"I died today"

[dickman69]

remember gumbo? that guy was a playa

i mean gumby

[+] Spoiler

[magma]

The point I'm trying to make is that the grounds on which you deliberate between the value of humans and other animals aren't really that good. Species are precisely collectives of organisms that can reproduce with eachother, and people are essentially the same. It might seem silly for me to say this to you, but to many people, not all humans are people, some are animals, others are property. Reproduction is still an option, but that clearly isn't what grants us equality.

I never said animals "aren't really that good", I've been arguing that people should treat dogs as members of the family.

My point is that people (and animals that can conceive of such things) always have to have priorities. 999,999 times out of a million, if you're given the chance to save a giraffe or your mother, you'll save your mother. The #1 priority for a human being is its family. Most people will risk their own life to protect those they love because of the intense emotional bond we form with our parents and siblings. By extension, the empathy we feel with other humans, being able to imagine how they experience poverty, mistreatment, even slavery, means we're always in a better position to sympathise with a human's plight than an animals.

Other animals are very important to me, they're just not as important as humans. I don't think that's really a very difficult concept to grasp, tbh. We have an inbuilt drive to have sex and breed with other humans, we end up depressed if we don't or can't. We don't have the same instinctive drive to ensure the survival of ostriches.

It might seem silly for me to say this to you, but to many people, not all humans are people, some are animals, others are property.

That doesn't seem silly to me, just irrelevant. Last time I checked, I was arguing in favour of my opinions, not the opinions of slave-traders. Try to stick to one conversation, it'll help.

Also, we tend to die, so the notion that we should value life based on our ability to create it doesn't seem thaaaaaaat solid to me, but c'est my opinion.

As for this last bit, if organic life didn't die there would be no need for it to reproduce. You're just rambling now.

[rickyarbino]

I know we care about each other and shit, but the issue is why. It's always why with me, it can't just be simple.
It was more that your view can be looked at as overlapping with shiftier ones. What is the need to reproduce? Why do impotent things still die? I don't think dying and reproduction are related like that.

[magma]

I know we care about each other and shit, but the issue is why. It's always why with me, it can't just be simple.
It was more that your view can be looked at as overlapping with shiftier ones. What is the need to reproduce? Why do impotent things still die? I don't think dying and reproduction are related like that.

We care because it's ingrained to care, it's pre-programmed. You loved your Mum more than anyone else in the world within minutes of her giving birth to you. We're built to care for other humans and animals is varying degrees and we wouldn't be able to care if it hadn't been an evolutionary advantage in the wild. Evolved traits don't appear for no reason. The family bond exists in all sorts of species; this isn't just a human phenomenon... a Lion won't weigh up the relative values of humans and lions if you try to attack its cubs, it'll just rip you to pieces; just like if I had to choose whether to sacrifice my child or a lion, I'd obviously pick the lion every time.

Some animals, like humans, dogs, dolphins and whales, have the built-in capacity to care for other species, but unless there is a psychological issue or a frankly ridiculous amount of consciousness going on, they'll still never pick another species over a member of their family. A trained dog believes you ARE its family, so it may die for you. A dolphin will play with you for fun, may help you hunt if it provides an advantage in both directions and might even try and save you from a shark attack... but it won't think twice about drowning you if you get threateningly close to a calf. Dogs won't often, if ever, form bonds with species that aren't dogs or humans... because they have experienced significant evolutionary advantage from joining human families but they wouldn't experience any sort of advantage running up to tigers and trying to lick their faces.

Individuals can train themselves or be damaged to the extent that they'll kill their own mother or child, drop nuclear weapons and enact slavery; most instinctive behaviours can be "unlearnt", especially when something as powerful as the human brain is involved but it doesn't make those behaviours "natural" and it doesn't stop the family and species bonds being definitive of our species. We are a species that has always lived in family groups, indicating a strong family bond and which have always joined together to form co-dependent communities, indicating the species bond (Note: Neanderthals *didn't* do this - it's a Homo Sapiens thing - they seem to have had the family bond without quite so much or any species bond). The existence of racism doesn't make it a natural behaviour anymore than base jumping, as it doesn't seem to have existed in all instances of human society (the various 'races' have clearly been mixing and breeding for millennia). The existence of the family and species bonds, however, are the most universal human characteristics going. We all, apart from the very most damaged, love our Mums and fear being lonely... because we NEED to. We wouldn't be able to sustain the ~15 year childhood if we didn't have the most intense bond possible with our family and we wouldn't be able to form communities like we always have if we didn't have the species bond.

