A N N O U N C E M E N T

[laszlo_jamf]

N O T I C E:

We require a sample of hair from each citizen.1. The sample must be no less than 5

Comments

[specialagentgf]

Why do you need samples of our hair?

[laszlo_jamf]

Because.

[specialagentgf]

That's not an answer.

[laszlo_jamf]

Maybe we're going to have a Bonfire of the Vanities. How delightful. Can you imagine the smell?

[specialagentgf]

Or maybe you're going to use it to keep a catalog of the City's residents.

[laszlo_jamf]

What's that phrase I see bandied about? Oh yes:

Maybe it's just for "teh lulz."

But I am a scientist first. And it is to that which I answer. If, let us suppose, we are not creating a catalog of residents, what else might one do? What else might one see? Suppose we are searching for something. Suppose--you weren't here for it.

[specialagentgf]

Then why not state what your purpose for it is? This isn't a double blind study -- there's no need to keep your intentions a mystery.

[laszlo_jamf]

How do you know that it isn't? How do you know?

[specialagentgf]

I'm a scientist as well. In a double blind study, you would be treating people, not gathering evidence from every single citizen.

If you're really a scientist, you'll know that transparency is an important part of the scientific process. And as your "test subjects," we have a right to know what your intentions are.

[laszlo_jamf]

Ethics! Well done. Well done, indeed.

I've kept my degrees, kept my name, kept the papers, kept the signs, kept the seals, kept the certificates, kept the notes, kept the lectures, kept the scrawled details run to faded pencil and dull ink in my mixed hand both print and script. My own hand. The alphabet soup that trails both before and after my name. I say I am a scientist. I was. I was. And I do miss it: my planetary dances, the slap and sting of Imoplex in development, the lectures to halls of students all intent on taking me down and not a one could touch me, the biostatistics, the details, the cast iron and the cradle, cotton swab and Baby Albert newly published, the frustration of the early days with Sasha and Gregor, the raging insult of covalent bonds...

But now I'm here and, despite all my intentions, I suppose all bets are off. I'm a bureaucrat now.

1/2

[specialagentgf]

2/2

[specialagentgf]

Transparency is an important part of the beurocratic process too.

[laszlo_jamf]

On what planet, exactly?

[specialagentgf]

Ideally on all planets, although I'm not so naive as to think that's always the case.

Regardless, I'm asking a simple question, and you have yet to give me an answer.

[laszlo_jamf]

Yes, and where I come from, a million bureaucrats are diligently plotting death and some of them even know it.

Why do we want samples of your hair?

Why 100 bottles of beer? Why a cup of sugar? Why obligations of crying? Why why why?

Socratic method: answer a question with a question: why do you think we want samples of your hair?

[specialagentgf]

Catalog of citizens. Genetic experiments. Cloning. Or even just evidence planting. There are any number of possible uses.

As for the beer, sugar, and crying, those are obviously just you flaunting the power you hold over people. It's childish.