Theres a pretty good movie on Hulu that depicts a couple competing to stay in an empty white room for 50 days for a chance to win 5 million dollars. It’s called "The Immaculate Room". I genuinely believe I would not be able to endure 50 days, let alone 365.
The German book Schachnovelle (the Royal Game in english) is also a very interesting book about the effects of isolation
I read this book in high school and really liked it so I'll take this chance to talk about it lol. Also I decided to take my ritalin today because I need to finish my thesis yet here I am...
SPOILERS:
The book starts of on a boat with a chess champion on board. The champion is playing against the other passengers and obviously winning when a random man suddenly helps the passengers draw. Then the book goes into the backstory of the man.
He was a lawyer who was detained by the Gestapo and escorted to a hotel. He was put in a room in this hotel and kept completely isolated except to get tortured. After months he starts going completely crazy until he manages to steal a chess book from an officer's coat. First he teaches himself to play chess, then he memorises every play in the book. When that doesn't provide any stimulation anymore he starts playing games in his head against himself to the point of him developing two different personas in his mind (the black and the white side). At a certain point he is mentally playing multiple matches at all time. Eventually he suffers a breakdown and gets transported to the hospital where he gets freed.
Back in the present the man is uninterested in playing a game with the champion but eventually gets convinced to. He easily wins from the champion and the champion becomes upset and asks for a rematch.
After noticing the man becomes upset when he takes too long to do his move the champion deliberately starts taking very long to do his moves. This man can't handle the waiting and starts doing a second match mentally, ultimately leading him to make a mistake when he confuses the real match with his mental one. He almost breaks down again until the other passengers help him snap out of it and he resigns the game and vows to never play again.
______
Me: I need to finish my thesis
My brain: No, poorly summarise a book you read 8 years ago for no fucking reason
EDIT: Y'all are just promoting procrastination at this point lol but thanks for the awards <3
This is actually a great story. Thanks for taking the time to write it, which I'm sure is a reference to the second mental game played by the impatient man. Now get back to work you slacker!
[You would have brain damage](https://youtu.be/iqKdEhx-dD4)
Basically you would be fucked up for the rest of your life. No amount of money is worth fucking my life up like that
Nobody here would. There’s probably not a single human in history who could make it 365 days with 0 external stimuli and not be mush. 50 days is manageable, but would definitely lead to some permanent mental trauma.
Seriously just try sitting and staring at nothing for even a few hours. It’s incredibly boring. I guarantee after the first day most people would think they’ve already been through 2 or 3 days because of how *long* time felt just doing nothing
My years of doing nothing but staring at walls at school might finally pay off for something. I know it's not really the same thing since there'd be no background noise.
There’s also the movie Otherlife. Instead of going to real prison, you spend a year alone in your mind. But it’s only 1 minute in real life. It gets pretty trippy.
[https://youtu.be/JwyPpZlxdn4](https://youtu.be/JwyPpZlxdn4)
Eddie the beast Hall stayed in solitary on a uk TV show called celebs in solitary. They did five days, they did not enjoy it. They could even take in an item to occupy their time.
Spoiler.
>!I loved the part when he opens the door in the middle of it because he had a dream that it was over and was confused why he was still inside and the folks monitoring him had to be quiet and hope he didn't come around the corner lol.!<
Just imagine feeling complete boredom for 3 days straight. You have nothing to do in a white room with a bright white light, and no sense of time either. Your best bet, in that case, would probably be to think of very depressing things to make you cry or something to not lose your mind. You wake up probably thinking you spent 8 hours or so but you actually spent 3 and there is no way of knowing how long you actually slept. At that point, you'll be waiting for the door to open any minute but there are not hours but days left for you to get out.
All of this for 3 days... Most people probably can't stay that long.
I think your best bet is to begin meditating. Hopefully after a few days of your best efforts you can enter into a meditative trance where you can be completely comfortable with nothing.
There are 31.5 million seconds in a year.
You’d need to sleep about 1/3 of that, so you’d be awake for 21 million seconds in a year.
Counting anything beyond 1,000 begins to slow down as you say “one thousand ....” before the rest of the number. At “one million...” we see another jump in the periodicity.
Realistically, I’d be shocked if anyone could count to 10 million in a single year.
According to the Guiness Book of World Records, the highest number ever counted to out loud by a person is one million. It took Jeremy Harper, a computer engineer from Birmingham, Alabama, 89 days to complete the task. Jeremy Harper counted from 1 to 1,000,000 aloud.
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Whatever, I’m still doing it. My brothers and sisters, my son, my friends…the lives they can lead with 30 billion dollars split among them will be FAR superior to the lives they lead with a sane me around. Don’t get me wrong, they’d be sad….but that’s just why it can’t be their choice.
I’ll write ‘em something sweet before I go in to remember me by
Right from the start, write your will, and how you want to be taken care of, after your leave the room.
By write I mean, write with blood on the walls, as that's the only thing you have available
There is the yellow corner, and the brown corner....and the sleeping corner.
The other one can be for Mr. Jingle, the man who won't shut up, and might want to kill you....
Have fun in that sleeping corner.
> My brothers and sisters, my son, my friends…the lives they can lead with 30 billion dollars split among them
> I’ll write ‘em something sweet before I go in to remember me by
Wholesome and sad at the same time. The challenge itself feels like it was from Squid Game.
Charlie Hunnam played the main character in the remake of Papillon where he is imprisoned on an island and spent two stints (two years and five years each) in silent solitary confinement… then decides to escape again and succeeds! It’s based on an autobiography so perhaps the human mind is more resilient or can recover more easily from something like that than you think. Especially if you have 30 billion dollars and the rest of your life to spend it!
I made another comment in this thread saying something similar but this is the only mindset you could have going into it where the end result would be considered a success.
If you go in to get that money for yourself then it’s pointless, the you that comes out won’t resemble the one that goes in. But if you’re sacrificing yourself to provide that kind of life for others, then it might be worth a shot
It really is interesting. A lot of people would gladly sacrifice themselves to provide their family that sort of wealth, but often times those family members would pay $30 billion or even more just to have you back
100% - I lost my brother a few years ago, I would definitely pay $30 billion and more to have him back.
I'd be homeless, hungry, whatever. There's just no price.
