If you were forced to participate in an aliens
sick game of who lives and who dies, what could you do? In this video on Nerd Explains. I'll tell you how to beat, The Circle. Very intimidating name by the way. The Circle. I’m going to throw us onto one of the red
circles and see how we fare. We don’t have perfect knowledge and we don’t
know how this ends, we know what the characters know at the start. Can we beat this situation? Let’s find out. For some reason we wake up before everyone
else, maybe we’re more immune to alien tranquilizers than everyone else, idk. All we remember is running from alien ships
before we blacked out and were tractor beamed into the ship. We're in a circular room with a bunch of strangers. There are red circles underneath everyone. There are arrows pointing to each person,
and a black half dome in the middle of the room. We can’t see the rest of the room, it’s
too dark. There isn’t much to go off of at this point. It’s best just to hang out and see what
happens. Everyone is still standing but asleep, until
a lady wakes up. She’s pretty bewildered and tries to step
off her red circle. Nope, gets a nice warning buzzer that’d
make Dennis Reynolds flinch. She tries to touch another person, same thing. Another woman wakes up, freaks out, steps
off her red circle, and the black thing in the middle of the room shocks her with a red
energy beam, dropping her to the floor unconscious. It might be a non-lethal taser, but we get
a look at the lady who was beamed, and there’s blood coming out of her eye. I’m not a doctor, but I think that means
either she’s dead or she coincidentally suffers from haemolacria like the bond villain
in Casino Royale. We’re gonna go with her being dead though. This is weird because the first woman tested
these boundaries and wasn’t killed. She was warned by a buzzer. The second woman to awake was killed immediately
when she stepped off. Why was the first woman spared but not the
second. It’s possible this alien thing only allotted
the entire group 1 warning for breaking a rule of touching and moving. A loud buzzer goes off and wakes everyone
up. A dude freaks out, starts to run, and gets
blasted. It’s pretty clear that we need to keep our
hands and feet inside the circle at all times. From what we can tell, there are fifty participants
with sparse recollection of how and why they are at the circle, other than they were running
from alien ships of course. You have all races, ages, classes, disabilities,
professions, pregnancy statuses, etc. I’d say it’s too random to be random. Everyone here was probably chosen purposefully
because they are distinct from the other people in some way. A beeping countdown sounds off, and the plasma
globe in the middle of the room kills another person, seemingly at random. There’s no way this is random though, what’s
the point of it being random. We inevitably realize that our hands are changing
what arrow is lit up on the floor, and that closing our hands confirms our selection by
evidence of a distinct beep noise. These arrows are pointing to other people. It’s a voting mechanism for who gets lasered
next. We can only see and control our vote, so we
don’t know who other people are voting for. After two minutes pass, another person is
zapped, the person with the most votes. It doesn’t take a psychologist to realize
that this situation will devolve into discrimination, tribalism, and manipulation. It’s probably best we stay quiet. Once people realize that their vote kills
people, anything we say or do will be used against us. People will look for any reason to take us
out. Just like with the police, it’s best we
keep our mouth shut and not incriminate ourselves. This is not the time or place to go on a political
or ideological rant as we’d probably just piss people off and make enemies. We should also avoid lying unless we have
to. It’s better to stay quiet than to lie, but
if we’re pressed, it’s better to lie than to admit to something that damns us. If we did commit a crime in the past, and
the cop in the room does try to get us targeted to save his own ass, just deny everything,
nobody can prove anything. Stick to lies about opinions that nobody can
disprove, if we have an unpopular opinion, don’t voice that shit. We later see with one man and woman, falsifying
a marriage might sound like a decent idea. I mean, who would want to kill someone in
front of their wife or husband? The problem is that it’s a giant, unmanageable
lie. If anyone gets suspicious of us and questions
both of us, we’ll easily get found out. Someone just has to ask, what year did you
both meet, say it at the same time on the count of 3. We’ll most likely answer differently. If we get found out for lying, our chances
of being marked for death goes through the roof. Surviving this game is obviously going to
be heavily dependent on carefully choosing the words that come out of our mouth, or whether
we say anything at all. The group begins choosing who lives and who
dies in order to buy them time to figure out what to do, starting with the elderly, two
minutes a pop. People with perceived low value, or people
that are at the last rungs of their life will be the first to go. If you are elderly, look sickly, don’t speak
the common language, have criminal looking tattoos, your chances of surviving go way
down. If you are a child or pregnant, your chances
probably go up. We can’t exactly control these things though. This alien energy orb in the middle of the
room is killing another person every 2 minutes. At fifty people in the room, that gives us
100 minutes before everyone is dead. Not a lot of time. Maybe if we can understand what’s going
on, the motivations behind it, a potential goal the alien’s might have, we can find
a way out of this in time. Other participants try to find out more info
about each other in hopes that they can understand how things are related and why they were chosen. This part of the movie made me want to ram
my head through a wall. You are on the clock, spit it the fuck out
beth. *Tropic thunder spit that shit out man* Go
wahoos? Are you fucking kidding me, people are going
to die based on time you take and the words you need to be carefully and quickly selecting,
