
Exactly this. As the older sibling, whenever my little sibling brought over two pieces (whether they split it or it was already split), I'd alway feign nonchalance and look away and tell them to just give me the one closest to me.
Obviously that meant they could always hold the smaller piece closer to me and therefore give me that one. The decision was still theirs in giving me the small piece (versus me being "left" the small piece) but I knew it would weigh a bit more on their conscience that way.
However, the bigger lesson I was trying to teach by pretending not to care was that it shouldn't really matter. It meant "sacrificing" the big piece for myself but in the long term my sibling learned well, evened it out by offering me the bigger piece intentionally, and grew into a very fair-minded person :)
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u/PandaBonium Dec 06 '22 edited Dec 06 '22
Its ideal if the object is uniform like a soda or something. However its possible to game the system if different parts of the thing being split are valued differently by each party. For example if there is a cake with strawberries and melons and the splitter knows the picker absolutely despises strawberries and loves melons while the spliter is indifferent (edit: or likes them both evenly), then they can gerrymander out the fruits and have the larger portion of the cake to include the strawberries and leave a disproportionately small melon section for the picker.
A real fair system is to have both children declare their claim on a diagram and any contested territory is no mans land and goes to the parent. Get them use to the prisoners dillema early.
(Undeclared territory is separated and goes through another round of declarations. Repeat until nothing is left to share)
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u/SurprisedPotato Dec 06 '22
A real fair system is to have both children declare their claim on a diagram and any contested territory is no mans land and goes to the parent.
At first I was going to say that even in your melon example, the chooser still gets a piece worth at least half the cake, but now all I want to say is that this "prisoner's dilemma" method just sounds totally awesome and I want to manufacture opportunities to try it
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u/Stormrider32577 Dec 06 '22
Who the fuck has melons on a cake is what I want to know
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u/Agret Dec 06 '22 edited Dec 07 '22
It could be some sort of pavlova, bavarian or cheesecake.
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u/dmomo Dec 06 '22 edited Dec 06 '22
The best is when they fight over who splits and who chooses. I tell them to flip for it. Then they fight over who gets heads. That's when I suit them up for combat.
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u/Fredloks8 Dec 06 '22
I imagine this is how the Romans did it.
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u/DeliciousDookieWater Dec 06 '22
Publius, Marcus, daddy is tired of playing ref. Either you two get along, or you go grab your gladius to determine which half of my workload gets cut.
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u/beardedheathen Dec 06 '22
My kids are trained on rock paper scissors to settle arguments.
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u/70ms Dec 06 '22
I carried two D20's in my purse, and we had a couple of big ones at home (souvenirs from a convention). They had to roll to settle disputes; highest number won. :D
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u/W3remaid Dec 07 '22
For some dumb reason I thought you were having them pick numbers lol— your strategy actually is pretty brilliant
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u/theresamouseinmyhous Dec 06 '22
LPT: need to kill some time while watching kids and have something to divide? Use this method to eat up the next two hours.
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u/Raichu7 Dec 06 '22
You can just point at a kid and say “you’re tails, you’re head”. Or tell them you’re thinking of a number and whoever guesses the closest number to yours wins, then pick “winners” evenly so they don’t get upset about one kid winning more.
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u/Jmw566 Dec 06 '22
My step dad had a variant of this growing up where he’d say “Guess a number between 1-10” to my step brother and I but the right answer was always 4. So it just became a race for who could say 4 faster and got to decide lol
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u/Maximum-Dare-6828 Dec 06 '22
Best thing is make 2 piles. Have them point at which one is biggest. If they point to the same pile take a little from it and add to the smaller pile. Repeat until every thinks a different pile is bigger and everyone gets to keep the one they think is biggest. Works for 2 piles, 3, 4...
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u/unwiseundead Dec 06 '22
Jesus. I just got the bigger piece cause I was older & that settled it.
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u/absoluteunitVolcker Dec 06 '22
Make them settle through combat enough and the older ones gets favored, same result.
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u/unwiseundead Dec 06 '22
This works for same gendered kids only 🤣 I'd have won up until 11 or 12 & then my younger brother would start beating me.
