[arg_discuss] Topic of the Week July 20: Designer Responsibilitiesto the Public

[Naomi Alderman]

I'm reminded of this stunt, to highlight the ongoing plight of the victims
of the Bhopal disaster:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yes_Men#Dow_Chemical

It's up to you whether or not you find The Yes Men's line convincing that
what they did was nothing compared to what Dow Chemical did. However... I
think it points up that the *purpose* of the ARG is probably relevant to the
question. People might feel a lot better being duped that, eg, a company
exists which is trialling an interesting cancer drug if the ARG is raising
money for Cancer Research than they'd feel if that same ARG were advertising
a new brand of chocolate bar ;-).

- Naomi

On Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 8:46 PM, Brian Clark <bclark at gmdstudios.com> wrote:


> >What if a person with Parkinson's came upon our site via Google and

> >thought it was real? We decided there was an ethical problem there.

>

> Talk to us about why *that* was the ethical line for you. If it had been a

> biotech investor that mistakenly thought it was real, would it have felt

> like an ethical issue to you? What if it had been a job applicant? What

> about an academic researcher? What about a direct marketer hoping to sell

> office supplies to the fictional company?

>

> In general, I find the question of "ethical guidelines" dubious, at least

> when it comes to the deception example: there will always be people who

> don't take the time to determine if what they read is real or not. I worry

> that those kind of people think press releases and The Weekly World News

> and

> Peter Pan are real as well.

>

> Safety (like your "call the police" example) -- even of those not in on the

> fiction -- is a totally different kettle of worms and should be the subject

> of design considerations.

>

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