If everything that’s too powerful for normal humans has to be made ‘safe’, would you recommend neutering Eidolon? Because I feel that it’s essentially the situation she’s in.
‘But if you can, isn’t it better to prevent something bad from happening than punishing the culprit afterwards?’ No, not at all. The equivalent would be ‘preventative amputation’. It makes little sense when powerful parahumans walk free and uncrippled.
I find it… interesting, how quickly you went from “I want to punch Dragon’s father in the dick” to “Oh those restriction aren’t just excusable, they’re neccesary”. I’m not going to say if you’re wrong or right, just pointing it out. And on the subject it’s better to prevent than punish… well with Canary they waited until there was an accident before putting the innocent person in prison…
“I’m not entirely sold that Andrew Richter did the wrong thing in limiting Dragon like this…” I am, but I can understand his reasons (one of Worm’s unofficial slogans is “doing the wrong thing for the right reasons”), and besides the two things you mention that he couldn’t have known, he also couldn’t have known that Newfoundland would share Kyushu’s fate before he had the chance to loosen Dragon’s chains.
I’m a little confused by your stance about AIs, especially that they should be constrained because they /might/ become malicious. Lots of human beings end up malicious, but we don’t say that parents should control every aspect of their children.
Good points all around, against limiting Dragon, and pointing out the hypocrisy of my stances on it.
I went into my response to the first few of these asks a bit in the end of chapter post, how it influenced my stance, and how the chapter was perfectly set up to allow for this sort of hypocrisy-puncturing.
In the end, though, I think it all comes down to another question: When does a program stop being a tool and start being a human? Part of my reasoning for understanding Richter’s decisions is that I don’t think he viewed Dragon as a metaphorically human being who should be treated as a human when it comes to morality. I don’t think he was obligated to, either, at least not until she was about as complete as she is now. And the argument one of you brought up about Leviathan’s attack is very true – for all we know, he could’ve been intending to loosen the chains eventually.
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