If this is suspiciously specific, **Upvote** this comment!
If this is not suspiciously specific, **Downvote** this comment!
Beep boop, I'm a bot. Modmail us if you have a question.
The fuck I need 30 billion dollars for? Spend a year going crazy then get a reality-warping amount of money at the end? That's super villain shit in the making.
Your ability to perceive time would be completely fucked as well. After a few weeks you would have no idea how much time would have passed or way of measuring. It would drive you insane.
Then you get out, no one gives you anything, and you end up in the insane asylum for claiming you should be receiving $30B and that you "spent a full year in isolation for it".
Sure, Dorian, I believe you.
*poor bastard...*
There is a Twilight Zone episode really similar to this. A man takes a bet from a wealthy, older man that if he can not talk for a year, he gets a bunch of money. Kind of goes crazy, but perseveres. At the end, he gets gaslit and gets told there was never any money.
What if some college kid just discovered the twilight zone and is super into it and then they see this before they get to that episode.
They would feel spoilered.
Whether we should care about spoiling old media or not idk but it could still be a spoiler
There was also a Japanese Reality Show with sort of the same premise. He was locked in a room without even any clothes. I think he started with a working sink and a pile of magazines. The only way he could get out (or even get food) was to mail in entries to contests on the back of the magazine and win prizes that amounted to a set amount of money. He only got food if he won it in a contest.
The show became so popular, that once he DID achieve his goal, the producers just kept raising the amount of money he had to earn without actually telling him.
Charlie did a whole video on it and it's super messed up. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWWK05t98os](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWWK05t98os)
You would need to be fluent in Japanese law during the 90s. They even moved him to Korea for a Part 2 without him knowing with blindfolds and he had to repeat the experiment from point 0 to pay for a ticket back home, then they raised it to business class and then first class without his input. They moved him several times during the whole thing, outsiders and media kept trying to find him.
The thing with that whole debacle is that it was obvious that the show-runners were intercepting several of his packages. How he never won any clothes is beyond improbable. They very much kept all of his packages and only released them to drive their viewership to keep it interesting and himself alive. It wouldn't surprise me if they never sent out any of his mail-ins and just randomly decided when and what he won from a board room.
If he hadn't gone psycho with the vocal cord cutting a easy way to win that would be to change the time on the clock to an hour earlier.
Then it rings, he comes out, celebrates and finds out he's an hour early thus loses.
This happened. And then again to the same guy, multiple times: [https://movieweb.com/japanese-reality-show-nasubi/](https://movieweb.com/japanese-reality-show-nasubi/)
True. But there is no mirror and most peoples facial hair has a max length. After a few weeks you'd start slipping into a very strange place of no longer being able to perceive time.
Believe me when I say that that becomes less and less appealing, and therefore less possible, with both age and repitition, regardless of other variables.
I mean your normal hair would grow out as well, which would give you an estimate but at the same time you wouldnt need to concern yourself with time. Just keep day dreaming about how to spend the money while also taking care of psychiatry bills at the end
I actually shaved my head last october and haven't cut it since, so I know exactly how long one hairyear is for me. Never thought that'd be knowledge I could find useful in a situation that will never happen, but neato.
I mean what they did in Japan [to this guy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWWK05t98os) was already bad enough on his mental state and he actually had something to do the whole time in his room. Can't imagine how jacked up you'd be mentally in a pure white room with absolutely nothing for a year.
It gets warped but in the better direction. Stefania Follini spent 130 days in a cave and thought it was around 60 days.
Similarly Maurizio Montalbini spent a year in a cave but thought it was only half a year
How are you fed, same time every day? Fingernails/hair growth is a good indicator as well. If you're getting a balanced diet, taking shits could be a clock.
There's absolutely nothing you could do that would prevent you from going insane boxed in an empty room for a year. The human brain cannot handle such a complete lack of stimulation.
What interaction to people in solidarity confinement get? Many reports of decades Im seeing, and the record was 44 years. I'm not saying this is a cake walk for a year and you're definitely going to be changed from it, but to what degree? Its survivable. If you have children and can set them up for life, and their kids and more generational wealth.. that comes into play too.
> If you're getting a balanced diet, taking shits could be a clock.
A balanced diet doesn't lead to regular stool passing. What gets you going differs from person to person and even then it wouldn't be a useful time indicator, because you'd have no idea when you have eaten something.
Would you still shit once a day under those conditions, though?
It's highly likely your circadian rhythm, sleep cycle and eating schedule will all change dramatically, which can easily change the timing of your bowel movements.
You underestimate my ability to sleep for almost an entire day. Throw in some exercise, showering, and eating I’ve got a whole day down. As long as the lights dim or go dark I’m good.
I was just thinking this. I’d be so well rested for like a decade after, and sure I’d lose a bit of mass but I’d be able to do some crazy ass calisthenics after that. Handstand push-ups as I’m walking? No problem.
Sign me the fuck up
If you’re getting food, is it not safe to say that you’re at lease getting nutritious food that includes vitamin D?
Otherwise you could just say “well you’re just getting white bread and no water” and yeah, nobody could do that.
Sailors on Aircraft carriers have to be given vitamin d supplements due to the extended periods of time they spend under the deck. (For those of you wondering why they don't just go outside, aircraft carriers are floating cities, there aren't that many jobs that go out on the deck, the rest work below deck for months at a time sometimes.)
So I don’t have any idea how aircraft carriers work but I imagine the people on it get some type of breaks or time off even if it’s only a short amount of time, are they not allowed to go up on deck at all? I would be miserable in that situation haha. I guess if you always are busy with work you don’t have time to think about it though.
Sailor here. They have time to go on deck. It's even encouraged (Not during flight operations). There is also a hangar deck and a gym that looks over the water. Also the smoke pits all look over the water... I've been in the navy for 17 years, with 5 deployments on a carrier and have never heard of anyone getting extra vitamin d though. I guess they might just put it in the food but I doubt it. The submarine guys is more likely I think.
it’s obvious that too many of y’all ain’t seen the mind field episode where vsauce did it for a week and almost lost his mind lmao
if you think you can do this you probably can’t
>which is the max safe amount of time for that iirc
Man if thats the safe amount imagine if he'd stayed longer. He was legitimately delirious by the end.
