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Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)
Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17099
Location: North Carolina
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 Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2023 6:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Gord Green wrote: | | That's a better description Bud! |
Thank you, kind sir. 
The difference of opinions here stems from the fact that the word "misused" is a subjective term, based on the expectations of the object's designer OR the object's owner.
For example, if a person's intent is to kill someone, a gun is the right tool for the job. The gun is not being "misused" if the person with the gun uses it for his own intended purpose. The gun's intended purpose was to damage its target.
However, if someone tries to kill a person by hitting them repeatedly with a pillow, that poor pillow is being "misused". Clearly it's not being used for what it was designed to do!
In Real Genius, the young scientists created the powerful laser to be used for peaceful purposes. They were alarmed, however, when the realized the laser would be (in their subjective opinion) "misused" to kill people.
Here's where things get complicated.
Yes, the military wasn't "misusing" the laser, because the assassination of politic figures from high orbit was their intention all along!
And yet, from a moral point of view, anything which is used to commit acts which harm people without either legal or humanitarian justification can be considered a "misuse"!
For example, a burglar who shoots a store owner is "misusing" the gun, because it was not specifically created to commit murder.
But the policemen who shows up and shots the burglar is not "misusing" his gun, because it was created to be used for moral acts — such as target shooting, hunting, self defense, or the enforcement of the law.
So, my original statement shown below —
"They certainly weren't like the kids in Real Genius, who actually invented a new super-weapon which was then misused by the military."
— would be correct under that definition of "misused", because the original creators of the powerful laser (the genius kids) are the folks who determine what its intended use should be!
David, I understand that the unscrupulous government men paid for the research that created the laser— but they didn't "buy" the intended use of the laser, any more than a customer at a gun shop "buys" the intended purpose of a Smith and Wesson K-38 Combat Masterpiece — the beautiful revolver I carried for four years in the U.S. Air Force in South Korea and Ramstein, Germany as a Security Policemen.
My point is that the "intended use" of an object is determined by the people who designed and created it — not by anyone who buys it after it's produced, or even by someone who provided the funds needed during it's creation.
But of course, the intended use of the buyer is a different matter, and that's apparently what you've been talking about from the beginning.
_________________
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
Last edited by Bud Brewster on Mon Dec 25, 2023 10:48 am; edited 2 times in total |
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Pow
Galactic Ambassador
Joined: 27 Sep 2014
Posts: 3424
Location: New York
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| Posted: Sun Dec 24, 2023 10:42 pm Post subject: |
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We are left wondering just what exactly was the intention of the alien race that had created this fantastic contraption.
It seemed to be able to open gateways to other eras in the past, as well as the future of human civilization. Incredibly, the various denizens of those other eras were able to enter into the present day of 1985 when this movie takes place. And they were no mere images from another epoch, they were all just as deadly to our intrepid teenagers in their current reality.
Why would another planet want to open up portals throughout human history? If this was a weapon, just how did they propose to it against Earth? Maybe that's the lizard brain in me responding to it by seeing it as technology of war, of violence.
The aliens in question may have used the contrivance to study our race in order to see where we came from, how we evolved, our mentality, our emotions, fears — you name it.
They could better understand our ways and how we got there. They could attempt to understand us as a prelude to making first contact.
Now, why would the aliens create an apparatus that could allow figures from the past enter into our present?
Methinks there's a sequel to this movie. |
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