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Every time I post a weapon idea, I'm reminded that there is no category for evil weapons. I think I mentioned this once before, but as is sometimes the case, my idea was percieved as a rant at that time.
Some feel that all weapons are evil, so perhaps the reason no such category exists is because
categorizing them may be difficult. But then again, all "Evil" categories likely suffer that problem.
The Public:Evil cateory has an idea for designing bird houses atop electric poles in order to keep endangered species from being poached.
Home:Evil:Door has only five ideas in it, I'm fairly certain that if I do not already have five weapon ideas capable of being percieved as "Evil," I could make a few.
I suppose the idea of intentionally fostering the creation of "evil" weapons may be a detriment to the goals of the halfbakery. However, I think the HB is big enough that one more category would not throw the whole place out of whack.
Foam for men
Foam_20for_20men
Still don't believe that an idea can be evil? [ye_river_xiv, Jun 19 2008]
Landmine clearance with DU
Landmine_20clearance_20with_20DU
If any idea screams "Put me in Public: mineclearance:Evil," it's got to be... [ye_river_xiv, Jun 19 2008]
Dinging Dong Device
Dinging_20dong_20device
The sort of thing that spent nearly two years filling the "Product:Door:Evil" category [ye_river_xiv, Jun 19 2008]
[link]
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"Evil" is stupid. (That is, categorizing things by their intention is.) |
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I'd be happy to just do away with all of it; mark those things as "cruel" or "not an invention" that clearly aren't, and just stick the rest into their respective categories. |
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I was trying to accommodate people who think that kind of stuff is funny, but I really have no interest in hosting or fostering it, and obviously making categories for it was the wrong move. |
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Yes, I bet you can make up evil things. That's really, really great. Oooh, you're so evil. |
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I dispute the idea that you can think of an "evil" weapon. Evil is a choice and inanimate objects have no choice so cannot be evil. As close as you can come are Saberhagen's Berserkers or the Terminator robots, but even these were simply creations of evil people. At their height they are self aware machines for whom the notions of good and evil may be reversed for their perception. Weapons are just tools, so are neither good nor evil. |
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So I guess I would tell you there are no evil weapon ideas. |
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Evil weapons don't kill people, evil people with nice little shining pieces of broken glass kill people. |
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Then again, I would say that a particularly horrible cholera-based biological weapon would be evil, or flesh-eating bacteria doped lubricant, etc. |
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Ie items with only ever evil uses. |
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Doesn't mean [Jutta]'s obliged to host them. |
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//So I guess I would tell you there are
no
evil weapon ideas.// |
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Ironically enough this immediately
made me imagine a film called 'Evil
Weapon', where a gun possesses
whoever next picks it up, and so on. I
have a niggling feeling that the damned
film exists under a different name, not
that I'd want to watch it anyhow. Just
saying. |
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That flesh eating bacteria would be a great way to clean up a bunch of dead things. |
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You might want to post that possession movie idea.. I don't think it's been done, because the main character would essentially be the gun/knife/etc, and that's a tad silly. Many movies have been made where the user gains powers from wielding an object, but they always (unless I'm wrong) retain consciousness and clearly revel in the power. |
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Ehh.. on second thought (wiki), I am wrong. Seems there are stones and stuff that hold king's souls and what not. Touch the stone, and blamo! U da king. |
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[boysparks] Dead man's gun? |
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// a gun possesses whoever next picks it up // |
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It's Baked as a short story, horror genre, from the 1950's, although set in the 20's 0r 30's. The "principal character" is a Colt .45 Automatic (M1911). In the tradition of all such "posessed" items it ultimately betrays its current owner when it "sees" a better "victim". What proves the story is that the narrator sees the gun fire in the previous owner's dead hand to protect the new owner, by killing an unseeen assailint lurking behind him in the shadows. |
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"....for there is nothing either good or
bad, but thinking makes it so." (Hamlet Act 2, scene 2, 239–251) |
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(2 fries - not sure. I'd not seen that
one, but might have seen trailers for it.