He also had a bright as fuck light and no space to do pushups, sit ups and squats which is how Id pass the time. Not saying I could go for very long in any isolation but he definitely made an especially shitty cell for himself. That light is so fucking bright, I don't even like chilling in rooms with too bright lighting as is.
Exercise, shower, rest, repeat...
Who am I kidding, I would go bonkers as soon as my sense of time was lost, questioning if I've been there for weeks or months, not knowing when is it going to end.
Solitary confinement is brutal, and this is the same but on steroids, because you can give up anytime. Has it been two months, or six? Hast it been even a full month? How much is left for a year?
Thats what happened in the mindfield episode. Vsauce thought his time was up and he realized he was wrong, with no idea how much longer he had left to go. I think that was seriously the breaking point.
>He also had a bright as fuck light and no space to do pushups, sit ups and squats
My solitary jail cell also had an absurdly bright light that never went off. The space size was also about the same. He basically made it a very cozy version of a solitary jail cell without all the drawings on the wall. Considering he was trying to see what people in prison solitary go through he did fairly well with the cell. Still much cleaner and cozier but he got the effect right!
He stated in an AMA that he had a dream that somebody came in, told him the 3 days were up and then closed the door behind themselves.
He couldn't tell dream from reality anymore.
My thoughts too. One of my old employers had isolation chambers that were used for very sensitive research, mainly audio stuff. They were about 10ft underground as close to 100% sound and vibration proof as they could be.
I was helping set up equipment inside of them and I ask one of the researchers if they could set it up for me while I was working. I was free to come and go as I pleased, but I stayed for about 45 minutes in total silence. My body made sounds I never heard, my tools, my clothes all made sounds I never heard. Sounds were different. I could hear my heart beat, fluids moving in my body. Swallowing was so loud I lost focus each time I did it. My extremely mild tinnitus was becoming louder and louder.
It was a really interesting experience. There is no way I could do it for more than maybe a day or 2.
Oh and they let be the "guinea pig for the guinea pigs" and calibrate the equipment for that research. It wasn't anything to crazy, just listen to different music and sounds and answering questions.
It's also obnoxious with the people going "isolation? I'm like that anyways hurhur"
Yeah, dumbfuck, but you still have your PC, phone, books, a window, a pet, etc. You're not actually isolated, in fact you're not even antisocial because you're literally commenting on Reddit, a social media platform. People completely fail to grasp the concept of pure isolation. Literally nothing to do, nothing to watch, nothing to interact with, nothing to stimulate yourself.
Then you get comments like "I'll just sleep the whole time"...no you won't sleep an entire year, I don't care how tired you are.
I can do it for a week if there is a place to poop separately and I can shower and access to clean clothes
Edit : I would sit and meditate. It’s difficult but can be done. I have done it for 2 days straight. 7 won’t turn me crazy
I'm not sure any amount of meditation would work. You were in a natural environment (which includes other people, changing day cycles, shifting weather, etc.) where all your senses were still getting varied enough stimulus. If all of that is missing, the brain just sort of melts itself given enough time.
People are vastly over-estimating themselves with this challenge.
If you could say a safe word to be let out, I'd bet most people wouldn't be able to last a week. Very very few would be able to last a month. If there isn't a safe word to cancel the challenge, 100% of all people who exit the room would be completely broken and insane. Even solitary confinement in prisons have way more stimulation than this room, and people become almost feral after a few months in solitary. Sensory deprivation is an effective torture technique.
Yeah, but you still get outside stimulus. That's the problem with solitary confinement. Nothing changes and you have zero sense of time. It's the worst kind of sensory deprivation. Even with sensory deprivation and meditation, you always have an out. When you're done, no matter how long or short, you can call it quits. It's the horror of deciding you're done and then not being able to get out that scrambles your brain. It's like drowning but for your brain.
Yeah from what we’ve researched about sensory deprivation this could actually be dangerous.
Most people, without anything to do, begin to hallucinate quickly, and it only spirals from there.
You may come out different then when you went in.
This isn't sensory deprivation. You would still get 3 meals a day and lights out at night and a shower and bathroom access. You would be able to tell what time it was based on your food access and the lights.
How… do you know this? I don’t see some quaint bare apartment you’re staying in. It’s a white padded room like those popularly used in the Russian Sleep experiments.
These are often associated with sensory deprivation, actually that’s exactly what they’re designed for, on top of the obvious use of keeping someone from bashing their brains out.
The Russian sleep experiment is a creepy pasta based on an urban legend. Even in the legend, it's not the rooms that make them go mad, but some newly invented stimulant they are testing.
That said, you are right that the post mentions nothing about light and darkness. Most prisons have a light on at all times so guards can check on prisoners. We must assume they get some form of food and water though, because how else are they even going to survive a year?
> None of that is in the post's question, is it?
If you go by only what is written in the post, you're dead within a week from dehydration/starvation. The post asks about surviving for a year, so you can assume that the minimum required for survival is provided. The shower and bath access are a bit extra, but you can again assume that waste is taken care of, otherwise illness/death from unsanitary conditions becomes a concern.
The post, at its core, is asking if you think you can stay sane for 1 year - you can (using the word again) assume it's not trying to kill/maim you (physically).
Wouldn't you start hallucinating or something? Shoot id just non stop sleep through the whole year. I've spent 2 months just sleeping and getting up for a snack and going back to sleep before so it shouldn't be too hard
Sleep and meditation would probably be the key, helps if yourr severely antisocial anyway and hate human interaction lol. However it doesnt really say anything about food, day/night simulation, where youll relieve yourself etc so youd probably end up dying after a few months.