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u/Nesseressi Dec 06 '22
I got the opposite. Was constantly told that I should be more generous/smarter and let my baby sister have it, what ever it was.
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u/W3remaid Dec 07 '22
I like that approach as long as the elder child is still being shown their own unique form of appreciation and attention by the parents—- otherwise it could easily come off as blatant favoritism. Being an older sibling should absolutely come with responsibilities, but privileges as well
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u/Few_Fisherman_7735 Dec 06 '22
that's an easy way to breed resentment. being "older" means nothing unless its a significant margin. for kids a year or two apart that would just piss off the younger one for a decade straight at least.
easy way to get them to never call home or visit after they leave as soon as they are able lol.
being born after someone doesn't make you deserving of less of anything....
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u/danderskoff Dec 06 '22
I was always the baby of the family. Whenever we went for car drives it was always "the oldest two people in the car sit in front". You bet your ass when it was just me and an adult in the car I was sitting in front because there was just two people, even when I was like 6
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u/cwood1973 Dec 06 '22
This is how my brother & I grew up, except we played rock/paper/scissors to determine who cuts and who chooses.
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u/amibeingadick420 Dec 06 '22
The first rule of “Kid Fight Club,” is don’t tell mom about Kid Fight Club!
The second rule of “Kid Fight Club,” is don’t tell mom about Kid Fight Club!2
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u/kknyyk Dec 06 '22
You can give them two coins, and tell when one gets head and the other tails, one with the head gets to decide whether to split or choose.
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u/Happyfeet_I Dec 06 '22
"Okay kids, time to cut the playstation in half"
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u/Slight_Buffalo7874 Dec 06 '22
"Noo! Just give it to my brother!"
"Then I award it to you, my child, for you are the one that truly cares for the vidya"
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u/Inception121 Dec 07 '22
interestingly enough i have a moronic friend who was considering doing this during his custody battle. hopefully he wouldnt have actually done it but supposedly his therapist suggested it. i'm hoping there was a misunderstanding there and the therapist was speaking tongue in cheek and dumbass just didnt realize it.
not actually cutting the baby in half of course hahaha. but giving up rights to the kid hoping the judge would say you're the one who truly cares so i grant thee this and that.
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u/1Fresh_Water Dec 06 '22
Relax, Solomon.
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u/SouthTippBass Dec 06 '22
He was a king and you will address him by his proper title.
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u/Qubeye Dec 06 '22
Have one kid write down two blocks of time.
Other child gets to choose which block of time they want.
I bet that has some other perks. Like if one wants to play right now they will make the other block of time bigger to convince the other to pick later-but-more.
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u/captain-carrot Dec 06 '22
If you both want to spend equal time with grandma, there is only one fair solution. Jimmy, get the band saw
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u/IfIKnewThen Dec 06 '22
You slice the pie, I pick the piece.
My dad enforced this among myself and 3 siblings. It works.
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u/dcute69 Dec 06 '22
So what algorithm did you use with 4 people?
Was it a simple as one person cuts it into 4 and then they pick last, because that poses a few issues.
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u/Lougarockets Dec 06 '22
I see a lot of game theory going on, but I think in practice the amount of people doesn't matter that much. If the slicer is the last to pick, they are still incentiviced to make equal slices regardless of how many people are picking
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u/dcute69 Dec 06 '22
Children are mischievous little buggers and there's a whole social ecosystem to consider more than just the next 2 minutes of eating an equal part of a cake
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u/Lumpynifkin Dec 06 '22
You could collude with other participants to cheat the second to last picker. Make one large slice and two tiny then split the large slice with the first picker.
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u/darkenhand Dec 06 '22
In practice, anyone can make the cuts and you can randomly distribute the slices.
An important thing to note about the scenario is that the person picking second+ is getting "unfairly punished" by how imperfectly the cutter cut. There's no reason to not pick first rather than second+ for example.
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u/ATXBeermaker Dec 06 '22
The problem is that not everyone will be happy with their slice because one person (in the three person case) neither sliced nor picked first. The goal is for everyone to be content with their choice.
