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Joe Chill
Mar 21, 2013

"What's this dance called?"

"'Radioactive Flesh.' It's the latest - and the last!"

maskenfreiheit posted:

So I rewatched USS Callister and I think on rewatch it's clear that whether Daly is the bad guy is a very grey issue. Allow me to play devil's advocate for a moment:

We start with rudely Elena ignoring the CTO as he tries to badge into his own company, rather than be proactive and polite by greeting him and assisting when it becomes clear he's having an issue.

Shania blows past him while on the phone, invading his penson space so severely he trips over a bag avoiding her. She also abused Lacie, a very good person who did not deserve to be treated poorly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrpK90bHO2U

The bag's owner faux apologizes, then batters the CTO.

Nate is rude and standoffish when Daly tries to make conversation at the coffeemaker

While Daly is nothing but a gentleman to his new attractive employee, Walton bursts in and sexually harasses Nanette.

In short, what we witness is a collection of verbal, physical, and sexual abusers. While cruel and unusual punishment can be claimed to be morally wrong, it's not clear that Daly's actions were illegal at the time of the incident. (Later, Black Museum mentions these AIs have rights, but it's not clear this was the law at the time)

So it looks like we have a collection of people who like to walk up to the line of what they can get away with, and a CTO who uses his personal property to peacefuly and nonviolently de-stress.

He is then killed for this peaceful and legal use of his private property! If you want to say that cookies have rights, you could also make the argument that these cookies are an extension of their real life counterparts, and thus the real life counterparts should be jailed for manslaughter.

Did this episode hit too close to home for you or something? Daly killed a child, doesn't matter what his co-workers did to him. He is a "bad guy," there is no ambiguity to that. Even ignoring all the sci-fi stuff, Daly is a manbaby who can not deal with his frustrations, stress, and anger in a healthy way. Imagine a 30-something-year-old co-worker going home every night creating Sims of everyone in the office and torturing them, killing their families, etc. And these copies in the show have feelings and emotions.

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Joe Chill
Mar 21, 2013

"What's this dance called?"

"'Radioactive Flesh.' It's the latest - and the last!"

maskenfreiheit posted:

No, the child was a simulation.

Whereas Daly is real, and these AI chose not to alert authorities to his predicament once they were safe. If they had been kidnapped IRL and locked him in a room to die they'd be brought up on manslaughter charges. You have a legal right to use lethal force in self defense, but once you're free of danger that argument doesn't hold water.

At the end of the day they engaged in some bad behaviors, Daly retaliated, and so they murdered him

If they do not have emotions, then why can not they be reprogrammed to follow the rules of Daly's Star Trek games? Why kill a man's child to get him to fall in line if the man's feelings are not real? It's like these "cookies" have a mind of their own!

maskenfreiheit posted:

Well, I'm not super familiar with that game but it's still not ok to murder someone just because they do weird stuff to their sims. And again, these cookies are not people - they are programmed to react a certain way but they don't actually feel emotions/feelings.

That was not my point, I said nothing about murder. IRL Daly would still be a manbaby who can not deal with his frustrations, stress, and anger in a healthy way. For example, a 30-something-year-old co-worker going home every night creating Sims of everyone in the office and torturing them, killing their families, etc. is a messed up and unhealthily way to deal with emotional problems.

They are not "programmed to react a certain way", they are 100% copy of the original persons, they can't even be called AIs.

Do androids dream of electric sheep?

Joe Chill fucked around with this message at 03:39 on Mar 3, 2018

Joe Chill
Mar 21, 2013

"What's this dance called?"

"'Radioactive Flesh.' It's the latest - and the last!"

maskenfreiheit posted:

ok, let's concede they're people (i don't, but let's for now)

they still killed him. felony manslaughter. once they were free of their "confines" and in the main game they had an obligation to send aid to him. their inaction is manslaughter.

at the end of the day, i think the most serious crime is murder, and i think it is telling that the "victims" end the show by committing a much worse crime

There is no way to know if they knew if Daly's would have died. They are not obligated to send aid to him. It would be self defense since they had no other legal means to get out or even be knowledgeable that Dalys died. Are his captives supposed to check in on him after escaping and make sure he is okay?

Joe Chill
Mar 21, 2013

"What's this dance called?"

"'Radioactive Flesh.' It's the latest - and the last!"

maskenfreiheit posted:

The show creator has said it, it is canon he starved during the holiday due to the DND sign.

And they absolutely do have a duty, since they locked him in the game and acknowledge knowing this. Just like if they were REAL PEOPLE and they locked their captor in a room they'd be obligated to inform someone or they'd be liable for the death.

Unless you want to concede they aren't people and thus not bound by our manslaughter laws...

Truly the copies are the real villains of the story.

Joe Chill
Mar 21, 2013

"What's this dance called?"

"'Radioactive Flesh.' It's the latest - and the last!"

maskenfreiheit posted:

yes, kidnapping is a less serious crime than murder. it's a bit scary you don't seem to understand this...

So child killing Dalys is worse one. Is that the point?

Joe Chill
Mar 21, 2013

"What's this dance called?"

"'Radioactive Flesh.' It's the latest - and the last!"

A. Beaverhausen posted:

But...but they're sentient

And not AIs, they are a 100% copy of a person's brain in a virtual online multiplier game, they were not created/coded from noting.

Imagine putting a digital copy of a person's brain into another body cloned from their DNA, they would be indistinguishable from their original self.

Joe Chill
Mar 21, 2013

"What's this dance called?"

"'Radioactive Flesh.' It's the latest - and the last!"

Mantis42 posted:

Actually, saliva doesn't actually contain enough information to replicate a person and all their memories. All of that is just roleplaying the Captain does to believe in the fiction of torturing his coworkers. In reality they're just code made to approximate their personalities and attempt escape only so the Captain can catch them. He programmed them too well and they killed him.

So Daly knew about Cole's secret cloud pictures too? Because he would have to know about those super secret pictures to program their memories. That does not make any sense.

Mantis42 posted:

Actually, saliva doesn't actually contain enough information to replicate a person and all their memories.

Actually, saliva does not have ANY memories! It's like this show is fantasy or something!

Grem posted:

If you pull the plug on the servers they don't die, they just disappear. They're not people.

What happens to your mind when you die? Is ceasing to exist unlike dying? Why does that make them not people? If their mind was transferred into a clone body, then died, wouldn't they be a person then by your definition?

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Joe Chill
Mar 21, 2013

"What's this dance called?"

"'Radioactive Flesh.' It's the latest - and the last!"

Supercar Gautier posted:

Not in the slightest?

If you're watching a show from the perspective of a character, are invited to identify with the character, are encouraged to feel fear and concern when bad things happen to the character, but then cite sci-fi canon technicalities to conclude "the character doesn't matter and their suffering is fine", I don't know what to tell you. Such a person would have to be so disengaged with the show they're watching that I can't even guess what inspired them to watch it at all.

Don't you remember the ending to Blade Runner were Decker finds out he is a Skyrim character?

Seriously, the plot point at the end of Act 1 is that these beings are real people and not just some mindless simulation. That is what makes us, the audience, care for these characters in this story. A couple of posters ignored this plot point and can't understand why Daly is the blatant villain of the story.

The writers could make a fantasy story about a sentient rock and some people will still argue "But rocks aren't sentient! I don't feel bad about crushing rocks!"

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