Once upon a time, three groups of subjects were asked how much they would pay to save 2,000 / 20,000 / 200,000 migrating birds from drowning in uncovered oil ponds. The groups respectively answered $80, $78, and $88.

This is scope insensitivity or scope neglect. The number of birds saved—the scope of the altruistic action—had little effect on willingness to pay. Similar experiments showed that Toronto residents would pay little more to clean up all polluted lakes in Ontario than polluted lakes in a particular region of Ontario, or that residents of four western US states would pay only 28% more to protect all 57 wilderness areas in those states than to protect a single area.

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2ftJ38y9SRBCBsCzy/scope-insensitivity

Jessica was spending the day with the healers. In two short hours, she had found out enough to know that it was a specialized role for a good reason. The only two people convalescing in the small medical room looked like they would be there for a while, what with the broken legs. Jessica was glad to see one of the aunties had decided to take up with the healers.

Her arrival kicked off a couple of long-standing arguments that flared up when the group took a break.

"So you’re saying if I am hearing this right bubbie," Lai La said, her weathered arms crossing her chest, "that you don't think that an aunties tea holds a candle to your special medicines?"

The head healer, a man named Ko Sa, didn't blink. Of the many department heads that Jessica had talked to, he alone hadn't shown immediate deference. Jessica had to prove herself and after the first demon chicken incident, he had grudgingly accepted her.

"Hmm," he said. He was also a thin wire of a man who only spoke at length when delivering a lecture about medical care.

Jessica sat on the sidelines when these two clashed.

"Everyone knows that my tea cures all. Even Elder Jessica."

"That true mum?" He said, turning to her. His white robes looked like an extension of a doctor's coat and more than once Jessica wondered how it was always so clean and unruffled. Surely there would be blood from time to time?

"Perhaps that is the wrong question. It's good for what ails me, but it probably can't scale enough for a real problem."

Lai La was nonplussed but if she had something to say, she would tell it to Jessica after the healers all left for the day.

"We'll see who gets a mug of Lai Las hurry tea then next time I brew it."

Lai La had consistently under steeped the teas that she had been giving Jessica. In classic fashion, Jessica was loath to correct a woman twenty or more years her senior, so she just sipped her hot water with a pinch of tea leaf flavor.

It hadn’t escaped her notice that Ko Sa was a widower as well and he hadn’t said anything about the tea. That would have been a killer line too if he got it right.

Jessica had seen and experienced it when an elder would insist on someone drinking or eating something. It never was good to turn down food offered. But it was equally bad to do the thing where you tried to act demure like you didn't want to eat. They would escalate, acting even nicer with the offer and then two hours later you would be eating a nine-course meal that you didn't want to eat and that they didn't want to prepare.

Game recognized game in that moment.

"Healer Ko Sa. Can I explain something?"

Ko Sa gestured for her to continue.

"Let’s assume for a minute that Lai las tea has healing properties-"

"-which it does!" Lai La sneered.

"-right. So if it was cheaper to heal a lot of people with her tea, that would be a far more effective use of our resources. Like if her tea say …I don't know, gave everyone that drank it an extra five years of life."

The three nurses slurped their tea immediately. They knew when to appease Lai La, after only a few days of her helping out. Jessica waited for the end of a long slurp.

“We could compare that cost to the cost if we could deploy the tea to everyone in the region, giving people more life. If that was cheaper than…”

Jessica could see that she was losing the thread with the group.

“Okay here’s a different idea. Let’s say I asked you all how much you would pay to save ten people. Would you spend ten gold?”

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

A chorus of nods answered her.

“Hmm.”

Ko Sa gave her an appreciating nod.

“What if I asked you how much you would pay to save one hundred people?”

“One hundred gold?” Lai La ventured.

“See that makes sense because I laid it out in this way. But back on my world they did a bunch of studies about this. And I know, I may get a bit preachy about this, but when you thought about the ten people, you imagined what?”

“Ten beds,” one of the nurses said. She had a little streak of white along her jet black hair.

“And ten beds, that is something manageable? Would one hundred beds be a mass casualty? How about a thousand?”

A gasp echoed through the room and the nurse blanched.

“I get your point. We care more about single people than large groups of people. So what? We’re human here and everyone is going to get the best care that we can give.

Ko Sa looked almost mad at her.

"Elder Jessica, it's not that we won't care for a hundred or so people, it's more of a matter of how. I want to heal everyone that I can."

Jessica watched as one by one the nurses all refilled their tea cups.

"And that is admirable. I think the real thing that I want you to understand here, is that you can care deeply about people and that is wonderful, but to truly do good, you need to think with the part of your brain that does mathematics as well."