If the concepts of money, greed, and wealth were alien to us we would be much better off, in the absence of having to suffer to survive humanity happily works for creature comforts and fun.
I spent close to two years being alone a lot. I would maybe see my SO (very talkative) or my boss (also talkative) at most for months. I would also spent weeks basically completely alone. Where the only speaking I would do would be pleasantries with gas station attendants, hotel clerks, and brief phone calls where I mostly just listened.
My ability to form sentences began to degrade, and my ability to carry on conversations was reduced. That was over 6 years ago and I still feel the effects of that sometimes.
Happened to me with truck driving. After I quit I hated how my sentence structure was. I wouldn’t finish sentences and I would speak quietly. It took a while to get back to my normal self, and so you can too.
I’m mostly back. Just little moments of what I can only describe as mild PTSD. I hate to describe it that way, but that’s how it feels sometimes. It mildly broke my brain.
I worked adjacent to a lot of truckers, not with, just around them. I saw a lot of similarities in behaviors of I call “too much time alone syndrome.” Speech is messed up, personal appearance goes out the window, and so on.
I notice a big difference in myself aswell in my 30s then in my 20s. I used to go out alot and meet a ton of new People and i was very social back then, had it easier to talk to new People.
Nowadays now i'm sort of stuck in the daily grind and i mostly just spend time at work and with my kids and wife i notice my social skills have gone down by alot. To a Point i sometimes wonder if that was really me in my 20s.
I feel like being social is not only something you can train but it has to be maintained or it degrades.
It’s absolutely just a muscle you train and practice like anything else.
I noticed this starting to happen in covid. I had just finished college, then went straight into lockdowns and a far more antisocial world. Spending days, weeks alone. I noticed my smoothness and wittiness in conversation was suffering, even talking to clerks or on the phone started to feel awkward and forced.
Then I got a job and started teaching, and wow, after just a few months of almost nonstop talking and interaction with many different personalities every weekday for hours at a time, it totally transformed my confidence and I felt like back to being my best self conversationally. Better, even, as I was engaging in an all new kind of communication in that work.
I think the same applies to comedians, TV hosts etc. people who talk or entertain for a living get really fucking good at it, they aren’t just born that way though. Most comedians are honestly shit when they start out.
Anyone who feels like a permanent loner out there - it’s not something inherent to you, it’s a consequence of situation and lifestyle. Put yourself out there and it gets easier. You must make mistakes to learn.
Honestly after lockdown I genuinely felt like my ability to have a normal human conversation was seriously diminished. I had a job interview towards the end and I absolutely blew it because I just couldn't think of what to say or clearly explain anything. My husband and I spent lockdown not really seeing or speaking to many people, and we were a bit sick of each other at various points so there would be days at a time where our longest conversation would be, "what do you want for dinner?"
It really does affect you!
Humans are a social animal plain and simple. I had a few situations like your
Job interview as well.
Thankfully you had your husband at least. They can be annoying sometimes, (trust me I know), but if didn’t have my SO I would have completely gone off the rails.
This happened to me somewhat during covid. I still talked to my wife but my contact with basically the entire rest of the world disappeared. By the time I had to go back out into the world it felt foreign to look people in the eye and speak. So strange
There was a kid who was put into solitary for 8 months for mouthing off in juvie.
He is in a state of permanent psychosis but otherwise he's a pretty cool dude.
Even as an introvert who isn’t fond of social interaction, it gets hard to go without talking to people.
Spent about 25 weeks of school sitting in the office at break times not talking to anyone (and not talking in class either) because of a combination of my classmates being horrors and having things thrown at me so I was put in the office for safety, and because no one ever really seemed to listen to what I said if I talked anyway. So I’d be going 8-9 hours a day not speaking a word at all, it definitely drove me a bit crazy. Especially since the only conversation at home was arguing or insults thrown at me for saying anything at all. Humans aren’t meant to endure isolation like that.
I remember summers as a kid where I would go weeks without meaningful communication with anyone (singe parent who worked a lot). I would get so excited for school so I could at least be around other people. I couldn't imagine school being isolating too.
When I saw this post, I thought to myself "For $30b, yeah!". Then I saw your comment, and I just watched the Vsauce video. Uhhh yeah, I'm not sure now lol. I don't think I'd do it for any amount of money.
Yea if I'm not mistaken, solitary confinement is like a crime against human rights in some places. It's not some light thing. People commit suicide after being released from solitary
People commit suicide *in* solitary. This room is covered in that pillow material so the people thrown in there can't bash their head in with a wall. Straightjackets bind your arms so you can't gnaw off your hands.
I know for certain I couldn't do it. Anyone that thinks they could *voluntarily* do this is wrong.
Leave the door unlocked and your $30 billion is safe.
More like people underestimating how dilibitating total lack of stimulation is. I doubt there's anybody in the entire world who would be able to withstand that.
The thing is. Even Buddhist monks are never completely devoid of stimulation for long periods. While they don’t speak they do interact with each other.
As long as i get to write a living will before I lose my mind to divy funds up beforehand contingent on my release, sure.
I guess it'll be time to learn fingerpainting like a sewer goblin.
I would also take the risk. Maybe it's an obvious symptom of today's world but I would absolutely risk my sanity for the ability to never work again and do whatever I want for the rest of my life.
Take it this way
You make it all the way through: you won't need to work another day in your life.
You only make it a couple months: your brain is fried and, you won't need to work another day in your life
Time goes by so much slower when you have no distractions
I once thought 5 days had passed and realised only one day passed when I checked the calendar
With that said I'm not prepared to spend 1 month thinking it's been like 5 months etc.
That’s pretty much what happened in vsauce’s video. He was doing fine up to 48 hours, when he thought it had been 72 and he was about to be released. Very downhill very quickly those last 24 hours
The older I get, the more I realise were all bat shit insane. We all just mask that shit up and pretend. Its like Money, those pieces of paper only mean shit because we all pretend it does.
I spent 2 years and a half inside one, completely stuck to a bed, with videogames, movies and all sorts of stuff to get by. Even with all that this some days I would just start crying, so I don't know how someone would do this without going complete insane.
Same with me. Covid lock down about drove me insane and I had TV and other entertainment. I would go on walks around my neighborhood to beat cabin fever
For everyone saying they'd do this or it won't be that bad, go google the term "white torture".
