Quote:
Originally Posted by Fred Brackin
It wouldn't matter to them but it probably would to the GRA.
So if pheromones did get lawyered out of existence the GRA would be hunting down anyone offering such a template and adults found with such glands would probably be forced get a nanosurgeon-powered glandectomy.
So no real "normal" populations of persons with such a template. Just maybe a few individuals living on the run. Not the sort of thing I would spend time on to design templates that would end up that way.
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And if memetics did get lawyered out of existence, the Memetic Regulatory Agency would be hunting down car salesmen and politicians.
But both of those statements hinge on the implicit assumption that they
will get lawyered out of existence. Which is not a given at all: an aerosol nanodrug that afflicts 10 points worth of disads or less is LC4, one that afflicts more is LC3. Crybaby, a drug which does nothing but make targets more vulnerable to fear and intimidation, is LC3 (i.e. okay for anyone except convicted criminals etc.). Having them be a part of you should not reduce the legality, but in fact increase it, especially when talking about things like Charisma boosters, the same way as it isn't illegal to be naturally charismatic or beautiful or good-smelling.
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On a broader scope, I'm starting to entertain the notion that a clear-cut game-mechanical split into 'natural mental influence' and 'unnatural mental influence' is a bad thing, because players, in their metagame omniscience, start making in-world evaluations (such as "this should be illegal in the setting") based on their game-mechanical knowledge of how things work (which in-world characters don't have).