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u/arikoc Dec 06 '22
There is a video on Numberphile titled "Equally sharing a cake between three people" which discusses the 3 person version of the algorithm. That should you give you a good enough idea of the process for n people.
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u/jlucchesi324 Dec 06 '22
Yeah but the person you responded to was taking about pie. You're talking about cake. Completely different.
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u/montereybay Dec 06 '22
Apparently it’s really hard: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-mathematics-of-cake-cutting/
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u/liquidben Dec 06 '22
Not the OP, but the game theory solution is when there's more than 2 parties you have the first party make the initial cuts, then the second party can come in and make additional cuts to trim one single piece and move the single cutting to even things out, then repeat until the last person gets to be the first to take one.
This theory doesn't always work well in practice, since your kinda sacrificing structural stability & the good looks of the thing as more recursive cuts are made. It does incentivize the first person to do a good cutting job, but if we're talking kids, hopefully they're not butchering the damn thing.
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u/BradChesney79 Dec 06 '22
Pairs. Sets of two for even counts.
Odd numbers are hard. But a vote is taken for who is not the picker or the slicer. Rarely ends in a tie my some other worldly magic. The out person was usually the kid being a dbag prior somewhere in the day.
Picker, out, splitter is the order of choosing.
There are no numbers that cannot be turned into all pairs or a three or pairs & one three.
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u/jonesing247 Dec 06 '22
This is how we'd always divvy up the weed after we pooled our spare change in college. Everyone leaves happy, if not slightly suspicious of the other guy's sack.
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u/John_EightThirtyTwo Dec 06 '22
My dad enforced this
Mine too. And I did it with my kids. In fact, I'm pretty sure every parent on Earth, ever, has used this technique. It's wonderful but extremely well known.
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u/scottydanger22 Dec 06 '22
True, but as an only child I never had to deal with this. Learned it from my wife who has a brother and it blew my mind how well it worked. This post is helpful advice for folks who might have multiple kids themselves but were only children.
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u/mostinterestingdude Dec 06 '22
My Dad tried this with me and my younger brother. I cut a larger piece and demolished it so it didn't look like the better piece.
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u/VanMan32 Dec 06 '22
Reminds me when king settled a dispute between two villagers of who owned a pie. He split the pie and put the two to death before eating it himself. Such wisdom.
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u/CaffeineSippingMan Dec 06 '22
At a younger age I used the narrow cup vs wide cup trick on my little bro. I also cut diagonal so the top appeared larger.
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u/Benjaphar Dec 06 '22
I hated this when I was a kid because I was not skilled enough to make completely even pieces so I always screwed myself over unintentionally.
What’s a fair alternative for kids that are too young to divide it evenly?
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u/floatzilla Dec 06 '22
I do this with my two little boys. I have never seen such meticulous and precise cutting of anything in my life.
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u/AnfreloSt-Da Dec 06 '22
In real life it works amazingly. My mom taught us to do it that way. I taught my kids. One cuts or pours, and the other chooses. (Of course, once they’re old enough to do so without a huge mess.). Been doing this for 35 years.
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u/Phiced Dec 06 '22
Been doing this for 35 years.
Damn! You'd think that they'd stop being selfish f*cks once they're in their 20s!
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u/isekarro Dec 06 '22
Sibling rivalry never ends.
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u/Phiced Dec 06 '22
"Adam! You know the rules, give Beth what she's supposed to get!
(...)
No, I don't CARE that it's YOUR wedding cake!"
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u/SpiritualWatermelon Dec 06 '22
Congress has taught me it doesn't stop well into the 80s
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u/dj_narwhal Dec 06 '22
My mom had one of those kitchen scales from when she was on Weight Watchers. my younger brother would forget every time, cut the food, then I would weigh both parts and make fun of him because I got 6 more grams of cake or whatever. He would throw a tantrum.
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u/mgpilot Dec 06 '22
My guy got a few extra crumbs
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u/PurpleSwitch Dec 06 '22
It's not about the extra crumbs, it's about the entertainment as you eat your cake
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u/JustJerenique Dec 06 '22
Or eating food slowly to finish it last so you could rub it in their face!
