It isn't as if the insights above couldn't occur otherwise, but I notice a pattern over the centuries: games are useful!
For one more example, the idea of fairness itself is virtual. Are we all identical? No!!!
So, hold on, hold on. Let's pretend for a moment that we are interchangeable. This is a hypothetical space we're in now. We are not interchangeable, or only in some ways and partially. This is a strong abstraction: there are people in your life you would not allow to be replaced with a random stranger. And imagine how long your workplace would buzz along effectively if you all kept getting swapped out with people off the street. But supposing we were interchangeable, then what should the rules be, and how do things balance out?
That's precisely how a game works: the rules don't care about your name, genetics, or personal history, and you could step out and someone else could take your seat. The rules are tuned to be playable for many people. And that's also the beginning of fairness. Seeing different scenarios as the same and different people as interchangeable requires a hint of make-believe: all scenarios and all people are unique. Fairness can be seen as a flavor of virtuality built into most of us, a half-baked and fallible instinct, one that depends critically on a hypothetical, on unrealities of sameness, on falsifiable abstractions.
It also happens to be very useful in society. Over time, civilization tends toward fairness. The idea is most useful after we understand it. Fairness is a thing we co-create to encourage participation in a better society.