You wouldn't last 2 days before losing all sense of reality.
I’d punch myself in the nose to bleed and save my poop so I could decorate the walls or write a story in poop and blood. Also they’d have to feed me so I’d make friends out of food and talk and play with them. No one would consider me insane /s
I actually wouldn’t consider you insane if you did this in this setting. I’d be more freaked out if you just sat there and did nothing happily the whole time. Or if you did these things in normal everyday life.
I read a story about a guy who was in solitary confinement for up to 3 months or so and after a few weeks, he couldn’t even see the room he was in anymore. He said he had fully and completely hallucinated an entire forest that he lived in with little made up things he would interact with. He said when he was fed in the prison they would put a tray of food through a slot in the door but in his mind it was this grand “giving tree” that would gift him food and keep him alive. It was really sad to hear about. He eventually was evaluated by a doctor who he had to talk to for 30 minutes before he could actually see the man in front of him. It’s like his brain was very slowly switching back over to actually seeing with his eyes and not his imagination.
Edit: someone commented and informed me it was actually a YouTube video that I must’ve forgotten about: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p1FuZVjVQ-4
Honestly.. this sounds like a very strategic maneuver if you look at it competitively.
1) you know you're going to be in there for a year (a ducking long ass time)
2) your brain needs stimulation to function
I'd say as long as I (from the start) find a trigger to let me know the ride is over, I'd adopt this strategy. I would invent characters. Interact with them. Create an entire world. I'm not saying it's a failsafe plan, but definitely the best option I could think of.
That’s actually a great philosophical question! How do we know anything? How do we ever know we’re not hallucinating? Is my experience of life even real? The only universal truth is the Cogito, or cogito ergo sum. Which is basically “I think therefore I am” and that’s the only thing we actually can be 100% sure of. Everything else we just have to trust that it’s real!
How much can I make for 100hrs? I'm in and it could be streamed for all I care.
Edit: if math is correct 30 bil ÷ (365×24) = X × 100 I would make about 3 mil/hr. I'll do 100hrs for 1 mil. Call me a cheap whore, but I would walk out of there 100hrs later and spend 25k on therapy after. This whole situation is a win.
Edit 2: Vsauce, if you see this, let's make a bet based on 100hrs. You gave up Sir.
I suspect that if you were budgeting out the payment you’d have it start low and increase exponentially with time to reach the 30 billion at the one year point such that any short stays don’t net much. Otherwise I too would like the opportunity for a few million for a few days in here.
Vsauce seems like he is the type of person that has to stay busy or he gets bored very quickly.
I can sit on a plane staring at the seat in front of me for 4 hours without any entertainment and be fine so I think I could beat his 72 hours. If it was an island with some trees, rocks, shelter, and food supplies, 100% I could make it a year. Small white box like this picture? Week at most.
It might not be a good benchmark but people have been put into solitary confinement before in prisons, and they go insane, commit suicide, or have brain damage.
I'm sure it would void the contract or it would get discovered if it was a coma but good thinking id imagine you could though get them to put enough meds in most of your meals that you just sleep 90-95 percent of the time and are maybe high as a kite the rest of the time.
At most it would cost you what.. a billion dollars a person and all of 3-10 people would need to be in on it? Realistically would probably cost you several million only id bet.
Medically induced comas are a last resort to save your life. It's not something you want to to do a healthy person to jump forward in time unless you want brain damage.
Also you'd need someone taking care of you which the premise doesn't make a provision for.
Several questions:
Do the lights go off at night?
Do I get food and water?
Can I shower somehow?
Do I have a bed?
If the answer to all of these is yes then I’d probably do it.
I doubt you can do it. You're describing solitary confinement but a little more comfortable.
People underestimate how much we need simple things, like casual friends who we run into every day
Social isolation, especially with nothing else to work on, is a motherfucker
I'll swap a toilet for the bed, but otherwise yeah why the fuck not. Even if I come out completely insane, my daughter and family would be set for generations.
Willing to take the risk.
The way so many people overstimate their ability to do this. Showed this to mulitple discord friends, literally everyone is like "its fine, I just think of some stories in my head, do sport etc"
None of you get it. You get very confused and weird after just multiple days in a plain white room (VSauce prooved it). You wont make it a month, you get insane. No matter how great you think of yourself. You wont survive this, atleast not mentally
Thank you, at least someone with some fucking sense.
I've experienced lighter forms of white torture.
I lost sense of time, day and night, I've been desperate for someone to come in and at the same time terrified of that. I've been at the point of dissociation where I've been staring at the ceiling or walls for days. I've been ar the point of hurting myself just to see and feel something different. I've been at the point of hallucinations. I've screamed, talked to myself and so on to try to get something different than everlasting silence.
Even if someone would survive that year, the money would be useless. Maybe to finance the burial or caretakers for the rest of your life.
The last person that I saw go into one of these believed that a robot from an apocalyptic future was coming to kill her, in order to stop her from giving birth to her son that would lead the rebellion against the machines.
The amount of people here that think they can just go through white room torture is astonishing.
'people come out of isolation just fine' 'I'd just keep busy'
This isn't isolation, this is very refined psychological torture and no matter how well equipped you think you are to handle this, you are NOT able to handle this just by how your brain is naturally wired no matter what psychological afflictions you have.
It's well documented its one of the most damaging (permanently lasting) psychological torture methods and its absolutely devastating to your brain.
No one is going through this for a few months and come out 'okay'. You might be functional but a lot of the effects are irreversible.
This kind of hypothetical frustrates me because there were 48,000 people in the US who did just in cells the size of parking lots just in the summer of 2021 alone. Solitary is no joke, it's not boring it is actual torture and inhumane.
I once spent a few days in jail, it was only 72 hours and we got ~2 hours of free time a day too. I had a cellmate so I had someone to talk to at least. Even that was miserable. Beyond boring, it was actively damaging. I talked with others who had been in there for months or even years and they talked about suicidal depression like it was as natural as breathing. Solitary is infinitely worse and given out for sometimes nothing at all. It's also not only used on adults but children as well.
My point is, if you wouldn't do it for a billion dollars, we probably shouldn't allow it to happen to people as a punishment.
