north-wyrm:ironhidearcee:krakenattack:armchair-factotum:jetpackexhaust:The Malcom FallacyDr Malcolm
north-wyrm:ironhidearcee:krakenattack:armchair-factotum:jetpackexhaust:The Malcom FallacyDr Malcolm perfectly captured the problem with too much moralizing sci-fi when he whined “your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.”Because of course they should! “Should we recreate awesome dinosaurs*?” The answer is obviously yes, utterly yes, that’s the positive control case to test absolute YESness. You don’t ask people that question to find the answer, you already know the answer, you ask people that question to find out if they’re worth talking to. *a scaled pseudospecies distinct from feathered “actual dinosaurs”.The real problem is the wrong people asking the wrong questions, then blaming science for delivering overwhelming experimental evidence of their mistakes. Jurassic Park’s key question wasn’t “Should we recreate awesome dinosaurs?”, it was “Should we unleash those awesome dinosaurs on a safari with worse security and fewer staff than the average Apple store?” No, you shouldn’t have done that. The science spectacularly succeeded in delivering a dinosaur miracle, and then specifically didn’t knock them out of the Park because that tourism screw-up’s entirely on capitalism. No scientist was collecting data for “Quantifying how much money we can make from tourism” or “Material testing the flimsiest fences imaginable with a goddamn Tyrannosaurus Rex”.That’s the Malcolm Fallacy: blaming science for everyone else’s mistakes. You’ll see it in almost every techno-horror. Should we invent AI? Yes! Should we connect it to military mainframes with nuclear launch authority? No!Should we research viruses? Yes! Should we override the security computer and physically crack open sealed airtight doors when viral labs go into lockdown? No!Should we research teleportation? Yes! Should we experiment on ourselves, alone, without even the most elementary laboratory (or even pizza parlor) standards of cleanliness? No!Almost every sci-fi horror plot is driven by money-grubbing corporations but it’s the researchers who can’t even afford a change of clothes from their “I’m a scientist!” lab coats who take the blame. And now we have hordes of idiots destroying cropfields and resurrecting defeated diseases while CEOs gold-plate profit reports on basic medicine. This and more at ZERO POINT COMEDYYou’d think Microsoft’s learning AI becoming a nazi because of nazis on the internet getting access to it would have taught us that the AI isn’t the problemAHHHHHHHHHHH This is one of the problems I have in the movie vs the book; in the book, Hammond is the main bad guy, and it’s because he took this cool awesome science thing and said, ‘Man, how can I sell this to people for incredible amounts of money?’. The whole book is about bioengineering companies that exploit other third-world countries to test possibly dangerous new genetic strains of animal without having to follow laws. The problem in the books is that Hammond didn’t *listen* to his scientists! In fact, he even picks out a young scientist to lead his company who didn’t know any better and was awed by him so he could try and shape him the way he wanted, and ended up ignoring his advice when he grew up more and started having serious protests. (Poor Wu, he deserved better) :( This is why, although I like the movies for their beautiful effects and because part of me is always gonna be an excited six-year-old who loves watching dinosaurs eat people who richly deserve it, I’m still always gonna prefer the book.The novel was (probably inadvertently and unintentionally) about how a billionaire’s greed and cutting corners on essentials to save costs ended up causing a major disaster that killed and maimed people.Not unintentional; Micheal Crichton’s science fiction novels often criticize the super rich. It’s his theme (alongside his other theme of suspenseful horror).A lot of the time his work champions science as something really cool (like letting a gorilla communicate with humans, or bringing dead animals back to life, nanobots to help with medicine, etc.) but used in seriously uncool ways (trying to get at expensive diamonds, theme parks or animal testing loopholes, not testing nanobots safely and causing injuries, mind control etc.) usually for the profit and benefit of a businessman. -- source link