http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/do-humans-dream-of-biological-sheep/

The real question posed by Blade Runner is not about the physical appearance of the future world, or whether androids are capable of developing feelings. It is whether we are losing ours.

One way to find out is to sit the Blade Runner Voight-Kampff test. This was the series of questions designed to elicit empathetic responses to determine whether an interview subject was android or human.

It measured pupil fluctuation and iris dilation and assumed that an android would not react when presented with certain troubling ethical scenarios, such as whether he or she would be inclined to help right a tortoise that was stuck on its back.

Please relax and look at the screen. Here are your questions:

1. It is 2012. You are reading a media website. There are two main stories. One is about a woman who claims to have had sex with 5000 men over 10 years. The other is about a massacre of children in a Middle Eastern country. Will you read the massacre story?

2. It is 2012. You are watching the old film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. With whom do you most sympathise? Nurse Ratched, who seeks order, or the disruptive Randle P McMurphy?

3. It is 2012. A drugged-out man is sitting in the middle of the street eating another man he has just killed. What’s the best first use of your smartphone: call the police or shoot some footage?

4. It is 2012. The Government has plans to build a wall around your city to keep out undesirables. Is this a practical crime prevention measure or does it make you a prisoner?

5. It is 2012. Your country is fighting in Afghanistan because it believes the conditions there are unacceptable. Meanwhile, another boatload of Afghan queue jumpers comes in. Do you believe they should be helped out?

How did you go? Human or android?

Just to be clear this Voight-Kampff test thing wasn't made up by anyone with a relevant education, it was made up by some asshole that wrote sci-fi novels like Total Recall and Minority Report? aha...

last edited by thermite at 20:02:11 03/Jun/12

Theres a story in the courier mail today about people losing the ability to communicate socially. People are constantly on their mobile phones when they are out now and dont chat to strangers.

Theres also been a spate of pedestrian/car collisions involving people using phones/ipods.

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/text-appeal-killer-to-conversation/story-e6freoof-1226381541869

HAVE we lost the art of face-to-face conversation? Smartphones have such a tight stranglehold on us that we appear to have lost our voice.

A social experiment by The Sunday Mail has found Queensland is now the silent state.

An investigation on the streets of Brisbane reveal more than three-quarters of people appeared blind to those around them, mesmerised by their phones.

I don't reckon Baby Boomers even did that.

I do it all the time. I'd talk to a lamp post if it could talk back.

I even whistle when walking down the street. In days gone by no one would think it strange. Now everyone thinks I'm weird cause I whistle while I walk. Strange world we live in today.

last edited by Some Fat Bastard at 08:51:59 04/Jun/12

some fat weirdo

I reckon!!!!!

I don't reckon Baby Boomers even did that.

They probably did, but at the same time the baby boomers brought up gen y with the whole stranger danger campaign of fear, then there's these articles about those kids now grown up people not talking to strangers.

Yeah its person specific, not generation. Looks like the courier mail had some space to fill so went on the youth attack.

3. It is 2012. A drugged-out man is sitting in the middle of the street eating another man he has just killed. What’s the best first use of your smartphone: call the police or shoot some footage?

Throw him a knife and fork and tell him to show some table manners.

Not sure how you are meant to determine how you went with those 5 questions. Where are the answers/how much dilation?

1. It is 2012. You are reading a media website. There are two main stories. One is about a woman who claims to have had sex with 5000 men over 10 years. The other is about a massacre of children in a Middle Eastern country. Will you read the massacre story?

I've already got Door's mum on facebook, so I'd read the Middle East story.

2. It is 2012. You are watching the old film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. With whom do you most sympathise? Nurse Ratched, who seeks order, or the disruptive Randle P McMurphy?

In 2011 I would have gone with Nurse Ratched as I had a fetish for hot authoritarian nurses during this period. Seeing as though it is now 2012 I'd have to go with McMurphy because he seemed like a pretty cool dude and didn't deserve to be imprisoned simply for wearing a pink shirt.

3. It is 2012. A drugged-out man is sitting in the middle of the street eating another man he has just killed. What’s the best first use of your smartphone: call the police or shoot some footage?

I'd make a hilarious Face/Off joke that would amuse the whole crowd.

4. It is 2012. The Government has plans to build a wall around your city to keep out undesirables. Is this a practical crime prevention measure or does it make you a prisoner?

I'd prefer some sort of force-field that keeps brown skinned savages out but yeah I guess a wall will have to do.

5. It is 2012. Your country is fighting in Afghanistan because it believes the conditions there are unacceptable. Meanwhile, another boatload of Afghan queue jumpers comes in. Do you believe they should be helped out?

Sink the fucking boat and then send pictures of the corpses faces to the Afghan mafia so retribution can be had on the family and loved ones for their treachery.