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Post by edmonddantes on Jan 18, 2019 18:24:44 GMT -5
So here's the situation:
A scientist has discovered the cure for cancer, and his discovery has been verified by every scientific organization and proven to work. Companies are already seeking contracts with him to mass produce his medicine which he is sure to get rich off of, and he intends to put it towards more medical research.
Before any contracts are finalized though, an interview happens in which he outright states he's a white supremacist who hates gay and trans people.
It results in a social issue where some people are iffy of distributing anything made by this guy, while others are like "dude, its the cure for cancer, people need it!"
If you were one of the medicine people offering a contract, what would you do:
A) Withdraw the offer due to not wanting to associate with someone of such despicable morals?
B) Allow him to sign with you anyway because its still an important medicine?
Post your answer below.
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Post by eatersthemanfool on Jan 19, 2019 23:30:38 GMT -5
Flame bait? Flame bait!
For the record though, I'd sign with him to get the cure out there, but I'd fuck him over first chance I got.
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Post by toei on Jan 20, 2019 16:44:03 GMT -5
Dubious premise. Nobody's going to cure all cancers single-handedly, and researchers work in teams, anyway. If one member of that team is a piece of shit, whoever distributes the medicine will just honor the other team members publicly. That idea that the cure wouldn't get out is silly. I have no idea how medication is licensed in the first place, and I suspect you don't, either, but researchers with any kinds of means typically work for some big pharmaceutical company or university - their employer might own the rights to the research they're financing, anyway, which means nobody would have to "sign" with him.
A more likely moral quandary would be "should he win the Nobel Prize?", and my answer is "give it to his co-workers, fuck him."
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Post by jorpho on Jan 20, 2019 23:11:20 GMT -5
I like Toei's answer. I suppose the closet analogue we might have would be James Watson, who was of great importance in discovering the structure of DNA and has lately been naughty. www.vox.com/2019/1/15/18182530/james-watson-racistNow, I'd like to say that things have changed in the last 60 years and that no one researcher is likely to get the same amount of credit for any fundamental discovery anymore, but then we have Elon Musk, whose continued presence as a frontman is rather baffling, considering what he's coughed up on Twitter.
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Post by surnshurn on Jan 21, 2019 17:56:17 GMT -5
the idyllic answer would be to say "no, of course not." but in reality, someone's answer would change real quick if they were actually the ones suffering from cancer. for example - do you think that your smartphone was created by a real swell individual?
i choose to leave social issues in the social sphere and technical issues in the technical sphere.
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Post by toei on Jan 21, 2019 18:34:44 GMT -5
the idyllic answer would be to say "no, of course not." but in reality, someone's answer would change real quick if they were actually the ones suffering from cancer. for example - do you think that your smartphone was created by a real swell individual? i choose to leave social issues in the social sphere and technical issues in the technical sphere. Do you think your smartphone was really created by an individual?
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Post by surnshurn on Jan 21, 2019 18:40:32 GMT -5
the idyllic answer would be to say "no, of course not." but in reality, someone's answer would change real quick if they were actually the ones suffering from cancer. for example - do you think that your smartphone was created by a real swell individual? i choose to leave social issues in the social sphere and technical issues in the technical sphere. Do you think your smartphone was really created by an individual? what's that supposed to mean? it was created by a team under executive leadership.
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Post by toei on Jan 21, 2019 19:48:37 GMT -5
Yes, that's my point. It's not the same as, say, a song written and sung by an individual; these things are created as team efforts. If I had been, say, a big R Kelly fan at one point, I probably wouldn't want to listen to his music anymore. But a smartphone designed by a team of mostly unknown people incorporating a series of technological advances made by other people at other times? Who cares if one of the people involved in its creation is an asshole?
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Post by surnshurn on Jan 21, 2019 20:02:07 GMT -5
Yes, that's my point. It's not the same as, say, a song written and sung by an individual; these things are created as team efforts. If I had been, say, a big R Kelly fan at one point, I probably wouldn't want to listen to his music anymore. But a smartphone designed by a team of mostly unknown people incorporating a series of technological advances made by other people at other times? Who cares if one of the people involved in its creation is an asshole? who cares if all of the people who made it are assholes? i need my smartphone (rhetorically, of course). what if the guy who delivered it to me is an asshole? should i reject it, then?
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Post by jorpho on Jan 22, 2019 0:44:30 GMT -5
I'm inclined to believe that most people will probably generally agree on most things – but there's always some way to shine a light on someone that will cast their views in the worst possible light. I like the way I saw it on Reddit once:
ETA: It should also be abundantly clear that if you try to express any kind of thought in 280 characters, the lack of context will make it ripe for creative interpretations.