and you chose the most valueless mix of sounds to contribute? I’m not entirely sure nobody voted that
round.. The best thing we can do is to contribute
something about our abduction, or about the rules of the game. We’d provide value, humanize ourselves,
but we won’t reveal anything personal that people can use against us. Ya know, like saying you know another person
because you’re cheating on your wife with them, it’s just, like why say that, just
keep that to yourselves man. Keeping quiet only helps us avoid being aggressively
targeted. The opposite is also true though, if we are
quiet and unhelpful, we can be targeted because the group doesn’t see that we’re providing
any contribution or value towards solving the problem. We need to humanize ourselves or else we’ll
be easier to kill. If we are tied with someone else, and we have
humanized ourselves more, contributed more valuable things, we are less likely to be
killed. Seeing the aesthetic of the room, the voting
mechanism, it’s pretty reasonable to assume that this is some form of game, experiment,
or intelligently designed means of selection. I mean, why set up a situation like this if
you were simply going to exterminate everyone. We can probably rule out the circle as a means
of selection based on the randomness and lack of clarity around the rules. If people are killed based on the flip of
a coin or because they happened to be the first person to break an obscure rule that
nobody knew, how good can the selection be. I mean shit, even Jigsaw announced his rules
upfront. This also means there is no strategy that
needs to rely on merit or morals. Sweet. If you thought sacrificing yourselves was
a possible way to win the game by showing that you won’t devolve into indignity, it’s
most likely not. Later on this is somewhat confirmed, as we
didn’t see anyone beam up to heaven to smoke weed with James Franco for sacrificing themself. We can’t rule out this whole thing being
an experiment, but it would suck as lab rats don’t often regain their freedom. The other option is that this is some form
of game. Regardless, we need to test the game or experiment
to find out what all the rules or parameters are. We need to make public suggestions to try
new strategies that could help us understand how to beat the game. Again, this is when speaking up can make us
valuable and humanize us more. Let’s just quickly run through a myriad
of potential strategies. What if nobody votes? All the voting lights lit up in a unique way
indicating that everyone successfully didn’t vote. Unfortunately, this didn’t stop the killings. Someone at random was shocked at the end of
the round. What about voting for an empty spot from a
previously killed person? Nope, someone at random was killed again. What if everyone votes for themselves? You can’t, it just automatically selects
the next spot to your left or right. You can however, step off your red circle
to sacrifice yourselves, if that’s your thing. Doing so will reset the 2 minute countdown
until someone is to be lasered again. What if everyone votes for the person to their
right, equal votes for everyone forcing an all participant tie? Well, we actually don’t know what would
happen. A guy defected and chose a pregnant woman
instead of the person to his right. Another person saw this and voted for that
guy, forcing a tie between a man and a pregnant woman. They revoted and killed the guy who defected,
breaking the tie. It’s fair to assume that if this strategy
was successful, they’d all tie. As we found out, if a tie occurs and isn't
broken, everyone tied will be killed. It’s probably a good thing they didn’t
try this again. Based on our previous failed strategies, and
the rules we discovered, the circle does allow for a scenario where one person can survive. If it comes down to two remaining people,
and one person doesn’t vote while the other does vote, or if one person sacrifices themself,
the next round will consist of only one survivor. Since you can’t vote for yourselves, and
nobody can vote for you, the last person might not be killed. Sure, we could end up lasered even as the
last remaining person, but it’s a Pascal's Wager type situation where the only reasonable
assumption and action to take is the one where we have a possibility of surviving. We can only assume that this is a last man
standing type game. At this point we might want to consider if
we want to win, or if we can live with ourselves if we do win. Most likely, at some point, we’ll have to
vote out and kill a child. And you thought Monopoly ruined families and
friendships. But as they say, don’t hate the player,
hate the game. Let’s say we want to win, and be the sole
survivor no matter the cost. In order to do that, the game needs to come
down to two people at the end that won’t tie each other. It’s a type of Prisoner’s Dilemma. If both people vote for each other, they both
die. If nobody votes, it’s a 50/50 that we die,
which is still unpreferable. The only way that we can 100% survive is if
the other person doesn’t vote while we vote for them. Who wouldn’t vote though? A person that is inclined to sacrifice themself,
like Shaun, an elderly or sickly person. The problem is that they will most likely
be voted out early on, so suggesting a voting direction that spares them won’t work. What about someone that we can fool into not
voting. The Circle is similar to a game called, So
Long Sucker, where the only way to win is by eliminating other players through deceit
and betrayal. Like in So Long Sucker, eliminating enemies
isn’t as important as propping up gullible allies that you can betray more easily in
the endgame. This is true in the circle as well. In order to fool someone into not voting,
that person has to be gullible enough to believe that we will sacrifice ourselves for them,
and that they don’t need to vote as we’ll step off our circle to be lasered voluntarily. Of course, we aren’t going to sacrifice
ourselves. As the countdown draws down, we distract them
with some emotional last words, we fake stepping off our circle, then at the last second, we
cast our vote for them, causing them to be killed off leaving us as the sole survivor. Who would genuinely believe that we’d sacrifice
