imeeji_frontstage | (no subject)

Who: IDOLS~
Where: game tower
When: day 60, afternoon-evening

[ GAME ALERT - it's time. However, it looks like today the occupants of the elevator can only be one per ride, so it will take some time for everyone to finish getting into the dorms.

Once you step inside the elevator, the monitor in the corner blips on to reveal a beaming Mukuro, back in his usual haori-and-kimono fare. At the same time, your phone pings with the rules. ]

Welcome back, everyooone~ and to everyone's favorite idols, too!

Today's program is a little special - this time, our beloved idols will prove themselves to us not as groups, but all on their own! Some will fight and persevere to the very end, whether to save themselves or to show the strength of their love ♥ and save their unit ♥ while others will fall to despair and wish to be rescued~!

Now, from the very bottom of my heart - let's all thoroughly enjoy the show!

[ Then, the door opens - and you walk into a room. ]

RULES | ROUND 1 | ROUND 2 | ROUND 3 | ROUND 4 | WINNERS & PUNISHMENTS | ENDGAME

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Gods, yes please.

[It's only because Pink has already rounded everyone up that he's okay leaving. The gang's all here. Everything is cool.]

How many rounds did you make it through?

[ hm. what if a non-answer ]

You ever heard of the "Milgram experiment?"

No...

It's a social psychology experiment. There was an experimenter who was in charge of the session, a "teacher" who volunteered for the session, and the "learner." The rub was that the lots were rigged, and the "teacher" was actually the subject of the experiment, and the learner was an actor pretending to be a volunteer--and the "teacher" was the only one who didn't know it.

Anyway--the teacher and the learner were divided into separate rooms. The learner would then be asked to answer a series of questions, and the teacher was supposed to administer a shock to the learner every time a question was answered incorrectly by pushing a button. And every time, the voltage would increase by 15-volts. By the tenth the victim would demand to be freed and by the three hundred volt shock, they'd stop answering.

Now, again: the whole thing was fake, the actor was never electrocuted. There were these pre-recorded sounds that would play every time a "shock" was delivered, included banging and if the "teacher" protested then the experimenter was to prod them to continue--tell 'em they're not allowed to stop.

Before I tell you the results--what do you think would happen if this experiment were conducted a hundred times with a hundred different hypothetical teachers?

[looks at Senpai...

....

looks at the ground...]

I want to believe that at least some percentage of the teachers refused to continue at some point.

Sixty five percent of the participants administered the final shock--which was 450 volts. Every single one of them administered shocks of at least 300 volts. Every participant paused the experiment at least once to question it--but most of them continued after being assured by the experimenter. Essentially, most people are willing to go to almost any length on command--and ordinary people who simply want to get by, who don't have any particular hostility toward one another, can become active, willing participants in destructive processes. Very few people have the power to withstand authority psychologically--many of the "teachers" experienced side effects ranging from sweating and trembling to full on seizures.

........

Is that what this was? A Milgram experiment?

It's not a perfect resemblance. It's a little like if you spliced the Milgram experiment and the prisoner's dilemma together, since there was a reward or punishment component involved for both parties. But everyone here had an option to push the button and be obedient--or not. It's really easy to get caught up in the desire to live, or to spare your unitmates--a lot harder to keep seeing and resisting the people trying to pull your strings.