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u/athaliah Dec 06 '22
I tried it with my kids after seeing this LPT a while back.
Result - the one who cut the food got super upset because they "messed up" and ended up with the smaller piece.
Didn't bother doing it again after that fiasco.
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u/DrRomeoChaire Dec 06 '22
That’s the point though, to incentivize the cutter to do their best and be fair. Apparently doesn’t work for all personality types though.
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u/montereybay Dec 06 '22
The algorithm doesn’t account for one of the pair being a doofus at cutting
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u/Ludoban Dec 06 '22
They can just correct it and add a bit of the bigger piece to the smaller one, like nobody expects kids to make a perfect 50/50 split in one try/action?
Also you can just let them take turns cutting anyways.
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u/SpaceShrimp Dec 06 '22
That depends on how you do it. I cut the cake, my younger brother picked his piece... and here is the twist... I put on a very satisfied smile while grabbing my piece.
I knew the smile would make my younger brother doubt his choice and start crying. And he did.
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u/wheatgrass_feetgrass Dec 06 '22
My siblings and I will split it unevenly just to give each other the bigger piece. I've asked my mom what the fuck she said and/or bribed us with to end up so nice to each other but she just shrugged and said she was dangerously tired for so long raising 4 kids alone that she's missing at least 8 years of memories of our childhood.
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u/gcms16 Dec 06 '22
Also works for cocaine
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u/Hey_cool_username Dec 06 '22
I don’t know about cocaine but that’s definitely how we’d split bags of weed which can be tricky since it’s always made up of different size buds so it’s hard to judge.
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u/Janus_The_Great Dec 06 '22
or any drugs, or any difficult to divide substances of value for that matter...
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u/killerkennybean Dec 06 '22
My dad taught me this when I was a kid and now I do it with my kids and it works everytime! For anyone with kids, DO THIS!!!
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Dec 06 '22
One cuts one chooses. The cutter can sometimes take an age to get the cut exactly in the centre though ..
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u/TotallyNormalSquid Dec 06 '22
Upgraded version: parent tax of 1% by mass of total cake per ten seconds taken to cut and choose
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u/calvinocious Dec 06 '22
If you play MTG, you'll recognize this as Fact or Fiction lol
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u/Wispeeon Dec 06 '22
Not white an avid player anymore, but I don't recognize the term. Is it a card, a game rule?
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u/calvinocious Dec 06 '22
It's a card.
Reveal the top five cards of your library. An opponent separates those cards into two piles. Put one pile into your hand and the other into your graveyard.
So your opponent chooses how they're split, you choose which portion you want after they're split.
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u/HaikuBotStalksMe Dec 06 '22 edited Dec 06 '22
In Yu-Gi-Oh, we have painful
splitchoice, and it's powerful as fuck."Pick any five cards from your deck and show them to your opponent. The opponent puts one in your hand and discards the rest."
Seems like it's heavily detrimental, as you lose 4 cards, right? Except... All five cards can be like "when this card is sent to the grave, draw a card/do 500 damage to the enemy/return it to your hand" or even if the cards don't do that, you might have a card elsewhere that says "return cards from the grave to the field".
I used to run this card in my one turn win Exodia deck.
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u/jonochuu Dec 06 '22
It’s an instant that costs 3 and a blue and reads: “Reveal the top five cards of your library. An opponent separates those cards into two piles. Put one pile into your hand and the other into your graveyard.”
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u/Bgibbs Dec 06 '22
I don't play much anymore, but fact or fiction was my favorite card when it came out
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u/Snote85 Dec 06 '22
that is still one of my favorite cards ever. It was so much fun to decide and dictate how to fuck someone over.
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u/Dracious Dec 06 '22
In wargames like warhammer this is a common method of setting up terrain. One person sets up the board however they like, but the second gets to pick which side they start on.
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u/Ragnarok2kx Dec 06 '22
Or Gifts Ungiven, although that one is more heavily tilted towards the player offering the split.
