Ethical Question

[Yeratel]

Some books that have inspired murder on a large scale: The Holy Bible, The Koran, The Thoughts of Chairman Mao, Mein Kampf.

[Murphy's Stunt Double]

Dude! Way to put God on a guilt trip! Points for Yeratel! 

[Mickey Finn]

"That said, I can entirely sympathise with deliberately making the recipes for explosives in Fight Club (the movie) wrong so that nobody playing with them would blow anyone up."

The soap recipie works, though.

*looks innocent*

[Yeratel]

"That said, I can entirely sympathise with deliberately making the recipes for explosives in Fight Club (the movie) wrong so that nobody playing with them would blow anyone up."

The soap recipie works, though.

*looks innocent*

Heh! You are not the only one who's ever read something in a novel and thought, "I wonder if that would really work? Let's see what I've got in the kitchen cabinets. . . "

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

"That said, I can entirely sympathise with deliberately making the recipes for explosives in Fight Club (the movie) wrong so that nobody playing with them would blow anyone up."

The soap recipie works, though.

*looks innocent*

Well, yes, but isn't making soap one of those things most people do in the chemistry part of high-school science classes anyway ?

[Mister Mxyzptlk]

Well, yes, but isn't making soap one of those things most people do in the chemistry part of high-school science classes anyway ?

Play with sodium lye?  In a classroom?  In the 21st century?  Egad, dont you know that's dangerous? 

Naw, these days chem class is all about being danger free. 

[meg_evonne]

"That said, I can entirely sympathise with deliberately making the recipes for explosives in Fight Club (the movie) wrong so that nobody playing with them would blow anyone up."

The soap recipie works, though.

*looks innocent*

And thus the new found knowledge that Mickey's been out trying all the recipes?  :-)

As to safety in Chem Labs---don't they all still have the little gas spigots?  I mean who hasn't thought about moving the bunsen burner a little to the left....   Nah, my self preservation instincts always stopped me in time.

Edited: as usual I got busy reading the replies and forgot the reason to post.  I'm not into writing terrorist books etc, but I do have one killer idea that someone should write about.  It's up for grabs....

Someone poisons the glue you lick on the back of stamps.  Do it fast, As a matter of fact, do they even make stamps that way anymore?  Probably because someone else thought it an unwise practice..

[Yeratel]

Edited: as usual I got busy reading the replies and forgot the reason to post.  I'm not into writing terrorist books etc, but I do have one killer idea that someone should write about.  It's up for grabs....

Someone poisons the glue you lick on the back of stamps.  Do it fast, As a matter of fact, do they even make stamps that way anymore?  Probably because someone else thought it an unwise practice..

I haven't seen any USPS lickable stamps for quite a while. In The Name Of The Rose, the murderer put poison on the upper right corner of book pages, so when the reader absent mindedly licked a fingertip to turn the pages, they'd eventually get a fatal dose.

[trboturtle]

If you know where to look, you can find "how to" books on nearly everything -- including how to commit crimes. So, those people looking for ideas does not need to look to novels to inspire them.......

Craig

[Benchleyfan]

I would be weirded out if my plot became a reality, but wouldn't feel responsible.  Or I hope I wouldn't.  The guilt would be on the person who did the actual deed.  Some much stuff gets blamed on any media (including the news) that defense lawyers seem to have an easier time of it.  I hope this made sense and was of some help.

[gravesbane]

I want to thank you all. You've echoed by basic belief. I'm going to put the idea I had away for now, but I plan to return to it someday. Thanks again.

[Guardian 452]

I will give you one warning regarding working on books/stories about terrorists and the like.  It's pretty much for people living in the US...watch your research!

People have pretty much gone over the reasons not to feel guilty if someone uses your ideas, plus mentioned books like the Bible (I was going to make comments pretty much the same), but here's something else to worry about.  As I recall (could be wrong, it was over a year ago) it came from Rachel Caine's blog.

She had a friend who was writing a book involving unexploded landmines.  Said friend did a lot of online research, and also checked a lot of books out of the local library.  Hey, it makes sense...we all do research for our stories, right?

So what happened?  Well, to make a long story short, the person was raided by Homeland Security!  The sort of information they were accessing sent up red flags in someone's database, and they moved in seized all the research and computer equipment involved.  When they eventually got it back, it was apparently full of tracking devices/etc. (they took it to a friend to sweep for this stuff).

I'm pretty sure it was Rachel Caine's blog that led me to this story.  If it wasn't, my apologies to her.

Anyway, the moral of the story...be careful of what you research.  Your government may believe you have a much darker purpose in mind than writing a novel!

Keith

[Yeratel]

Supposedly, the NSA has it's own little Web bots that go crawling through emails, Web pages and forums, like this one, looking for keywords like C-4, ammonium nitrate, Al Quaida, Bin Laden, assassinate, etc., and flagging them for Homeland Security. 

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Supposedly, the NSA has it's own little Web bots that go crawling through emails, Web pages and forums, like this one, looking for keywords like C-4, ammonium nitrate, Al Quaida, Bin Laden, assassinate, etc., and flagging them for Homeland Security. 

So as a gesture of civil disobedience we should all use them as much as possible or put them in our sigs or something.

[The Mrs Geek]

Play with sodium lye?  In a classroom?  In the 21st century?  Egad, dont you know that's dangerous? 

Naw, these days chem class is all about being danger free. 

Until you get to Organic Chem were you get to play with things that will ignite with atmospheric moisture, like Benzoic Acid.  (Bear in mind I'm in Savannah, GA the must humid place EVER!)  That's right kiddies, the main ingredient in your zit cream when all by itself is highly flamable and explosive.