A gathering and a fire

Following a morning spent gathering tinder and logs, eight men sat around a fire. As the weather closed in and the temperature dropped, they huddled together to stay warm.
Some more men, attracted by the light of the fire, joined the group. The first group then began to pass back burning embers in order to spread the heat, at which point even more people joined the group.
One of the original gatherers then stood up and said, “Hold on, these guys didn’t help build our fire, nor are they bringing wood to help keep it going. We can’t keep passing out embers like this or our fire will go out”.
He was chastised by his friends who stated that the others came from a camp that didn’t have much wood in the first place, and that others were not trained in wood gathering so it wasn’t their fault. They accused him of being selfish in denying strangers access to their heat source. In order to be seen to be doing the right thing, he sat down and said nothing.
So they carried on handing out the embers until all the wood was gone. The fire duly died down and extinguished and so, everyone perished from the cold……equally!