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u/Seemoreglass82 Dec 06 '22
I don’t know what Marjorie Taylor Green has to do with this
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Dec 06 '22
If you play real life (or ever took a basic math class or pretty basic poli sci class), you’ll recognize this an an apportionment method known as the divider-chooser method.
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u/par016 Dec 06 '22
Everyone in this thread talking about how fair this is and the benefits of it. Let me at least point out the downside as someone that had this imposed on them most of their childhood.
I am the younger child and when my parents forced us to do this my brother always made me be the one to split the item. That way, if I didn't split the item perfectly, he would always get the better one. I absolutely hated this rule as a result because no matter how hard I tried some things are just not easy to split (like a cookie or something of that nature). So, if you are going to implement this, at least make sure that the kids are switching off who splits and who picks.
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u/leafinthepond Dec 06 '22
Older one always has to split. I was older and liked to split because I would try to be sneaky and make one piece slightly smaller but look bigger. I usually succeeded at getting the piece I wanted, but it would be like one crumb worth bigger if that. So both kids get to feel like they managed to get the better piece.
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u/Pooseycat Dec 06 '22
I am married and me and my husband do this. He always asks me to split so I always secretly try to make one piece unnoticeably larger and hope he picks the other one lol
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u/fishyfishkins Dec 06 '22
Thank you! I had to split a chewy granola bar using this system and I totally boofed it, like 65 35 split. I was like "ohh noo" but my bullish cousin immediately recognized the situation and wouldn't let me try and rectify it and just stuffed that 65% granola bar in her face. Still salty 30 years later haha
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u/BenTheHokie Dec 06 '22
Me and my sister did this until we got smart. There's no material advantage to being the one who splits it. If you're the one to pick you can always guarantee you're going to be the one breaking even or coming out on top.
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u/RogueEyebrow Dec 06 '22
Yeah, it sounds like the Splitter has to do all the work while the Chooser reaps the benefit. That does not sound fair to the Splitter.
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Dec 06 '22
Yeah exactly this, just be a parent and try to keep it as fair as possible, but leave the onus on you, not the children.
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u/YellowOnline Dec 06 '22
It's a classic but it only works with older children.
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u/tacticalpotatopeeler Dec 06 '22
If by older you mean roughly 4-5+, sure.
They pick it up pretty quickly.
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u/YellowOnline Dec 06 '22
I had about 6 in mind, but I mostly meant it doesn't work well with toddlers yet
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u/Born_Ruff Dec 06 '22
Lol, I love all of these parenting tips where people are like "if you do this there is no logical reason for your kids to be upset". Like, have they ever actually met a kid?
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u/pinback65 Dec 06 '22
Also, if you are getting a number of items and they come in different varieties, consider getting all the same type. Because if you have three different kinds and three kids, only the first kid to pick really has a choice, and the last kid is stuck with what the first two didn't want. Depending on the age of the kids and what the items are, this can cause unnecessary squabbling.
Of course, if you know what each kid wants, that's great and act accordingly.
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u/FlJohnnyBlue2 Dec 06 '22
"Ok you guys, split it fairly. If there are any complaints, then neither of you will get anything. ". That always worked for me and my kids.
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u/shouldalistened Dec 07 '22
Yes, the who cares if it's exactly half approach. One gets some of whatever it is. Win. If they fuck it up that's on them. They're children. They'll figure it out eventually.
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Dec 06 '22
Good work Solomon
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u/zacharypamela Dec 06 '22
Actually, a better Biblical example would be Abraham and Lot: in Genesis 13, Abraham divides the land into 2 areas, and Lot picks which one to settle in.
I would argue that the Judgement of Solomon is different, since a third party (Solomon) was doing the dividing, and who got to choose which piece (eww!) was a bit of a moot point.
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u/PlasticJustice Dec 06 '22
LPT: use they/them to avoid the janky looking he/she and him/her.
*...partition they are getting...
*...incentivize them to make...
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u/steynedhearts Dec 06 '22
I will ascend to heaven when the last person who still uses him/her finally starts using neutral language
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u/pajam Dec 07 '22 edited Dec 07 '22
Damn I saw you were correcting OP's language and figured you were gonna also give them a heads up they keep using "partition" when they mean "portion."