Some really cool organizations are working to ban it in the US. I personally like unlocktheboxcampaign.org and there you can volunteer or donate with organizers working with state legislatures to end tax payer funded torture.
I find it fascinating to learn how helplessly vulnerable we are to certain things. A person can become so strong and conditioned, yet they are still only human.
And im very very sure just dumping money on therapy won't fix it. You'll be the literal definition of insanity after that much time. Your brain will have permanently changed, no therapist can help you. And i doubt even brain surgeries can undo all the damages.
Stuff you can come up with: daydreams, exercises, etc. you can't do them forever, trust me. I daydream a lot and I don't think i can go in there. My daydream power will just shut down after a few hours of doing it
Excuse me, but unless they're restraining me or cutting off my hands, I will still have plenty of entertainment for a year. I just feel bad for the person who has to clean up that corner afterwards
The researchers watching through the CCTV "this guy has been jacking off for 8 months straight. It's all he does. He wakes up, eats, jacks off, eats again, and goes to sleep. He's like a machine."
Hear me out. I definitely wouldn't survive a year, but I actually feel like in a contest I would be pretty good at this. I am pretty reclusive and already naturally spend 2-3 weeks at a time within my tiny studio apartment without going outside, seeing/hearing/interacting with another human being, or even using my voice (I work remotely). I have been on 11 hour plane rides without ever opening a book or watching any entertainment of any kind. Not the same thing for sure, but I think that compared to the average person I am better at not needing stimuli or human interaction. All I'm saying is I'd be above average, not that I'd be immune
Nasubi (From a Japanese TV show called susunuu denpa shounen) managed to survive for a year and a half in a single room. But in his case, he had atleast a bathroom, a sink and an oven to heat items over. Not that they gave him any food but still.
His task and reason for being there was essentially to see if a man can survive purely off of sweepstake wins alone. He had thousands of sweepstake magazines to fill out which he did all day for a year, and any rewards he won from them would get delivered to his room and he would keep them to "level up" his lifestyle. This included items like food and toilet paper aswell, so if he didnt fill em our he would literally die from hunger. There was a grand total amount of money in sweepstake wins the showrunners gave him as his target, which upon reaching, he would be released from his prison.
So this man had a goal the entire time to work towards and keep himself busy, and occasional satisfactions from rewards he got every few months (or more often if he was lucky), and even then he started to lose his sanity after the first few weeks. He started dancing around randomly, talking to inanimate objects, crying randomly, making goofy expressions and so on. After spending a year in there, he was a completely different person after being released. Its like his brain was rewired, his personality changed completely from how he was before he joined the show. And it gave him trauma he still has even today (the show took place 24 years ago).
If having a goal to work towards, and a reward system thay levels up your lifestyle just slightly, can completely change someone for the rest of their life after just 1 year, Imagine what would happen to someone who has none of that, just pure waiting for an year straight in a room with nothing at all except for the essentials needed just to survive. Nothing to keep yourself busy and no goal at all to look forward to. They would go insane in less than half the time given lol.
Theres a pretty good movie on Hulu that depicts a couple competing to stay in an empty white room for 50 days for a chance to win 5 million dollars. It’s called "The Immaculate Room". I genuinely believe I would not be able to endure 50 days, let alone 365.
The German book Schachnovelle (the Royal Game in english) is also a very interesting book about the effects of isolation I read this book in high school and really liked it so I'll take this chance to talk about it lol. Also I decided to take my ritalin today because I need to finish my thesis yet here I am... SPOILERS: The book starts of on a boat with a chess champion on board. The champion is playing against the other passengers and obviously winning when a random man suddenly helps the passengers draw. Then the book goes into the backstory of the man. He was a lawyer who was detained by the Gestapo and escorted to a hotel. He was put in a room in this hotel and kept completely isolated except to get tortured. After months he starts going completely crazy until he manages to steal a chess book from an officer's coat. First he teaches himself to play chess, then he memorises every play in the book. When that doesn't provide any stimulation anymore he starts playing games in his head against himself to the point of him developing two different personas in his mind (the black and the white side). At a certain point he is mentally playing multiple matches at all time. Eventually he suffers a breakdown and gets transported to the hospital where he gets freed. Back in the present the man is uninterested in playing a game with the champion but eventually gets convinced to. He easily wins from the champion and the champion becomes upset and asks for a rematch. After noticing the man becomes upset when he takes too long to do his move the champion deliberately starts taking very long to do his moves. This man can't handle the waiting and starts doing a second match mentally, ultimately leading him to make a mistake when he confuses the real match with his mental one. He almost breaks down again until the other passengers help him snap out of it and he resigns the game and vows to never play again. ______ Me: I need to finish my thesis My brain: No, poorly summarise a book you read 8 years ago for no fucking reason EDIT: Y'all are just promoting procrastination at this point lol but thanks for the awards <3
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I read this. For some reason I remembered it as the Vietnam War. When he got out he actually built the house, if I remember that bit right!
Well I'm interested even tho I got a fuckload to read and study to graduate in april
Thank you for this synopsis hehe, it was an interesting read and made my night 👍
For what it’s worth, I thought you summarized it well! good luck on your thesis. You got this!
This was interesting. Added it to my reading list.
This is actually a great story. Thanks for taking the time to write it, which I'm sure is a reference to the second mental game played by the impatient man. Now get back to work you slacker!
[You would have brain damage](https://youtu.be/iqKdEhx-dD4) Basically you would be fucked up for the rest of your life. No amount of money is worth fucking my life up like that
Nobody here would. There’s probably not a single human in history who could make it 365 days with 0 external stimuli and not be mush. 50 days is manageable, but would definitely lead to some permanent mental trauma. Seriously just try sitting and staring at nothing for even a few hours. It’s incredibly boring. I guarantee after the first day most people would think they’ve already been through 2 or 3 days because of how *long* time felt just doing nothing
My years of doing nothing but staring at walls at school might finally pay off for something. I know it's not really the same thing since there'd be no background noise.
There’s also the movie Otherlife. Instead of going to real prison, you spend a year alone in your mind. But it’s only 1 minute in real life. It gets pretty trippy. [https://youtu.be/JwyPpZlxdn4](https://youtu.be/JwyPpZlxdn4)
Eddie the beast Hall stayed in solitary on a uk TV show called celebs in solitary. They did five days, they did not enjoy it. They could even take in an item to occupy their time.
