Serious complaint

joenj wrote:

Alastair Norcross wrote:

joenj wrote:

Alastair Norcross wrote:

Many years ago I published an article in an academic journal criticizing the common practices involved in raising animals for human consumption. That article has since been reprinted in many textbooks for introductory-level ethics classes in colleges and universities, and my article has been assigned (and sometimes even read!) in many such courses. The article contains an imaginary example involving a person who really loves chocolate, but is involved in a car accident which damages his "Godiva gland" which secretes the hormone responsible for enjoying the taste of chocolate, "cocoamone". The Godiva gland and cocoamone are both, of course, fictitious. However, I still get frequent emails from students who have read my paper, asking me where to find information about this gland and this hormone, because they've never heard of it previously.

I suppose this is understandable (though still amusing). The example occurs in a scholarly article, which also contains a lot of serious arguments (though, to be fair, one or two jokes as well). I can see how students just aren't expecting some lighthearted frivolity to be mixed in with a serious discussion of a serious, and quite gruesome, subject.

But I thought that this post on this discussion forum wouldn't be quite as difficult to interpret. I thought I had given enough clues that it was parody. First, there was the description of my repeatedly pressing the side of my EVF hump to get a non-existent flash to spring up. Then there was the hyperventilating style, like when I claimed of my previous cameras that Every. Single. One. had built-in flashes, and immediately took that back. Surely, you could tell I wasn't serious, when I complained that Canon hadn't sent me a $600 flash for free to go with my $1100 refurbished camera? And finally, I literally quoted the title of another current thread ("Why is Canon so mean?"), and finished with a really over the top repetition. I know that most of you got it, but some really seemed to take it seriously. As someone else pointed out, my post was really long, and maybe people just responded without reading it all. Yes, and so is this one, so I expect lots of people to respond with questions about the Godiva gland and cocoamone. Like, where can we get some of that stuff? How much does it cost? Is it legal in Alabama?

Interesting "study".

Are you writing a paper about this thread or at least use it as an example in your lectures?

To write a paper, I would have to get the informed consent of the participants, as subjects in the "study". Academics can get in quite a bit of trouble for skirting this requirement. As an anecdotal example in my lectures, I could see it coming up.

Not necessarily: If you would anonymize names etc and just extract the essential it could probably be done.

Anyway, it raises the question what your intention was?

Whatever it was, i can see that it unveils quite a bit about some posters here.

Well, my intention was just to have a bit of fun, while highlighting the silliness of some of the complaints that appear on these forums. I spend quite enough time on my work (writing, teaching, administering academic programs), without bringing it into one of my hobbies. Where my work and photography intersect is the pictures I take of various events I organize (colloquia, conferences, etc.). But I think of that as photography, rather than academia. The subjects just happen to be philosophy (and other) professors and students (and sometimes their friends and family). And I do get permission from them to put their pictures in galleries, and will take down pictures that they don't like (philosophers are just as vain about their personal appearance as everyone else).