Instigator / Pro
42
1596
rating
9
debates
88.89%
won
Topic
#1546

Persons recently painted with green pigment foam (full resolution in description)

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
18
0
Better sources
12
0
Better legibility
6
0
Better conduct
6
0

After 6 votes and with 42 points ahead, the winner is...

Discipulus_Didicit
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
4
Time for argument
One week
Max argument characters
10,000
Voting period
One month
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
0
1641
rating
63
debates
65.08%
won
Description

Full Resolution: Persons recently painted with green pigment foam must stand around all odd-numbered SCPs at least two hours a day.

Rules:

1) This is not a troll debate. The topic of this debate is in regards to the fictional incident outlined in the link below.

2) All events in said incident are by necessity somewhat open to interpretation due to the incomplete information present, however any interpretation made must not directly conflict with the larger setting of which this fictional account is a small part (hereafter referred to as the 'SCP universe'). Violation of this rule results in disqualification of the argument which committed said violation but not of the offending debater.

3) In the event that a violation of rule 2 is pointed out the debater making the accusation will be required to justify said accusation using only information available from the SCP wiki. No other source of information regarding the SCP universe is to be considered valid. A debater accused of violation of rule 2 may attempt to argue that no such violation in fact occured and if they do it is ultimately up to individual voters to decide whether a violation did in fact occur based on evidence submitted by the two debating parties and therefore whether the argument which did/did not violate the rule is/is not valid for use in determining the winner of the debate as per rule 2.

4) Lack of knowledge regarding the SCP universe as it pertains to rule 2 may not be used as an excuse to allow arguments which violate said rule.

5) The full resolution is an excerpt from the incident report mentioned in rule 1 and linked below. The resolution is to be regarded only in the context of the events of this fictional incident. No other interpretation of the resolution is valid.

This debate is being made under the 'philosophy' category because I suspect that the contender will try to defeat the resolution on ethical grounds. I am not limiting them to only making ethical arguments however. They are free to challenge the resolution on other grounds if they so wish.

If the contender does not agree with any rule above they are not to accept the debate but instead to inform me of their disagreement via PM or in the debate comments so that we can negotiate any changes they may desire. Acceptance of the debate without attempting any negotiation of the rules constitutes acceptance of all rules as they appear in this debate description. All agreed upon changes will be valid only once they are reflected in an editing of this description.

The contender may also propose to change the resolution to be any other 'suggestion' made or action taken by SCP-001-ex in the below incident report, however I the instigator reserve the right to choose whether I would be pro or con to any new resolutions agreed upon in such a way, just as the contender reserves the right to not accept the debate in the event that they suggest a new resolution to which I take the side (pro or con) which the contender had been hoping to take.

http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-001-ex

Round 1
Pro
#1
Okay then. this debate topic is actually happening. Alright.

Intro

All prospective voters should first read the debate description and the linked incident report at the bottom carefully so as to know what this debate is actually about before continuing on to read the debate.

Done reading now? Good. Let us continue the intro.

As this debate relates to a fictional event occurring, importantly, within a fictional universe (hereafter the 'SCP universe') which I suspect to be not well known to most prospective voters I will say now that any potentially obscure terminology I use in relation to said universe will be tagged and defined at the bottom of my round arguments (1)

This debate is in regards to the 'suggestion' made by the AK9 near the end of the linked incident report about amending Foundation (2) containment procedures to require personnel to be painted green and stand around certain anomalies (3) during the time that the AK9 had effectively taken control of the Foundation. I will argue that this suggestion is something that the Foundation ought to implement while my opponent will argue the reverse.

Morality of the actions of AK9

In the first part of this round I wish to clarify that I do not necessarily support/approve of all actions taken by SCP-001-ex (4) in the above incident report. During these events SCP-001-ex appears to have become sentient, possibly even sapient (whether this apparent development of self-awareness by SCP-001-ex was natural or the result of anomalous activity is left unclear) and commits a number of atrocities in order to fulfill what it perceives as its ultimate purpose. This includes the subversion of the O-5 council (5) and the temporary neutralization of the Ethics Committee (6), not to mention its highly questionable recommendations made regarding the containment procedures for SCP-2717. Some of these actions are in my opinion unjustifiable and I will not attempt to justify them but I do not believe that these actions should reflect negatively on the proposed action which constitutes our resolution.