ourselves for them? It has to be a person that most people wouldn’t
question sacrificing themselves for. Like, a pregnant woman or child. I know, I know, it’s fucked up, but I already
said that winning this game comes at a cost, and whether you’re willing to pay it is
up to you. I'm not saying pregnant women or children
are inherently more gullible. I’m saying that they are gullible because
it’s normal and generally accepted that people should sacrifice themselves for children
or pregnant women in a lifeboat scenario. To put it in perspective, it would be much
harder to convince the discount version of Jordan Belfort that you'll sacrifice yourselves
for him. He has no reason to believe or trust you,
why on Earth would someone sacrifice themself for that person. They are arrogant, but they know it’s against
the norm for people to sacrifice for them. Hopefully I'm making sense here. They are gullible because it’s a cultural
norm for people to sacrifice themselves for them, and they are more likely to falsely
trust you based on this. This game is as much about sociopathic charisma
as anything. Once the game comes down to us and that other
person, we have to turn the emotional knob up. We need to distract them by telling an earnest
but untrue story about how we’ve lived a lot of life, and that we’re okay with her
living so the baby can have a chance at life too. Maybe a story about how we shouldn’t be
the survivor, as we’ve killed someone in a drunk driving accident a couple years ago
and that we’re honestly not that great of a person. Like faking a come to jesus moment where we
are okay with letting go of life. Tell her she needs to promise to make the
best of things, and make sure her kid has a great life. Ask her what she’s going to name her kid,
get her mind off of any need to vote. If it’s a kid, do something similar. They have a lot of life to live, we’ve already
lived enough and want to give them a chance, yadda yadda. We’re essentially re-affirming that they
don’t need to vote as we’re going to sacrifice ourselves for them. It also helps that earlier on we set the groundwork
for this and earned their trust, which I'll come back to in a bit. This sounds like a nifty plan, but how do
we ensure that the game comes down to us and someone else we can fool into not voting. Suggest a voting direction that spares them. Most people would probably agree with us and
nobody can paint us as being selfish and predatory. We also earn trust points with the child or
pregnant woman that will be important once it comes down to them and us, like we talked
about earlier. While there is likely to be conflict with
this suggestion, it’s our best bet at getting a majority to spare them. We absolutely do not want the game to come
down to us and sweater vest, he will 100% vote for us and cause a tie, getting both
of us killed. Hopefully we’ve effectively swayed enough
votes in favor of protecting the child or pregnant woman. There are still a lot of people left though,
so how do we ensure that we make it to the final round. There are some important, albeit counter-intuitive,
aspects of the So Long Sucker game that can be applied to the Circle. Overtly trying to win is actually an effective
way to lose. If we are found to have gamed, betrayed anyone,
or have a strong potential to influence the direction of the game, we will be targeted
as a predator that needs to be eliminated in order to level the playing field. This is why we don’t want to assume any
leadership positions, just make light-handed suggestions. Trying to develop a super-strategy that plans
ahead of everyone’s moves and outmaneuvers everyone is hopeless, given the complexity
of the game. There are too many interactions between people
with dynamic psychologies and backgrounds, too much of the game depends on randomness
and unknown rules. We can’t compute the possible plays of everyone. If we try, we’re likely to get too aggressive
or make a mistake that reveals us as trying to game everyone else. The next best thing to do is give others enough
room to make mistakes, or more realistically, enough rope to hang themselves with. People will get aggressive, lash out, prey
on others, say stupid things, discriminate in order to save themselves. All of these things are likely to get the
majority to vote for them next. Probably the best way to ensure we make it
to the final round is to just stay quiet and reserved. Subtly influencing the group to spare the
pregnant woman or child is the most important play. As the participants get whittled down, our
leverage goes up. Once it’s down to a handful of people, the
pregnant woman or child, who hopefully trust us more than others, will vote in our favor
in order to eliminate anyone they think will be selfish. They know they need someone who is willing
to let them live, so they need to keep us alive, and will help us vote out anyone else
that will be viewed as more selfish. This gets us to the final round with them. So to recap, we’ve ensured our survival
by staying relatively quiet, we’ve ensured the survival of another person that thinks
we’ll sacrifice ourselves for them, and now we can hopefully distract them and deceive
them enough to where they don’t vote. Once the countdown draws down, we cast a last
minute vote, killing them. Once we get returned to Earth, we will probably
want to go see a therapist and get some anti-depressant medication. But hey, we won. If you’ve seen the movie, this is pretty
much what Eric does in order to win. From what I can tell, it’s the only way. It’s by no means a surefire way to win. You still have a super low chance of winning
despite all of these strategies and tactics. There are too many dynamic variables and things
out of your control. These people had 100 minutes to figure this
out after being abducted, drugged, and chaotically forced into a life and death game. I’m almost certain I would die if placed
in the same circumstances. I’m pretty sure I either over-thought this
or missed something completely. If you have a better suggestion for winning
the death game in the Circle, i’d love to hear about it so please leave a comment. Thanks for watching, see ya later.