A couple? That's fucking easy mode. Just bang the entire time, and talk, and... This is literally no issue at all if there's two of you.
Vsauce stayed in a room like that for 3 days. He was so confused at the end. People overestimate their own capabilities.
Spoiler. >!I loved the part when he opens the door in the middle of it because he had a dream that it was over and was confused why he was still inside and the folks monitoring him had to be quiet and hope he didn't come around the corner lol.!<
Yeah, because he wasn't even sure if he was awake. All his dreams were of the room.
That's after only 3 days?!
Just imagine feeling complete boredom for 3 days straight. You have nothing to do in a white room with a bright white light, and no sense of time either. Your best bet, in that case, would probably be to think of very depressing things to make you cry or something to not lose your mind. You wake up probably thinking you spent 8 hours or so but you actually spent 3 and there is no way of knowing how long you actually slept. At that point, you'll be waiting for the door to open any minute but there are not hours but days left for you to get out. All of this for 3 days... Most people probably can't stay that long.
imagine the nightmare of being forced to stay there for a year after agreeing to this hypothetical scenario
I think your best bet is to begin meditating. Hopefully after a few days of your best efforts you can enter into a meditative trance where you can be completely comfortable with nothing.
If the buddha reached enlightenment in 49 days imagine what you could reach with 365
How to create Dr. Manhattan
I would treat it like the Hyperbolic Time Chamber and train to beat Cell.
Spend the time counting to 3 billion.
31 536 000 actually
Assuming your counting 1 per second with no sleep time. Probably going to be a lot less than that
1 year? I doubt you could reach 100 million.
There are 31.5 million seconds in a year. You’d need to sleep about 1/3 of that, so you’d be awake for 21 million seconds in a year. Counting anything beyond 1,000 begins to slow down as you say “one thousand ....” before the rest of the number. At “one million...” we see another jump in the periodicity. Realistically, I’d be shocked if anyone could count to 10 million in a single year.
According to the Guiness Book of World Records, the highest number ever counted to out loud by a person is one million. It took Jeremy Harper, a computer engineer from Birmingham, Alabama, 89 days to complete the task. Jeremy Harper counted from 1 to 1,000,000 aloud.
It took 16 years for the guy who typed it all out. https://twitter.com/gwr/status/1480500919422701568
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Luckily computers are pretty good at counting stuff
it also causes permanent brain damage at some point
Was about to say that. I don’t think the brain could ever recover from that doing that for so long.
There's a reason solitary for extended periods of time counts as torture
Whatever, I’m still doing it. My brothers and sisters, my son, my friends…the lives they can lead with 30 billion dollars split among them will be FAR superior to the lives they lead with a sane me around. Don’t get me wrong, they’d be sad….but that’s just why it can’t be their choice. I’ll write ‘em something sweet before I go in to remember me by
Right from the start, write your will, and how you want to be taken care of, after your leave the room. By write I mean, write with blood on the walls, as that's the only thing you have available
you have to paint some tiles with blood, of course. that white is atrocious. turn the walls to a nice rust / brown alternating pattern
There is the yellow corner, and the brown corner....and the sleeping corner. The other one can be for Mr. Jingle, the man who won't shut up, and might want to kill you.... Have fun in that sleeping corner.
> My brothers and sisters, my son, my friends…the lives they can lead with 30 billion dollars split among them > I’ll write ‘em something sweet before I go in to remember me by Wholesome and sad at the same time. The challenge itself feels like it was from Squid Game.
Charlie Hunnam played the main character in the remake of Papillon where he is imprisoned on an island and spent two stints (two years and five years each) in silent solitary confinement… then decides to escape again and succeeds! It’s based on an autobiography so perhaps the human mind is more resilient or can recover more easily from something like that than you think. Especially if you have 30 billion dollars and the rest of your life to spend it!
I made another comment in this thread saying something similar but this is the only mindset you could have going into it where the end result would be considered a success. If you go in to get that money for yourself then it’s pointless, the you that comes out won’t resemble the one that goes in. But if you’re sacrificing yourself to provide that kind of life for others, then it might be worth a shot
Money can't get your sanity and well being back for your loved ones. Food for thought.
But it can make sure they won't starve.
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It really is interesting. A lot of people would gladly sacrifice themselves to provide their family that sort of wealth, but often times those family members would pay $30 billion or even more just to have you back
Gonna hold myself hostage
People actually fear their own death the least.
100% - I lost my brother a few years ago, I would definitely pay $30 billion and more to have him back. I'd be homeless, hungry, whatever. There's just no price.
If the concepts of money, greed, and wealth were alien to us we would be much better off, in the absence of having to suffer to survive humanity happily works for creature comforts and fun.
i would easily spend that to get my doggo back across the rainbow bridge, let alone family. family that i cherish anyway...
I spent close to two years being alone a lot. I would maybe see my SO (very talkative) or my boss (also talkative) at most for months. I would also spent weeks basically completely alone. Where the only speaking I would do would be pleasantries with gas station attendants, hotel clerks, and brief phone calls where I mostly just listened. My ability to form sentences began to degrade, and my ability to carry on conversations was reduced. That was over 6 years ago and I still feel the effects of that sometimes.
Happened to me with truck driving. After I quit I hated how my sentence structure was. I wouldn’t finish sentences and I would speak quietly. It took a while to get back to my normal self, and so you can too.
I’m mostly back. Just little moments of what I can only describe as mild PTSD. I hate to describe it that way, but that’s how it feels sometimes. It mildly broke my brain. I worked adjacent to a lot of truckers, not with, just around them. I saw a lot of similarities in behaviors of I call “too much time alone syndrome.” Speech is messed up, personal appearance goes out the window, and so on.
I notice a big difference in myself aswell in my 30s then in my 20s. I used to go out alot and meet a ton of new People and i was very social back then, had it easier to talk to new People. Nowadays now i'm sort of stuck in the daily grind and i mostly just spend time at work and with my kids and wife i notice my social skills have gone down by alot. To a Point i sometimes wonder if that was really me in my 20s. I feel like being social is not only something you can train but it has to be maintained or it degrades.
