3rd June 2015, 10:14 AM
If you haven't heard of The Briefcase, think of it like that old Twilight Zone episode about the button someone can press to instantly become millionaires, but at the cost of killing a stranger.
They take two desperately poor families, give them both (the "both" part is kept secret from the other) the weird sum of $101,000, then tell them that they can keep it or share it with a possibly even more needy family. Do you take the entirety to feed your poor family, or do you give charitably to people possibly even more needy than you? Also, maybe someone has to saw off their foot by the end of it.
It's one of the most horrible things I've ever heard of short of Sophie's Choice, but they seem fine with it because, hey, people you know are ALWAYS more important, right? It's just an obvious choice.
Mind you, then whatever choice they make, they have to meet the other family and maybe one walks away with two briefcases full of cash and the other learns that deep down, hope and kindness are the lies we tell ourselves to sleep at night. It's prisoner's dilemma if you knew neither side did anything to deserve this.
Next up, a new reality show where a parent and child are kidnapped and held at a black site and tortured until one betrays the other, deep in their hearts meaning every word of the betrayal. Which one will more readily believes the lies the producers tell about the other? Find out on NBC's Room 101!
I remember when everyone mocked The Truman Show as silly. It's really getting closer and closer to being feasible...
They take two desperately poor families, give them both (the "both" part is kept secret from the other) the weird sum of $101,000, then tell them that they can keep it or share it with a possibly even more needy family. Do you take the entirety to feed your poor family, or do you give charitably to people possibly even more needy than you? Also, maybe someone has to saw off their foot by the end of it.
It's one of the most horrible things I've ever heard of short of Sophie's Choice, but they seem fine with it because, hey, people you know are ALWAYS more important, right? It's just an obvious choice.
Mind you, then whatever choice they make, they have to meet the other family and maybe one walks away with two briefcases full of cash and the other learns that deep down, hope and kindness are the lies we tell ourselves to sleep at night. It's prisoner's dilemma if you knew neither side did anything to deserve this.
Next up, a new reality show where a parent and child are kidnapped and held at a black site and tortured until one betrays the other, deep in their hearts meaning every word of the betrayal. Which one will more readily believes the lies the producers tell about the other? Find out on NBC's Room 101!
I remember when everyone mocked The Truman Show as silly. It's really getting closer and closer to being feasible...
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)
