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Scenario outcomes resulted by random chance more than logic

posted 10 years ago by Crusader_no_mercy
3 replies | jump to latest

I think this movie had much more potential then what it turned out to be. Its biggest flaw, in addition to seemingly unnecessary relationship drama between characters, was that the logic, which the teacher praised, didn't dictate the scenario outcomes, but random chance did.

I think its pretty safe to say that in any scenario, it is better to select people with highest utility towards goal to achieve preferred outcome. Team of tech professionals, doctors, people with craftmanship and so on would generally be better choises if survival was the goal. But the scenarios run with those teams were failures not because of bad picks, but because of arbitrary decisions and random events that took place. In first, the group left one dude out, and it seemed there was no thought process behind that other than fear of violence. In second one, the randomness of no-one getting pregnant resulted into random event of violence which resulted in random survival of code dude and his random decision to kill all, despite otherwise pushing the team for decisions that would result to survival of humanity.

Then the last scenario with artists and other bunch in the bunker, they just didnt happen to have a scenario inside that would have required doctor or any other practical science -people who were left out. They survived, only to not even try to survive when their life support system run out. I recall the goal of the scenarios was that humanity would survive, not to have a good time while you can and then go out without fight.

Characters adding traits events when it pleased them didn't help either, it was like role playing game where players were also dungeon masters (or whatever they call the guy who narrates and creates the game environment).

[–] yurenchu 10 years ago

I think its pretty safe to say that in any scenario, it is better to select people with highest utility towards goal to achieve preferred outcome. Team of tech professionals, doctors, people with craftmanship and so on would generally be better choises if survival was the goal.

The reason humanity is so successful is because of her diversity and adaptibility. We aren't bees or ants. Our history is built on achievements of highly educated professionals and thinkers, as well as on people who, not obstructed by their lack of knowing any better, just blindly took a chance and hit on luck; as well as on millions who just do their routine low-level jobs every day.

What the movie showed was that survival wasn't dependent on the technical skills of the people, but on their attitude and the things they bring to the table on a social level, such as how well are they able to work together and make the best of an extreme situation.

And that was exactly the teacher's purpose of the experiment: to make the students reflect on how they would react when they'd find that their technical qualifications didn't bring them what they'd hoped for and they find themselves in an existential crisis. Because that was the struggle that the teacher was going through at that moment in his personal life.

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[–] Crusader_no_mercy 10 years ago

The reason humanity is so successful is because of her diversity and adaptibility. We aren't bees or ants. Our history is built on achievements of highly educated professionals and thinkers, as well as on people who, not obstructed by their lack of knowing any better, just blindly took a chance and hit on luck; as well as on millions who just do their routine low-level jobs every day.

What the movie showed was that survival wasn't dependent on the technical skills of the people, but on their attitude and the things they bring to the table on a social level, such as how well are they able to work together and make the best of an extreme situation.

I am sure there are plenty of people, like humanistic scholars, who would like to see it that way, because they crave for recognition for their fields.

The thing is, like I said, that this movie didnt show real support for anything like that. The logical dream teams failed mostly because of the teacher's character, who, for some reason, liked to go on a killing sprees in the scenarios for no reason. He was putting himself out as a man of logic, but acted like a homicidal maniac. If his priority was to ensure survival of humanity and sacrifice individuality in the process, why was he killing people in the first scenario? They would have most likely died anyways, so there was no sense in killing them from logical point of view, and his character didn't seem like a type of person who would do that to ease their suffering. In the second scenario, he was about to kill a person in the first sight of trouble, which made no sense either, and when the others didn't let him do that, he decided to kill everyone, making sure no one would survive. He was acting contradictory to what he said. To add to that, it would be logical choice for others to not let homicidal person in in the first place, so he would act against logic every time he attacked anyone.

The last scenario, artsy bunch, also didn't survive because of their skillset. They stayed alive for as long as the life support system worked, and then they mass suicided without a fight. I don't see any case where that would be helpful at all in survival of humanity.

And that was exactly the teacher's purpose of the experiment: to make the students reflect on how they would react when they'd find that their technical qualifications didn't bring them what they'd hoped for and they find themselves in an existential crisis. Because that was the struggle that the teacher was going through at that moment in his personal life.

I dont see why you think that was teachers purpose. He made it pretty clear that he was against picking people that weren't useful after logical thinking. In the beginning of the movie there was this monkey with a type writer. In similar scenario, a soccer team consisting of handicapped children who never played soccer would win against national team of germany if they played enough games. That doesn't mean that handicapped children would be logical choice for a soccer team if you want to pick the best team. In the OP I was criticizing arbitrary nature of events that dictated the outcome in scenarios, which made picks sort of meaningless. If in some scenario teacher would have instantly run in the bunker, locked the door before anyone else got in, it would have most likely resulted failure no matter the picks.

[–] therefdotcom 10 years ago

good points.

"laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone." - Dae-su Oh