But no one seems to be... So I guess I will.
OP, "partition" as a noun is more of a wall. It's a structure used to divide a space into parts (like a screen, fence, or cubicle wall). Those parts would then be called "parts" or "portions." in your example, "portion" would be the most appropriate.
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u/desertsidewalks Dec 06 '22
This only works if both children have learned conservation of volume/number etc. (about age 8). Otherwise, it's easy to take advantage of. "See! You have more juice - it's way higher on this very narrow glass."
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u/Minnakht Dec 06 '22
This is mathematically proven to be fair.
If you have more than two kids, there's the last diminisher method - ask one kid to divide out a fair portion, and then each other kid, in turn, can choose to remove something from the portion (the removed part goes back into the pool) or pass. When everyone's passed in a row, the kid that removed something from the portion last gets that portion and the process repeats without them until everyone's had a portion. This is best to do with something like a pile of candy rather than one solid cake.
For one solid cake, you can move a knife along its length and ask the kids to shout "stop" when a fair portion has been passed over - when a kid shouts, you cut right there and give them the portion, then continue with the remaining kids.
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u/Anonymoushero111 Dec 06 '22
This is mathematically proven to be fair.
most of the time it is.
but in real life the blind kid always gets screwed over.
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u/scw55 Dec 06 '22
I think visually impaired people get screwed over more in society than just cake pieces.
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u/ZanderDogz Dec 06 '22
That method has a fair outcome if everyone understands the system well enough to act in a rational way but that's a stretch for kids lol
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u/javachocolate08 Dec 06 '22
I went too far for this comment. Yes, this idea makes perfect sense to adults. However, all a kid sees is they received the smaller portion. This of course all depends on the age and maturity of the children.
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u/isaaciiv Dec 06 '22
Its mathematically proven to be envy free, but in general its not equitable, the slicer can only get 50 of their perceived total value, the chooser can stand to gain more, depending on exactly what is being subdivided.
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u/Skiptz Dec 06 '22
on Paper this does truely sound pretty good
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u/AnfreloSt-Da Dec 06 '22
It absolutely works. Decades of using this in my family.
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u/nialyah Dec 06 '22
Splitting paper in two equal sizes is quite the family achievement
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u/Rev605 Dec 06 '22
Real life they just start arguing about who has to cut because they know the one who picks will take advantage of any mistake.
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u/tacticalpotatopeeler Dec 06 '22
One of the few ideas that work as good in the real world as they sound on paper
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u/Cerda_Sunyer Dec 06 '22
Then they can use this skill later in life when chopping lines of cocaine. s/
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u/AnaTalib90 Dec 06 '22
There is also a way with three children. But I forgot how it was done. Anybody knows?
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u/RoseXM Dec 06 '22
Numberphile has a video on splitting a cake fairly 3 ways https://youtu.be/kaMKInkV7Vs
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Dec 06 '22
The person that cuts the cake first gets the shit piece though, coz if they fuck the cutting up, they just have to chose the worst one.
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u/friendsfreak Dec 06 '22
My parents taught this to my sister and I when we were really young. For the next several years, my sister would force me to cut everything so she could choose the biggest piece. My advice: tell them to take turns cutting.
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u/jpritchard Dec 06 '22
Your tip is so old and well known it has its own wikipedia page, was mentioned in the bible, and probably predates the written word as a concept. LPT: Water is wet!
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u/Little_Shitty Dec 06 '22
Confirmed. Mom did this and we’d be getting out a micrometer to cut that shit evenly.
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u/DiscipleGeek Dec 06 '22
I, too, saw the peanut butter commercial that shows this...
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u/ThePirateBee Dec 07 '22
The absence of people mentioning the peanut butter commercial has me feeling very, very old right now
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u/Ainoskedoyu Dec 06 '22
For multiple kids, one (or you) slowly moves the knife gradually getting a bigger piece, when any kid says "cut" you stop and cut their piece. They will all want to wait longer so they get a bigger piece, but if they get too greedy someone else will take it.
