Here is the scenario. You are 12 years old and you are approached by a man who has money beyond limits, sort of like Bill Gates. The man tells you that if you agree to be placed on a planet just as Earth without any humans or animals on it and spend there the rest of your 20 years alone, so that when those 20 years end you will be given all of the riches (based on after 20 years currency) that this businessman has. Would you agree to this offer? yes or no? Let me further complicate the issue, as a 12 year old you know u will live ur life misirably because u are in a very poor country and will not have any chance to become rich, but you do get to communicate with other people as you. So yes or no? would you accept this offer? Imagine it happening...would you be able to take such an offer, would you be able to spend all this time alone? :bugeye:
I hate to be picky but...why do you assume that people who are not rich will live miserably??? For thousands of years, almost nobody was rich...even Julius Caesar had to toast his own bread. Nowadays, even poor people have toasters! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
dude i dont assume that those who are poor will live life miserably...its just in this situation u will live life miserably and poor at the same time Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! .
That 12 year old would go completely insane long before the 20 years are over. Money would be useless to him after those 20 years. He'd wish for death.
it depends if there was any life or interesting terrain on this planet. if i was to sit in the middle of a desert with nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs then i would say no, however if there was samething mildly entertaining to do, then i would definitely take it, better me than someone who is going to keep the money for themselves
I would take the offer. Why? If this would indeed be a planet just like Earth, this would be the biggest discovery since nucleus. I would ask some money in advance, in order to buy necessary equipment to do some research on this new planet. About the boredom, if it´s anything like Earth, there must be other lifeforms.
Hell no. All alone? No way! Now if I were able to take a chick with me and maybe my two dogs (both so they can have puppies cause they'd die before 20 years), then yeah, I'd do it. Although I'd prefer to have a PC with me, then I'd actually be able to go there all alone. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! - N
See if the planet was interesting and amazing it would make the boy insane even faster. Imagine discovering the wonders of life and having no one to share them with or discuss them with or see them with. His mind would probably resort to creating fictional identities to calm his stress levels. Like when you do something really cool or amazing and no one is around to see it, its an annoyance, just times that moment by 20 years.
I would jump at the chance. 20 years on a planet like Earth with no life? Talk about peace and quiet.. Go for walks, travelling around, sleeping where you want with nothing biting you, writing etc etc. I have always fantasized of a life of solitude which is why I like apocalyptic movies like Dawn of the Dead and that Charlton Heston film... And you get rewarded for this? Rewarded with money so that when you return to Earth with life you can live however you want? Where do I sign? There's nothing gratifying about making your way through rush hour traffic and being forced to intermingle with humans on trivial matters related to a job you hate until you are in your 60's.
I lost just one year of my childhood. They skipped me from the fifth grade directly into the seventh because "I was so smart." I went from being with kids to being with adolescents, when I was just a kid myself. I have spent the rest of my life trying to regain that lost year. It took me fifty years just to figure that out. I would not give up twenty years of my normal maturation process for anything. The money wouldn't do me any good. I have a comfortable life now with a wonderful wife and a good job and a big house and a nice car and all that stuff and I'm still miserable. To lose all the years from age 12 to age 31???? No way! But I'm surprised that everyone's focusing on the most self-centered scenario. Doesn't anyone think if they came back to their squalid village in Uruguay or Bangladesh with a bank book with ten zeroes, that they might use that money to enrich the entire community? Even here in the USA it would go pretty far. If you lived in a town with ten thousand people you could make them all multimillionaires. In a destitute rural hamlet in the Third World, it would go much farther. You could build a school and a hospital and houses, pave the roads and do some other public works projects so they'd have a good future, and still give the people enough money to lavish themselves with material goods. Perhaps it's a more interesting question and tells you more about yourself, to ask whether you would be willing to make that sacrifice in order to lift everyone you know out of hopeless poverty into a prosperous life.
Well, no. A world with no people I would have leaped at, but not no animals... I would never have left behind my pets. Plus, by the time you got back to Earth (your scenario didn't specifically mention that, but I assume we're saying that happens at the end?) you might be so out of touch with things that you wouldn't even be able to do much good with your money. I mean, stuff doesn't seem like it changes that much in 20 years, but if you had been totally out of touch with it and living your own life with just plants... things would seem mighty strange. I think being back on earth would probably make me go insane, after being used to the solitude. And I certainly might not be able to think logically about charities and such.
I wouldnt care about the money. I'd explore my psyche, figure out as much as life can be figured out, eat plants, go insane and then when i'd return, appreciate it all the more.
Now, when I have thought about it, I would like to change my vote. Considering I would have no knowledge about the foodsources or native species, I would end up dead. If they offer me constant food and electricity. medical care if needed and a computer with internet, I would still like to attend. Otherwise, it would be suicidal. Based on the initial question, without any backround info, I wouldn´t. I just read that there would be no animals, nothing about plants thou. There must be some source of food. :bugeye:
Well, I assume that when it says "just as Earth without any humans or animals on it" it means that plant life would be the same. Since it's a hypothetical situation, I guess it doesn't matter that the plants couldn't be the same without animals there to do their various parts.
Let me share a story with you all, that sort of explains why I decided to create this thread. Discussion of isolation and such. Once upon a time in France there was a man, a scientist, who decided to conduct an unusual human experiment. What he did was he asked a mother who was going to abandon her child to give birth in a dark room. As the mother gave birth, a child was born in complete darkness. The scientist then ordered a maid to look after the baby, give it food and care, but to never take the baby outside to see the sunlight. The room was deep underneath the ground...however the scientist made sure that the baby felt very comfortably. The maid taught the boy mathematics, language, history using a lamp, so that the boys eyes could see the light. A story was invented for the boy that the boy never left the huge room. Then when the boy became of 17 years old, the scientist took him by the hands and told him to see the sunset outside. The boy agreed and as soon as the scientist took the boy outside...the boy saw his first sunset for the first time. As the sun was slowly moving behind the horizon, the beautifull planet all around the boy faded into darkness. The scientist then told the boy that it is the last sunset to ever be ever. The boy once full of amazement and happiness had once turned pale, he dropped, and his heart stopped. The scientist checked the pulse, the boy was dead. *food for thought*
Anyone taking the offer is nuts, first time you need medical attention you're dead, as there is no one to help you, so money in 20yrs isn't going to help? Also after 20yrs of isolation you would have zero social skills and be completely incapable of reintergrating back into a society populated with people, so again, money isn't going to help you. Money does not bring you happiness, check out all the top celebs in therapy and rehab for proof of that!
