And I thought that stuff in "The Game" was crazy!

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It turns out a French company has decided to offer the next form of entertainment for fees varying between 900 and 2,500 euros: getting kidnapped for 4 hours to a whole day...

How crazy can it get. Link in French

This company calls itself "ultime réalité"...

Here is a bit from their site which I translated with google translate and quickly fixed some vocab to make it understandable (I hope you'll understand that I'm not going to spend too much time translating that stuff myself).

They say that the concept comes directly from the United-States (which is a way to appear trendy over here), anyway I can't help thinking about The Game (the movie).

Opinions?

 

Bizarre, twisted, and possibly dangerous. I wouldn't suggest it.

 

For 2500 Euros, they can make your dreams a reality? Think they can give me 1000 horny virgins that will do anything I want?! Or would a brothel in Vegas be a cheaper investment? Or should I just convert to extreme Islamic and enter heaven and meet my virgins on the cheap? Life is full of choices!

 

This sounds like that old idea by Robert Sheckley -- I believe the first story he wrote was called "The Last Victim", and it kicked off a craze of game playing in the States. He wrote two more novels: Hunter/Victim and Victim Prime. All stories worked off the premise of people voluntarily joining up for "the hunt" -- you were a Hunter 5 times and a Victim 5 times. As a Hunter, you got the name, photograph and dossier of your Victim. You could kill said Victim any way you wanted, though there were severe penalties for killing the wrong person. The Victim was merely notified that he was the subject of a Hunt. He could defend himself as he saw fit, though again, there were penalties for pre-emptively killing someone only to find out they were NOT the hunter assigned to you. I'm sure that some of you have read them.

The books spawned a variant college game with dart guns, with everyone putting in $50 and the last person standing getting the whole pot. IIRC, some people were so into the game that they jumped out of 2nd story windows. Rules against such nonsense were introduced.

 

Well Blades from what I've read the staff is made of what we call "intermittents du spectacle" i.e. people working in the performing arts (and thus entitled to social security benefits designed for people without regular employment) so I don't think their staff include many prostitutes. Besides it would be illegal so anything beyond a lap dance or a striptease act is most certainly not a possibility.

They seem to be going for the darker stuff though. Their first customer is a guy in his thirties who is bored with his life and went for the entire package at 2,500 euros. IMO that creep could have given it to charities or made a few homeless persons happy instead.

It goes without saying that they've made provisions and that you can't offer such a deal to anyone as a gift.

@LKD: the Killer game is different in many ways, at least the version I know of in which various toys were used to simulate weapons so there was no question whatsoever that it was a game (for instance a toy gun or a plastic spider). What this company offers is very different IMO.

Do you know of any company like this in the States? I'm curious, I can't believe it doesn't exist already in the US.

 

DMC - Depends on how enthusiastic they are about learning! I might have to teach everyone of them the same lesson over and over!

 

I too always thought the virgins thing was strange, especially for the 72 you get if you're a martyr - what if you get 72 old bags that were so ugly no one would have sex with them when they were alive?

 

Hey, this was my dream were talking about, stop trying to ruin it. My dreams only have hot, 18 yr old + horny girls who think I am the next coming of Christ! No old bag speech allowed Aldeth!

 

There's an even weirder aspect to the "72 virgins for a martyr" thing - where do the virgins come from? Are they people who have lived and then died as virgins? And if so, have they been horny for that particular martyr all along, as in, he would've been the perfect Mr. Right for them if they'd ever met him - and if so, did God (Allah) just make them that way or what? Or are the souls of the virgins just brainwashed upon their death to become willing eternal sex slaves for some random dude? Some Heaven. Or are they real people at all? Maybe they're just created in Heaven as sex toys for guys.

Nah...I don't think the people who believe in this stuff have given any thought to these type of questions. The virgins, like all women, are just considered a commodity, who cares what they think or feel, or if they're even capable of thinking or feeling. (Of course they're not! What foolishness is this?)

Ok, this is getting off track.

 

I'd like to point out that "Allah" is just the Arabic word for God so Arab Christians use this word to refer to God as well.

