Social Experimentation

I was just discussing the social experiment that Showtime imposed on a homeless person. They approached a homeless person and asked him if they could film him for a documentary. They put him through physical and physiological tests and then decided to use this man in the experiment. On the surface of this I have no huge issue with what they did. The man agreed and they did not set out to harm him. What they did was, without the man’s prior knowledge, gave him $100,000.00. The idea was to see how he would handle the money. Would it turn his life around was the big question.

Apparently it did not. After all was said and done the man is again homeless and in debt. He feels worse off then when it all began and told Oprah that he would rather have not had the money at all. In the discussion I was having with my friend Janet, I mentioned that they did offer him financial counseling and some kind of therapy. Janet's comment was that it seemed unrealistic to her to expect a man that has not had any social interactions for 20 years to take advantage of a Financial Advisor. It was a good point. I look forward to having an opportunity to watch the entire documentary. I think now we should consider the question, is it okay to use someone’s life as a social experiment.