Lai La pulled back.

"Ewww you want me to think about numbers? For that reason, this one is out. I wasn’t understanding you-"

"Perhaps, I can do that part initiate Lai La. Or at least enough of it for both of us."

Lai La and Ko Sa locked eyes and it took every fiber of Jessica's being to not tell them to get a room.

Jessica stood up as if to leave. All the nurses stood. Reflexively, Lai La took the tea cup from in front of her. The poor cup was still full with steam rising off it. She was going to catch heck about this later. Not from Lai La, but it would get around to her. She nearly snatched the teacup back but again stopped herself. She needed to lay in the pits she kept digging herself.

"Elder," Ko Sa said,"You have heard of the leaving patient syndrome?"

The older man leaned in, going into what she had been accustomed to calling Professor mode. She gestured for him to continue.

"When a patient has something bothering him, he will dance around the issue, not saying anything about it until perhaps the very end of the appointment. At that time he will quickly blurt out word salad that would have been better addressed earlier on."

He knew.

"With that in mind, is there something you wanted to ask?"

It was infuriating that he saw right through her. People were people wherever she went.

"Well there was one thing..."

Ko Sas' face lit up like a Christmas tree.

***

Jessica had been working on her own mystical practice, but still hadn’t picked a weapon form to attune with. It hadn’t helped that when she did martial arts, she’d only done Tae Kwon Do for her dad, and then later Jiu Jitsu for herself. Neither of those emphasized combat with anything except for unarmed with a gi or not.

She had practiced extensively with each of the weapons available and hadn’t come up with much. Sa Kon had tried multiple times to get her to consider him as a weapon, and she had briefly tried using the demon spear in a practice session or two. Sa Kon felt like a fit for her, but when she saw Ah Le use the spear, it was clear that they were a match. If she could have a demon qi sucking weapon for each of her cultivators, she would.

Unfortunately she didn’t have that kind of money or expertise.

Still, the spear was good company and sometimes his jokes were okay.

“Sa Kon, this ability you have to drain qi…”

The spear sat in silent judgement. She’d often asked it questions that it had given cryptic answers to.

“Mistress, you know that I of all spears cannot give away trade secrets.”

“Right, right, I was just wondering if perhaps I could learn from your path and perhaps, well back where I’m from they say the ‘Good artists create and great artists steal’ and it’s totally understandable if that makes no sense to you but..”

“The cultivator who made me said something like that. Or maybe he didn't. I couldn't tell back then when I was less than…”

Jessica's mouth parted, exposing her teeth to the spear. There was a time when the spear was less than sentient and he didn’t like to remember those times.

“But if there was a way?”

Jessica had examined the way that the qi flowed from the sacred beasts into the spear and into the wielder.

“If there was a way, then I think the maker would have made it obvious, wouldn’t he?”

Jessica paused, considering the spear. His usual spot, propped up outside of the war room, gave him a view if you could even call it that. If he had eyes he could see most of the Sect from here. He apparently had a spiritual sense that he could see with.

And then two things clicked at once and Jessica realized that she needed to write it all down.

“If there was a way, then I think the maker would have made it obvious, wouldn’t he?”

The words rang in her head as she thought about it.

When she drew in qi, it was like a breath of air, assuming that there was a cold aura or natural qi around. What if instead of drawing in that qi, she could draw in the qi from a being unbidden? Like the spear, she would have to be close enough to the core.

“In order to create a technique, well, Elder here is a basic one. One must be able to describe the technique fully so that a new person would be able to understand it.”

The statement hung in the air. The library, finally bolstered by some of Heavens Mountain's old scrolls, looked pristine. An-Yong was sitting on a desk flanked by Jung. This wasn’t the first time that she had found the two of them visiting each other. They had been through something and she was supremely grateful that it was the two of them that had found her.

The corner of Juns mouth seemed to fight against his normally stoic expression, betraying how he really felt.

“He always has the best explanations, Junior Disciple An Yong does,” Jun said, taking care to accentuate the word junior. Jessica surmised that the joke about An Yong taking forever to get to the point had been a long running point of contention between the two.

“Can you explain your cold storage technique?”

“Well, yes, this one can easily do so, but then you have to put it into practice. It was a bit of qi every day, but it was well worth the energy spent.”

His face was radiant.

“Do… you want to learn the technique Elder? This one would be honored if you would accept this as a part of your path.”

Jessica turned to Jun.

“And if I spend my time on this technique, will it sharpen my mind further?”

Jun nodded. To see him fidget under her gaze, it was a gift she couldn’t have bought in a store.

“Talk me through it then.”

Juns jaw almost hit the floor.