Well, they claim that the concept originates from the US so perhaps it's just a publicity stunt to look fashionable. In France many consider anything coming from the US to be very trendy while the others are just suspicious of anything that is remotely connected to the US. We have a very biased perception of American culture (I'd surmise that Americans have a very biased perception of our culture too).

I think we should respect Blades' fantasy and by the way it seems to me that Blades was referring to 1,000 (horny) virgins not just 72. I believe that Blades is right, if you're fantasizing then you should go all the way and not settle for a measly number.

The same reasoning would apply to reincarnation. How do you reconcile the idea of reincarnation with the fact that human population worldwide is increasing? Does that mean that you have to be reincarnated as a periwinkle?

Man, I'm hijacking my own thread.

 

Susipaisti, if I understand it correctly, most versions of Islam say women don't have souls. It explains a lot.

 

I didn't want to get into another (useless) argument about religion but there seems to be no way to post in the Alleys without getting into that kind of stuff (and I do have a personal rule to avoid all threads that are specifically devoted to religious debates).

Before Islam in 7th century Arabia women had absolutely no right whatsoever. But according to Islam women and men are equal before God. There is a saying that I've heard which says that "Heaven lies at the feet of mothers" that would be hard to reconcile with an interpretation that claims women have no souls.

Of course I'm not disputing the fact that men almost everywhere have been trying to oppress women throughout the ages. Nobody can dispute that.

I did a quick google search and got another quote from the prophet of Islam as a result: "However much the faith of a man increases, his regard for women increases."

If you type "women don't have souls" in google the first page will be this page: http://www.landoverbaptist.org/news0500/femsoul.html

I'm not saying Baptists claim women don't have souls mind you, I'm just trying to point out that prejudice against women is unfortunately widespread and certainly not limited to one religious group.

Now regarding Paradise I've always found interesting the fact that it was depicted as a garden filled with water and fruit. It makes sense that people who lived in deserts should picture Paradise as a garden.

It's not hard to understand that the virgins could be a strong incentive as well (Blades' fantasy should be proof enough). In fact I'd rather discuss horny virgins than going on about theological technicalities regarding gender equality.

 

I researched all this recently - the virgins are called Houris, if you feel like doing your own search.

My understanding is that they're created by Allah, and that they're made specifically for the purpose of being a ... well, there's no nice way to put it - a sex slave (although a very pious and 'pure' sex slave who isn't going to think it's a bad thing).

So, yeah. There's an ebook floating around called 'Paradise and Hell' that has all the relevant quotes on the matter in it.

(The topic? What topic...?)

 

Wow, Caradhas, those baptists were nuts.

Aik, thanks for the info. I had thought the Quran referred to all women as Houri and said they didn't have souls. It looks like it rather says all people in Heaven are Houri and there's no mention of souls, though another interpretation seems to suggest that you'll actually get 72 white raisins, instead. Man, wouldn't that be a shocker:
Bomber: "What?! I killed myself for you and all I get is a handful of raisins?!"
Allah: "They are a great delicacy, yes. Why, what were you expecting?
Bomer: *cries*

 

Do you really think that people have sex in Heaven?

Let's face it, sex when done correctly is sweaty and messy, not the stuff that one would associate with Heaven.

If they are performers/entertainers like geishas then there is absolutely no sweatiness involved.

 

I'm going off the rails on a crazy train!

To bring it a little closer to the game under discussion and the Sheckley inspired one I mentioned, it was my understanding that the game played on college campuses was done using plastic suction cup dart guns -- no one died from them -- but what was happeneing was that people were so intent on winning that in order to avoid being eliminated they were injuring themselves by doing stupid stuff like jumping out of windows and such. I mean, if there's $5000 at stake, I might consider doing something mildly stupid as well!

The French company seems to be offering people some sort of excitement that is missing in everyday, humdrum existence.

 

Thanks for getting the thread back on topic LKD.

I think that the mistake was to involve so much money. People can do crazy things when money is at stake. If you're just playing for fun you don't take such chances.

I guess not everyone can play an RPG and simply have some good old fun. It's sad really.

 

WRONG! Without sex the afterlife would be hell.

 

My point exactly.