Public: Mutual Destruction
Monster Lottery   (+4, -3)  [vote for, against]
People gamble on which towns will be attacked by giant monsters

This idea would require a large number of giant monsters be bred to terrorise any continent brave enough to play this kind of lottery. Facilities would have to exists to replace the giant monsters periodically, train them to be aggressive enough to be of any use and perform upgrades to ensure they competitive with anti-monster methods.

The lottery would consist of betting to see which towns would be visited and/or attacked by which giant monster. Get it correct and you would win a monster amount of cash. Towns people are allowed to attack the monsters or alternatively cheer the monsters on from a safe distance.

The idea behind this is that consumer societies require war in order to destroy property and rather than people fighting people we should provide our own inhuman adversaries to do the destroying for us. The lottery side would help people to buy into the carnage and devastation which would result from this innovative method of social improvement.
-- Aristotle, Jun 14 2001

Pokémon http://www.pokemon.com
For the few people who don't know about this. [Aristotle, Jun 14 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004]

And it would be even better if the monsters were the gene spawn of well know celebrities?
-- Spidergoat, Jun 14 2001


Do mean something like "Bifang the Spawn of Britney"?
-- Aristotle, Jun 14 2001


My first thought when I saw this title--which I still like--would be that instead of buying a ticket that gave you 1 chance in however many million of becoming rich, you could buy one that gave you a very slight chance of winning your own purple pterodactyl or, for the jackpot, Godzilla himself.
-- Redbird, Jun 14 2001


Maybe obsolete monsters could be raffled off to interested punters. You could even rebrand them as classics. A good suggestion.
-- Aristotle, Jun 14 2001


I can criticize this on the grounds that breeding giant monsters is wibni, but a horde of smaller doable monsters, like 50,000 rogue elephants, would work fine. Or I could mutter about the loss of human life and such tragedies, but as Aristotle implies, war is much worse. So...croissant! That's one of the things I like about this silliness--nonsensical ideas given a thoughtful twist.
-- Dog Ed, Jun 14 2001


Ahh, but some places have been without wars for some considerable time, except for a limited degree of internal terrorism and disorder. This to provide the stimuli of wars in their absence rather than to bring peace to a war torn region.

As for the creatures needed something that could come off the winner between itself and 3 storey building would be ideal. Elephants would not cut it unless you could bred elephants that were part tiger and a whole lot larger.
-- Aristotle, Jun 15 2001


Ahh, but that was just monsters attacking cities for no reason other than to sell popcorn and provide a metaphor for the nuclear attack on Japan.

This is to provide an alternative for war and stimulate the economy by the work required to rebuild cities and the sales of anti-monster ordinance.
-- Aristotle, Jun 15 2001


Mephista: You're not suggesting Pokémon on a grand scale are you? :-)
-- Aristotle, Jun 15 2001


Pokémon was the biggest worldwide craze for children which is now receding in popularity. In it children train friendly monsters to exclusively fight other friendly monsters in duels. It existed as a computer game, a collectable card game, a TV series, action figures, a version of Monopoly, assorted merchandising, parents' nightmares, etc ... (see link).
-- Aristotle, Jun 15 2001


There would also be betting by city ... Gotham is currently reported to be clear of monsters, however there are reports of Bifang, the Spawn of Britney, having been seen advancing on Astro City.
-- Aristotle, Jun 15 2001


No, this is whimsical idea to use giant monsters (or exceptable substitutes) as a way to recreate the destructive "benefits" of war to continents that are too peaceful to receive them. There is no sport involved as the monsters are inhuman neutral hazards that people bet on either through regular bookmakers or preferably some kind of seperate "monster lottery" fund. Although cities could adopt favoured monsters hopefuly the monsters would remain impartial.

A WIBNI idea along the same lines would be "I would like a giant monster as a pet to destroy cities". Instead I'm proposing giant monsters as a custard substitute for a relatively cunning use.
-- Aristotle, Jun 15 2001



random, halfbakery