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Post by edmonddantes on Jan 22, 2019 7:12:57 GMT -5
yeah honestly I had a lot of trouble wording this one. Largely because near the end I got hung up on if people would try to find a third option. Finally just told myself, "so what if they do?" But any time you have a sitch like this, there's issues. Like the character creation system in Ultima IV (which consists entirely of these kinds of questions)... every one of them is something where you could take a third option IRL but for the sake of the game, you can't. (There was one especially that always bugged me: "You finally catch up with the criminal who murdered your best friend, but he turns out to be the sole support for a young girl. Do you A = Take him in to face Justice, or B = spare him out of Compassion for the young girl?" Why can't I adopt the girl myself and still turn the guy in?) EDITETA: It should also be abundantly clear that if you try to express any kind of thought in 280 characters, the lack of context will make it ripe for creative interpretations. Yeah, this is why I'm not a huge fan of Twitter. The character limit basically means no argument has nuance so everyone who uses it winds up becoming an extremist. And I mean, people used to think television rots your brain, but Twitter is far worse. It needs to die, and I don't see why its necessary when blog services already exist and have for years. .... Anyway, last night I came up with another situation. This one is pseudo-based on real history, so I'm gonna fictionalize some details: In this scenario, you live on a planet where human beings share land and society with sentient flower people. A year ago a woman kicked off a movement which was aimed at getting equal rights between humans and the sentient flower people (some of whom are on her side and others are confused as to how they've even been wronged), which you joined and supported full-force because on its face it seemed like the best idea ever. Then, last night you found out the woman who kicked off this movement had, herself, at one point sabotaged another, similar movement from another party because it was competing with her own movement, even though they basically both wanted the same thing. How would you feel and/or react if this happened to you? (and this isn't directed specifically at Toei, everyone answer this)
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Post by jorpho on Jan 22, 2019 21:50:50 GMT -5
Yup, I can see a number of scenarios that might be analogous to.
I would feel suitably disgusted with the whole organized sentient-flower-people movement and choose to quietly support the sentient flower people in my own way, standing up for them when I can, and strive to be a good example of what a sentient-flower-supporter should be.
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Post by edmonddantes on Jan 24, 2019 11:54:02 GMT -5
jorphoYeah, its basically why I don't trust certain ideologies and movements, because if you look into the leaders you always find out they have skeletons in their closet, sometimes not even well-hidden ones but ones their followers are blatantly ignoring. Altho, for what it's worth, I've always held that just because a person/movement does something wrong does not mean that all their ideas and teachings are wrong, or that all their work is now worthless. As Sheriff Bravestarr once said, you should remember people for what they did right, not what they did wrong. It's why I can still enjoy Spoony despite him having said some stupid things on Twitter. the idyllic answer would be to say "no, of course not." but in reality, someone's answer would change real quick if they were actually the ones suffering from cancer. for example - do you think that your smartphone was created by a real swell individual? i choose to leave social issues in the social sphere and technical issues in the technical sphere. I mostly agree with your post, though I don't agree that that's the "idyllic" answer. I mean, my own thought on the scenario in the OP is... as good as it might feel to snub the guy... one of my heroes is Markiplier, whose father died of cancer and clearly the subject hits close to home for him. Imagine a timeline where you snubbed the guy and didn't distribute the cure, and that Lets Play there was a direct result of that. Could you live with yourself? I couldn't--I'd almost rather die. Some things are more important than one's own sense of dignity.
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Post by surnshurn on Jan 25, 2019 18:27:43 GMT -5
the idyllic answer would be to say "no, of course not." but in reality, someone's answer would change real quick if they were actually the ones suffering from cancer. for example - do you think that your smartphone was created by a real swell individual? i choose to leave social issues in the social sphere and technical issues in the technical sphere. I mostly agree with your post, though I don't agree that that's the "idyllic" answer. I mean, my own thought on the scenario in the OP is... as good as it might feel to snub the guy... one of my heroes is Markiplier, whose father died of cancer and clearly the subject hits close to home for him. Imagine a timeline where you snubbed the guy and didn't distribute the cure, and that Lets Play there was a direct result of that. Could you live with yourself? I couldn't--I'd almost rather die. Some things are more important than one's own sense of dignity. good - you're thoughtful enough to realize that reality is more complicated than it may seem, on the surface
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Post by edmonddantes on Jan 27, 2019 17:03:55 GMT -5
So, was just talking to a friend and another question came up, which... okay, in actuality this is more of a logic problem and doesn't really fit the nature of this topic, but at the same time it felt dumb to create a new topic just for this.
The situation is this:
In essence, how would you explain feminism to a creature from an asexual culture that had no concept of "male" and "female?"
Technically the original question that came up during the chat was "how would you explain feminism to a baby if it didn't first know what the traditional ideas of gender even were?" But then we realized that the question becomes kinda silly at the "baby" part.
But yeah, my head is exploding trying to work this one out.
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