# Ethical Conundrums in Sci Fi **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 15, 2023, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-conundrums-in-sci-fi/984101 "2023-05-15T23:45:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2025, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-conundrums-in-sci-fi/984101/103 "2025-05-13T00:58:55Z")
That story was called “The Cold Soutions”. The pilot also amputated the kids legs. (In this story the stowaway was a child.) He was young enough for them to be regenerated. The pilot was not. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2025, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-conundrums-in-sci-fi/984101/104 "2025-05-13T01:29:11Z")
> [@JohnnyEcks](#): > > Resurrecting this thread because I just discovered that the short story “Why Don’t We Just > Kill The Kid In The Omelas Hole” by Isabel Kim was nominated for a Hugo. That story is absolutely horrible. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2025, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-conundrums-in-sci-fi/984101/105 "2025-05-13T12:27:34Z")
I recall a short story where humans use a form of fast interstellar travel called “metric surfing”, that works by creating new spacetime behind the spacecraft. It turns out that this is the actual reason for the runaway expansion of the universe; billions of spacefaring races across the universe using a drive that makes more spacetime. There are slower, more limited alternatives…but in the choice between immediate convenience that dooms the universal to dispersal in the long run and greater difficulty and inconvenience _now,_ virtually every race chooses the former option and leaves the consequences for future generations to deal with. The metaphor for certain modern behaviors is rather obvious. > [@Horatius](#): > > The problem is, the person coming out the other end _also_ thinks they’re just going to get up and go home, and are rather rudely confronted by the fact that they’re the duplicate, and they’ve now lost everything that was of value in their former lives. In at least some cases they also find out that _they_ are the unlucky copy who is on a suicide mission. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2025, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-conundrums-in-sci-fi/984101/106 "2025-05-13T13:24:42Z")
> [@JohnnyEcks](#): > > Resurrecting this thread because I just discovered that the short story “Why Don’t We Just > Kill The Kid In The Omelas Hole” by Isabel Kim was nominated for a Hugo. Ah, yes. A fresh take on Omelas. The sort of story that, if an earnest young newcomer writes it, it never makes it out of the slush pile (rightly, I think). But if a regular (published) contributor to the “professional” rate outlets writes it, not only does it get published in _Clarkesworld Magazine_ (a feat in and of itself to the people who never make it out of the slush pile), it gets nominated for a _Hugo_. Because of course it does. Like writing a story in second person or not naming your main character: one of those things that the people going into the slush pile are warned to avoid like the plague if they ever want to get out, and yet when established authors do it, they are hailed as gutsy and innovative. Who ever knew you could write something like _that_! And then another kid gets thrown into the slush pile and never makes it out, because all the space in _The Amazing Omelastories Magazine_ is devoted to the same damn authors rehashing or doing new takes on the same damn stories. Such a conundrum. Perhaps even an ethical conundrum in science fiction (just not in the way I think the thread means it—it’s about how stories get published, not the stories themselves). ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2025, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-conundrums-in-sci-fi/984101/107 "2025-05-13T14:20:40Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Considering that lovely kick in the pants at the end, I’d say it deserves one. Oh _damn_. I felt that one. ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2025, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-conundrums-in-sci-fi/984101/108 "2025-05-13T14:25:23Z")
It’s good bit it is also very: “I know writers who use subtext and they’re all cowards”. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2025, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-conundrums-in-sci-fi/984101/109 "2025-05-14T01:51:13Z")
In ST:DS9 Section 31 developed the morphogenic virus to kill all the Founders. The good guys decide to give them the cure. It came back to bite everyone in the ass in _Picard._ ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2025, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-conundrums-in-sci-fi/984101/110 "2025-05-17T13:27:08Z")
Are we just ignoring the elephant in the room, here? What the bleep is wrong with that author, that the only possible resolution she sees to the problem of “kid trapped in a torture hole” is “kill the child”? ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2025, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-conundrums-in-sci-fi/984101/111 "2025-05-17T13:48:44Z")
That’s a point. They get the kid out of the hole – why not wash, feed, and comfort it instead? Admittedly they can’t then display the child in public, because it would presumably just be taken to be put back in the hole again to stop the ensuing catastrophes. And, thinking it over: that kicker ending is really just a blunter form of what LeGuin’s saying: that people living in comfort are doing so by ignoring the pain of those who are supporting that comfort; and that we’re taught, in one fashion or another, that this is essential for the continuing function of the societies which provide the comfort. But maybe Kim’s correct, and it’s necessary to hit people over the head with a hammer. Though she still got the hammer from LeGuin. