Conspiracy to Commit
My Tor feed brought me a review of the upcoming psychological thriller, The Box.
I haven't read the comments, but I was struck by the fact that the couple never seems to think of the obvious answer to the conundrum they face. You get a mysterious box in the mail. Later a man shows up and hands you $100 for agreeing to consider whether or not to push the button. If you do, you'll get beaucoup $$$$: some likely-to-be-life-changing amount of money, and someone you don't know will die. Do you push the button, or not? What a stupid dilemma.
Now while the couple are certainly facing financial hardship, the movie doesn't even give us the Raven-Son-of-Raven dilemma (one of the many brilliant scenes in Wright's best book, The Last Guardian of Everness) by making the money necessary to save the life of a beloved wife or child, so that a truly commanding moral dilemma is faced.
This one is mind-bogglingly simple: easy money! You get $100 and dismantle the damned thing and smash it to bits. If mysterious yahoo comes back for his box you point out that he gave it to you, unasked, and it's yours to do with what you please now, and what you please is not to be accessory to the murder of innocents.
Feh.
I haven't read the comments, but I was struck by the fact that the couple never seems to think of the obvious answer to the conundrum they face. You get a mysterious box in the mail. Later a man shows up and hands you $100 for agreeing to consider whether or not to push the button. If you do, you'll get beaucoup $$$$: some likely-to-be-life-changing amount of money, and someone you don't know will die. Do you push the button, or not? What a stupid dilemma.
Now while the couple are certainly facing financial hardship, the movie doesn't even give us the Raven-Son-of-Raven dilemma (one of the many brilliant scenes in Wright's best book, The Last Guardian of Everness) by making the money necessary to save the life of a beloved wife or child, so that a truly commanding moral dilemma is faced.
This one is mind-bogglingly simple: easy money! You get $100 and dismantle the damned thing and smash it to bits. If mysterious yahoo comes back for his box you point out that he gave it to you, unasked, and it's yours to do with what you please now, and what you please is not to be accessory to the murder of innocents.
Feh.