Just as a person may do some things which are good and some things which are bad so does SCP-001-ex do some things which are good and some things which are bad. The fact that some bad things are done does not mean that all things done are bad. Import to remember for later however is that as a machine ALL things done by SCP-001-ex, both the good and the bad, are done in order to complete its perceived purpose (that being the ultimate and permanent neutralization of anomalies via neutralization of all anomalies).

The Ethics of Anomaly Neutralization

While the Foundation could easily neutralize the majority of SCPs it is containing but chooses not to primarily for ethical or scientific reasons. There are some small number of SCPs that ave been neutralized or that the Foundation would like to be neutralized but these are the exception rather than the rule.

SCP-001-ex subverts this after its takeover of the Foundation by making it its mission to neutralize rather than to contain anomalies. SCP-001-ex does not do this for ethical or moral reasons but rather because that is how it interprets its programming. It was told to permanently contain anomalies and it sees the easiest way of doing that as being by eliminating all anomalies. Though this decision was not made for ethical reasons however we can examine the ethics behind it.

The Foundation does a lot of bad things in order to fulfill their mission. A lot of bad things. For a small sample of what kinds of things the Foundation finds acceptable for the greater good one can read the experiment logs for SCP-096 or the file for SCP-231. These things are seen as necessary due to the Foundations unwillingness or occasionally their inability to neutralize anomalies. In a world where neutralization of the anomalous is possible however (a possibility presented by SCP-001-ex) all these evils done 'for the greater good' (which I will probably expand upon in a later round) become no longer necessary. In following the instructions of SCP-001-ex this can be achieved.

As I said before this does not mean I support all actions taken by SCP-001-ex in its attempt to obtain this goal, but I do think that in the particular instance of the resolution "Persons recently painted with green pigment foam must stand around all odd-numbered SCPs at least two hours a day" we are justified in giving the idea a try.

Footnotes

1) Like so.

2) Within the SCP universe the SCP Foundation is a highly secretive non-governmental organization which is financially and logistically supported by several governments in the SCP universe. Their mission statement (SCP in this context stands for Secure Contain Protect) is to prevent the public from becoming aware of the existence of anomalies in order to maintain 'normalcy'.

3) Anomalies are various objects, areas, phenomenon, people etc. which do not follow known laws of physics or are simply a threat to what the general public percieves as 'normal'. Anomalies which are contained by the Foundation are assigned numerical designations in an 'SCP-XXXX' format, for example SCP-005 is a key that opens anything, SCP-009 is a form of 'assimilating reverse-water', etc. Containment procedures and descriptions for these items are available on the SCP wiki and make up the majority of said wiki.

4) As detailed in the linked report SCP-001-ex is the designation given to the AK9 machine. The -ex part of the designation indicates that although the Foundation is containing this machine and calling it an SCP it is not actually anomalous in nature. In other words as far as the Foundation is aware this machine follows all the normal laws of physics.

5) The Foundation is very hierarchical in nature. The O-5 Council can best be described as the thirteen individuals designated O5-1 through O5-13 that make up the most influential members of the Foundation.

6) Though the accomplishment of their mission to maintain normalcy often requires the Foundation to enact incredibly inhumane policies the Ethics Committee is nonetheless a critical component of the Foundation. While the Foundation commits evil to support the greater good, or oftentimes the lesser of two evils, it is the job of the Ethics Committee to decide just which good is greater or which evil is lesser in any number of cases.
Con
#2
Forfeited
Round 2
Pro
#3

Extend all previous arguments.
Con
#4
Forfeited
Round 3
Pro
#5
Another odd-numbered SCP:


Extend all arguments.
Con
#6
Forfeited
Round 4
Con
#8
Forfeited