I don't know if it's really related to a real book.
But I won't take the reference to any book seriously, since this story is using some game theory to promote a political idea. The biggest problem of applying the idea to human society is the basic assumption - that everyone is long-term rational with perfect information to make decision. In real life, this is not the case lots of times.
Few years ago I read The March of Folly - a book trying to explore the reason why people collectively make decision that is bad for them. Either in the same book or in other books that I read, the conclusion seems to come down to this:
- if the outcome of a collective decision is clear & quick, the public can make very rational decisions.
- if the benefit of a collective decision is not immediately clear, the public may not be able to make rational decisions.
Example 1, in horse racing, the result is know within a few minutes, and the benefit of right decision is very clear. In this case, the public collectively allocate money according to the winning probability exactly, thus exhibite a very rational behavior in voting with their $$$.
Example 2, in an election, the benefit of putting someone in charge is not clear for many years to come, thus guys like George W Bush & Dick Cheney got elected. (Of course, it's still way too early to judge how beneficial to the American people are the presidency of GWB.)
Back to your story. It's very clear the story is made up to deliver a political message. It's a powerful message because the idea is simple and seems logical. But you have to understand that both the sheeps and the lions are behaving super rationally, even to the point of accepting sufferings in the short term.
People aren't that simple. But in any case, thanks for posting the story. Any story that makes you think is a good one, whether agreed to the message or not.
(BTW a small thing but I have to say it. The opening of the story really bothers me. The main story is interesting enough without reference to "the best selling book in the US". This kind of reference almost look like the advertising we see in the mainland - "famous brand in US/Europe/etc..." I really think the original story is meant for spreading the message to the mainland Chinese.)
P.S. I did stop at the 2nd paregraph to made my choice. And I chose the lions, but for the wrong reason because I misunderstood the conditions. I thought both lions would present at the same time.
