This is apparently an interview question from Black Rock.
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Murders in a field.
You are guarding 100 murders in a field and you have a gun with a single bullet. If only one of the murderers has a non-zero probability of surviving, he will attempt to escape. If a murderer is certain of death, he will not attempt escape.
How do you stop them from escaping.
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This question is so interesting so I thought I would give it a go of how I would answer.
I would announce to the prisoners.
That I have a kill switch, if I die the surrounding area is set to explode killing everyone. I walk around with the gun pointed to my head and a rubber band on the trigger finger, meaning if I get incapacitated the gun automatically fires.
I can't tell this solution is stupid, ingenious or completely fucking psychopathic, either way the prisoners aren't leaving.
@Humpleupagus That kind of works but these people are in a group. And that logic has been used before especially war prisoners and a large majority of those people will gamble the fact that they don't have enough firepower to kill everyone on the group if everyone decided to run at once.
Because even if you decide to get 5 to 10 buddies to run at once you could reasonably gamble that at least one to two of you will escape even if it's a modern firearm.
And considering it's only one person unless I'm holding a minigun they will probably gamble that I don't have enough bullets in the magazine to kill all of them.
@Humpleupagus oooo, what test is that.
I definitely want to try my luck on some questions from that.
@Eleutheria2 that's actually a pretty good one but I would like to counter with the fact that all of them are murderers meaning that one of them would be likely to not value his life no matter what and simply let you kill him to escape because presumably these people are narcissistic and extremely likely to be sociopathic meaning they only value their own life and nothing else but that.
@fireandforget out of the group of 100 murderers you can't tell which one is going to attempt to escape all that you know is that if they even believe that they have a shred of escaping they will attempt it. So you need to install I guarantee of death before they even attempt to escape.
Also Black Rock worded the question odd. It's simply saying that all 100 prisoners have a chance of escaping if they believe that they can
Meaning technically all 100 prisoners could theoretically attempt to escape at the exact same time.
@Mr_NutterButter
Come on, it's Blackrock. They have only one solution for everything.
Tell them, that your rat had informed you about a guy who was planning to escape. Do not mention who the rat is, since you don't have any, and execute the guy who "was planning to escape"
Now, they will no longer be able to plan an escape, since they will be too buissy finding the rat.
@Mr_NutterButter
Or..... you tell them, that the last one standing is free to go.
And off the lucky bastard. But I don't think, that 0% survival rate was the goal.
@LukeAlmighty definitely not the goal, but it's a fun way to think about it...
ひげ
@Mr_NutterButter my dumb ass can't stop thinking of a guy standing in a field with a murder of crows. I'm too silly for this shit.
