As the title says, I think it's a worthwhile question.
Consider: Genom makes such good products at such reasonable prices they have become basically the Megacorp. Most of the bad stuff related to them we've seen has been isolated more to Mason, and after he was gone things apparently quieted down a lot going by Revenge Road. Quincy makes very valid points as a businessman for the production of combat boomers to the peaceniks who complained. Plus Sylia notes the research had additional farther reaching benefits in Scoop Chase.
Additionally, okay if it's evil or otherwise needs to be dealt with, how? We're talking a multi-national organization that controls a very large part of many markets. No individual country would seem to truly have enough clout to force it break up with anti-trust/monopoly laws. Most who would try, might even face military retaliation from other countries for the attempt. Quincy seems to be a good CEO, and a rather reasonable man at heart. Attempts to take him out, if successful, would likely just lead to someone at the helm who isn't as decent.
Gemon is like Microsoft. They have been come so rich and powerful that laws really don't bother them any more.
Over all, I find that Quincy is nothing more than a successful business man that really does not care who get stepped on. However in order to keep a clean slate so that no government/police can touch him, he hires people like Mason to do his dirty working (wrong choice of words......) bring results. As long as there is nothing that directly links up to him, he normally does not care to listen to how his employees got the results. And even if there a problem that links up to Quincy..... well accidents do happen.
OVA.... Yes Genom is Evil.... their like OCP planning to take over the world one small industrly takeover at a time. They have the power to overthrow a goverment. To bring someone to superstar status......
2040.... Not really..... Quincy he out for the buck... it's Mason who evil........
ADP-TV..... himmmm Muneyoshi Kaibara, now this chairman of Genom is hard to picture, mind you he tired to live forever via transplanting his memorys into a boomer.... So he badder then the usual Megacorp CEO....
Parasite Dolls- Nan.... their out to make moolar in this show....
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@ Hawkeye: Even Sylia says that Genom has done a lot of good for the world in the OVA.
You've read it! You can't unread it!
Briareos Wrote:Well in the real world these things aren't that clean cut. Take for example Mr. Adolf Hitler, the propoganda campaign against whom has been so successful many consider him to have been evil incarnate, but might not even have name recognition on Stalin. It is debateable whether the United States and the world could have gotten out of the economic slump it had fallen into if not for this man's actions. A global level positive thing, by any measure even if the reason behind it was not.
if your talking about hitler waging WWII and by the same thing causing the world to get out of it's depression, it's a great topic, but please take it to serious discussion. mostly I dont want to ruin this debate on Genom with an equally good debate on Hitler and Stalin.
As for Genom, I'd probly throw them into the shade of grey megacorp bunch. Yeah lots of good here, some more evil over here, it kinda balances out. Which is something the show obviously wants you to think about. Even though this group is the bad guys and that group is the good guys, that dosent make them explicitly evil. Gundam poses this question(in the better series) all the time. It makes for a good show IMO.
Gigantic Unilateral Numerous Dominating Ammuntion Fortress
"Transhumanism is about how technology will solve the problems inherent in the human condition. Cyberpunk is about how it won't."
Also I think you have to consider whether a corporation is really "evil" by overthrowing certain governments, advancing the political careers of certain other individuals, etc... After all the fact that there's a system in place to allow them to do such a thing means that you can't lay all of the blame on such a corporation for using existing channels to further their own agenda.
Anyways, I suppose we have to define what evil is, and I guess if we use the general definition of "morally reprehensible" given by merriam-webster (it's a terrible definition -- great...morally reprehensible -- but it will have to do) then we can consider that Genom (in 2040 at least) didn't do anything terribly evil at all. They provided a necessary, and incredibly valuable service, supplied funding for a police force that handled the mishaps related to their particular goods, and sought to expand as all corporations do, but always with the consumer in mind. True, mason was genocidal, and probably a sociopath, but even he did what was morally correct in his mind, which is to say removing a major roadblock (mankind, in this case) in the service of future progress and evolution