So let’s say I’m a [del]mad scientist[/del] leading neurologist. And I want to study pain. If you let me, I’m going to implant an electrode in the pain center of your brain and shock the hell out of it. It will be the most excruciating thing you’ve ever imagined. Broken bones? Hah. That’s nothing. Perforated stomach? Pales in comparison. You’re going to receive pure, raw PAIN. And I’m going to keep you awake for all of it. There won’t be any passing out or shutting down for this experiment. You’ll feel every second of it.
Now, before you leave the office, I’ll give you a drug that’ll give you short-term amnesia. You won’t remember a thing about the experiment. You’ll go on with your life as if it never happened. With one exception:
You’ll be rich! I’m willing to pay you as much as you require (not as much as you request, though) for however long you’ll let me shock you.
So when you’re on the rack, you’ll be cursing your past self for doing this to your present self, and desperately begging to become your future rich self. The question, then, is how much I’d have to pay (the LOWEST amount you’d accept) and for how much time with your brain.
My coworkers have said they’d do:
1 hour, $50 million
1 minute, $20,000
“I’m not letting you near me”
Me: 20 seconds, $5,000
This thread was inspired by a movie’s plot point, which I’ll spoiler…
The Prestige. Every night, Danton kills himself but also lives on with no memory of the event
Also, even if I don’t have any conscious memory of this, does that also rule out PTSD and other mental trauma? Also, what if all this pain causes me to hurt myself in my writhing?
Consider it a magical operation that guarantees you’ll walk away from it as if it were a dream. So there won’t be a skull wound, no PTSD, and no incidental injuries.
And good god, man. Why would you not want the drug?! If you don’t take my drug, I can’t keep the no-PTSD promise.
I agree with Chessic. This isn’t having the skin burned, this isn’t breaking a bone, this isn’t being electrocuted. This is the most pain that your brain can create for itself and no matter what you will not pass out through it. That’s pretty much a guarantee that you’d be fucked up for life afterwards if you didn’t take the amnesia drug.
There is no amount of money I would take for that. If I was that desperate for money I’d take my chances and do something illegal. I’m just not that desperate to be rich.
Yes but memory is a complicated thing, and even if your drug only targets recent memories I wouldn’t trust to only get them, nor would I trust it to fully work, because I’d have no way of knowing that and am naturally skeptical. Therefor better on the surface, then blurred in the subconscious.
So once I am strapped in there is no going back right? In that case given that in the long run I will never remember any of it anyhow you can sign me up for however long is necessary to hit the nice round number of 1 billion. Its easy to agree to a hypothetical I can’t really comprehend; doubly so when I know I won’t even remember it afterwords.
On one hand, I’d like to say somewhere along the lines of a billion dollars, just to be sure I’d never have to worry about money and be able to do whatever I wanted the rest of my life. I don’t like pain very much, and would not be looking forward to having this done unless it was the absolute last thing I ever needed to do.
But I’ve also considered that the pain is temporary, non-debilitating, and completely memory free. Given that you are nothing but the collection of your memories, if the procedure worked perfectly to erase my memory, I’d demand only a few hundred. Thus I’d have my contract stipulate that if there is absolutely any trace of the procedure, you’d be on the hook for my billion.
As to how long, I have absolutely no clue. Any good scientific experiment works only in one variable at a time; if there are two variables, the experiment is designed so that you can compare the responses between them and their possible correlation. While this is obviously not very scientific, I still feel hard pressed to come up with a good answer to the time question.
What’s the maximum amount of time, though, that I can demand for my billion? 10 years? 20 years? 24 hours?
One of my other coworkers chose the “as long as you want” option as well, but I talked him out of it. I think all the pain and regret you’d have mid-procedure would override the money. But it is a tempting arrangement. I keep flipping back and forth from “go for days and be fabulously wealthy” to “only a few seconds, and just get a used car out of the deal”. Both seem perfectly logical.
Eh, I’d be more concerned about the implantation procedure than the actual experiment. I’m not being macho: I’m kind of experienced in being hurt. I have learned two things. A: When you are badly hurt, you don’t feel pain for a bit. B: It’s REAL hard to remember pain afterwards.
So I’d say ‘Okay, give me a minute, if my vitals stick out, give me half an hour. Let’s see how I feel about the minute, ten minutes after the minute, before giving the drug. Maybe it’s not necessary.’ Cost? Well, hell, if you’re gonna pay, sure, Couple grand would be nice. Million? Probably not worth a million but I’d take it.
I’d do the one minute version just to see what happens, myself.
I contemplated something like this recently. I was diagnosed with “something” on my liver, perhaps a tumor, but definitely “something” that needed to be removed. It all happened very quickly & from the moment I was told it needed to come out until I was being prepped for surgery, it was only over a weekend & the big “C” word was cleverly avoided. Ended up I was in surgery for 12 hours & had an entire lobe of my liver removed, 15 lbs’ worth. Infection & ICU came into play. Recovery was months. I couldn’t move in bed. I had hallucinations and odd dreams. I dreaded even attempting to get out of bed. I couldn’t take a step on my own. I prayed each night that I wouldn’t wake up in the morning. Had I had even the slightest inkling of what I was in for, I might have opted out. But I survived it and can talk about it with no regret.
If I were offered the “chance” to do this again, NO WAY! No even if had been the “routine” operation that was expected.
Now that I’m well past it, I’m okay. It’s over. I survived. It’s done.
You already take the drug?