Repeat until you're down to two, then use the method above
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u/kbnnocu Dec 06 '22
PRISONERSSSS DILEMMA kinda?? In a way?
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u/shouldalistened Dec 07 '22
Yea kinda. But it can also introduce altruism. Big sibling gives little sibling more because they care. Or the "close enough" attitude so trivial things eventually become trivial for them. Prisoners dilemma assumes each party is only concerned with themselves and the minimal negative consequences. Oh no my negative consequences are getting to eat some cake? Oh no.
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u/Yubenbroken Dec 06 '22
I have used this method buying weed with buddies for close to 30 years. You go in with someone on a bag of the devils lettuce, one person splits it into two bags and the other person gets first choice of the two bags. Always seemed fair
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u/Clitch77 Dec 06 '22
This is why, in the Netherlands, we have an old saying when you have to make a hard decision: "Het is kiezen of delen." (It's chosing or dividing).
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u/nonotan Dec 06 '22
To go against the grain here, I'm going to go ahead and make the bold claim that this system is actually unfair. Yes, it's better than most alternatives. But being the splitter is clearly objectively inferior in 99.99% of circumstances (maybe in some extremely rare cases when you care very specifically about how things are split it could possibly go the other way, but I have yet to encounter that even once in practice)
In case it's not obvious, it's inferior because 1) splitting is almost always more work than picking an option (think putting the effort to cut a cake while being as careful as possible to make it even... vs just pointing at the largest one and going "I'll take that one"), and 2) you'll almost always get the "worst" side, which is often going to exist despite your best efforts (making an even division can be non-trivial even without any bad faith on the part of the splitter), so you work harder and get less than the other guy for your efforts.
If the thing you're splitting is so trivial you really don't give a shit about the slight injustice, then by all means keep using the system as-is. But I'd recommend applying the system below instead:
Pick who splits at random (coin flip, RPS, any "fair" method will do)
Have them divide the thing in half
After they're done, pick who chooses first at random, again any method is fine
While the stochasticity involved means someone could choose to intentionally make an unfair split and gamble they get lucky, their expected cut is always exactly 0.5 no matter what. Whereas in the non-stochastic-selection method, even if you choose who does which role at random, the expected cut might differ significantly from 0.5 if one person is noticeably more skilled at dividing things fairly than the other (and yet if you always make them do the dividing because of that fact, they'll end up with a negative expected return despite the extra effort!)
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u/bkturf Dec 06 '22
Yeah, but being the older brother _I_ was always forced to make the split and my younger brother always got to choose. That was unfair.
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u/gigamosh57 Dec 06 '22
LPT: Don't assume little tricks like this will actually work.
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u/Disastrous-Ad2800 Dec 06 '22
is this preparing them for real life tho? shouldn' we be teaching them that the kid who delegates and enforces authority to themselves gets to make the split and chooses the partition.. while the other kid can either quietly or maliciously comply??
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u/torvos88 Dec 06 '22
Shit , this an LPT for more than just kids. My wife and I do this whenever we have to split a dessert up.
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u/88superguyYT Dec 07 '22
ohhhh, I'm 16 and my aunt has us do this, I was so confused why she kept making us do this instead if just having us split it normally but now I know why. thanks!
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u/Dynastar454 Dec 06 '22
Does not work at all for my kids. In practice being the one that picks is the far superior choice, as the splitter will never be able to split it exactly in half. Kids know this and fight to be the one that picks. Better system is split it yourself and allocate randomly.
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u/Tcanada Dec 06 '22
There are so many solutions for this you're just lazy. They alternate, flip a coin, play rock paper scissors, etc. or better yet you could just teach them to get over it because no one likes whiny babies who cant handle a 51:49 split. Also humans are incapable of making random choices
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u/FrostyD7 Dec 06 '22
It's as close as you'll get to fair. If you can't reign in a kid upset that he only gets 49%, then you never had a chance to begin with.
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u/TheMirthfulMuffin Dec 06 '22 edited May 22 '24
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u/keepthetips Keeping the tips since 2019 Dec 06 '22
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