An observation, part-way through the process: Something about the nature of the prompt makes me more reluctant to propose really silly solutions, of the same type as “jump really high” or “teleport” in the moon one.
I think there are three factors making this so.
First: there are more details in the prompt this time, and they even include a couple of not-physically-possible things, which means that making up some extra impossibility feels more like cheating: “If you were supposed to be able to do that, it would have been in the problem statement.” Whereas if you just say “Get something to the moon”, that isn’t so.
Second: the prompt is deliberately somewhat constraining: the room is locked, all you have is your clothes and a phone, etc. This, again, means that inventing magical abilities or conveniently placed Friends In High Places or whatever feels unsporting. “The whole point of the scenario is to restrict your options; what sense does it make to just arbitrarily give yourself extra ones?”
Third: there are a number of what seem like perfectly good, routine solutions that don’t require such shenanigans. If you’ve been challenged to get something to the moon, which realistically you just can’t do—well, then of course it’s OK to make up impossible solutions, because that’s all there are. But here, where there are answers like “phone the police”, again introducing absurdities or impossibilities feels cheaty. “You don’t need that sort of nonsense, so why should you think it’s reasonable?”
My list will still have some silly things on it. But they will feel to me like blemishes, in ways they didn’t really with the moon challenge.
[EDITED to add:] A related but not identical issue: many kinds of silly answer are not available. You could propose to be carried to the moon by birds or fairies or dragons or hurled there by an enormous catapult or shot out of a tremendous cannon or whatever—but in our room there are no birds, fairies, dragons, catapults, cannons, and the like. (And, again, inventing such marvels outside the room to rescue you seems like it’s inconsistent with the spirit of the prompt, as per my second point above.) Of course, maybe the right way to view this is just that the problem is harder than the other one, which is part of the point of a second challenge. We’ll have to see whether it produces more creative solutions, or just cheatier-feeling ones.
This +1. There are all sorts of reasonable or unreasonable ways out of a room, but once you’ve listed “Break the wall open” does it really count to add “Scratch a hole in the wall,” “Use your Phone to hammer a hole in the wall,” “Kick a hole in the wall” etc. Similarly, once you have “Call for help” does it really count to add “Call the police,” “Call a friend,” “E-mail for help,” “Use Facebook for help,” etc.
I think more specific challenges help with that (eg “get past this border wall” or “contact your business partner, who is trying to find you”) helps with not making 50 different iterations of “open a hole in the wall” seem like cheating.
To the third point it seems like relaxing on reasonableness is also an important positive skill. Like for some of the the drawbacks is that the option is gross. But that doesn’t mean it is not an option or really affect whether it would work or not.
I also felt that because I knew about orbital mechanics somewhat I concieved of the challenge somewhat different. What were in other peoples list a single bullet point I had multiple way of achieving the effect.
An observation, part-way through the process: Something about the nature of the prompt makes me more reluctant to propose really silly solutions, of the same type as “jump really high” or “teleport” in the moon one.
I think there are three factors making this so.
First: there are more details in the prompt this time, and they even include a couple of not-physically-possible things, which means that making up some extra impossibility feels more like cheating: “If you were supposed to be able to do that, it would have been in the problem statement.” Whereas if you just say “Get something to the moon”, that isn’t so.
Second: the prompt is deliberately somewhat constraining: the room is locked, all you have is your clothes and a phone, etc. This, again, means that inventing magical abilities or conveniently placed Friends In High Places or whatever feels unsporting. “The whole point of the scenario is to restrict your options; what sense does it make to just arbitrarily give yourself extra ones?”
Third: there are a number of what seem like perfectly good, routine solutions that don’t require such shenanigans. If you’ve been challenged to get something to the moon, which realistically you just can’t do—well, then of course it’s OK to make up impossible solutions, because that’s all there are. But here, where there are answers like “phone the police”, again introducing absurdities or impossibilities feels cheaty. “You don’t need that sort of nonsense, so why should you think it’s reasonable?”
My list will still have some silly things on it. But they will feel to me like blemishes, in ways they didn’t really with the moon challenge.
[EDITED to add:] A related but not identical issue: many kinds of silly answer are not available. You could propose to be carried to the moon by birds or fairies or dragons or hurled there by an enormous catapult or shot out of a tremendous cannon or whatever—but in our room there are no birds, fairies, dragons, catapults, cannons, and the like. (And, again, inventing such marvels outside the room to rescue you seems like it’s inconsistent with the spirit of the prompt, as per my second point above.) Of course, maybe the right way to view this is just that the problem is harder than the other one, which is part of the point of a second challenge. We’ll have to see whether it produces more creative solutions, or just cheatier-feeling ones.
Ooops. I meant to make this a comment rather than an answer. I guess I’ll leave it as it is now. My apologies.
Moved it to the comments section for you :)
Thanks!
This +1. There are all sorts of reasonable or unreasonable ways out of a room, but once you’ve listed “Break the wall open” does it really count to add “Scratch a hole in the wall,” “Use your Phone to hammer a hole in the wall,” “Kick a hole in the wall” etc. Similarly, once you have “Call for help” does it really count to add “Call the police,” “Call a friend,” “E-mail for help,” “Use Facebook for help,” etc.
I think more specific challenges help with that (eg “get past this border wall” or “contact your business partner, who is trying to find you”) helps with not making 50 different iterations of “open a hole in the wall” seem like cheating.
To the third point it seems like relaxing on reasonableness is also an important positive skill. Like for some of the the drawbacks is that the option is gross. But that doesn’t mean it is not an option or really affect whether it would work or not.
I also felt that because I knew about orbital mechanics somewhat I concieved of the challenge somewhat different. What were in other peoples list a single bullet point I had multiple way of achieving the effect.