[rickyarbino]

You saying that our ability to care for eachother is purely about programming suggests that we don't even have control over our actions. Why do we choose to do that? If you don't acknowledge that we fundamentally choose to do this then doing this doesn't even have any value, there really is no point in saving your kid instead of the lion if you aren't choosing to do so. What's more is that this continues in a number of ways within the species. For instance, let's say that you have 50 dollars, your child's treatment costs that amount, but there're two kids a few rooms down whose treatment costs 25 each. For the same price you could save two instead of one, but who do you save? We don't just look after humans because they're humans, magma.

[magma]

You saying that our ability to care for eachother is purely about programming suggests that we don't even have control over our actions. Why do we choose to do that? If you don't acknowledge that we fundamentally choose to do this then doing this doesn't even have any value, there really is no point in saving your kid instead of the lion if you aren't choosing to do so. What's more is that this continues in a number of ways within the species. For instance, let's say that you have 50 dollars, your child's treatment costs that amount, but there're two kids a few rooms down whose treatment costs 25 each. For the same price you could save two instead of one, but who do you save? We don't just look after humans because they're humans, magma.

How many times have I said family comes before other humans and they come before animals?

I'd save my child, obviously. So would 99.9999% of humans that have ever lived. It's possible to override that instinctive decision using our enormous intelligence, but not many people ever would.

If the same choice was between a human child and two dolphins, I'd pick the single human child.

Yes, the human brain is powerful enough to override our instincts. No, that doesn't mean our instincts aren't a core part of what it means to be human. Saving your child is the human thing to do.

[magma]

We don't just look after humans because they're humans, magma.

Yes we do, jesslem.

That's why whenever you find remains of human settlements, there are disabled and injured people in old age because their communities have cared for and fed them.

That's why huge tracts of the world have socialised healthcare, so that strangers can pay for each other's treatment.

Humans care for humans. It's what we do. You might be a sociopath if you don't and that's not hyperbole. If you don't care about humans, you're unwell.

[hubb]

continuum

[rickyarbino]

Again, you're stripping the human of their personhood because they aren't responsible for their actions. Unless there's a principle in human behaviour that dictates that hierarchy, but what would that be?


Out of curiousity, do you think punishment is appropriate for someone who doesn't choose to save their child in the medical scenario?



on your second post

No we don't, another proof of this is the fact that we frequently engage in wars, which don't protect humans because they're humans, in fact they hurt humans because they're humans.

[hubb]

You should read .something something....zarathustra by nietsche

you would love that

[magma]

Again, you're stripping the human of their personhood because they aren't responsible for their actions. Unless there's a principle in human behaviour that dictates that hierarchy, but what would that be?

No, I'm not. Every human is responsible for their actions and, as I said numerous times before, if instinctive behaviour goes against logic and/or law it can be avoided through our brain's intelligence; people aren't, however, responsible for their motivations that suggested the instinctive behaviour in the first place. For example, your inner-ape may always want to fuck the attractive woman, but your brain can remind you that you're married.

Out of curiousity, do you think punishment is appropriate for someone who doesn't choose to save their child in the medical scenario?

If they made the choice you outlined above (i.e someone lived who would've died) then no, of course not. I'd think it was strange behaviour for a human parent, but it's not "wrong".

No we don't, another proof of this is the fact that we frequently engage in wars, which don't protect humans because they're humans, in fact they hurt humans because they're humans.

Again, we're back to priorities. Do I really have to keep answering subtly different version of the same questions?

