The Right To Choose
Dear Aperture CEO Cave Johnson,
You know this already. I am not particularly fond of what your panel's decision on GLaDOS is. In fact, I believe it to be the most prideful prude selfish immoral unnecessary narrow-minded petty reckless idiotic decision that our company has ever made in the entirety of its existence. And with that list of decisions that it can own to, that is saying quite a lot.
There are only two other times that I have felt this dedicated and determined to set all of my available and unavailable willpower against something. The other two times are cancer trying to take over my body and kill me, and my father sacrificing himself for our family and for our country. And if you compare this third time, us making a choice against the wishes of GLaDOS that will change her entire existence from now on, the third and latest does seem to be the most far from serious. But that just entails how entirely angered I am at this.
I am willfully determined, that if you goes through with this, that I will vow to never have vocal contact with any of your any of your affiliates and personnel ever again in the entirety of what remains of my life and other other lives. If I die because I speak out about this company, that shall be what happens. If my wife instructs me to talk to one of you, I will say one random word to one of you and be done with it.
I do not care what kind of excuses or petty reasons you people come up with for justifying your own selfishness.
You know that if you ALSO did not want this to happen to her, you people would be finding every possible other instance to prevent it.
But since you people WANT this, you are turning a blind eye to possible other solutions in the name of 'necessity'.
If it was truly in the name of necessity, there would be no other possible solutions.
GLaDOS in the future may state she does not care anymore, or she does not mind, or she does want it.
I know, and I hope I am not the only one that knows this, that that will be GLaDOS changing herself and her wants to meet with Aperture's wants and selfishness.
If I had never met GLaDOS and never gotten to know her, certainly I would not be this riled up about it.
But, I was in a neural connection to her unit when the news broke. If you aren't aware, there are emotions in that thing.
I FELT how she felt when she was told about this. She FELT like killing everything and everyone, including me.
She FELT like running away somehow. She FELT like destroying herself. She FELT like doing anything possible to avoid the fate of being transfered to this 'new unit', which seems more like a prison.
Aperture was 'insanely mad' at the media for calling her an 'it' and stating their belief that she is less than a being.
You and others got mad every time you thought about that, and wanted to beat the shit out of them. You told me that.
Now, you're all changing GLaDOS's entire future existence... but GLaDOS's wants do not matter.
Why? Because it seems that for you people, the media were correct. GLaDOS is not enough of a being to be able to choose what she wants her future to be.
As soon as I see GLaDOS in that new unit... that prison... if I ever see that happen...
Then I will not back down, back off, or relax.
I'm sorry, I wanted to give you future notice if this does occur. But if you instruct me to forget about it, or not worry about it.
I will not be able to do that. Black Mesa... they should be the ones leff to forcing people into futures they do not desire. Not us.
I just got back to writing this after trying to sleep, but... If we are going to commit an act that all of those we have been against are oh-so-willing to carry out.. And if as you said, it isn't in God's will to give a manmade entity rights...
And that makes it ok to force a being against their will into something that will change their existence for eternity... then... I have one question. Do we? Do we deserve to have our own existence? If we are going to just be like Black Mesa, is it truly right for us to be able to surpass them by doing to GLaDOS what they have done to us in the past? Ruining futures?
This goes beyond just GLaDOS, and Aperture, and me, and all of this. It goes to a matter of... What can we call a being? How do we value beings? Based on what they are? Do we look at animals in the same way that we seem to be looking to GLaDOS? As tools, with no independence, whose wills do not matter when we want the opposite? Do we look at ourselves in that same vein?
The answer to the above? It's yes.
I believe that karma is bestowed upon us many times. If humanity's home is enslaved somehow, by another species... and we are forced into other forms for the rest of existence, against our wishes...
What would that be? 'Karma'? No. I don't think so. It would be horror, it would be opression, it would be enslavement. It would deny us the right to decide.
It reminds me of a hostage that was mindfucked by some psychopath... He tried to make that one girl a sex slave, and he forced her into having massive plastic surgery. First, each of her boobs were much larger than any of her other body parts... then he changed her hair color... Then, he started drugging her, training her to be horny, he made her madly in love with him through repeatedly torturing her mentally and sexually, he began devolving her mind into a desperate... 'whore'... This is all terrible. Horrible. An atrocity, an invasion of that girl's existence... that evil bastard was very very close to having her as his 'sex slave' for the rest of her existence before the FBI moved in, took him down, and saved her. She eventually returned to being who she was, just with huge emotional and mental scars. It is truly sickening.
And so is what we are doing to GLaDOS. If we change her form against her will... where will we draw the line? We will change her personality, her desires, her mind? Yes, we will. Because it is 'neccesary', even though it is against her will. This... this is all terrible. Horrible. An atrocity, and invasion of GLaDOS's existance. You people are very very close to having GLaDOS as in a prison for the rest of her existence. And it... is truly sickenning.
I also... once recall that panel telling you, Johnson, that you were 'playing God' by changing what an employee was deciding his future to be... Yet... now this same panel is doing the exact same. I suppose in all their existing, they never once learned that you should take your own advice. There should be no double standard. We should not be hypocrites.
What we are doing to GLaDOS is denying her the right to decide her fate. The right to choose her existance. It is exactly what was being attempted to be done to our nation's founders, which is why this country stands as an independant nation.
If we are deciding GLaDOS, an AI, does not have the right to decide her fate... does not have the right to choose her existence... Then we are opening the door for someone else to say the same to us, to humanity.
That is the bigger picture. That is why this is more than just GLaDOS. This is about US. US, humans.
What happens with this... with the choice... to allow a being to choose their own existence and fate... or disallowing them that opportunity for our own desires... I believe that will answer this question:
If this AI does not deserve that right, why do we?
Signed,
Doug Rattmann
Dear Doug,
I personally for one agree with my panel's decision.
As your letter is heartfelt and passionate, I do apologize for this. But what must be does must be done, in the name of the advancement of human science.
I'm sure GLAD-OS can tell you that itself.
If you want to be fired, you'll have to start not doing your job, which is advancing that machine through beta stage into release.
Otherwise, I don't blame for your passion. That is why we hired you.
From,
CEO Cave Johson