Would people lie, cheat, steal, etc less often? How would their day-to-day on non-serum days change? Just exploring this idea for a short story, and I'd love to hear how everyone else would change how they act if, for example, next Wednesday you went "on trial" for everyone you knew to be able to ask you any question, and you could only tell the truth.
First thing I thought of was that businesses would ask for what your individual truth serum day is and keep whatever you say on record, like bosses would ask you into their office for the "truth serum interview" and everything would be logged. The government might keep track of it, too. Maybe people will be required to publish everything that happened on their truth serum day in order to run in any elections. Court cases would be put off until the person's truth serum day came along. And I think with all of THAT in mind, people would really shape up for sure. I wonder if there would be any way people could find out to keep secrets…
I think people would definitely find a way to get around it, given half the chance. There'd probably be a huge market for "antidotes" to the serum, in addition to learning how to answer questions truthfully without giving every secret they have away. It'd be a pretty cool dystopian idea either way, I think.
The military would also like to use this a lot in screening potential candidates, and especially for enemy interrogation.
The serum could also be used for discrimination, like religious institutions using it to test someone's sexuality or faith (And sending any non-believers to be 'reducated'), or powerful dictators finding out who's loyal to the state or not. Or if someone close to the government is about to go on trial, but the government prevents them from actually ingesting the serum so they can pretend?
I suppose if writing about this, you'd need to think about how the serum is made, and where and how quickly it can be produced.
Interesting idea with lots of potential!
I wonder how it would be administered. Would they pick a random day for you, or just assign it some specific standardized time/specific time after your birthday? Would it be done with an injection of sorts, something in your food, or some implant that releases it once a year? What if you were immune to the chemical? What if your official day of the serum was recorded on the wrong day?
All in all, it's a really intriguing idea.
What if the serum was unknowingly administered–you simply woke up one day, had breakfast, and, ingested the truth serum within your cornflakes. This would be interesting because people would not be on their best behaviour, and, if they were liars or con artists or thieves, et cetera, they wouldn't know that they could get caught…
This could shake things up in the political world.
"Hey, do you have nukes?"
"Nope."
The next day:
"Hey, do you have nukes?"
"As a matter of fact, yes!"
@Chronicle I laughed out loud at that
I feel like it would depend on the structure of the society and the administration of the serum. If there was a mostly "good" society, there would be no problem. If anything, every would act better in order to make sure when they have to tell the truth, they would not get in trouble. But I also feel like you would have disorganization. There would be people thinking that the government had control over this and there may be an uprising to be "free."
Maybe people learn to be more evasive in their speech. Everyone with a secret learns how to talk in half truths and evade the question. I will note with the prompt, there is no compulsion to answer. Does this hypothetical serum force people to answer? Maybe people just try to be silent on their truth day.
Why just a truth serum DAY why not every day? That could be fun
or it could be saved for special occasions, like if you're in court.
Judge: "Hey, did you murder Steve Jenkins?"
Guy on trial: "Yeaah, and also his dog…"
Judge: "Anything else?"
G.O.T.: "Aaaand I stole his car."
Or when you're running for president you need to take it before press conferences, debates, or speeches.
Reporter: "Mr. Stillwater! Mr. Stillwater! What do you want to do about the poor and homeless people?"
Stillwater, running for President: "Actually my plan is to deport anyone who can't afford a house or food for themselves."