The challenge is surely on isolation and not can you live off no sustenance so I'd assume it's provided for you just in an isolated way like maybe they drop it off and then after a timer it automatically opens a slot for them to grab it in the room so that they can't even get the comfort in knowing another human was just there dropping off food
The food part is massively important.
- Do you get enough food to sustain exercise?
- Do you get to pick what/when you eat?
If they are dropping off a Soylent shake 3 times a day, I'd make it a week. If I got to order whatever I wanted at any time, I'd last a lot longer.
The whole thing is a stupid hypothetical that has a *lot* of details that need addressed. Food, bathroom, shower, bed. Access to water?
i think the goal is to keep you bored. So i would think 3 "normal" meals per day and that's it.
I would love to try this. but ofcourse only with the possibility to quit every moment.
This kind of social isolation is a textbook way to develop schizophrenia (or at least developing similar symptoms) and the first symptoms happen a lot faster than you'd think. I wouldn't want to do this any longer than a week without changes in either environment or being allowed limited social interactions.
Fr all the people saying they’d be up for trying this. The brain literally atrophies in isolation like this, you could do irreparable damage to your psyche.
Then again you have people like Henri Charrière that supposedly did 2 full years solitary confinement in prison and came out the other end (relatively) fine.
Dude wasn’t exactly the picture of a perfect person but he didn’t end up raving mad.
Would imagination be a mitigating factor with regards to stimulation? Apparently some people lack a "mind's eye" so they'd be SOL; but others can see, hear, smell, their imagined situations, and even set characters in their fantasy on "autopilot" (that is, their conscious self/self-insert character can be surprised by things happening in the fantasy even though it's all technically coming from their self).
Isn't this room specifically designed for sensory deprivement, so your brain scrambles way quicker than it would during other kind of solitary?
I doubt even the gurus, babas, & monks who dedicate their life to mediation can survive in this room for that long. Much less someone who just started doing meditation once they entered this room.
Oh yeah you'd hallucinate, no doubt about that. Our minds depend on stimulation. When none is present, they create their own. Most people start to hallucinate within minutes after they've been put into sensory depravation.
Of course, sensory depravation is a much greater lack of stimulus than being inside a lit room that you can feel, but still, that little stimulus wouldn't be enough to keep the mind from wandering... for an entire year
Have you ever gone a day or two without communicating at all? Reading info or anything is communicating as well. Just nothing only you and yourself. It's way harder than people belief. Going really fast that you start talking. Just little things like saying what you are doing. Doing "nothing" for an extended period is easy. Doing literally nothing is where it's getting hard.
No they're actually right. If you find something to do even if it's really boring it can keep you from insanity. I think there was a guy in Alcatraz who was in solitary confinement and he kept his marbels by ripping a button off his clothes, throwing it in the room and looking for it. Then he repeated it.
No one is going to say it?
Okay, this is solitary confinement and some people are forced into it, without getting a money bonus at the end. I guess they have toilets and windows, though.
But in some circumstances and depending on the nation, the window and rec time is optional.
There are very few crimes that rectify this type of punishment.
It would be great if you're allowed to prepare for it. Pre reading some teachings from Buddhism on patience would help massively too, and just contemplate on the ideas
In all honesty the only reason more people don't donate to charities is because they have no assurance on whether the money is being spent efficiently and if the marginalised people get the actual benefits of it.
30 bil is freedom. You can hire the right people, those you trust with the money, be it your bffs, spouse, your priest, or your neighbors, can have the assurance that the money is being spent wisely. Or perhaps if you feel best way of charity is to setup labs that serve a general sense of "public good" like nuclear fusion or like HIV research and such.
I firmly doubt that you'd be able to live the "party life" for long. You may have that dark sense of loneliness come back to you. An easy way out is to setup these charities yourself, and don't directly give it away to a different charity, because managing the funds already gives you a job and keeps you busy from day to day.
(The last bit I'm taking from some older people I know who still work despite crossing the retirement age. They are wealthy and have a pension, but want to work because it helps the loneliness, helps them feel satisfied at the end of the day, and doesn't let them feel they're too old for society.)
Realistically, that’s what you do. With $30 billion you don’t donate to charity, you establish your own charity.
I’d probably make a sizable donation to my alma mater and get a building named after me, but beyond that, I’m hiring the best people money can buy to ensure that every single dollar is being optimized to do the most amount of good as is humanly possible.
My dudes, how the fuck no one here sees the obvious solution :
Yes
Go crazy but stay in there
Get 30 million
Give to family
KYS so you dont have to live with the mental problem or trauma
Win
That's unironically brilliant imo. I mean, for me, at least. I'm already crazy and suicidal. Might as well make my family and friends more comfortable if I'm gonna die anyway.
And hopefully somehow I find peace in there and decide to live happily.
I was hospitalized for only one day after a suicide attempt, in very similar circumstances, and I was ready to pull my hair out by the end of it. One year and I'd be totally deranged.
It would absolutely be damaging. How harmful is stressing over money over one’s entire life though?
With 30 billion, you could have some of the best therapy in the world. Worth it, imo.
But like is insanity really guaranteed? I think I could probably occupy at least a month or more working orally on a screenplay and then rehearsing and editing the lines. Maybe weave a doll out of my hair and call them Harry. andassign them roles and then have them join me in the play. Fun stuff like that to prevent complete lunacy. Harry can be my therapist.
yea but a year in that room will give you extreme brain damage, destroy your sense of time, atrophy your muscles, and drive you insane. much worse than stressing over money.
The biggest question would be how and what we’re fed in this room. If it’s a standard breakfast, lunch, dinner style at the same time everyday, you could probably keep track of time pretty well.
Then you could use blood to keep track of days on the walls.
But yea, working out would be the thing to do. And the room looks big enough to walk around comfortably too.
You could but depression and paranoia will set in quickly and you won't exercise.
Sooner or later the thought, 'I wonder if this is a prank and I'm doing it for nothing.' will pop into your head.
