i wrote a huge amount of stuff and i got sick of my brain vomit so i deleted it all... but here are a few thoughts on the prisoner scenario:
- depends on the conditions under which they are kept... do they socialise with other prisoners or are they confined to a solitary existence.
- if the prisoners socialise within the general community, then it is more likely that a person will volunteer for the 50% chance... they may enjoy a close relationship with another member of the group and wish to see them survive... or they may be feeling pressure from members of stronger groups (most if not all groups are decided by race in prisons, so you would be able to tell who is in which group just by looking in many cases), or fearing retaliation from other, stronger groups should they not volunteer, in which case they are protecting other members of their 'clan'...
-i have other thoughts but they're not very interesting... except that in the hostage situation i feel that the person most likely to volunteer would be a caregiver of another person in the group... so i think that you would see more volunteers wherein there are small groups in a relatively small, larger whole... having a larger group is good up to a point, but after a certain point a person will feel less responsibility and think more about being able to get through the ordeal just by being a face in the crowd... my previous thought about a member of a family volunteering to take the 50% shot is more likely to work in a group consisting of, say, a family and some individuals who are strangers... multiple families in the group are just going to... bah! too many variables... i'm done with this! should you want to discuss it in person over a few hundred drinks, you know where to find me! :P
ps - if we're going to be anal, then all people in the prisoner and hostage scenario have a 100% chance of dying... unless one or more of them are immortal... but i'm just being a prick now ;)
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i wrote a huge amount of stuff and i got sick of my brain vomit so i deleted it all... but here are a few thoughts on the prisoner scenario:
- depends on the conditions under which they are kept... do they socialise with other prisoners or are they confined to a solitary existence.
- if the prisoners socialise within the general community, then it is more likely that a person will volunteer for the 50% chance... they may enjoy a close relationship with another member of the group and wish to see them survive... or they may be feeling pressure from members of stronger groups (most if not all groups are decided by race in prisons, so you would be able to tell who is in which group just by looking in many cases), or fearing retaliation from other, stronger groups should they not volunteer, in which case they are protecting other members of their 'clan'...
-i have other thoughts but they're not very interesting... except that in the hostage situation i feel that the person most likely to volunteer would be a caregiver of another person in the group... so i think that you would see more volunteers wherein there are small groups in a relatively small, larger whole... having a larger group is good up to a point, but after a certain point a person will feel less responsibility and think more about being able to get through the ordeal just by being a face in the crowd... my previous thought about a member of a family volunteering to take the 50% shot is more likely to work in a group consisting of, say, a family and some individuals who are strangers... multiple families in the group are just going to... bah! too many variables... i'm done with this! should you want to discuss it in person over a few hundred drinks, you know where to find me! :P
ps - if we're going to be anal, then all people in the prisoner and hostage scenario have a 100% chance of dying... unless one or more of them are immortal... but i'm just being a prick now ;)