You just received that official looking letter in your mailbox. Behind the wall of legalese, you feel very uneasy. A very weird proposal is made to you. If you refuse, you feel deep in you that there is something, perhaps something important, that you will never experience in your life. But if you accept... What exactly will you accept? Why people would give you that much money for one hour of "mild discomfort, fear, stressful situation, unwanted feelings, but no risk of real harm"? It looks like a one-way ride in the metro at the rush hours, anyways... Unable to decide to answer "yes" or "no", your read that letter yet another time.

Certified mail receipt number XXX-142-5412-AVZ

From:

The International Stress Institute

1029 Central St, Kansas City, MO 64105

File number: 221-D-45

Object:

Offer to participate in one of our experiments.

June 19, 20x4.

Sir,

The International Stress Institute is a world renowned scientific institution specializing in the physiological and psychological reactions and resilience of the human body to stressful situations. Beyond the high impact basic research we produce, our work has numerous applications in extreme environment project design, such as Antarctic, submarine and space exploration, the military, and also humane handling of inmates or institutionalized patients. Our reports, analyses and recommendations already led to the improvement of daily life experience of thousands of people experiencing extreme settings all over the world.

Such high-quality research cannot unfortunately be obtained without a large amount of data directly gathered from people experiencing stresses in a controlled environment in one of our facilities. These experiments are performed on random-selected, anonymous people that give informed consent and receive a compensation for their willing participation.

Today, you have been selected by our institute, to participate in such an experiment. We kindly ask you to provide us with a positive or negative answer to this offer within one week. An absence of response on your behalf will be considered as a negative answer. To help you make an informed decision, we propose you to visit our website for general information, and to carefully read the following, more specific, information concerning the test you will participate in.

(1) Participation to our experiments will involve exposure to physical and psychological stresses. You will experiment physically and/or psychologically uncomfortable events and situations during your experiment. In other words, it probably will not be enjoyable at all. Nevertheless, you will receive permanent support from our specially trained staff.

(2) Your exposure to stress (called "the stress test") will last for a short duration, varying between 30 and 60 minutes depending on your reactions.

(3) You have the possibility to abort your stress test at any moment. Nevertheless, financial compensation can only be fully obtained after the completion of the test (see below, points 7 and 8).

(4) As a part of our experiment, the exact nature of the stresses you will experience will not be disclosed to you beforehand. We can nevertheless inform you that they will possibly involve: temporary movement freedom loss, claustrophobia, feeling of danger, unwanted physical feelings, use of FDA-approved medications, awkward social situations involving (i) awkward relationship with strangers and (ii) the temporary breach of intimacy. Social relationships with strangers during the test will only involve certified staff from our institute.

(5) The stresses you will experience will not include the following: any kind of stress causing permanent physical, physiological or psychological harm, extreme thermal stresses, pain, inoculation of micro-organisms, actual danger. The effects of the medications used will wear off within a few hours after the conclusion of the test.

(6) The experiment will take place at 9 p.m. in September 3rd, in our Kansas City facility at the following address: 1119 Central St, Kansas City, MO 64105. Housing and transportation means will be provided to you upon acceptance for a two-night stay in the nearby hotel (Kansas City Prairie View Hotel and Plaza, 300 W 12th St, Kansas City, MO 64105), followed with a financial compensation of 1000 $ for meals, your acceptance of initiating your experimentation, and your time spend away from home.

(7) Upon full completion of the stress test, you will receive an additional compensation of 100,000 $. This large compensation is due to the unknown to you nature of the stresses you will be submitted to, and the effort you made for furthering such a critical area in modern medical research.

(8) Before, during and after your experimentation, we guarantee you a total respect of your anonymity. You will not receive any further solicitation from us. You will have the possibility to access aggregated data from the experiment you are participating in on our website, using your personal file number given on the top of this letter.

(9) In the same line of thought, our staff here at the stress institute will only know your file number. In the case you want to participate in this test, please take that number with you, since it will be needed to enter our facility.

(10) Similarly, our institute can provide you with a Jury Duty Order that will permit you to obtain leave from your employer and evade questions concerning the reasons for you absence.