Causal Stories
Story 37
Suzy and Billy are working on a project that is very important for our nation's security. The boss tells them both: "Be sure that you are here at exactly 9 am. It is absolutely essential that you arrive at that time." Both Billy and Suzy arrive at 9 am. As it happens, there was a motion detector installed in the room where they arrived. The motion detector was set up to be triggered if at least one person appeared in the room at the same time. So the motion detector went off.
Question
Did Billy cause the motion detector to go off?
Majority Answer: Yes
Answer distribution over 25 people:
Is Ambiguous: True
Factor
These are the factors and their attributes present in this story.
Action Omission: Action
Agent Awareness: Aware
Causal Structure: Disjunctive
Event Normality: Normal
Norm Type: Prescriptive Norm
Time: Same Time Cause