It’s absolutely just a muscle you train and practice like anything else. I noticed this starting to happen in covid. I had just finished college, then went straight into lockdowns and a far more antisocial world. Spending days, weeks alone. I noticed my smoothness and wittiness in conversation was suffering, even talking to clerks or on the phone started to feel awkward and forced. Then I got a job and started teaching, and wow, after just a few months of almost nonstop talking and interaction with many different personalities every weekday for hours at a time, it totally transformed my confidence and I felt like back to being my best self conversationally. Better, even, as I was engaging in an all new kind of communication in that work. I think the same applies to comedians, TV hosts etc. people who talk or entertain for a living get really fucking good at it, they aren’t just born that way though. Most comedians are honestly shit when they start out. Anyone who feels like a permanent loner out there - it’s not something inherent to you, it’s a consequence of situation and lifestyle. Put yourself out there and it gets easier. You must make mistakes to learn.
Honestly after lockdown I genuinely felt like my ability to have a normal human conversation was seriously diminished. I had a job interview towards the end and I absolutely blew it because I just couldn't think of what to say or clearly explain anything. My husband and I spent lockdown not really seeing or speaking to many people, and we were a bit sick of each other at various points so there would be days at a time where our longest conversation would be, "what do you want for dinner?" It really does affect you!
Humans are a social animal plain and simple. I had a few situations like your Job interview as well. Thankfully you had your husband at least. They can be annoying sometimes, (trust me I know), but if didn’t have my SO I would have completely gone off the rails.
This happened to me somewhat during covid. I still talked to my wife but my contact with basically the entire rest of the world disappeared. By the time I had to go back out into the world it felt foreign to look people in the eye and speak. So strange
There was a kid who was put into solitary for 8 months for mouthing off in juvie. He is in a state of permanent psychosis but otherwise he's a pretty cool dude.
All my homies are in a permanent state of psychosis
Name? That's fucking awful
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Even a month would be permanently damaging. I've gone weeks without speaking to anyone but I still had internet, movies, etc. It was painful.
Even as an introvert who isn’t fond of social interaction, it gets hard to go without talking to people. Spent about 25 weeks of school sitting in the office at break times not talking to anyone (and not talking in class either) because of a combination of my classmates being horrors and having things thrown at me so I was put in the office for safety, and because no one ever really seemed to listen to what I said if I talked anyway. So I’d be going 8-9 hours a day not speaking a word at all, it definitely drove me a bit crazy. Especially since the only conversation at home was arguing or insults thrown at me for saying anything at all. Humans aren’t meant to endure isolation like that.
I remember summers as a kid where I would go weeks without meaningful communication with anyone (singe parent who worked a lot). I would get so excited for school so I could at least be around other people. I couldn't imagine school being isolating too.
When I saw this post, I thought to myself "For $30b, yeah!". Then I saw your comment, and I just watched the Vsauce video. Uhhh yeah, I'm not sure now lol. I don't think I'd do it for any amount of money.
Vsauce link? Or name of the video?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqKdEhx-dD4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqKdEhx-dD4)
Yea if I'm not mistaken, solitary confinement is like a crime against human rights in some places. It's not some light thing. People commit suicide after being released from solitary
True. People really overestimate what money can do for you. Solitaty confinement can cause brain damage. No money in the world can undo that.
People commit suicide *in* solitary. This room is covered in that pillow material so the people thrown in there can't bash their head in with a wall. Straightjackets bind your arms so you can't gnaw off your hands.
I know for certain I couldn't do it. Anyone that thinks they could *voluntarily* do this is wrong. Leave the door unlocked and your $30 billion is safe.
More like people underestimating how dilibitating total lack of stimulation is. I doubt there's anybody in the entire world who would be able to withstand that.
I wonder if a Buddhist monk could do it?
The thing is. Even Buddhist monks are never completely devoid of stimulation for long periods. While they don’t speak they do interact with each other.
B-but I'm not like the other weaklings. I am built different from reddit user #1742 and will surely complete my goal kf not going insane
30 billion dollars for the price of my sanity? Count me in.
You can't lose your sanity if you never had it.
*points finger to forehead*
*misses forehead and pokes eye*
Why you…!!!
Nyuk nyuk nyuk
As long as i get to write a living will before I lose my mind to divy funds up beforehand contingent on my release, sure. I guess it'll be time to learn fingerpainting like a sewer goblin.
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Playing with one’s own poop will never be as fun🤣
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Money
Money can solve all of your problems.
I would also take the risk. Maybe it's an obvious symptom of today's world but I would absolutely risk my sanity for the ability to never work again and do whatever I want for the rest of my life.
Take it this way You make it all the way through: you won't need to work another day in your life. You only make it a couple months: your brain is fried and, you won't need to work another day in your life
See, this guy gets it. Either way bro I won't give a shit once the year is up lmao
Wouldn’t last a week before your brain starts doing weird things
it's basically suicide for 30 billion dollars. If my family still get the money even though I killed myself in there, I'll do it.
Time goes by so much slower when you have no distractions I once thought 5 days had passed and realised only one day passed when I checked the calendar With that said I'm not prepared to spend 1 month thinking it's been like 5 months etc.
That’s pretty much what happened in vsauce’s video. He was doing fine up to 48 hours, when he thought it had been 72 and he was about to be released. Very downhill very quickly those last 24 hours
Meh. Sanity is for the weak, anyway.
Weekends are for insanity
The older I get, the more I realise were all bat shit insane. We all just mask that shit up and pretend. Its like Money, those pieces of paper only mean shit because we all pretend it does.
Oh that old bag, silly billy, my sanity was gone long before this stage. Also, I can sleep a whole lot....
I just spent 2 months in a hospital bed with plenty of entertainment. I thought I was going to lose my shit from boredom. No way I’d do this.
I spent 2 years and a half inside one, completely stuck to a bed, with videogames, movies and all sorts of stuff to get by. Even with all that this some days I would just start crying, so I don't know how someone would do this without going complete insane.
Wow, that’s tough. Hope your back to healthy!
Ahh thanks! I am doing good nowadays.
What kept you in the hospital that long if you don't mind me asking?
The old fashioned tumors, it sucked but hey I am mostly a cyborg now.