Doing it as a series rather than a film
makes sense to me with hindsight
because the passing
of ownership at the end of each episode
is a natural way of achieving enough
episodes for syndication. |
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daseva, 8th - I suspected it would have
been done one way or another, a
variant of the 'hot potato', but couldn't
pinpoint it. Thanks to all.) |
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umm, All weapons are evil ...? no? |
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The intent behind the design may be "evil" but the technology itself is neutral. |
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// Evil is a choice and inanimate objects have no choice so cannot be evil. // |
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The idea that objects have "will" is defined as "The Pathetic Fallacy" and has long been disproved. |
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A gun capable of killing a child is equally capable of killing a deer for food, or a bear which might be about attack the very same child. |
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A kitchen knife can be used to cut bread in the morning and stab some one to death in the afternoon. |
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A hammer can be used to build a hospital, or bludgeon a victim. |
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There is a big difference between "multi-use" devices such as hammers, knives, chisels and axes, which are normally intended for peaceful use, and weapons which are specifically designd to injure and kill human beings; but in the latter case the intent exists in the (human) mind of the creator, not in the device itself. |
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//The idea that objects have "will" is defined as "The Pathetic Fallacy" and has long been disproved.// |
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Does that make you a mind/body dualist, or do you, like Scott Adams, simply not believe in 'will' as such? |
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Scott Adams ! Scott Adams ! We are not worthy ! |
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<Banging of Borg foreheads on floor> |
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As owner of said //bird houses atop
electric poles// I don't recall categorising
the idea as Evil - and if I did, I'm going to
move it into the new "Habitat" category
when we get one. |
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No need, xenzag. Evil has
left the building. Uh-uh-uh. |
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There are some very clever ideas in here whose genius only becomes clear if seen from an evil point of view. Don't ask me to name them - I've forgotten 100% of everything I've read here. |
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Interestingly, Google returns an empty category - Public:Evil:Animal which is inaccessible from the main site structure. I've never seen an empty category before. It looks like it was created to house Danger Bunny. Does this need a moderator tidy-up? |
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Sometimes someone knows something I didn't know, and I say "who told you that, was it Satan?". |
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Later, after removing the rest of the remains from the burn pile, I think about what it was they told me and how cool it is to know such things. What a marvelous world we live in! |
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Wagster, if you go to a category that doesn't exist (via outdated links from google or just by making up a URL), the site behaves as if the category existed, but was empty.
So, no, this doesn't need moderator cleanup; it is the result of moderator cleanup (specifically, of me tossing the Foo: Bar: Baz: Evil categories). |
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//Ironically enough this immediately made me imagine a film called 'Evil Weapon', where a gun possesses whoever next picks it up, and so on//
Not a gun but a car. cf: Stephen King's 'Christine'. Herbie the Love Bug falls into this category as well if you ask me. David Cronenberg is also a good source for such material ('Existenz', 'Videodrome' etc). |
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Lordy - you're quite right! Not only can Foo: Bar: Baz: Evil actually be visited, but so can Halfbakery: Deity: Wagster. Predictably, the second is as empty as the first. |
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Can we hit the brakes here for a minute? |
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I'd like to mention that I put "Evil" in quotation marks here for a reason. My issue is not whether weapons, or inventions, or ideas, or halfbakers, or buns, or fishbones or annos, or Doors, or "Public," or Satan himself is evil. |
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I did not post this idea to cause a controversy over the nature of good and evil, or the nature of inventions and ideas. Why am I being lectured on the fact that inanimate objects cannot be evil? My question was why some could be categorized as evil while others could not? |
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My question was this: "When I posted a new idea, why could I categorize it as Public: Evil, and Product: Door: Evil, but not Product: weapon: evil?" |
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Would my question have caused less of an uproar if I had asked why there was no "Public: Mine Clearance :Evil" category? Would I be getting schooled about how no invention is morally good or evil if I had said I wanted a "Science: Health: Sexual aid: Evil" category? |
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Is it the "Evil" that is the issue, or is there a problem with weapons as well? I notice a lot of weapon examples, but not a lot of discussion on the purpose of "Evil" categories in general. |
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I've got some lovely "evil" ideas for mine clearance and new contraceptives, I've been itching to categorize right too... Now if you want to jump on me because I say to myself "If any category is screaming for an "evil" subcategory, it's gotta be weapons..." then you may proceed, although I would like to point out that I am already well aware that the human operating the weapon (or vehicle, or sex aid, or giant gila monster) determines whether a good, or a bad outcome arises from it's existence. |
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// My question was why some could be categorized as evil while others could not? |
