The Ethics of Time

I've written in previous posts about people who assume that writing is the same as typing, people who assume that their momentary inspirations are more important than whatever you're spending months or years of your life working on, and people who assume that your time (personal or professional) isn't worth anything and can't understand why you would be offended at the idea of just giving them all of it that they want. I've never written a post about the ethics of behaving in this fashion because there is no other side; whether you find value in their activities or not, you have no ethically justifiable right to demand someone's time or effort for free, whether they're working on a novel, volunteering time to charity, or making mud pies in the garden. But is there a situation in which you, as the writer, artist or knowledge worker have an ethical responsibility to do anything more than tell the person accosting you (politely, if possible) to ask someone else?

Consider, for example, the case where someone has genuinely come up with an idea so wonderful that its development and expansion really will change the world for the better. It seems reasonable to assume that there are some inventions, like a cure for cancer, or a renewable energy source that would replace fossil fuels, that would improve the quality of life for so many people for so long that it would be heartless not to assist the inventor. There have been very few historical examples, since most often anybody capable of envisioning something that revolutionary is also, by definition, also capable of inventing it. By the same token, just coming up with an idea is not the same thing as creating it; I can imagine a clean, safe, renewable energy source that would power the entire world, but I could not begin to tell you how to make such a thing. And anybody who could probably doesn't need my help in coming up with the idea...

On the other side of the issue, there will inevitably be those ideas which are so absurd that if your well-meaning idea person even reveals them to anyone less understanding than you, he or she will be lucky to avoid public ridicule, threats of violence, actual violence, or (in extreme cases) criminal prosecution. Attempting to pursue or develop this idea will subject the inventor to personal disgrace, financial ruin, alienation of their friends, avoidance by their family members, divorce proceedings by their spouse, and destruction of their career if they are lucky (see the aforementioned violence and/or prosecution). In these cases it would seem heartless not to attempt to dissuade the "visionary" from pursuing the idea at all. But doing so will at the very least require you to expend hours of your time and risk losing whatever friendship you have with that person; in extreme cases you may find yourself practicing counseling, law or medicine without a license...

Clearly, there is a spectrum of ideas, ranging from things so incredible that anyone would have an ethical responsibility to help make them a reality to things so incredibly bad that anyone would have an ethical responsibility to try and help whoever came up with them get psychiatric help. But most ideas will fall somewhere into the grey area between those extremes, and the vast majority will end up being nothing more than meaningless boondoggles that will accomplish nothing of consequence while devouring your time, your money and your good name. The difficulty lies in trying to tell the difference - and figuring out what to do in the appropriate case. All of which leads me to ask the question:

Do we, as consultants, writers, businesspeople, or caring human beings have any responsibility to help another person evaluate, develop, or discard their visionary ideas? Does our answer change if the person who wants our help is a family member or a close friend? Does it change if there is a significant financial reward available to us if we're right, or a major consequence to us or those close to us if we're wrong? Or should we mind our own business, not interfere in somebody else's flashes of genius or madness (as the case may be), and offer our professional services at reasonable rates as always?

It's worth thinking about...