# The Parable of the Honest Man and the Thing

Originally published: 2016-10-05
Canonical URL: /2016/Oct/the-parable-of-the-honest-man-and-the-thing/

"I really want to do the thing! All of my friends who are _just like me_ are doing the thing, and they look like they're having _so much fun_!"

"You can totally do the thing! You just have to sign ... this loyalty oath!"

_(reading it)_ "What? I can't sign this. It's, it's—" _(rising horror)_ "_not scientifically accurate!_"

"Everyone else who is doing the thing has signed the loyalty oath."

"Could I ... do the thing, _without_ signing the loyalty oath?"

"You _could_, but everyone you ever interact with for the rest of your life will assume that you've signed the loyalty oath; it would take five hours for you to explain what you actually believe, but no one will listen to you for that long because they'll decide that you're a hateful lunatic thirty seconds in."

_(A beat.)_

"You know, honestly, my life is fine as it is. I don't need to do the thing. I'm glad my friends are having fun."

_([dies of cardiac disease fifty years later](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2016/05/more-running/) without having done the thing)_

_(Earth is consumed in a self-replicating nanotechnology accident)_