[dorkbotsea-blabber] Fwd: Creative Planning Meeting for Hive-Mind Halloween, 7pm Mon Sept 15 -- Creative Minds Needed!

[William Beaty]

On Tue, 9 Sep 2008, shelly at hive-mind.com wrote:

> Our other motto:  It's a "hive-mind" party, where the whole is a much
> greater emergent creature than the sum of its parts.

I've always wanted to create a hive-mind party.  A REAL hive-mind party,
with guests becoming a (simulated) groupmind.  Well, actually a hive-body
with a single brain.  Everyone wears a cheap FM radio earphone.  One
person with an FM mike will transmit commands like:

  Everyone stop talkinnnnnnng... NOW.            ...OK, talk again.

  Everyone take one step towards the drinks table... three two one NOW.

  We're all going to breath in unison for awhile.  in...   out...   in... out

  Quietly...  "We are Seattlites  Resistance is futile You will be assimilated"

  Newcomers have entered.  Turn and face them...  NOW!         ok turn away.

  Everyone file outside.  We're going to lift and move an Echo hatchback.


This should be very weird for participants.  And terrifying for unsuspecting
newcomers.

Hmmmm.  Would it be too much to ask that participants all dress in black?
Hipster/artist self-satire; trying to be different by BEING EXACTLY THE
SAME.  :)  I bet we could hire out "this body" as performance art for
large company parties.

More below:

(((((((((((((((((( ( (  (   (    (O)    )   )  ) ) )))))))))))))))))))
William J. Beaty                            SCIENCE HOBBYIST website
billb at amasci com                         http://amasci.com
EE/programmer/sci-exhibits   amateur science, hobby projects, sci fair
Seattle, WA  206-762-3138    unusual phenomena, tesla coils, weird sci



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyranoid

Build a Borg
http://amasci.com/hoax.html#cyranoid
The Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram discovered what he called the
"Cyrano Effect", and experimented with strange group-organism he dubbed
"Cyranoids." Build one as follows: provide the "brain person" with a radio
transmitter. Give a radio receiver and earphone to a second or "body
person," then have the 'body' agree to carry out all orders spoken by the
distant 'brain.' Even better would be a video RF link so the 'brain' can
see and hear through the 'body's' eyes, and maybe add a radio channel
which controls vibrating transducers on the 'body' person, so that the
'brain' can silently command their movements with a joystick rather than
verbally. If one 'brain' runs several 'bodies,' you've got the start of a
small Borg civilization! If you could rent the equipment for cocktail
parties, would you pay more to be an amoral central controller, or a
brainless puppet who might do ANYTHING?

The same psychologist discovered the power of this closed causality loop
common in World War II:

    * NOT MY FAULT, ONLY FOLLOWING ORDERS.
    * ONLY GAVE ORDERS, DID NOTHING MYSELF.

This can be used to convert a pair of people into a psychopath.

Responsibility for actions becomes a closed loop and evaporates. Ordinary
"good" people can be convinced to give lethal shocks if a superior
authority figure gives the orders and SEEMS to take responsibility. If
anything bad happens, both people are certain it was the OTHER person's
fault. As a consequence, the radio-controlled 'Cyranoid' pair is very
dangerous. So David Letterman has built himself one? Just wait until Dave
gives an unwise order to his puppet and finds that the person ACTUALLY
CARRIES IT OUT! The 'slave' trusts the 'master' to give only benign orders
and stops thinking, but the 'master' may order something terrible, just to
see how far the 'slave' will go. When Letterman's slave commits a crime,
whose fault will it be, the one who only followed orders, or the one who
did nothing himself?