Philosophy | Ethics Short Story Discussions

Named “Top 15 Podcast” for 2020!

STORY SUMMARY: Set in the future, an addict takes a cab to an isolated part of town. He goes to a private, illegal club to break the law; he orders meat. The club is raided by the police, who kill a patron during their interrogation of her. The meat-eating addict sneaks away, knowing he will break the law again.

DISCUSSION: Story with so many layers. First, the contrast between the “humane” society that has banned meat eating, but the brutality of the individual police. Do more serious laws allow for more brutal policing? Also, is this man protesting, or is he simply an addict? Seems to be just be an addict. Are there natural rights? If so, is eating meat one of those natural rights? Does it matter if the reason the law was passed was to protect animals, or to prevent climate change? If a law is passed you disagree with, does it change your behavior? Do you leave the party where they are eating meat? Does it depend on the level of the crime they are committing?

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Named “Top 15 Podcast” for 2020!

STORY SUMMARY: An older and younger (talking) cockroach climb to the top of the highest thing, the refrigerator, to overlook their world. The older roach tells the child that the humans he sees can talk, and also have a 3rd eye inside of them that allows them to imagine the future and remember the past, and this is what makes them unhappy all the time. An angel moth comes down and takes away the roaches ability to speak forever.

DISCUSSION: A children’s story, but one with a good lesson, about having the ability to think about the future, but not let it trouble you or dwell on it. Do other animals have this “3rd eye”? Maybe dogs or others do, to some degree. It has made humans successful because we can remember errors, and plan for future problems. It’s a trade off, but a good one. The key is to not worry so much.

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Named “Top 15 Short Story Podcast” for 2020!

STORY SUMMARY: The story takes place in the thoughts of a 16 year old boy waiting to have his memory erased for his adoption. He thinks about going on his first date, and about being teased by others. He wonders about the family that is adopting him and having new memories implanted in him. It’s finally his turn, he has decided if he is getting his memory replaced, and he heads in to the room to tell them his decision.

DISCUSSION: Wonderful story about a “hero’s journey” of death and rebirth. Brings up good questions about how our pain, as well as our joy, creates our personality. What kind of family would want a kid only on the condition of cleaning his memories? But, isn’t the goal a successful adoption, and maybe having a clean slate would make that more possible. Don’t people avoid adopting dogs with “issues?” Is there a screening process? Should a family be able to select a child who isn’t “broken?” What if a free college education is included? How much are memories worth?

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Named “Top 15 Podcast” for 2020!

STORY SUMMARY: An “approved “government writer gets in trouble by the governing board for writing honest movie reviews. His run-away brother comes to his house to scan his contraband collection of books and invites him to join his rebellion by uploading an earlier edition of the book of approved words so the population can see the words that are missing from the current edition.

DISCUSSION: Interesting modern twist on the typical 1984 banned books idea. In this case, the words being banned are ones that might offend, or exclude, the general population. Brings up an interesting question, if you remove words for higher levels of anger and frustration from the vocabulary, does that have the effect of pacifying the thoughts of the population. Do ideas exist without the words to express them?

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Named “Top 15 Podcast” for 2020!

STORY SUMMARY: The main character is a passive University Professor with a nagging wife. For some reason he decides today will be different and he goes through the entire day saying, and doing, what he actually feels. The day goes amazingly well, with classes, with colleagues, and he decides this will start a new chapter in his life.

DISCUSSION: Mixed reactions on this story. On the one hand, isn’t it his own fault for not always saying what he meant and letting people walk over him. Did this unhappiness come on slowly? He doesn’t treat his wife very well, and, perhaps, too much of his attraction is only physical. Is this just an extrovert writer telling introverts, if you just were more like me, you’d be a happier? Isn’t this all on a scale, you have to balance saying what you mean, with being respectful of others.

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Named “Top 15 Podcast” for 2020!

STORY SUMMARY: The female god of a fantasy realm tells the inhabitants she is actually a graduate student researching AI in an MMORPG, and that she created them to see how they would change. However, the game developer is discontinuing the game because of the illegal gold farming being done in game for money laundering. The leader of the AI fight back by working with real in-game players to trade them in game gold for real world tools to fight back.

DISCUSSION: How easy or hard is it for people to accept the concept in this story, of in-game currency having real world value, and AI that is this advanced? What would it be like to meet your god, and know that you are simply in their video game? Given “Moore’s Law” would it be better to shut down the game now, before it becomes “too smart” to ever shut down?

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Named “Top 15 Podcast” for 2020!

STORY SUMMARY: Explorers find a remote island of civilized cannibals. The cannibals are much more technologically advanced, already having mastered teleportation and space travel. They have a debate to try and come to terms with the cannibals. The explorers are so offended they leave, but when they do, they leave several nukes and destroy the civilized cannibals.

DISCUSSION: Where do we draw the line on what animals we eat? Is all meat that we eat that didn’t agree to it an act of violence? Do you have a right to destroy those who have offensive values?

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STORY SUMMARY: In the distant future where all teaching is done by robots, a robot is given a special chance. If it can teach a little girl that is showing early warnings of becoming a killer when she grows up, it can be retired to the robot equivalent of heaven. If it fails, it will be decommissioned. The robot has access to all teaching methodologies and determines the only way to change the girls behavior is to give her the most extremes examples of her killing ideas, so as to offend even the little girl’s morals. After several attempts it doesn’t appear to be working, until an actual killer breaks into her house and nearly kills her own mother.

DISCUSSION: Assuming the “go so extreme it offends everyone teaching technique really works, should it be used? Should you expose budding killers to crimes so horrible it offends even them? Are there some teaching techniques that are off limits, even if they actually work. Is it okay to fail at teaching someone to break a thought process, knowing that failure will cause them to go to jail, or hurt others?

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STORY SUMMARY: A white-hat hacker is hired b a Presidential campaign to make sure there information is secure. She gets a call that the system has been hacked. When she investigates she finds it wasn’t a usual hacker in the basement, but someone highly funded, maybe another nation-state. She also finds some odd code. She takes it to a friend and, between the two of them, they determine it’s an AI program that has been feeding the candidate all the optimal opinions and policy to get elected. The hacker tries to tell others, but is set up and arrested with a deep fake, before she can get the information out.

DISCUSSION: This seems not that impossible. This is just a small step down the rode of AI and machine learning. But is that bad? Don’t you want doctors, actors, or judges to act in an optimal way? Or, is that impossible, because the parameters put into the AI are always based on the coders bias. Isn’t it the job of a politician to do what is a bit beyond what public opinion supports, but is good for the public? One thing is clear, this story was written by a person who really is a computer hacker of some sort, it gets so much right.

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STORY SUMMARY: Ex-military guy has his car break down and wanders into a remote village. A person is tied to a tree about to be stone. The village elder says under the tradition of the community, if there is a stranger in town, they can cast the first stone. The person on the tree was fairly tried and convicted under their laws, but he won’t tell him the crime committed. He does throw the first stone and kills the man instantly.

DISCUSSION: This was a really tough one for the group. On the one hand, we pay taxes and contribute to a justice system that punishes people, but we don’t know what each of them did. How do you know what this person did is worthy of death? How do you know if the justice system in this community is actually just? Does it matter if you are visiting the community, don’t you agree to abide by their laws? Would you need to know more? What if you aren’t allowed to? What if you change the scenario and they torture him until a foreigner can come to town to finish him off? What if your life is on the line if you refuse? Loads of spin offs that make this a really interesting question about cultural morality.

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