For $1,000,000, would you forgo all human contact for one year?

In My Humble Opinion
1

An eccentric billionaire offers you the chance to earn the aforementioned sum. Here are the rules:

You are given a beautifully appointed two-story house to live in. Power, water, and other utilities are provided; you have a huge library of books, DVDs, and CDs, and other non-interactive media (i.e., cable or satellite tv, radio, & so forth) to which you can add under rules to be detailed below. There’s even internet, but your usage of that is monitored to make sure you don’t send messages to anyone; you’ll be allowed to read the Dope, monitor your bank account, watch YouTube vidoes, and so forth, but not to post anything or send any email.s All groceries and other supplies (which can include things like computer paper and ink, new media, replacement equipment, and so forth) are delivered to the house. Your sole link to the outside world is a land-line phone hardwired to call a single number, which always goes to voice mail. You can call that number at will to specify what supplies you need delivered, or to call for a plumber or whatever to do needed repairs; but you never get to speak to a live person. When supplies are delivered or a repairman arrives, the phone rings and a recorded message directs you to lock yourself in your bedroom for the duration of the delivery or service; you’ll get a similar message when it’s time to come out. (There’s a second bedroom you can go to in case repairs need to be done in the main bedroom, and there’s a full bath attached to each.)

There’s a big lawn–about an acre–in which you can wander if you feel the need to go outside; you can either tend to its upkeep yourself or summon a gardener under the same conditions as you would a plumber.

For each month you live under such conditions, you will be paid $20,000, payable on the 28th of the month; this will be deposited into your banking account, which you can monitor as mentioned above If you can make it through 12 months, you’ll get a bonus so that your total pay for the year is $1,000,000 after taxes.

You are allowed to interact with others under two and only two conditons. First: every three months you’ll be visited by a doctor, nurse, and dentist employed by the billionaire and given a checkup, tooth cleaning,and so forth; these persons are are forbidden to discuss anything but your physical health during this time. Second, if you have a medical emergency, you can call for help and be taken to the hospital as necessary. However, any time you spend on emergency care does not count toward your goal, and such time is always going to be rounded up to the nearest day. Cut your hand badly enough that an EMT has to spend ten minutes with bandages, in other words, and you’ve added a day to your stay.

Would you do it? Why or why not? What would be your biggest problem making it through?

2

You had me at “Would you forgo all human contact”

3

Do I get to have a pet or ten? If so, definitely.

If not, as long as I have TV/movies/Internet, I’d probably do it too.

4

Bear in mind that includes posting on the Dope and any other interactive Web activities. If you so much as post “+1” in a thread entitled Fred Phelps is an evil bastard while Kristen Bell is a hottie", you’re out.

5

I’d do it. Even though human contact doesn’t come easily to me, I still like being near people, though not necessarily interesting with them. I’d end up being a little squirrely at the end. But I’d survive.

I’d probably sleep a lot.

6

I would have to masturbate a lot, but yeah.

Wait – I get to have booze, right?

7

If I wasn’t in a relationship, I’d do it with no hesitation at all. As it is… I’d do it after some hesitation, and only with the agreement of my partner that this was a finite thing which I was doing for the sake of our future. I don’t think going in would be that difficult, as long as I had all the things you mention, art supplies, my guitar, etc. However I wonder how easy it would be to go back to the real world afterwards.

8

I thought I had added the pet codicil in an edit, but I see I was hallucinating. I’ll do so here.

Yes, you can have as many dogs or whatever as you wish, and your grocery & other supplies will include pet food and such. BUT–if they become ill, you cannot call for help for them without ending the deal. The emergency help proviso applies only to you, not to Garfield & Odie.

9

Ah But I only post here when I’m stuck at work. We’re not allowed to do much else recreationally at work. And besides, I can usually resist +1 replies.

Kirsten Bell is a hottie though.

ETA: If pets are allowed. Two or three cats.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more I like the idea. I might spend the year writing a novel.

10

No way. Even if I got to bring the kitties with me I would still go nuts without being able to talk to other people. Besides, going for a year without talking to anyone is a good way to make sure that my boyfriend, all of my friends, and my employer will have to figure out how to get along without me or replace me, so at the end of it I would be single with few friends and no job. Not worth a million bucks to me.

11

NFW. A thousand times NFW. There isn’t enough money in the world to convince me to take that kind of deal. I’d be batshit crazy by the end of the year. I don’t need a lot of human interaction but I can’t do without it completely.

12

Wait… I can get a million bucks for this?

Sign me up.

13

Get a better job and you have $1,000,000 and a job to top up the interest earnings.
As solitary as I think I am (I like the company of myself) If I’m honest I do think I’d get pretty caged-animal-like eventually. But I think it’s worth it, to live like a wealthy person for a year (albeit without human contact) and then get a wad of cash at the end of it.

A year isn’t all that long
ETA: To the OP, do I get to have a top-end PC and whichever Games I want (and software, such as 3d authoring, adobe software, application building software etc…) All updtated as the technology progresses?

14

Wow, this made me think.

Given that I’m 4 1/2 months pregnant, heck no, not for any price (unless my family and I were starving and desperately needed the money). But if no kids were in the picture… Probably not a whole year for $1M. That’s not really that much nowadays (especially in my neck of the woods, where that would buy you a… really small house). I think my biggest fear would be that people would forget about me in a year, and in general that I’d lose a year of bonding time with friends and family. My second biggest fear would be that some major catastrophe would happen and that I wouldn’t be able to share it with friends and family (unlikely, but it could happen). And then there are other annoyances like, my job is probably not going to be there when I return, etc. … it just isn’t worth $1M to me.

Also, the biggest practical problem for me is that I would have a big problem with missing my husband a LOT, and vice versa. I don’t think either of us would agree to this for $1M even if somehow all the above issues were setled. But we might be able to psych ourselves up about it for $10M, with which we could buy a nice house and do a lot of things we probably wouldn’t otherwise.

Other than that, I don’t know that lack of human contact would bother me too much, as I’m a total introvert. I might volunteer for 1 month for $20k, that sounds actually like getting paid to have a nice vacation, at least if I weren’t married.

15

I absolutely would. In some ways I’m happiest by myself. Interaction for me can be enjoyable and desirable, but is absolutely not mandatory.

16

I could do it for $1,000,000. I’ve always been interested in stuff that is best done by myself. If you just happen to be finding somebody for this philanthropist, consider me signed up and ready to go.:slight_smile:

This would be worth it for the health care and $20,000 a month.

17

I have a tight group of friends, and interact with people extremely easily. But I’d do this in a heartbeat. I’m WAY behind playing Fallout 3 and NCAA '09, not to mention the handful of Wii games I haven’t even touched, so why not? I get to bring my dog with me, and maybe adopt another one while I’m at it. Absolutely!

18

By the way guys…

First come first served :smiley:

19

Are those games interactive? Are you playing against someone over the net? Because that wouldn’t be allowed.

Remember, you get the $20K a month for as long as you can stand up, up to a year, whereupon the $240K you’ve earned is more than quadrupled. So you could easily take a month and then bail, or even three months and get the free checkup and tooth cleaning. :slight_smile:

I think that’s implied in the OP; if it’s not I clearly meant it to me. The only limitation on that front is that applications requiring you to interact with others are not goning to be allowed. You can’t publish a blog, for instance, or play games with other long distance. Though I suppose keeping a journal for later publication would be allowed.

20

Yes please. Except for the part where the doctor, nurse, and dentist butt in on my privacy. If I yell out the window, “get off my lawn”, do I lose the money?