The Dungeon Test

Imagine that you are forced to live out the rest of your life in a dungeon. You will be alone in this dungeon, and you will never be allowed out, and no one will ever be allowed to visit you. It’s just you – that’s it, no way around it – but you do have one option. Before you enter the dungeon, you must choose between one of the following two options:

Option 1: Consumption Only

With this option, you have unlimited access to everything that anyone ever created and you can consume to your heart’s content with the one little qualifier that nothing you ever do can or will affect anyone else.

Examples of things you can do: You can live in LeBron James’ mansion and take baths in melted chocolate. You can drench yourself in the finest books, films, or music ever produced. You can introspect all through the night and come to great personal epiphanies. You can write the Great American Novel, or become the world's best pogo sticker.

Option 2: Production Only

This is the opposite of Option 1. With this option, your actions have the potential to affect others (just as they do in normal life). Moreover, you have unlimited capacity to produce. The qualifier is that you cannot consume anything that anyone else produces. This means you must rely on your memories of past experiences in order to create your works, and it means that you cannot get feedback on how your works were received. (For the sake of the thought experiment, assume that your basic food needs are met.)


Which do you choose?

[Dear people who think this is a worthwhile and/or interesting question: Because these surveys typically only receive 20ish responses, I’d encourage you to ask this to your roommate or nephew or guy next to you on the subway or whomever and enter a line for them, too.]



I'll post the results next week.