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At their best, the Evil ideas had a shared understanding between audience and author that assumed some sort of a joking "evil genius" intention. They were a riff on a shared subculture of supervillainy. |
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In that context, it makes little sense to bring in real ethically problematic things, because they're simply not very funny - capturing people for experiments in revolving doors is funny; maiming someone with ammunition isn't. |
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Generally, halfbakery categories are not an attempt to divide the world of human experience into fair and even chunks; they're an attempt to give stuff that people actually post a place to be. Calling for categories because something exists in the real world, or should or could be looked at in a certain way, won't get them created - we're reacting, not structuring in advance. |
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My problem wasn't with the weapon catagory and I would have said the same things for any inanimate evil idea. I don't really understand this place very well, but I do understand that to face this pack of wolves your idea has to be inventive, funny or something like topical (filled with bees or custard or something). Maybe there is a place for evil weapons if they were funny, topical or both. I never know all the ideas I've tried in that vein have failed miserably. |
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No wait, I went and looked my Land Shark idea was kind of funny and didn't tank. |
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Maybe they belong in the Superhero section? |
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//capturing people for experiments in revolving doors is funny; maiming someone with ammunition isn't.// |
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I'd say that's a matter of taste. I've seen far more saturday morning cartoons that aim for laughs with guns, or other weapons than with maniacal evil scientist-type doors. Haven't you ever chuckled at Yosemite Sam, Elmer Fudd, Tom and Jerry, or Roadrunner and Wiley Coyote? Ever carefully watched a slapstick comedy, or even wondered where the term came from? Ever seen the endless ball-shots filmed on "America's funniest home videos?" |
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Or perhaps that's a bit too low-brow. Maybe Wiley is not a proper Evil Scientist. I suspect that Dr. Strangelove involves a slightly more mature evil-scientist type weapon, and going back to a slightly more puerile form, there's the Austin Powers weapons, such as Project Vulcan, or the irish assasin's charm Bracelet, and the endlessly copied moon-carving lasers. |
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Perhaps you'd prefer not to watch things which glorify weapons. Well, you can spot several humorous uses of firearms shown in "Bowling for Columbine" as well. Some from historical cinema, others created on the spot. |
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While you have every right to decide what belongs on your website, I doubt that you have the autority to define funny. In the general population, I'm fairly certain that there is a significant proportion of individuals who find "Evil" weapons to be funny. Maybe this is not how the world should be, but it has been my experience that this is how the world is. While the nonexistence of a halfbakery category for evil weapons can be explained by designing categories in a reactive nature, I suspect that the dearth of "evil" weapon ideas on the forum is not due to a lack of originality in the designers. |
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I also suspect that other categories might have suffered from similar filtering, leading to a lack of Toilet: Evil and Sexual Aid: Evil ideas. While such decisions are fully the administrator and moderator's choice, I guess I'd feel better if that fact were patently acknowledged, rather than posting sarcastic remarks such as: |
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//Yes, I bet you can make up evil things. That's really, really great. Oooh, you're so evil.// |
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We all know you're a human, so be one. Go ahead and tell us you have preferences. If you're getting really emotional you can even try to explain why. |
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I know this is no democracy but I have changed my "vote" on this. The tipping point for me was the point-of-view gun from the HHGTTG movie. It is a weapon and it is evil and it is funny. |
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got a "South Park" video game years ago; one of the weapons turned the opponent into a turkey; another made them dance around while singing "I'm a little teapot" or something... not evil, but funny. |
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Real evil lies in inappropriate usage of a weapon, not the weapon itself; arguably some weapons should never be used, so possibly they could be called "evil", but not something I want to see on this site. |
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// arguably some weapons should never be used // |
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It comes back to the definition of "weapon" - probably, "a device, system or thing which has no other use or purpose other than to cause harm to a human being" |
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Is a hunting rifle, where the target is intentionaly selected and used for food, a weapon or a tool, when used for its itended purpose ? |
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By the definiton above, knives aren't weapons per se. They can be used as weapons, but they are in fact multi purpose tools. |
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So, cluster bombs, machine guns and land mines fall under the weapon definition. Intriguingly, nuclear devices probably aren't; they have a real but currently unexploited potential for use off-planet, for mining etc. |
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Equating "evil" with "malicious", all items falling within the tighter definition probably can be automatically categorised as "evil". Thus an "evil weapon" is tautology. |
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Product:tool:evil would be an alternative. |
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I think if any current idea on the 'bakery belongs here, it might be my 'pez mines' idea. Then again, there seems to be a category for just about every kind of weapon. Categorizing by intent will just make it harder to search for prior art. Sorry pal, gotta bone this. |
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