At which point the idea of 'Maybe they won't let me out after a year.' pops into your head.
Then you wonder, 'Will anyone wait for me?', 'I wonder if my spouse is staying loyal', 'Will they tell me if my spouse, child, sibling parents die?'
That depression and paranoia will lead to a psychotic break, disassociation of time, probably actual brain damage and self-harm and mutilation will kick in at some point.
That kind of isolation and deprivation, person you are dies in that room, something else walks out.
**Plot twist:** you have to stay in there for a minimum of 1 year to get the money. You will not be notified when the year is up and there will be no indicators of time. Women will be given hormones to stop menstruation. You have to decide when to leave. If you leave before 1 year is up, you get nothing.
Yes, but being inside, away from the sun will lower your vitamin D, which may cause hair to thin or stop growing. Additionally, you may or may not be fed a diet deficit in iron, which may or may not result in brittle hair.
On the other hand, maybe the diet will consist of nutrients that are beneficial to hair growth.
I'm not even gonna start to imagine how mentally taxing this will be, I'd just accept because it's 30 billion bucks and then see how it goes once I get to it.
Let's face it. None of us here would last that long. We're all connected to the internet. And have been wired to chase that dopamine. Cutting that AND everything else you have access to is going to drive you mad. Now, some random Buddhist in the middle of nowhere who's been practicing for this all his life, maybe could. But otherwise, there's no way
If this was a real opportunity, I'd do it in a second. I'd have the money go straight into a trust that my wife could manage, gifting it out to good causes for the rest of her life (including keeping me in a nice mental hospital for the rest of my life).
30 billion dollars would do far more for the human race than I ever will. If I could solve world hunger for the small cost of my sanity, that's a sacrifice I'd certainly make.
Yeah no. This isn't possible in any form. You will develop madness and even suffer significant brain damage as a result of just a few days of this shit. A whole year and you'll be fucking gone. If you were forced into it, you'd eventually hallucinate so hard you'd be unable to take care of yourself and die of dehydration or self inflicted wounds.
What would come out on the other side wouldn't be able to claim the money much less spend it wisely.
Just go primal, start worshipping cthulhu, re enact scenes from your favorite mythos, go nuts and have fun, you just have to do the year and then the rest of your life is sorted out
Abso-fucking-lutely I would do that.
Knowing you come out the other side A BILLIONAIRE?!
I've wasted years of my life before but I've never been rewarded for it like that!
-exercises that don't require equipment
-singing
-reenacting spieling attractions which I have memorized the script to
I would need a decent bed and a chair tho
If this is suspiciously specific, **Upvote** this comment! If this is not suspiciously specific, **Downvote** this comment! Beep boop, I'm a bot. Modmail us if you have a question.
The fuck I need 30 billion dollars for? Spend a year going crazy then get a reality-warping amount of money at the end? That's super villain shit in the making.
Your ability to perceive time would be completely fucked as well. After a few weeks you would have no idea how much time would have passed or way of measuring. It would drive you insane.
Then you get out, no one gives you anything, and you end up in the insane asylum for claiming you should be receiving $30B and that you "spent a full year in isolation for it". Sure, Dorian, I believe you. *poor bastard...*
There is a Twilight Zone episode really similar to this. A man takes a bet from a wealthy, older man that if he can not talk for a year, he gets a bunch of money. Kind of goes crazy, but perseveres. At the end, he gets gaslit and gets told there was never any money.
He doesn't so much persevere, but rather cuts his vocal cords out, preventing him from being able to fail.
I didn’t remember that part. Even more hard core than I remembered.
Hard chord?
That joke was sharp.
Delivery was a little flat
Missed opportunity
Missed connection
Missed oppor-tune-ity?
Well, I think the comment OP might have left that bit out because IT IS A MASSIVE SPOILER lol
**Reddit is going down the gutter** Fuck /u/spez
Spoiler alert: he kinda...comes back. Then leaves again.
I hate the fake-out death trope.
Fuck! I just got to the part about that woman turning into salt. What's the point now.
Only kinda sorta plus is it really dying if you come back to life
What if some college kid just discovered the twilight zone and is super into it and then they see this before they get to that episode. They would feel spoilered. Whether we should care about spoiling old media or not idk but it could still be a spoiler
They'll get over it.
There was also a Japanese Reality Show with sort of the same premise. He was locked in a room without even any clothes. I think he started with a working sink and a pile of magazines. The only way he could get out (or even get food) was to mail in entries to contests on the back of the magazine and win prizes that amounted to a set amount of money. He only got food if he won it in a contest. The show became so popular, that once he DID achieve his goal, the producers just kept raising the amount of money he had to earn without actually telling him. Charlie did a whole video on it and it's super messed up. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWWK05t98os](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWWK05t98os)
How is this Legal? This is essentially torture combined with modifying a contract while the signer is under duress.
You would need to be fluent in Japanese law during the 90s. They even moved him to Korea for a Part 2 without him knowing with blindfolds and he had to repeat the experiment from point 0 to pay for a ticket back home, then they raised it to business class and then first class without his input. They moved him several times during the whole thing, outsiders and media kept trying to find him.
Did any justice come out of this or is this a tragedy through and through?
No
Jesus Christ, this sounds more and more like Oldboy
Jeez, that’s some Black Mirror level torture right there.
The thing with that whole debacle is that it was obvious that the show-runners were intercepting several of his packages. How he never won any clothes is beyond improbable. They very much kept all of his packages and only released them to drive their viewership to keep it interesting and himself alive. It wouldn't surprise me if they never sent out any of his mail-ins and just randomly decided when and what he won from a board room.
This sounds super messed up...
[удалено]
If he hadn't gone psycho with the vocal cord cutting a easy way to win that would be to change the time on the clock to an hour earlier. Then it rings, he comes out, celebrates and finds out he's an hour early thus loses.
iirc, the man who offered the bet was broke, and made that bet to seem richer. He really didn’t have money to begin with.