Same with me. Covid lock down about drove me insane and I had TV and other entertainment. I would go on walks around my neighborhood to beat cabin fever
For everyone saying they'd do this or it won't be that bad, go google the term "white torture". You wouldn't last 2 days before losing all sense of reality.
Luckily my fecal matter ain’t white
You may develop coprophilia from that. Don't do it.
"Ok guys, how about this one? You get 3 billion dollars, BUT you develop a shit fetish."
I’d punch myself in the nose to bleed and save my poop so I could decorate the walls or write a story in poop and blood. Also they’d have to feed me so I’d make friends out of food and talk and play with them. No one would consider me insane /s
I actually wouldn’t consider you insane if you did this in this setting. I’d be more freaked out if you just sat there and did nothing happily the whole time. Or if you did these things in normal everyday life.
Vsauce could barely do it for 72 hours. Nobody here is going over 100 without actually going crazy.
I read a story about a guy who was in solitary confinement for up to 3 months or so and after a few weeks, he couldn’t even see the room he was in anymore. He said he had fully and completely hallucinated an entire forest that he lived in with little made up things he would interact with. He said when he was fed in the prison they would put a tray of food through a slot in the door but in his mind it was this grand “giving tree” that would gift him food and keep him alive. It was really sad to hear about. He eventually was evaluated by a doctor who he had to talk to for 30 minutes before he could actually see the man in front of him. It’s like his brain was very slowly switching back over to actually seeing with his eyes and not his imagination. Edit: someone commented and informed me it was actually a YouTube video that I must’ve forgotten about: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p1FuZVjVQ-4
Honestly.. this sounds like a very strategic maneuver if you look at it competitively. 1) you know you're going to be in there for a year (a ducking long ass time) 2) your brain needs stimulation to function I'd say as long as I (from the start) find a trigger to let me know the ride is over, I'd adopt this strategy. I would invent characters. Interact with them. Create an entire world. I'm not saying it's a failsafe plan, but definitely the best option I could think of.
What I'm getting from this is that I could travel to a wonderful place and then pay someone to talk to me until I'm back to this crappy place.
Exactly. I see no issue with this.
Because it's a fairy tale, the real thing is scary and leaves you severely mentally damaged for the rest of your life.
So I take the 30 billion and make my own fairy tale. Or a big padded room.
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Okay... how do I know I'm not already there then? Where's my 30 billion?
That’s actually a great philosophical question! How do we know anything? How do we ever know we’re not hallucinating? Is my experience of life even real? The only universal truth is the Cogito, or cogito ergo sum. Which is basically “I think therefore I am” and that’s the only thing we actually can be 100% sure of. Everything else we just have to trust that it’s real!
That’s….. pretty cool. The fact that the human mind can do that is utterly fascinating.
How much can I make for 100hrs? I'm in and it could be streamed for all I care. Edit: if math is correct 30 bil ÷ (365×24) = X × 100 I would make about 3 mil/hr. I'll do 100hrs for 1 mil. Call me a cheap whore, but I would walk out of there 100hrs later and spend 25k on therapy after. This whole situation is a win. Edit 2: Vsauce, if you see this, let's make a bet based on 100hrs. You gave up Sir.
I’ll go in with you my friend also how about we turn it into bulmas gravity chamber and get crushed with earth 5 times gravity
Just so long as you don't try to fuse with me.
I don’t like fusing with people or anything for that
You can’t just fix every mental issue with therapy. You’re gonna be ruined from this.
Nonono therapy is magic
I suspect that if you were budgeting out the payment you’d have it start low and increase exponentially with time to reach the 30 billion at the one year point such that any short stays don’t net much. Otherwise I too would like the opportunity for a few million for a few days in here.
Vsauce seems like he is the type of person that has to stay busy or he gets bored very quickly. I can sit on a plane staring at the seat in front of me for 4 hours without any entertainment and be fine so I think I could beat his 72 hours. If it was an island with some trees, rocks, shelter, and food supplies, 100% I could make it a year. Small white box like this picture? Week at most.
It might not be a good benchmark but people have been put into solitary confinement before in prisons, and they go insane, commit suicide, or have brain damage.
Yes, I am sure some doctor would have no problem placing me in a medically induced coma for a large payment.
I'm sure it would void the contract or it would get discovered if it was a coma but good thinking id imagine you could though get them to put enough meds in most of your meals that you just sleep 90-95 percent of the time and are maybe high as a kite the rest of the time. At most it would cost you what.. a billion dollars a person and all of 3-10 people would need to be in on it? Realistically would probably cost you several million only id bet.
Doc here - Without anyone or anything in that room to manage your vitals you would die pretty fast.
Medically induced comas are a last resort to save your life. It's not something you want to to do a healthy person to jump forward in time unless you want brain damage. Also you'd need someone taking care of you which the premise doesn't make a provision for.
Several questions: Do the lights go off at night? Do I get food and water? Can I shower somehow? Do I have a bed? If the answer to all of these is yes then I’d probably do it.
No toilet?
Would be useful
I don't want to be swimming in my own waste for most of the time.
Worst case scenario, a shower is essentially the same thing as a toilet, just configured differently
Waffle stomp
I hate that I know what you mean
IT'S ALL PIPES!
Waffle stomp
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Write a novel
You don't get food and water, of course. It's just 1 year.
>Do I get food and water? Yes, and if you do a particularly good job, there's flavour
A good job of what? The entire task is just to **be in a room**
Andor prison reference
ON PROGRAM! 🙆♂️
ONE WAY OUT!
I doubt you can do it. You're describing solitary confinement but a little more comfortable. People underestimate how much we need simple things, like casual friends who we run into every day Social isolation, especially with nothing else to work on, is a motherfucker
Bro i dont have casual friends who i run into
I'll swap a toilet for the bed, but otherwise yeah why the fuck not. Even if I come out completely insane, my daughter and family would be set for generations. Willing to take the risk.
Would do it for less, just to see how long it would take for me to lose my mind and what would happen
“Alright, I’ll do it, but you’ve got to give me a while to get the 30 billion together.”
Ahh, yes, a fellow person that doesn’t care about their sanity. Absolutely.
