#maybe my sample-size is too small and i'm generalising

[theoanetflix]

I'd be interested to hear what you think of this theory I'm working on! basically: hap is only one of a larger group of experimenters. first off, hap only has five subjects. being a scientist he would know that sample size is too small to be worth much; it would make more sense if he were only one of many. second, when homer watches hap's video records in e. 4, there are a few things that would be obvious to hap, so the only reason to record them would be if he were sharing his findings. [1/2]

[2/2] this would also tie into the “hap is working for the goverment” theory, because if the experiments were that large scale, it would be too hard to hide it—they’d have to be working together. this would also explain how shady elias is—he knows exactly what happened with the oa and that everything is real, so he planted the books to discredit her to the boys. of course there are a few minor things that don’t quite jive with this but lmk what you think!

Yeah this seems believable! We know that Hap had at least one other scientist ‘friend’ (although they both tried to kill each other) who was researching something similar. And it’s very unrealistic that he’d be able to get the funding and create the experiment on his own.

Also your point about 5 subjects makes sense, it’s not generalisable. (The psychology A level part of my brain made me want to evaluate Haps entire study but I think that’s a post for another day). He would need a much larger sample size for his study to be taken seriously. It’s not even like it’s a case study, it is a lab experiment. So 5 subjects isn’t enough, and there’s no control group. Idk how you’d make a control group for an experiment like this though.

I’m not sure how much Elias actually knows. The most sketchy part about him is that he was in the house, but I think he just followed French there. I have a post about this but I’m on mobile so I can’t like it. I don’t know, I’m too trustworthy. He’s suspicious but I think he’s also naïve. Although if he does know about the experiment then it’s make sense that he’d want to keep it secret, so maybe him convincing French that it wasn’t real was because of that.

The fact that Hap records a lot of his research could just be because he needs to document it so he can write reports etc, but the way he records him saying his findings makes it seem like he’s recording them to send to someone. And let’s be real, the dude lives on that island with only his captives. It’s very likely that he talks to other people off the island. And it would make most sense for him to talk to other scientists who he doesn’t have to be secretive about.