There is no need to actually bribe researchers. IT is much more effective to find some that happen to already be in your favor and boost their signal.
Say that out of 100 scientists of the relevant field, 90 think your product is toxic, two think your product is perfectly safe, and the remaining eight think that the evidence is not strong and/or significant enough to determine the product’s danger. Because as much as we’ve wished science to be clear-cut and deterministic, and as much as the scientific method tries to root it out, human’s opinions and prejudices will always have some effect. Maybe after many decades science will reach a (near) 100% consensus - but your product is still new, so disagreement can still be found.
You can try to bribe these 98 scientists to say that your product is safe, but that’s a risky move because even if a handful of them has some conscious they can go public with it and you’ll have to deal with bad PR. So instead, you reach out to the two scientists that already think that it is safe. You fund their research, so that they can publish more papers. You send them to conferences all around the world, so that they can talk to other scientists and to journalists and spread their opinion on your product. You get your marketing/PR/social media teams to increase the reach of their publications.
These two scientists are not being “pressured” - they can still honestly claim that their belief in your product is not a result of the money you spend on them, and that will be true. The thing that is a result of the money you spend on them is their impact. These 90 scientists that warn against your product can’t conduct as many researches, because they need to find funding for these researches themselves. They can’t go to as many conferences, because they don’t have anyone working their connections to get them invited (and to pay for their flight tickets). They don’t have professional promoters advertising their findings.
So even though only two scientists support you while 90 oppose you, these two scientists have - thanks to your money - more impact on the public opinion than these 90.
All without any scientist having to utter a single lie.
I had one in my mind for quite a while now. Time to write it down:
A famous-but-secretive order of women pulls the strings of all known civilization. They possess special powers, that allows them to do so, but even more than their powers they rely on their reputation and their vast network of connections. There is an important in-lore reason why the order accepts only women - the powers they use are defined by their gender, and the male version has some terrible aspects to it such that letting a man connect to it will be disastrous.
And yet - the order has a prophecy about a chosen one - a man that will use the power to unify humanity and lead it. For generations, the order’s secret agenda was to track the bloodlines that will lead to his birth, all in order to ensure he is born under their control and guidance.
But as stories go - that doesn’t work out. In the last generation, just before the chosen one is born, a member of the order betrays that goal. The chosen one is born outside the order’s control (though not entirely outside its influence), and grows up training under a master swordsman.
We reach the first book. Boy leaves happily with his big happy community - which, of course, gets attacked and destroyed. Accompanied by a member of the order he manages to escape the massacre , and eventually reach the desert. There they meet up with the Bedouin themed desert nomads. These nomad are very isolated and xenophobic, but of course they eventually accept our protagonist. We learn a few things about them:
While they are known through the world as fearsome warriors, in their past they were pacifists.
Their women can also use the same power the order uses. They just… use it for their own tribe’s businesses instead of interfering with governments.
They also have a prophecy about a chosen one that would lead them. And surprise surprise - it’s the same chosen one the order was going for. What are the odds?
Well, chosen one or not - there is a tradition to be held. So our protagonist goes through their tests, becomes their great chieftain, takes a chieftain’s daughter as his lover (which won’t stop him from marrying a more conventional princess), and goes on to use them to do his chosen one business and take over the entire civilization.
Maybe, but the USA seems to be making a point to make every social issue it deals with so much worse than the rest of the world. Even things like slavery - the old world slavery seems almost humane compared to the American version.
“Change your skin color instantly any time” and “teleport to the closest beach at any time”. I’ll use them to rob banks. Before robbing the bank I’ll change my skin color, and once I get the money I’ll escape by teleporting to the beach - while changing my skin color at the same time (not to my original skin color though - that one I’ll only use once I’m completely safe)
Only telling people my height in cm from now on
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cross-posted from: lemmy.ca/post/22055566...
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