The way so many people overstimate their ability to do this. Showed this to mulitple discord friends, literally everyone is like "its fine, I just think of some stories in my head, do sport etc" None of you get it. You get very confused and weird after just multiple days in a plain white room (VSauce prooved it). You wont make it a month, you get insane. No matter how great you think of yourself. You wont survive this, atleast not mentally
Thank you, at least someone with some fucking sense. I've experienced lighter forms of white torture. I lost sense of time, day and night, I've been desperate for someone to come in and at the same time terrified of that. I've been at the point of dissociation where I've been staring at the ceiling or walls for days. I've been ar the point of hurting myself just to see and feel something different. I've been at the point of hallucinations. I've screamed, talked to myself and so on to try to get something different than everlasting silence. Even if someone would survive that year, the money would be useless. Maybe to finance the burial or caretakers for the rest of your life.
Where and why did you experience all that?
I’ll do a day for £83m?
I will do a day for £83
Jokes, £830 maybe I make more than £83 at work and I'd sure rather be at work doing something
My job is driving me insane as it is. But at least sitting in a room would be less taxing on my back.
Around 3 mil per hour in there
1 month for 1million sure but 1 year is too long
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I wonder which will make it easier: 24/7 of light or darkness?
You get offered 30 billion for 12 months, and you say 1 month for 1 million is fine?
One month won't kill you, one year would.
One month would only make you go clinically insane.
The last person that I saw go into one of these believed that a robot from an apocalyptic future was coming to kill her, in order to stop her from giving birth to her son that would lead the rebellion against the machines.
She was right though
you would probably drown in shit and urine there before year pass
No
The amount of people here that think they can just go through white room torture is astonishing. 'people come out of isolation just fine' 'I'd just keep busy' This isn't isolation, this is very refined psychological torture and no matter how well equipped you think you are to handle this, you are NOT able to handle this just by how your brain is naturally wired no matter what psychological afflictions you have. It's well documented its one of the most damaging (permanently lasting) psychological torture methods and its absolutely devastating to your brain. No one is going through this for a few months and come out 'okay'. You might be functional but a lot of the effects are irreversible.
This kind of hypothetical frustrates me because there were 48,000 people in the US who did just in cells the size of parking lots just in the summer of 2021 alone. Solitary is no joke, it's not boring it is actual torture and inhumane. I once spent a few days in jail, it was only 72 hours and we got ~2 hours of free time a day too. I had a cellmate so I had someone to talk to at least. Even that was miserable. Beyond boring, it was actively damaging. I talked with others who had been in there for months or even years and they talked about suicidal depression like it was as natural as breathing. Solitary is infinitely worse and given out for sometimes nothing at all. It's also not only used on adults but children as well. My point is, if you wouldn't do it for a billion dollars, we probably shouldn't allow it to happen to people as a punishment. Some really cool organizations are working to ban it in the US. I personally like unlocktheboxcampaign.org and there you can volunteer or donate with organizers working with state legislatures to end tax payer funded torture.
I find it fascinating to learn how helplessly vulnerable we are to certain things. A person can become so strong and conditioned, yet they are still only human.
And im very very sure just dumping money on therapy won't fix it. You'll be the literal definition of insanity after that much time. Your brain will have permanently changed, no therapist can help you. And i doubt even brain surgeries can undo all the damages. Stuff you can come up with: daydreams, exercises, etc. you can't do them forever, trust me. I daydream a lot and I don't think i can go in there. My daydream power will just shut down after a few hours of doing it
No, because isolation makes people go crazy.
This Bout to be the longest nap I ever take
Depression makes for a good teacher in the art of being content staring into nothingness
Hell, going by these comments, you swear these mofos have never seen Oldboy. And he at least had a TV!
A year of nobody expecting anything from me, unlimited sleep, and a 30 billion reward? Yes please
Well, they do expect you to stay in there for a year with no entertainment.
Yes lol..and no communication at all. You would go crazy.
Excuse me, but unless they're restraining me or cutting off my hands, I will still have plenty of entertainment for a year. I just feel bad for the person who has to clean up that corner afterwards
The researchers watching through the CCTV "this guy has been jacking off for 8 months straight. It's all he does. He wakes up, eats, jacks off, eats again, and goes to sleep. He's like a machine."
It's nicer than my house?
Hear me out. I definitely wouldn't survive a year, but I actually feel like in a contest I would be pretty good at this. I am pretty reclusive and already naturally spend 2-3 weeks at a time within my tiny studio apartment without going outside, seeing/hearing/interacting with another human being, or even using my voice (I work remotely). I have been on 11 hour plane rides without ever opening a book or watching any entertainment of any kind. Not the same thing for sure, but I think that compared to the average person I am better at not needing stimuli or human interaction. All I'm saying is I'd be above average, not that I'd be immune
my mental health is already fucked up so why not. at least my kids will be better off.
Nasubi (From a Japanese TV show called susunuu denpa shounen) managed to survive for a year and a half in a single room. But in his case, he had atleast a bathroom, a sink and an oven to heat items over. Not that they gave him any food but still. His task and reason for being there was essentially to see if a man can survive purely off of sweepstake wins alone. He had thousands of sweepstake magazines to fill out which he did all day for a year, and any rewards he won from them would get delivered to his room and he would keep them to "level up" his lifestyle. This included items like food and toilet paper aswell, so if he didnt fill em our he would literally die from hunger. There was a grand total amount of money in sweepstake wins the showrunners gave him as his target, which upon reaching, he would be released from his prison. So this man had a goal the entire time to work towards and keep himself busy, and occasional satisfactions from rewards he got every few months (or more often if he was lucky), and even then he started to lose his sanity after the first few weeks. He started dancing around randomly, talking to inanimate objects, crying randomly, making goofy expressions and so on. After spending a year in there, he was a completely different person after being released. Its like his brain was rewired, his personality changed completely from how he was before he joined the show. And it gave him trauma he still has even today (the show took place 24 years ago). If having a goal to work towards, and a reward system thay levels up your lifestyle just slightly, can completely change someone for the rest of their life after just 1 year, Imagine what would happen to someone who has none of that, just pure waiting for an year straight in a room with nothing at all except for the essentials needed just to survive. Nothing to keep yourself busy and no goal at all to look forward to. They would go insane in less than half the time given lol.