Dr Adequate
Banned
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2004
- Messages
- 17,766
I'm surprised no-one's mentioned it. For those who didn't see it, here's what we saw.
A guy walks into a pub and starts playing a video game involving shooting zombies. It's one of those ones where you point a gun at the screen to aim and fire. The game is conected by wires to a control room where a guy operated the game, and DB gave instructions as to tempo and to flashes of light, which seemed to be important. We get to watch what's going on on screen as the boy plays the game.
After a while, the lad's head and arms drop, as though in a trance, though he remains standing. DB springs out of the control room, gets a couple of onlookers (the lad's friends, it seems) to help him strap the lad onto a gurney, wheels him outside, round the corner, up a ramp, and into a building with the exact same topography as the game he was playing, and with the same mood lighting. He's wheeled to the same place he was in the game, released, stood up (head bowed, arms limp) and has a rather larger gun placed in his unresisting hand.
DB and the bystanders then retire to a second control room, and DB awakens the lad with the sound of one of those hand-held klaxons.
Then a lot of actors dressed as zombies start lurching out at him.
I shall draw a veil over the distressing scenes that followed.
In the end he is cornered and DB comes for him. He unlike the actors, doesn't fall when he is shot, but just keeps on coming. He bows the lads head, and possibly says something in his ear --- at least, he's in the appropriate posture.
Then it's back onto the gurney and into the pub. The lad, though seemingly in a trance, is not a dead weight, and you can hear DB saying things like "I'm going to stand you up now", while getting him off the gurney. He's put back in front of the video game, the gun that goes with it is put back into his hands. His head is still bowed. DB retires again, leaving him with his friends, and he is once more awakened by the sound of the klaxon. The video machine says "Game over".
He then starts enthusing to his friends about how good the game was, and how involving. When DB pops out of his hidey hole saying "I'm DB, I designed the game", the lad used some phrase about "putting them in pubs up and down the country". He has, apparently, no recollection of anything but playing a very exciting and involving video game.
_________________________
Okay, skeptics. First of all, let's slide down Occam's razor again. Oh ye of little faith in hypnosis --- what do you say happened?
Second, if that was hypnosis, was what DB did remotely ethical or even legal? (I guess the great thing about being DB, though, is that you have no trouble getting people to sign release forms.)
Third, is the behaviour of the bystanders surprising or disturbing? It reminded me of the famous "obedience experiments" (which, incidentally, would not now be considered ethical).
Fourth, if Azrael5 has videoed this --- how am I as an eyewitness? Any confabulation there?
_________________________
I'm never going to play another pub video game. I'm going to stay well away from the jukebox as well --- you can't be too careful.
A guy walks into a pub and starts playing a video game involving shooting zombies. It's one of those ones where you point a gun at the screen to aim and fire. The game is conected by wires to a control room where a guy operated the game, and DB gave instructions as to tempo and to flashes of light, which seemed to be important. We get to watch what's going on on screen as the boy plays the game.
After a while, the lad's head and arms drop, as though in a trance, though he remains standing. DB springs out of the control room, gets a couple of onlookers (the lad's friends, it seems) to help him strap the lad onto a gurney, wheels him outside, round the corner, up a ramp, and into a building with the exact same topography as the game he was playing, and with the same mood lighting. He's wheeled to the same place he was in the game, released, stood up (head bowed, arms limp) and has a rather larger gun placed in his unresisting hand.
DB and the bystanders then retire to a second control room, and DB awakens the lad with the sound of one of those hand-held klaxons.
Then a lot of actors dressed as zombies start lurching out at him.
I shall draw a veil over the distressing scenes that followed.
In the end he is cornered and DB comes for him. He unlike the actors, doesn't fall when he is shot, but just keeps on coming. He bows the lads head, and possibly says something in his ear --- at least, he's in the appropriate posture.
Then it's back onto the gurney and into the pub. The lad, though seemingly in a trance, is not a dead weight, and you can hear DB saying things like "I'm going to stand you up now", while getting him off the gurney. He's put back in front of the video game, the gun that goes with it is put back into his hands. His head is still bowed. DB retires again, leaving him with his friends, and he is once more awakened by the sound of the klaxon. The video machine says "Game over".
He then starts enthusing to his friends about how good the game was, and how involving. When DB pops out of his hidey hole saying "I'm DB, I designed the game", the lad used some phrase about "putting them in pubs up and down the country". He has, apparently, no recollection of anything but playing a very exciting and involving video game.
_________________________
Okay, skeptics. First of all, let's slide down Occam's razor again. Oh ye of little faith in hypnosis --- what do you say happened?
Second, if that was hypnosis, was what DB did remotely ethical or even legal? (I guess the great thing about being DB, though, is that you have no trouble getting people to sign release forms.)
Third, is the behaviour of the bystanders surprising or disturbing? It reminded me of the famous "obedience experiments" (which, incidentally, would not now be considered ethical).
Fourth, if Azrael5 has videoed this --- how am I as an eyewitness? Any confabulation there?
_________________________
I'm never going to play another pub video game. I'm going to stay well away from the jukebox as well --- you can't be too careful.
