A gangsta breaks into your parents' house while you're visiting them. It happens so fast that you are knocked out cold. You never even saw who hit you. One second you're standing in the kitchen doorway talking to your parents, the next second it's lights out.

When you wake up, the back of your head smarts terribly. You are in a large living room without much furniture. Your mother, father, and yourself are all duct taped and sprawled on the floor, your hands and feet tightly bound. Your parents' mouths are taped shut, but yours is not and you can speak. Your parents and the gangsta are all near each other. You are 20 feet away from all of them.

The gangsta wields an impressive looking gun, a .50 cal Desert Eagle. One shot from this monster will kill just about anything short of an elephant, or at the very least remove large chunks of the human body. The gangsta says, "I gots what I came for. Got some good cash money. Now, which of y'all mothafuckin' parents gonna die? Yo mamma?" He points the gun at her head and she starts crying and shaking. "Yo Daddy?" He points the gun at your father's head. Your father does nothing, but he's sweating rain.

You're on the ground floor, and there are windows, but the curtains are drawn and admit no light. A clock on the wall says it's 5 pm. It's fall, with mild weather, so it's still daylight hours. People may be outside, but they may not be home from work yet, and your parents have a fairly substantial front lawn. If you scream, you cannot be sure that anyone will hear you. You don't know if anyone will notice anything amiss; for all you know, the house may look completely normal to anyone walking by.

The gangsta's white, 5 foot 8 inches, roughly 160 pounds, in average physical condition, wears a backwards turned cap, and plain, cheap baggy clothing in the gangsta style. No gold or jewelry frontin'. No distinguishing information on his clothes, no lettering, no t-shirt with a statement, no logo on his cap. No tattoos or piercings. You figure he's not totally off-the-wall crazy but clearly not sane either. Imbalanced, volatile, and clearly enjoying torturing all of you with these psychological shenanigans.

What do you do? Your parents have no martial skills and are totally defenseless. You can presume yourself to be similarly defenseless, or you can presume yourself to have any badass martial skills you desire. However, they are 20 feet away from you, and your wrists and ankles are tightly bound with many layers of duct tape. You can speak to the gangsta if you want to.

hypnotise him with your awesome NLP skills


OR


start crying.



This thread reminds me of the Monkey Mind thread and all of the Saw films.

Wow.

That Monkey Mind puzzle really bothers you doesn't it?

You know... You could let this one go???

_________________
*Justice renders the WEAK his due*
My Journal
here-vp445642.html#445642

So that means you have nothing to say about the dilemma I posed, I take it.

The Monkey Mind puzzle doesn't bug me. It's people who can't / won't come to a conclusion about it that bug me. I offer a counterexample: a more or less concrete problem. When problems are concrete, people make decisions and reach closure. When problems are vague, people mentally masturbate endlessly about the possibilities. That's why the Monkey Mind thread is going to go on and on and on, long after everyone's forgotten this post.

OK.

Why are you so worried about what other people's conclusions are? Monkey Mind is a puzzle for YOU the reader, not anyone else.
See the thing is, YOU'RE standing at the door... You're even holding on the handle. You can touch the door, smell the rich oak it's made from. Something exciting is on the other side.

You know this, because other people have walked through it and you can hear their excitement.

What really, really RILES you is although you are stood at the very edge of the door you don't have the courage to just turn the handle and WALK right in.

_________________
*Justice renders the WEAK his due*
My Journal
here-vp445642.html#445642

Actually at this point I'm just gonna ask you to stop thread jacking. It's not like I haven't argued with people in the Monkey Mind thread, or that you couldn't respond there. If you wanna go on about doors, talk about the gangsta.

Dude, haha I can see why you don't get girls. PM if you want to know

Nah I'm only joking, but seriously, I'm not saying what your doing is a problem..but I had a quick look through your posts as I have seen you pop up a few times...and none of them times were to help! Just to argue and say 'MENTAL MASTERBATION'. - I don't even want to know what it means, I'm trying to loose the geeky image and references

Anyway how is your game coming along man? Just interested.

_________________
"I guess a little small talks in order here now."

"Do I look like a gentleman to you in this shirt and these pants?"

"I know you from some place."

You're entitled to your opinion; it tells me we're not responding to the same threads. Your response also tells me you don't wanna deal with the gangsta. What does that say about the gangsta? Too easy a situation, not clever enough, doesn't pique the interest because it's not a puzzle?