Slashdot Mirror
The True Story of Website Results
Henry V .009 writes: "Salon is running a story on a dot.com called Website Results. Maybe you've heard of them. Viral Spyware makers. My God, these people are sick. Interview question: 'Imagine there's a peasant somewhere halfway across the world. If you could push a button and kill the person without getting caught, would you do it for a million dollars?' 'For them, it was yes, in a heartbeat.'"
Imagine there's a peasant somewhere halfway across the world. If you could push a button and kill the person without getting caught, would you do it for a million dollars?'
If not, at what price would you? Oh, so you've got morals, ay? What if you had no money, and your family and kids were starving to death? It's winter, you don't make enough money at your job to give your kids any shelter or food, and they're out hiding in the dumpster behind McDonald's trying to fend off frostbite while getting some free food. Would you do it then?
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Better yet, for a little irony: what if the person at the other end of the button was Jack Valenti, George Bush, Osama bin Laden? Would your views be different then?
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Every man has a price; You just have to find that price.
The test was called Milgrim's 37. Peter Gabriel wrote a really creepy song about it called "We do what we're told". There were 37 buttons of "increasing pain" (higher voltage) applied to a test subject. Actually the subjects were actors, simulating greater pain as higher numbers were pushed. The actual subjects were the button-pushers who actually thought they were shocking people. They did as they were told, and applied what they thought were horifically painful shocks to random people they didn't know because they could get away with it.
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
(Spoiler below)
The person debates whether or not to push the button for quite awhile, and finally gives in to temptation. As the stranger departs, the person asks the stranger where he's going. The stranger replies, "To find someone who doesn't know you."
This is based off of memory, but I feel that I can sum up this story pretty well. A couple in financial straits is deciding what to do to pay the bills, when there is a knock at the door. In the doorway is a man with a box. On top of the box is a button. The man states that for a million dollars all they need do is press the button. The only hitch is that someone they don't know will die.
The man leaves them with the box stating he'll be back when they decide what to do. The couple struggle with the decision. They examine the box and see no wires, just a button. The money would solve all their problems, but can they take a chance that someone would die if they press the button. After spending several days thinking about it, the couple finally presses the button, the rationale being that since they really don't know the person and they can't be sure they will die it's okay.
Immediately, there's a knock at the door. The mysterious man is back with a briefcase of money. Inside, true to his word is a million dollars. As he takes the box back, the distressed couple asks if a person really died. Yes, he replied, but you have your million dollars.
But what about the box? What is to become of it? "Oh, don't worry. I'm just going to give it to someone you don't know," he remarks and leaves.
WRONG.
Have you ever done any research in this? I have.
At the last office we had a nice big red button on the wall. no labels, no "DO NOT PUSH" signs. just one big daunting red button... it was in the lobby so thousands passed it by daily.
the button actually did nothing. it was for an alarm system that had long been removed when the place was remodeled... yet the button remained. So I decided to start a research process... I wired it to a linux box with a webcam in the ceiling. to take a picture and log time/date when it was pushed.....
Except for me and my testing, IT WAS NEVER PUSHED.
I had pushed it several times over the course of that year to check if it was working as I was getting ZERO results.
People are not magically attracted to buttons.. Most looked at it, but they avoided pushing it.
granted this was over a year's time, I did not have a control group, and the population section was not a complete sampling... 90% of the humans that enter our lobby are a part of the upper 40% in IQ and stature. maybe the lower 60% has too little self control to avoid shiny red buttons...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Look familiar?
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Flowgo is another one. I get loads of complaints from users who claim never to have opted-in to their junk lists.
Yeah, I watch Southpark alot and think that, but I still think its funny as hell. I should also mention that buried in their episodes is often a very strong no bullshit view, almost from a childs eye how we adults act and rationalize away certain moral issues. For example, when Cartman's Mom decides she wants to have a late term abortion... as in kill Cartman... I think 80th (exaggeration) trimester or something. IMHO its kind of a stab at the whole Roe vs. Wade debate.
JOhn
Campaign for Liberty
It helps to have a very strong sense of boundaries. As in "this is humor, and unacceptable outside of this forum". I go to Rocky every weekend and swear like a sailor, make horribly overblown letcherous passes at everybody, and do things like dress up as Osama bin Laden (and get hit by lightning during the course of the show). During the week, I'm one of those people who doesn't swear at all, and am very formal and old fashioned when it comes to relationships with the opposite sex. My boundaries are clear.
Humor, especially dark, witty humor, is almost a different language. You don't laugh when your pet is run over, but the Python skit with exploding animals is absolutely hilarious. It's also a dark territory to tread, and if you do, you *will* offend people. When I'm offended, I just chalk it up to part of the risks inherent in such humor, and move on. Slaughtering sacred cows (or chaos -><-) is part and parcel of such entertainement.
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Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
That's exactly how governments, charities, and NGOs get your political support and your money. Obviously, no one with any sense *wants* people to starve. Which makes it a classic us-against-them case- apathic, selfish republican assholes against sympathetic DFLers who just want to help.
Plenty of people have given their lives in vain for many causes, including the illusion that our aid helps people. It is truly sad that so many people have died- given their lives, or had it taken from them- in vain.
It has nothing to do with being selfish. If you prefer to be duped by the governments of the world, fine. Aid is often nothing but big business and pawns in a world-wide chess game. That's not all cases of charitable action, of course.
I have wanted to joint the Peace Corps for as long as I can remember. However, of the interviews I've done with those formerly apart of the Corps, and having read independent journalist correspondence throughough many of the government created famines (like those in Somalia, Ethiopia, Rwanda), I decided I could not justify so taking so much away from those who need it, so that the US government, and the governments of third-world countries could benefit off of my charity.
When I read comments like the parent, I know that no matter how much work I put in toward truth and justice (excuse the cliche), our current iteration of "civilization" won't survive it's ignorance. Perhaps we could work toward a common goal, that nuclear proliferation of which you speak. We'd be a lot better without nations like mine screwing around with the business of so many nations, pretending that we have a place their or that we know what is best.
I suggest you check out the book "The Road To Hell" by Michael Maren. There are other plenty of other books, journal articles, and other information to read that speaks of the truth of the effects of foreign aid on the peoples on which we inflict it. However, I fear that you'd just dismiss it, because it doesn't just reinforce what you already think you know, and make you feel warm any fuzzy about your $0.70/day you give to Save the Children (one of the worst of the shams in the chaity business).
I once thought like you. We can still help people, but the avenues made available by the majority of NGOs and government organizations do a lot more harm than good to the people who are supposed to need the help.
I'd love for my tax dollars to go to actually helping someone other than corporations and others in powerful positions. I'm not sure why you would associate my stance with the moron known as GWB. Neither pouring more money into what amounts to be stolen food and bribes into the pockets of third-world government pockets (not the people who need the help) nor bombing Iraq will help much of anyone.
I know this big post has probably been a waste of my time. You probably want to continue to be duped, and you probably won't read all this. But I wish you the best, even if you do not choose to find truth.
Peace-
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad