EP096: Job Qualifications

[Anarkey]

I didn't get the idea that the clones were forced into preplanned lives, but rather were given the chance to live in any way they choose...until they become necessary for the campaign.

I got the opposite impression. The one who was subjected to hard labor said he didn't know anything before he was imprisoned, and the one who worked had just too perfect a life and disposition.

I think the text supports Thaurismunths' position.  The clones seemed to have just switched on reactions to their environments: either the sense that they've always been there or complete disorientation on showing up somewhere they didn't expect.  And further, if, as has been suggested further upthread, the whole point of having this guy in a forced labor camp is for the candidate to understand how the little guy can be wronged, he's not getting that through this clone....because it states explicitly that said clone has no memory of why he was wronged.  If there had been some kangaroo trial that put this clone in his circumstances, then it would seem those proceedings would be useful information to the candidate...but that information isn't there because the clone has no memory of it.

[slic]

...but rather were given the chance to live in any way they choose...

Not too pick on you, Holden, but as I mentioned earlier, the man is known internationally.  Unless the clones are surgically altered to not resemble the Candidate at all then there are a lot of people in the world that look just like him.  How could they not be treated differently?

[Holden]

And at the end, after the candidate had consumed their memories and said he might want more, his advisor said "we can always make more clones, sir" which lead me to believe these were the photo-copy type clones, not genetic clones.

Good point. Making more genetic clones would require decades. You are probably correct in your interpretation of the story. I like the genetic clones idea better, though. So that's the way I'm going to remember it. I'm funny like that.

The looking alike thing occurred to me while I was listening but didn't bother me at all. Fun story, but not one of Escape Pod's best.

[gifo]

It also didn't feel like a complete story. It's a neat idea, but there wasn't a great deal of conflict. Sure, the one clone was in a prison camp, but that was just one incident. And all the clones died at the end. But we didn't get to see the consequences of collecting the clones' experiences. And, since all the candidates are apparently cloning themselves to get experience, who cares if this guy is doing it too? If a main character is worth reading/listening about, then there must be something different about him/her.

I'd call this more of a concept sketch than a full story. It just didn't have the elements that I expect of a story.

I agree. The story shows the clones' experiences, reveals they're integrated into the candidate, and that's that.

I expected a snazzier conclusion: say the missionary experience transforms him so that he drops his cynicism and maybe even drops from the race. But all he gets is well-manicured experiences to match his cuticles and wardrobe. Yawn.

[BSWeichsel]

Really good story but it could have been shorter maybe a longish flash piece not sure though. Might have to give it another listen just to decide on that.

[wakela]

I think it should have been longer or shorter.  Either just the essence in a flash story, or have him meet some other machine people, or met regular people as a machine person.  I didn't feel all that conflicted when he made his decision to remain in the nano corps. 

An interesting story would be what happens after he signed on for life, and then discovered an underground of machine people trying to escape.

Also, personally, I couldn't picture a hovercraft or helecopter or spaceship with a little domed Buzz Lightyear head poking out the top and maintain the dark mood of the story.

Cool idea, though.

[Biscuit]

I'm going to be completely un-analytical and say "I liked it, it entertained me".

The radio person in me enjoyed the dramatic reading.

The writer in me enjoyed the prose.

*shrug* Like perfect pop songs, there can be perfect "ditties" of short SF.

[Thaurismunths]

I think it should have been longer or shorter.  Either just the essence in a flash story, or have him meet some other machine people, or met regular people as a machine person.  I didn't feel all that conflicted when he made his decision to remain in the nano corps. 

An interesting story would be what happens after he signed on for life, and then discovered an underground of machine people trying to escape.

Also, personally, I couldn't picture a hovercraft or helecopter or spaceship with a little domed Buzz Lightyear head poking out the top and maintain the dark mood of the story.

Cool idea, though.

Um.... I think your thinking of "Blink, Don't Blink."
But yes, all good points.

[fiveyearwinter]

I liked it, but I though the ending was a kind of disposable - all it did was neatly wrap everything up, instead of leaving me thinking or shocked.

Clones are interesting though. I loved the concept.

[FNH]

I thought the story was good, the reading was good.

What did the story say?  Politicians are evil, and will kill to get what they want.

[Nobilis]

When I got to the end of this piece, I thought, "Is that all?  That's the end?"

Are my standards too high?

Is it unreasonable to want a story with a beginning, middle, and end?

This falls, unfortunately, in the same category as far too many Escape Pod stories fall, that is, stories that lose sight of the fact that they're STORIES in order to get their heavy-handed message across.

A story has a beginning, a middle, and an end.  All except the last few sentences of this story are 'beginning', that is, setting up the situation which launches the middle of the story.  In point of fact, this piece is all about the situation.

Sometimes I complain that in this kind of story the characters don't undergo any change.  Well, clearly that's not happening here... the main character DOES change... in the final paragraph.  The results of that change, however, are imperceptibly brief.

What I think would be more interesting would be to take out about a thousand words of the rather overdone clone's life descriptions, and add a thousand words of plot.  What happens when the politician is elected, and then finds that his newfound ethics (from clones 4, 7, 11, and 21) find the method that he used to get into office (murdering dozens of people) abhorrent?  How does he live with himself?

THAT question is interesting.  THAT is the story I would like to hear.

[Nobilis]

I fully expected the final line to be, "So, you're ready for the debate, Candidate Berthold? Good. The first topic shall be: Clones' rights."

YES!  YES!  THAT would have made this a good story!

[wakela]

I think it should have been longer or shorter.  Either just the essence in a flash story, or have him meet some other machine people, or met regular people as a machine person.  I didn't feel all that conflicted when he made his decision to remain in the nano corps.

An interesting story would be what happens after he signed on for life, and then discovered an underground of machine people trying to escape.

Also, personally, I couldn't picture a hovercraft or helecopter or spaceship with a little domed Buzz Lightyear head poking out the top and maintain the dark mood of the story.

Cool idea, though.

Um.... I think your thinking of "Blink, Don't Blink." Wink
But yes, all good points.

Yes.  You see I'm actually running for president, and one of my clones is supposed to experience making an ass of himself on public message boards.  What I meant to say was that I thought it was a nice story for kids, but it seems the real story would be what happens after the dragon and the boy become friends. 

Man, I'm going to use that excuse for everything from now on.

[Leon Kensington]

This was one of my favorite stories for this year.  But I kept waiting for a "Killroy 2.0 is here. Killroy 2.0 is everywhere."  must just be too much JC.

[Talia]

The politician reminds me of a cross between (as previously noted) John Alpha, and Sylar

[Bdoomed]

The politician reminds me of a cross between (as previously noted) John Alpha, and Sylar

that is exactly what i was thinking!

[mummifiedstalin]

Something about this one just seemed like a parable without much in the way of a new insight. It's like Anderson had an idea, but forgot to think about its consequences. I mean, okay, so the guy eats his clones. He gains knowledge. Maybe it's brutal, but at least he learns? But I know we're supposed to think that this is horrible, so...So what? Media politics leads to immoral situations? Did we need this story to tell us that? What did this really add to that insight?

And I get that all the clones were leading some kind of sincere, even if boring, life. But that only paid off in the total contrast to the "emotionless" candidate.

I dunno. It seemed like the kind of story that gets a high school kid an A+ and a note that "you're going to go far," but it doesn't really do much in the end.

[scissorfighter]

As soon as I heard the opening paragraphs of this story, I couldn't help but think of the hillarious video of John Edwards fixing his hair in advance of an appearance.  So I created a little mash-up.  Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qVkJGy8Ewk

[Thaurismunths]

As soon as I heard the opening paragraphs of this story, I couldn't help but think of the hillarious video of John Edwards fixing his hair in advance of an appearance.  So I created a little mash-up.  Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qVkJGy8Ewk

I think this is in violation of Escape Pod's license, as you've edited the broadcast.
That's not to say it wasn't funny as hell, or well made, just possibly not legal.

[SFEley]

PUBLISHER'S RESPONSE

...Argh.  Okay.  This is the first time this has happened to us.

First of all, scissorfighter, I respect the time you put into making that video and your intentions in making it.  I know you did it to give respect to the story and to Escape Pod, and I appreciate that.  I don't have anything against you personally, nor against this content.  (Which, speaking for myself, I found neither particularly funny nor particularly offensive.  I know John Edwards personally, I had dinner with him before PodcasterCon last year and we shared opinions on politics and new media.  I think he's a good guy.  But that doesn't make me want to shut down anything critical of him.)

However, by the letter of our license, Thaurismunths is right.  The Creative Commons license we use is a no-derivatives license, meaning we do not grant permission for other people to adapt our product or use it in other works.  You're free to redistribute our complete audio files all you want, but you cannot use them for other purposes.  In this specific case, it's also my (non-lawyer's) opinion that the amount of audio used exceeds permissible fair use under copyright law.

Our reason for this restriction isn't because I'm uptight or hate mashups or anything.  If it were entirely my content, I'd say "Cool, do whatever you want."  Our reason for it is to protect our authors' rights.  When I contract for the audio rights to a story, I'm contracting for a very specific use -- we'll narrate their story in a single Escape Pod episode, and that's it.  All other rights are theirs.  I don't have the permission myself to give other people permission to use the story in any other way.  And some adaptations might be ones that the authors objected to; if, for instance, Kevin J. Anderson was upset by having his text used in this video and our license allowed it, part of his anger would (quite properly) fall on me and Escape Pod.  We'd have a much harder time getting stories under those terms.

Therefore, my immediate response to this video wasn't to say "Cool, go for it," nor to flip out and insist that it be taken off YouTube immediately.  Instead I e-mailed Kevin J. Anderson to find out what he thought.  He wasn't thrilled by it (in fact he was glad his name wasn't attached because he doesn't want to be perceived as endorsing Edwards-bashing) but he didn't consider it worth censoring, either.  His specific words were: "If I worried about stuff like this, I would never have a second left to do any real work."

