Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs
The dice roll came up as a modest success. But even having 1-2% of the parents in Montréal decide that killing their children was a good idea struck me as not passing reality testing, besides being way too much for the city's police even to try to cope with, and more than enough to cause widespread terror. So I cut the response rate down to a fraction of 1%, by GM decree, because I simply didn't believe that the outcome of the roll was plausible, even granting an exaggerated effectiveness of memetic methods.
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Alternatively, you could interpret it that 1-2% of the parents agree with the idea in principle and now regret having children, but fear the legal consequences of actually doing so. Or more subtly that while they still love their children, they have been infected by doubt and might spread the meme further - and if they are pushed into a true personal crisis they might actually follow through with it.
Certainly child-murders will be on the upswing, but not enough to reach the 1-2% mark. Still, this meme might persist for a long time and make problems for the police, not to mention weaken the fabric of society.