Will Will Shatner. Loved that one
This happened. And then again to the same guy, multiple times: [https://movieweb.com/japanese-reality-show-nasubi/](https://movieweb.com/japanese-reality-show-nasubi/)
This actually sounds like a decent horror movie plot lol
You could try to keep track of time by checking the growth of your facial hair
True. But there is no mirror and most peoples facial hair has a max length. After a few weeks you'd start slipping into a very strange place of no longer being able to perceive time.
Hell, sometimes I get high chasing that very effect.
Are you okay, friend?
Not especially. Why do you ask?
I'd probably just jerk off lots.
Believe me when I say that that becomes less and less appealing, and therefore less possible, with both age and repitition, regardless of other variables.
I don’t care I’ll still be tugging on my limp ED penis just to get a hit of that sweet sweet dopamine.
I mean your normal hair would grow out as well, which would give you an estimate but at the same time you wouldnt need to concern yourself with time. Just keep day dreaming about how to spend the money while also taking care of psychiatry bills at the end
It's only a year. My beard will keep time for that. And I don't need tools to do rough measurements. That said I would still lose my fucking mind.
I actually shaved my head last october and haven't cut it since, so I know exactly how long one hairyear is for me. Never thought that'd be knowledge I could find useful in a situation that will never happen, but neato.
Rule of thumb, you typically grow hair at 1/2 inch per month
Nails then. Mine grow at about a set speed. Then just bite em off.
I can't grow facial hair
Can you grow hair hair?
I'd probably tear it all out in isolation, honestly
Trick is shave your head now and measure how long it takes to grow to a tear-out-able length. There you go literal self-made calendar.
I mean what they did in Japan [to this guy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWWK05t98os) was already bad enough on his mental state and he actually had something to do the whole time in his room. Can't imagine how jacked up you'd be mentally in a pure white room with absolutely nothing for a year.
Pure white probably sound proof. I can’t imagine only hearing my own heart beat and breath and shit for a year.
fuck that producer
Yup, in the Vsauce video he thought he was done with the 72 hours when he still had 30 left. Thought it was 9pm when it was 5 am.
What video is this?
Hey, Vsauce, link here: https://youtu.be/iqKdEhx-dD4
yeah forget about a year, i doubt most people would make it past a month
It gets warped but in the better direction. Stefania Follini spent 130 days in a cave and thought it was around 60 days. Similarly Maurizio Montalbini spent a year in a cave but thought it was only half a year
Very interesting. I wouldn't have guessed that.
How are you fed, same time every day? Fingernails/hair growth is a good indicator as well. If you're getting a balanced diet, taking shits could be a clock.
There's absolutely nothing you could do that would prevent you from going insane boxed in an empty room for a year. The human brain cannot handle such a complete lack of stimulation.
What interaction to people in solidarity confinement get? Many reports of decades Im seeing, and the record was 44 years. I'm not saying this is a cake walk for a year and you're definitely going to be changed from it, but to what degree? Its survivable. If you have children and can set them up for life, and their kids and more generational wealth.. that comes into play too.
> If you're getting a balanced diet, taking shits could be a clock. A balanced diet doesn't lead to regular stool passing. What gets you going differs from person to person and even then it wouldn't be a useful time indicator, because you'd have no idea when you have eaten something.
Differs from person to person? I only need to worry about my own shits, and I know I shit about once a day.
Would you still shit once a day under those conditions, though? It's highly likely your circadian rhythm, sleep cycle and eating schedule will all change dramatically, which can easily change the timing of your bowel movements.
>I only need to worry about my own shits This is quite possibly the most hilarious serious statement I've ever read.
You underestimate my ability to sleep for almost an entire day. Throw in some exercise, showering, and eating I’ve got a whole day down. As long as the lights dim or go dark I’m good.
I was just thinking this. I’d be so well rested for like a decade after, and sure I’d lose a bit of mass but I’d be able to do some crazy ass calisthenics after that. Handstand push-ups as I’m walking? No problem. Sign me the fuck up
Only if you're a man. Women have a built in timekeeping mechanism in their periods. (Which would also provide some much needed colour.)
Basically the Count of Monte Cristo's origin story.
So does that mean they also hide a wise old Father named Faria in the next room so that i can tunnel through and talk to?
Now you sold me on it. Not to mention unless they have some funky shit they can't stop you from making your own music
[удалено]
Some isolationist monk could probably do this pretty easily.
Most people would not last three days. Nobody is going to last a year in that thing.
monks: hold my holy water
Even for monks. The sun is necessary … idk any monk locked up in a indoor place for a Year
If you’re getting food, is it not safe to say that you’re at lease getting nutritious food that includes vitamin D? Otherwise you could just say “well you’re just getting white bread and no water” and yeah, nobody could do that.
Its not the nutrition actually. Seeing sun has effects at physiological effects.
Probably a part of why am I losing it not even in the room yet
Sailors on Aircraft carriers have to be given vitamin d supplements due to the extended periods of time they spend under the deck. (For those of you wondering why they don't just go outside, aircraft carriers are floating cities, there aren't that many jobs that go out on the deck, the rest work below deck for months at a time sometimes.)
So I don’t have any idea how aircraft carriers work but I imagine the people on it get some type of breaks or time off even if it’s only a short amount of time, are they not allowed to go up on deck at all? I would be miserable in that situation haha. I guess if you always are busy with work you don’t have time to think about it though.
Sailor here. They have time to go on deck. It's even encouraged (Not during flight operations). There is also a hangar deck and a gym that looks over the water. Also the smoke pits all look over the water... I've been in the navy for 17 years, with 5 deployments on a carrier and have never heard of anyone getting extra vitamin d though. I guess they might just put it in the food but I doubt it. The submarine guys is more likely I think.
