Big Big Question

Sure, the US financial market is kind of collapsing, but let’s talk about more human debt. Who do you owe, and why? Did someone do you a solid? Is there any IOU in your life that you particularly value?

Even though we all know that the world is not going to end when CERN fires up the Large Hadron Collider on 9/10/08 at 700 GMT, what are your plans for your time between now and then? Is there anything you feel like you need to do before the world ends science begins?

(For the record, I read that they’ll just be accelerating some particles on 9/10- actual collisions will begin in the following weeks.)

What I wanna know…how will you help others? How widespread will that help be?

Let’s assume a substantial, after all applicable taxes, amount of $30 million. Who will you help and how (with a smattering of ‘why’)? Just family or a multitude of impoverished people?

Philosophico-semantic cage match GO.

Take spammer Stephen Sanchez, iProfile shill, who (round of applause here) is the first person to try sockpuppet spam on the Big Big Question.

Steve-o posted a (bizarrely practical!) question about resumes and then thoughtfully answered it himself under a different account, couched in a fictional happy discovery of a great new resource blah blah blah etc.

So, here’s the dilemma: Stephen had to have (a) found the site, (b) discerned that it was, indeed, a question-and-answer resource of some sort, and (c) had the wherewithal to bother with a two-account sockpuppet show — all of which are arguments toward having some notion of what you’re on about, at least — and yet the end result was so baldly, embarrassingly obvious that any credit lent above is revoked with prejudice.

While this sort of spam may be new to the BBQ, it’s old hat at mefi and has been running wild on the net for a good long time. So there’s a culture for it to fester in — one of naivety or indifference or even encouragement in some places. In that case, rather than raw stupidity being to blame, is it that this unchallenging environment has made otherwise bright, attentitive stars of the die-in-a-fire spam-and-shill sector lazy?

I’m also willing to accept “all of the above” as an answer.

How do you handle panhandlers? Do you give cash? Do you feel guilty about it, either way? Are you actually helping, or just enabling, and is that a bad thing?

Sure, you’re not going to murder anyone, or rob a bank, and set a house on fire.  But what about the little things?  What’s the least-bad thing you just fundamentally will not do?  Or what’s the worst thing you will do?  And in either case, why?
Have you ever stepped over what was at the time a clear line of transgression?  Did your ethical boundaries (or your resolve) change as a result?

Setting aside entirely the question of murder or wrongful death as a food source, why is cannibalism per se so reviled? Are there known human cultures where it was not so? Are there animal species that don’t follow this intraculinary taboo?

As seen on Game Couch this morning (hat tip to Jessamyn):

“Your library has been given a Holodeck by the Bill and Melinda Gates/Daystrom Institute Foundation. Would you limit (filter) what your patrons could do in it? Are there any policies or guidelines you would have in place before it went live?”

If you could travel out of your body at will, where would you go first? Second, third, etc.?

Would you spy on anyone? If so, how would you use your new super fly-on-the-wall knowledge?

In various contexts, where is line drawn between unconstrained discussion of death and the (recently) dead — including criticism of the deceased and metacriticism of the discussion — and a social expectation of respect for the dead, for the gravity of death as a shared experience?

Where do you think the line should be drawn? Why does the line shift from context to context — what defines the social mores of those different contexts that causes (or permits) the line to shift?

(Inspired by the latest in a long historical string of Metatalk conversations about obitutary thread etiquette.)

From Mind Hacks, would you vaccinate someone against an illegal drug, or take one yourself? Should such a vaccine be widely administered to the public? If further progress is made on vaccinations for other illicit substances, could this end the decades long war on drugs, and what would be the likelihood that the general American populace would be vaccinated, voluntarily or otherwise?

Your close family member is in a coma. The doctors say 3 weeks or 3 months, you decide. What would you do?

The philosophy of eugenics, “a social philosophy which advocates the improvement of human hereditary traits through various forms of intervention”, is usually spoken of as an evil thing. In the 20th century we’ve seen things like forced sterilization of certain classes of people, and the Nazi “racial purity” programs.

But if we separate the concept from its uglier implementations, is there anything morally wrong with a philosophy of encouraging the development of desirable traits in the gene pool? What would be some morally acceptable ways of implementing such a philosophy? (Whether by a government, social group, organization, or whatever.)

One of the biggest conflict between the “left” and “right” all across the world is what level of responsibility lies with the individual and what level lies with the government the individual pays.

Without government or any form of community organization, the line is obvious…all responsibility lies with the person. The larger the government gets, the more taking over responsibility is expected of them (and then, it seems, the government gets larger.

Assuming that most people believe somewhere in in the middle is the correct balance, where does that balance lie?

(related topics: health care, personal defense, policing, punishment, freedom, taxation, national defense, loyalty, child care, welfare)

There are hundreds of scenarios, but here are two to get the discussion started:

- you simultaneously fall in deep, indescribable love with two people, and begin relationships with both. Could you/would you lie and attempt to work around a schedule so that you performed your relationship-building duties for both (with or without their, or one of their, knowledge)?

- you are hired by a super-secret agency, knowing full well that they are extremely vital for the security and well-being of thousands or hundreds of thousands. The thing is, as far as your friends and family know, you work as a traveling salesperson, not an agent of an agency they don’t even know exists. Could you lead that double life, knowing that you’d have to carry secrets to your grave and more-than-occasionally lie to protect that?

A question inspired by this story of Jewish children secretly baptized, the question arises:

When two (or more) religions have intersecting domains of spiritual jurisdiction, as it were, what happens?  What are the theological boundaries?  The social implications?  Are any religions in particular more (or less) “sticky” in their metaphysical persistence?

What would the circumstance(s) have to be in order to make torture an acceptable solution? An example…would it be OK to torture one person if it was known that specific person had a specific piece of information that, if it were known by the interrogators, would save a thousand lives?

I’m in no way looking for an excuse for torture to be acceptable in any general way. I’m wondering what chain of events or complicated scenario would be improved with the use of torture.

(based on a post on MetaFilter)

If not expressly disavowed, is sexism assumed?

I was thinking of lying on my headstone. Maybe something like “Lived May 28,
1437 – October 12, 2048. Inventor of time travel and discoverer of the third
anti-gravitic effect”.

First question: can I do this legally?

Second question: what are some good things I can lie about?

(Suggested by Kickstart.)

Broad minimalism today:

What does it mean to live a good life?

(As suggested by Meatbomb.)