My family come first, my friends next, my community after that and my species after that. I'm sure you could find all sorts of granular steps and exceptions to throw in there if you want to extend this conversation into infinity, but yes, because of the complexity of human society, neighbouring communities can come into conflict over scarce resources.

We'd soon forget our clashes with other communities if threatened by an alien species.

[magma]

I have no idea what you're even arguing about now tbh. Are you just being contrary for the sake of it?

What's the actual point you're trying to make?

[rickyarbino]

This is a battle on many fronts, but to try and keep it clear; my main point is that dogs should be considered part of human families, but that was more with hubb. With you it's more that the grounds on which you assert the value of humans, and the hierarchy with which you evidence these grounds, aren't real.

And you are stripping them of their personhood because saying that humans exhibit behaviour for any reason other than choice is to say that they lack what is required for personhood; choice. That's why people can be punished and praised, because they as individuals chose to do whatever it is that they did. Doesn't make any sense to say that someone who is a person performs actions that you can't attribute to decision. Also why stuff like rape is wrong, because you're depriving someone of the choice to do something, therefore compromising their personhood.

If you take the medical scenario and replace the two kids with the original person's dog, leave the person with only £25 but the option to save up for the £50 their kid's needs, then I presume that if they were to pay for the dog and not the child you'd say it was punishable. The reason you'd say that it is punab because that's their child though, as is consistent with your hierarchy, because if it wasn't their relative you'd still say that it was punishable, wouldn't you? Or is it okay to let someone die because they aren't related to you? (that's where you scream out no... hopefully). At the same time you propose that dogs should be treat as family members while saying that humans come first and other animals second (without proposing a full ranking system either). Assuming that all family members are equal in your system, there's a pretty blatant flaw. If i'm not mistaken, that kind of contradiction is an inevitability of trying to superimpose the notions of hierarchy and equality. I personally am quite partial to the view that we're equals so I'd drop the hierarchy and, if you agree, invite you to do the same.

[magma]

If you take the medical scenario and replace the two kids with the original person's dog, leave the person with only £25 but the option to save up for the £50 their kid's needs, then I presume that if they were to pay for the dog and not the child you'd say it was punishable.

Ok, I can't really be bothered to answer every time you add a new clause to your 'thought experiment', but you can believe you're equal to a dustmite if you want; to me it seems to be needlessly overthinking a fairly obvious truth - that any species sees its own species' survival ahead of any others.

I'll carry on with the hierarchy that's been accepted by the vast majority of humanity for 200,000 years, all observable corners of the animal kingdom for 4 billion years and has allowed humans to hunt, farm, keep pets and beasts of burden and become the most successful species ever to grace the planet.

Enjoy your cave and your bowl of lentils!

[ehbes]

there are some people where i'd choose a dog over them

[hubb]

dawgs > Dougs > dogs > ducks

[Phigure]

there are some people where i'd choose a dog over them

most

[rickyarbino]

If you take the medical scenario and replace the two kids with the original person's dog, leave the person with only £25 but the option to save up for the £50 their kid's needs, then I presume that if they were to pay for the dog and not the child you'd say it was punishable.

Ok, I can't really be bothered to answer every time you add a new clause to your 'thought experiment', but you can believe you're equal to a dustmite if you want; to me it seems to be needlessly overthinking a fairly obvious truth - that any species sees its own species' survival ahead of any others.

I'll carry on with the hierarchy that's been accepted by the vast majority of humanity for 200,000 years, all observable corners of the animal kingdom for 4 billion years and has allowed humans to hunt, farm, keep pets and beasts of burden and become the most successful species ever to grace the planet.

Enjoy your cave and your bowl of lentils!

I'm disappointed, son.

[magma]

Are you a vegetarian or do you value your hunger as more important than the lives of animals?

[rickyarbino]

I am not vegetarian and I do. That being said, I've been eating pretty much nothing but cheerios for about 40 days, does that make me one?

I would say that hunger is more important than the life of an animal insofar as the animal performing the consumption intends to continue living. That doesn't mean an animal isn't allowed to avoid its own consumption though... if it wanted to continue living.