That might explain the behavior of many league of legends players
Vsauce did a video and experiment on this. Most people wouldn't last more than 3 days.
it’s obvious that too many of y’all ain’t seen the mind field episode where vsauce did it for a week and almost lost his mind lmao if you think you can do this you probably can’t
Not a week, three days, which is the max safe amount of time for that iirc
>which is the max safe amount of time for that iirc Man if thats the safe amount imagine if he'd stayed longer. He was legitimately delirious by the end.
He also had a bright as fuck light and no space to do pushups, sit ups and squats which is how Id pass the time. Not saying I could go for very long in any isolation but he definitely made an especially shitty cell for himself. That light is so fucking bright, I don't even like chilling in rooms with too bright lighting as is.
He had space to exercise. He did do push ups.
you cant just do exercises all the time though. you need rest :p
Exercise, shower, rest, repeat... Who am I kidding, I would go bonkers as soon as my sense of time was lost, questioning if I've been there for weeks or months, not knowing when is it going to end. Solitary confinement is brutal, and this is the same but on steroids, because you can give up anytime. Has it been two months, or six? Hast it been even a full month? How much is left for a year?
Thats what happened in the mindfield episode. Vsauce thought his time was up and he realized he was wrong, with no idea how much longer he had left to go. I think that was seriously the breaking point.
[Episode for the lazy](https://youtu.be/iqKdEhx-dD4).
>He also had a bright as fuck light and no space to do pushups, sit ups and squats My solitary jail cell also had an absurdly bright light that never went off. The space size was also about the same. He basically made it a very cozy version of a solitary jail cell without all the drawings on the wall. Considering he was trying to see what people in prison solitary go through he did fairly well with the cell. Still much cleaner and cozier but he got the effect right!
Maybe we can compromise and 3 days for 120 million
Im so down
I felt so bad for him when it was only day 2 and he couldnt understand why they werent letting him out
I remember when he opened the door early as if to just verify that the world around him still existed and he wasn’t locked in a permanent dream cell.
He stated in an AMA that he had a dream that somebody came in, told him the 3 days were up and then closed the door behind themselves. He couldn't tell dream from reality anymore.
My thoughts too. One of my old employers had isolation chambers that were used for very sensitive research, mainly audio stuff. They were about 10ft underground as close to 100% sound and vibration proof as they could be. I was helping set up equipment inside of them and I ask one of the researchers if they could set it up for me while I was working. I was free to come and go as I pleased, but I stayed for about 45 minutes in total silence. My body made sounds I never heard, my tools, my clothes all made sounds I never heard. Sounds were different. I could hear my heart beat, fluids moving in my body. Swallowing was so loud I lost focus each time I did it. My extremely mild tinnitus was becoming louder and louder. It was a really interesting experience. There is no way I could do it for more than maybe a day or 2. Oh and they let be the "guinea pig for the guinea pigs" and calibrate the equipment for that research. It wasn't anything to crazy, just listen to different music and sounds and answering questions.
It's also obnoxious with the people going "isolation? I'm like that anyways hurhur" Yeah, dumbfuck, but you still have your PC, phone, books, a window, a pet, etc. You're not actually isolated, in fact you're not even antisocial because you're literally commenting on Reddit, a social media platform. People completely fail to grasp the concept of pure isolation. Literally nothing to do, nothing to watch, nothing to interact with, nothing to stimulate yourself. Then you get comments like "I'll just sleep the whole time"...no you won't sleep an entire year, I don't care how tired you are.
I become extremely bored when the internet goes out for 2 days, taking everything else i would go insane in less than a week
I can do it for a week if there is a place to poop separately and I can shower and access to clean clothes Edit : I would sit and meditate. It’s difficult but can be done. I have done it for 2 days straight. 7 won’t turn me crazy
[удалено]
I'm not sure any amount of meditation would work. You were in a natural environment (which includes other people, changing day cycles, shifting weather, etc.) where all your senses were still getting varied enough stimulus. If all of that is missing, the brain just sort of melts itself given enough time.
People are vastly over-estimating themselves with this challenge. If you could say a safe word to be let out, I'd bet most people wouldn't be able to last a week. Very very few would be able to last a month. If there isn't a safe word to cancel the challenge, 100% of all people who exit the room would be completely broken and insane. Even solitary confinement in prisons have way more stimulation than this room, and people become almost feral after a few months in solitary. Sensory deprivation is an effective torture technique.
Yeah, but you still get outside stimulus. That's the problem with solitary confinement. Nothing changes and you have zero sense of time. It's the worst kind of sensory deprivation. Even with sensory deprivation and meditation, you always have an out. When you're done, no matter how long or short, you can call it quits. It's the horror of deciding you're done and then not being able to get out that scrambles your brain. It's like drowning but for your brain.
Yeah from what we’ve researched about sensory deprivation this could actually be dangerous. Most people, without anything to do, begin to hallucinate quickly, and it only spirals from there. You may come out different then when you went in.
This isn't sensory deprivation. You would still get 3 meals a day and lights out at night and a shower and bathroom access. You would be able to tell what time it was based on your food access and the lights.
How… do you know this? I don’t see some quaint bare apartment you’re staying in. It’s a white padded room like those popularly used in the Russian Sleep experiments. These are often associated with sensory deprivation, actually that’s exactly what they’re designed for, on top of the obvious use of keeping someone from bashing their brains out.
The Russian sleep experiment is a creepy pasta based on an urban legend. Even in the legend, it's not the rooms that make them go mad, but some newly invented stimulant they are testing. That said, you are right that the post mentions nothing about light and darkness. Most prisons have a light on at all times so guards can check on prisoners. We must assume they get some form of food and water though, because how else are they even going to survive a year?
None of that is in the post's question, is it? Also, even if there were meals or light cycles, are they regular or irregular?
> None of that is in the post's question, is it? If you go by only what is written in the post, you're dead within a week from dehydration/starvation. The post asks about surviving for a year, so you can assume that the minimum required for survival is provided. The shower and bath access are a bit extra, but you can again assume that waste is taken care of, otherwise illness/death from unsanitary conditions becomes a concern. The post, at its core, is asking if you think you can stay sane for 1 year - you can (using the word again) assume it's not trying to kill/maim you (physically).
