I hope it is not unethical, because I have made up an urban legend and done a pretty poor job spreading it around. Here it is:
Loophole in Customs Law Makes it Easy to Import Human Meat
U.S. Customs Law does not restrict the importation of human flesh for food purposes, since its definition of food excludes people meat. This has led several Hollywood celebrities [insert your (least) favorite celebrities name here] to take advantage of the law to practice the newest fad, called the You Are What You Eat Diet.
This diet, invented by [name of kid who bullied you in junior high school], purports to show scientific proof that you can lose a ton of weight by eating right, specifically, by eating only people. 400 calories of “autophagic diet foodstuffs” should be enough nutrition for even a large man, thus allowing a huge amount of weight loss with no muscle loss. The diet’s inventor recommends that only people who voluntarily donate their bodies to this diet be eaten, but it seems that Hollywood’s hunger for fresh person meat has outstripped the supply.
So a new trade has been developed, buying corpses exported from Rachmanistan, which is in the midst of a civil war. Critics say both sides in the civil war are being funded by fad dieters in Hollywood, so as to increase the meat supply and reduce prices. No Hollywood celebrity has answered these charges, however.
Revtim, can you at least give us a buzz word from your UL so if one of us does, indeed, receive an e-mail on it we can let you know? I’d hate to get it and delete it as trash when I could brighten your day with it! (Yes, my very helpful friends and family live for sending me UL’s and chain letters.)
I’m playing the stock market and I would like to let you in on a little gold mine.
There is a new company listed on the South African stock exchange, Momma’s Ice Cream (MILK), that is marketing a new ice cream specifically created for infants and toddlers that is made from actual mother’s milk.
The company buys milk from mothers, much like you get blood from donors–they pop in, donate a pint or two, and get paid. The final product is a nutritous dessert for babies.
Much of the milk donors come from poorer areas in South Africa, but it is spreading over Africa as many needy moms appreciate the income. A real win-win situation.
It’s already a big hit in Japan. Once the word gets out the stock is going to the moon.
Hey, I am doing my part to keep it going. Does anyone have the original link? I would have imbedded it into that post but could not find it. Oh well, keep the UL’s a-coming.
As for the ethics of beginning a UL. As mentioned above, a UL that could have detrimental consequences (i.e. don’t wear seatbelts) would be a pretty clear violation of most ethical codes. Another thing to consider is the consequences of a fantastically successful UL. Think bandwidth. One complaint about spam is that it hogs bandwidth and slows things down a bit. Not that your UL is spam (please oh please don’t tell us you started a multi-level trapazoidial internetworking ponsification zaphgrepplin marketering scheme!) but if it eats up a portion of bandwidth, is that not a wee bit tantamount to stealing? Maybe not too close, but there is a parallel. You might not be getting cabbage for your UL, but you are being paid in pride, personal props, whatever. I don’t know the intricacies of bandwidth calculation so it might not even apply, but it does apply to the question of the OP. I just wanted to throw something in here before this gets moved to MPSIMS.
Thanks for listening,
Rhythmdvl
Once in a while you can get shown the light
in the strangest of places
if you look at it right…
Interesting point about the bandwidth. I think that a good parallel would be to a joke that get passed around a lot. The bandwidth is about the same, and I would say that the entertainment value is similar too. So I think the cost in bandwidth would likely be worth the entertainment it might give people.
It would be in good company at snopes, as they apparently think it is great fun to start urban legends themselves, just to see where they go. I speak of the Song of Sixpence travesty which, if you just surfed into it rather than accesing it through the “Lost Legends” menu, is represented as being true. But if you look at the bottom. there is a teeny, tiny disclaimer saying “Ahoy, matey – the truth’s been scuttled!” I’ve ranted on this subject before so I will try not to belabor the point, but it strains the credibility of snopes when you have read the fine print to determine what to believe. Is this ethical? I just ask myself a question:
"What Would Cecil Do?"
TT
“It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.”
–James Thurber
Well, one time, here in KC, I started telling all my friends and relatives that Bert and Ernie were gay, along with a laundry list of ‘proofs’. I knew it was false, but after about a month of pushing the subject, the Kansas City Star ran a snippet in the FYI section about the rumor, and PBS’s reply.
–Tim
We are the children of the Eighties. We are not the first “lost generation” nor today’s lost generation; in fact, we think we know just where we stand - or are discovering it as we speak.
My Hollywood Cannibalism UL was outgrowth of one a couple of my friends and I made up. It started out based on the bogus civil war in “Rachmanistan”, which was supposed to have been started by some nasty corporation. I don’t know if we had a particular one in mind, but the original idea was to include an corporation just to be mean and slanderous. Naturally I excised this part of the UL … my point isn’t to be nasty to anyone in particular, but rather, to entertain smart folks and fool stupid folks. So I guess my point of the ethics of ULs is, if it doesn’t hurt anybody, it’s just fine. You could hurt someone by telling them not to wear seatbelts - not kosher. Or you could blame some bogus thing on them, like the “powdered fiberglass in Carmex” thang. I avoid those.
One way of proving you’re the one who started the UL is to code some text. This would obviously be better for a “faxlore” type of UL than a “whispering campaign”. You’d put in phoney place names, but realistic-sounding one. The phoney names would code to you somehow. E.g.
“Professor Badenov, in the town of Borisgrad, Udmurtia Republic, has discovered that the population of Rachmanistan has declined by 10%, particularly in the young and meaty age cohorts. His reports were publicised by the Reverend Tim of Rhythm Devil, North Dakota, and picked up by the Straight Dope Press.”
So when some goober says “Didja hear about the Prof. Badenov story? It’s even grosser and truer than the Richard Gere/small rodent story!”
You can just smile and say, “Hear about? I wrote that stinker!”