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2025, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-conundrums-in-sci-fi/984101/112 "2025-05-17T20:15:44Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > What the bleep is wrong with that author, that the only possible resolution she sees to the problem of “kid trapped in a torture hole” is “kill the child”? See, that is why some of us don’t grok “Speculative Fiction” we aren’t “cool enough” or 'with it". Even LeGuins story to me is really bad, and this near plagiarism is despicable. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2025, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-conundrums-in-sci-fi/984101/113 "2025-05-17T20:36:18Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > See, that is why some of us don’t grok “Speculative Fiction” we aren’t “cool enough” or 'with it". Even LeGuins story to me is really bad, and this near plagiarism is despicable. LeGuin’s story isn’t really a story it all - it’s a parable, and a pretty good one at that. The other one is a Tumblr post. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2025, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-conundrums-in-sci-fi/984101/114 "2025-05-18T00:52:52Z")
A Hugo-nominated Tumblr post! (I agree with you) ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2025, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-conundrums-in-sci-fi/984101/115 "2025-05-18T01:43:55Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I recall a short story where humans use a form of fast interstellar travel called “metric surfing “An Ever-Reddening Glow” by David Brin. > [@Chronos](#): > > What the bleep is wrong with that author, that the only possible resolution she sees to the problem of “kid trapped in a torture hole” is “kill the child”? I think your argument is with the characters who hate Omelas enough that they will kill the child in order to wreck the city, not with the author., who is not particularly in favor of the torture or the killing ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2025, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-conundrums-in-sci-fi/984101/116 "2025-05-18T02:08:21Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > I think your argument is with the characters who hate Omelas enough that they will kill the child in order to wreck the city, not with the author., who is not particularly in favor of the torture or the killing When the first anti-Omelan kills the kid, maybe. Or the second. But when it’s described as happening repeatedly, dozens or hundreds of times, without any of the anti-Omelans ever coming up with the idea of rescuing them, that’s on the author. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2025, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-conundrums-in-sci-fi/984101/117 "2025-05-18T07:44:56Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > A Hugo-nominated Tumblr post! Social media is the new New Journalism, apparently. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2025, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-conundrums-in-sci-fi/984101/118 "2025-05-18T08:36:28Z")
I read a story about twenty years ago in one of those FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION-type pulps–I don’t remember the title or author–but in it, humans have been re-engineered to heal from all wounds and disease and can eat sand if it pleases them to do so. A woman has her limbs removed so she can enjoy the novelty of amputee sex, knowing they’ll all grow back in a day or two. At some point, the central characters find a stray dog, one that was not subject to this re-engineering, and try to treat it for radiation poisoning because, hey, it’s a dog! They had never seen one before and it’s kind of adorable. A week or two in, one of the characters points out that they can’t justify the expense of keeping the dog alive and fed, and proposes that they slaughter, butcher, barbecue and eat the dog. Their respect for the concept of life itself has gotten to the point where they decide unanimously to do this. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2025, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-conundrums-in-sci-fi/984101/119 "2025-05-18T09:35:47Z")
“The People of Sand and Slag” by Paolo Bacigalupi. It’s a haunting story, actually, and you can read it online: > **[The People of Sand and Slag - Short story by Paolo Bacigalupi (Pump Six and...](https://windupstories.com/books/pump-six-and-other-stories/people-of-sand-and-slag/)** > > "The People of Sand and Slag" starts as straight military science fiction -- and then twists. It was nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2025, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-conundrums-in-sci-fi/984101/120 "2025-05-18T10:09:17Z")
Damn, that was quick! ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2025, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-conundrums-in-sci-fi/984101/121 "2025-05-18T10:15:16Z")
I just happened to have Gardner Dozois’s _Year’ Best Science Fiction_ no. 22 in the room with me. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2025, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-conundrums-in-sci-fi/984101/122 "2025-05-19T05:46:45Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > What the bleep is wrong with that author, that the only possible resolution she sees to the problem of “kid trapped in a torture hole” is “kill the child”? Tell me you missed the point of Kim’s story without _telling_ me you missed the point. > [@DrDeth](#): > > this near plagiarism is despicable There’s nothing plagiaristic about it. It’s commentary, or more technically dialogic critical response fiction Hell, critical response fiction to _Omelas_ is practically its own genre. And it’s sometimes good stuff (as Kim’s is). Here’s another great one: > **[The Ones Who Stay and Fight - Lightspeed Magazine](https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-ones-who-stay-and-fight/)** > > It’s the Day of Good Birds in the city of Um-Helat! The Day is a local custom, silly and random as so many local customs can be, and yet beautiful by the same token. It has little to do with birds---a fact about which locals cheerfully laugh, because... [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-conundrums-in-sci-fi/984101.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-conundrums-in-sci-fi/984101.md?page=7)