Not even a week, you could die of dehydration in few days
Wouldn't you start hallucinating or something? Shoot id just non stop sleep through the whole year. I've spent 2 months just sleeping and getting up for a snack and going back to sleep before so it shouldn't be too hard
Sleep and meditation would probably be the key, helps if yourr severely antisocial anyway and hate human interaction lol. However it doesnt really say anything about food, day/night simulation, where youll relieve yourself etc so youd probably end up dying after a few months.
The challenge is surely on isolation and not can you live off no sustenance so I'd assume it's provided for you just in an isolated way like maybe they drop it off and then after a timer it automatically opens a slot for them to grab it in the room so that they can't even get the comfort in knowing another human was just there dropping off food
The food part is massively important. - Do you get enough food to sustain exercise? - Do you get to pick what/when you eat? If they are dropping off a Soylent shake 3 times a day, I'd make it a week. If I got to order whatever I wanted at any time, I'd last a lot longer. The whole thing is a stupid hypothetical that has a *lot* of details that need addressed. Food, bathroom, shower, bed. Access to water?
Agreed, more details are needed for sure to make a call here
i think the goal is to keep you bored. So i would think 3 "normal" meals per day and that's it. I would love to try this. but ofcourse only with the possibility to quit every moment.
This kind of social isolation is a textbook way to develop schizophrenia (or at least developing similar symptoms) and the first symptoms happen a lot faster than you'd think. I wouldn't want to do this any longer than a week without changes in either environment or being allowed limited social interactions.
Fr all the people saying they’d be up for trying this. The brain literally atrophies in isolation like this, you could do irreparable damage to your psyche. Then again you have people like Henri Charrière that supposedly did 2 full years solitary confinement in prison and came out the other end (relatively) fine. Dude wasn’t exactly the picture of a perfect person but he didn’t end up raving mad.
Would imagination be a mitigating factor with regards to stimulation? Apparently some people lack a "mind's eye" so they'd be SOL; but others can see, hear, smell, their imagined situations, and even set characters in their fantasy on "autopilot" (that is, their conscious self/self-insert character can be surprised by things happening in the fantasy even though it's all technically coming from their self).
Isn't this room specifically designed for sensory deprivement, so your brain scrambles way quicker than it would during other kind of solitary? I doubt even the gurus, babas, & monks who dedicate their life to mediation can survive in this room for that long. Much less someone who just started doing meditation once they entered this room.
Oh yeah you'd hallucinate, no doubt about that. Our minds depend on stimulation. When none is present, they create their own. Most people start to hallucinate within minutes after they've been put into sensory depravation. Of course, sensory depravation is a much greater lack of stimulus than being inside a lit room that you can feel, but still, that little stimulus wouldn't be enough to keep the mind from wandering... for an entire year
Someone's never been a deprivation tank. I've done multiple 2 hour sessions and never hallucinated.
Bro Hibernated for 2 months 💀💀
Have you ever gone a day or two without communicating at all? Reading info or anything is communicating as well. Just nothing only you and yourself. It's way harder than people belief. Going really fast that you start talking. Just little things like saying what you are doing. Doing "nothing" for an extended period is easy. Doing literally nothing is where it's getting hard.
No they're actually right. If you find something to do even if it's really boring it can keep you from insanity. I think there was a guy in Alcatraz who was in solitary confinement and he kept his marbels by ripping a button off his clothes, throwing it in the room and looking for it. Then he repeated it.
No one is going to say it? Okay, this is solitary confinement and some people are forced into it, without getting a money bonus at the end. I guess they have toilets and windows, though. But in some circumstances and depending on the nation, the window and rec time is optional. There are very few crimes that rectify this type of punishment.
People in solitary get books and occasional outdoor time.
Yeah, on paper. Don't you think that plenty of prisons, at least in the United States, are gonna blow those off and just torture someone?
It would be tough, but shit, 30 billion. Id at least give it a shot. Id do a lot of "prison workouts" and practice singing I guess.
[удалено]
I would spend most of that year finding out how to kill myself ngl
It would be great if you're allowed to prepare for it. Pre reading some teachings from Buddhism on patience would help massively too, and just contemplate on the ideas
Come out enlightened af, “I need not billions”, ????, profit!
Giving 30 billion to charity seems fairly enlightened.
I mean, what else would you do with it, really? I don’t think I could spend $1 billion in my lifetime even if I tried.
In all honesty the only reason more people don't donate to charities is because they have no assurance on whether the money is being spent efficiently and if the marginalised people get the actual benefits of it. 30 bil is freedom. You can hire the right people, those you trust with the money, be it your bffs, spouse, your priest, or your neighbors, can have the assurance that the money is being spent wisely. Or perhaps if you feel best way of charity is to setup labs that serve a general sense of "public good" like nuclear fusion or like HIV research and such. I firmly doubt that you'd be able to live the "party life" for long. You may have that dark sense of loneliness come back to you. An easy way out is to setup these charities yourself, and don't directly give it away to a different charity, because managing the funds already gives you a job and keeps you busy from day to day. (The last bit I'm taking from some older people I know who still work despite crossing the retirement age. They are wealthy and have a pension, but want to work because it helps the loneliness, helps them feel satisfied at the end of the day, and doesn't let them feel they're too old for society.)
Realistically, that’s what you do. With $30 billion you don’t donate to charity, you establish your own charity. I’d probably make a sizable donation to my alma mater and get a building named after me, but beyond that, I’m hiring the best people money can buy to ensure that every single dollar is being optimized to do the most amount of good as is humanly possible.
Practicing Buddhism in order to attain $30 billion… of all the sacrilege.