So that's that.  I'm not going to take down scissorfighter's forum post, nor raise any objection to the YouTube video.  The author whose rights I am obliged to uphold doesn't object, so there's no stake in it for me to worry about it.  At the same time, though, I cannot approve of it legally or ethically, and I will do nothing to promote this or encourage others to create similar derivative works.

Future cases, if any, will be handled similarly.  I don't hold any ill will toward anyone who wants to create EP-inspired fan works, but my primary responsibility must be to the authors and their rights.  So I have to insist: if you want to do anything like this in the future, get the authors' permission first.  If you can get their okay, you're virtually guaranteed to have mine.  Otherwise, you just make life complicated for me.

Fair enough?  Any questions or problems, please direct them to me personally.

[Bdoomed]

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Mr. Anderson's (haha Matrix) name is attached to the video... in the description:

Here's a little remix of the classic John Edwards crazy hair video, along with a short section of the SF story "Job Qualifications" by Kevin Anderson, as read on the awesome Escape Pod podcast. Accompanied by Apocalyptica's cover of "The Unforgiven" by Metallica.

Maybe if ya change the description to saying that Anderson does not endorse any Edwards bashing?

[scissorfighter]

PUBLISHER'S RESPONSE

Fair enough?  Any questions or problems, please direct them to me personally.

Fair enough, definitely.  I was afraid of causing a stir, but hoped that the segment of audio would be close enough to "fair use" to not raise any concerns.  Really just trying to give everyone a laugh, and show my appreciation for Escape Pod.  You have to admit though, that story line fits the video perfectly!

So in order to show that appreciation to EP and it's authors, I feel like I must take the video down from YouTube, so I will.  Not that anyone's looking anyway!   But Creative Commons is a great thing, and I want to encourage media producers to use it.  So therefore, I also have to abide by the terms found in the CC-licensed productions I take advantage of.

I think media remixing is a tremendous tool in today's society, and would like to encourage others to employ it when and where ever possible.  Personally, I wouldn't necessarily say that strict adherence to the letter of the law is all that important either - sometimes copyright and licensing terms should take a back seat to the message.  But most of the time, and particularly in a case like this where you're trying to complement a producer and author, operating in a framework of mutual respect and good natured spirit is the more productive way to go.  So now, perhaps a day late, I've come to the conclusion that NOT publishing this video is the more appropriate choice.

To anyone who didn't get a chance to see it, just watch any of the multitude of Edwards hair videos and then listen to Job Qualifications yourself!

Thanks to Steve for his fair and balanced response, and for producing EP in the first place.

[SFEley]

So in order to show that appreciation to EP and it's authors, I feel like I must take the video down from YouTube, so I will.  Not that anyone's looking anyway!   But Creative Commons is a great thing, and I want to encourage media producers to use it.  So therefore, I also have to abide by the terms found in the CC-licensed productions I take advantage of.

You're a class act, scissorfighter.  I wasn't asking you to do this, but if you want to, I understand what you're saying.

And by the way -- because it really is the authors I'm concerned about, not myself or EP -- if anyone wants to use the intros or outros for any purpose, you're welcome to do so.  Just let me know what you do with them.

[Unblinking]

Politically centered stories are likely to be a miss with me, so this one had uphill battle going for it from it's very premise  I get my fill of the political on election years when I can't turn the TV on for 6 minutes without seeing 5 minutes of mudslinging political ads.  This has left me with little interest in seeking out the political in my entertainment.  But that wasn't really the reason I disliked this one.  There was no story arc.  It was a loooooong story setup, several times longer than it needed to be, and then it ended.  It left way too more vital questions unanswered, such as Anarkey's questions about the prison system in the democratic state, and the question of why nobody notices all the candidate lookalikes wandering around.  The really interesting directions that it could've taken were not taken, such as having a debate about clone's rights, and the complexities of merging multiple life experiences into one brain--would he end up schizophrenic?

[Malapropos de Rien]

This story didn't really seem to need to have clones in it at all.  I actually thought it was following the lives of a particular person in slightly different alternate universes until the first one is called in to have his brains sucked out.  Once that happened, and I realised these were supposed to be clones, it all fell apart.

Others have mentioned the hard-to-believe aspect that they all seemed to be unaware of their identical likeness to the candidate, and that they had apparently been manipulated into widely different career paths, and somehow all had completely different values, dreams, and intellectual capacities despite presumably identical genetics.

So, why clones?  Seems like it would have been easier, and no less ethical (which is to say not ethical at all), to simply select ideal specimens from the general populace who embody whatever attribute the candidate wants to assimilate, and suck their brains out.  Like Sylar, as mentioned above.

I echo previous posters' confusion over what the "message" of the story was actually supposed to be.