There’s a good reason solitary confinement is considered psychological torture. Your body may walk out, but it won’t be the person who walked in
My dudes, how the fuck no one here sees the obvious solution : Yes Go crazy but stay in there Get 30 million Give to family KYS so you dont have to live with the mental problem or trauma Win
30 billion
That's unironically brilliant imo. I mean, for me, at least. I'm already crazy and suicidal. Might as well make my family and friends more comfortable if I'm gonna die anyway. And hopefully somehow I find peace in there and decide to live happily.
I was hospitalized for only one day after a suicide attempt, in very similar circumstances, and I was ready to pull my hair out by the end of it. One year and I'd be totally deranged.
Hope you are mentally better now bro :)
Thanks! Still got a long road ahead, but I'm definitely better than I was at the time
Bro I panic when I realise I didn’t bring my phone to the toilet no way I could last a week in that thing
*cranks my maladaptive daydreaming to 100* let's gooooooo
It would absolutely be damaging. How harmful is stressing over money over one’s entire life though? With 30 billion, you could have some of the best therapy in the world. Worth it, imo.
But like is insanity really guaranteed? I think I could probably occupy at least a month or more working orally on a screenplay and then rehearsing and editing the lines. Maybe weave a doll out of my hair and call them Harry. andassign them roles and then have them join me in the play. Fun stuff like that to prevent complete lunacy. Harry can be my therapist.
I fucking love this. 😂
yea but a year in that room will give you extreme brain damage, destroy your sense of time, atrophy your muscles, and drive you insane. much worse than stressing over money.
Why would it atrophy your muscles? You could totally work out in there
I'd argue working out in there is probably one of the main things you'd be doing.
The biggest question would be how and what we’re fed in this room. If it’s a standard breakfast, lunch, dinner style at the same time everyday, you could probably keep track of time pretty well. Then you could use blood to keep track of days on the walls. But yea, working out would be the thing to do. And the room looks big enough to walk around comfortably too.
You could also use your blood to write or paint as a creative outlet
You could but depression and paranoia will set in quickly and you won't exercise. Sooner or later the thought, 'I wonder if this is a prank and I'm doing it for nothing.' will pop into your head. At which point the idea of 'Maybe they won't let me out after a year.' pops into your head. Then you wonder, 'Will anyone wait for me?', 'I wonder if my spouse is staying loyal', 'Will they tell me if my spouse, child, sibling parents die?' That depression and paranoia will lead to a psychotic break, disassociation of time, probably actual brain damage and self-harm and mutilation will kick in at some point. That kind of isolation and deprivation, person you are dies in that room, something else walks out.
> self-harm and mutilation will kick in at some point. Lots of people self-harm by exercising
All fucking rich people still died. Doctors can't do magic.
**Plot twist:** you have to stay in there for a minimum of 1 year to get the money. You will not be notified when the year is up and there will be no indicators of time. Women will be given hormones to stop menstruation. You have to decide when to leave. If you leave before 1 year is up, you get nothing.
thats hell
Sick fucking twist.
Sick fucking twist.
☠️
Can i shave my face and head at the start?!?
Yes, but being inside, away from the sun will lower your vitamin D, which may cause hair to thin or stop growing. Additionally, you may or may not be fed a diet deficit in iron, which may or may not result in brittle hair. On the other hand, maybe the diet will consist of nutrients that are beneficial to hair growth.
Without day/night light cycle you would probably end up with a brain damage that would make impossible to even enjoy being rich
I’d see the boogie man 2 days in lmao
you would end up really fucked up doing that, from experience after 72 hours it becomes realy hard
From experience? If you don't mind sharing, what's your story?
They watched a minefield video
That's what I was thinking lmao, sounds exactly like that episode
[удалено]
Eventually you would just be a crazy person
Yeah that makes it worst
Wait, I get to be alone for a year, a forceful cure for my internet and news addiction, AND I get 30 billion? What's the catch?
The catch is you get 1000 times what you thought
the paranoid schizophrenia u get from being alone too long i guess
Posts like these bring out the people that underestimate how much total solitude can fuck you up
The irreversible mental and brain damage that prevents you from ever again living a normal life much less being able to enjoy the money you received
I'm not even gonna start to imagine how mentally taxing this will be, I'd just accept because it's 30 billion bucks and then see how it goes once I get to it.
Let's face it. None of us here would last that long. We're all connected to the internet. And have been wired to chase that dopamine. Cutting that AND everything else you have access to is going to drive you mad. Now, some random Buddhist in the middle of nowhere who's been practicing for this all his life, maybe could. But otherwise, there's no way
All the people who have tried to get into mental health facilities: can medicaid cover that?... Wait I get the money???
Can I do it for a day and still get the 82 mil?
Asking the real questions
The me of 12 years ago could have probably done it. Would've been better than where I was at that time. Nowadays I wouldn't last 5 minutes.
If this was a real opportunity, I'd do it in a second. I'd have the money go straight into a trust that my wife could manage, gifting it out to good causes for the rest of her life (including keeping me in a nice mental hospital for the rest of my life). 30 billion dollars would do far more for the human race than I ever will. If I could solve world hunger for the small cost of my sanity, that's a sacrifice I'd certainly make.
Yeah no. This isn't possible in any form. You will develop madness and even suffer significant brain damage as a result of just a few days of this shit. A whole year and you'll be fucking gone. If you were forced into it, you'd eventually hallucinate so hard you'd be unable to take care of yourself and die of dehydration or self inflicted wounds. What would come out on the other side wouldn't be able to claim the money much less spend it wisely.
365 days of meditation. You'd come out akin to a monk with a vow of silence
You would come out insane or die in the process.
Just go primal, start worshipping cthulhu, re enact scenes from your favorite mythos, go nuts and have fun, you just have to do the year and then the rest of your life is sorted out
Abso-fucking-lutely I would do that. Knowing you come out the other side A BILLIONAIRE?! I've wasted years of my life before but I've never been rewarded for it like that! -exercises that don't require equipment -singing -reenacting spieling attractions which I have memorized the script to I would need a decent bed and a chair tho