iglak

i like anime primarily because of the in-depth drama in the story. american TV/movies can have drama in them, but it's usually kind of pointless: just there to add some flare to the whole thing.

(good) anime, on the other hand, has drama that simply exists because that's how the characters react to the situations. because of this, animes tend to have amazing backstories for characters, and often deal with motivation and various emotions and human qualities in detail.

for an example, take Naruto. it's a very popular anime that has been out for a few years, and is not even half finished (the dubbed version is also one of the worst i have ever heard).

the main concepts are:

- loneliness is the worst kind of pain.

- pain makes people stronger (due to the determination it gives them to escape that pain).

- evil is better than nothing.

- true strength comes from trying to protect someone you care about.

civilized society is comfortable, but it's not interresting. subjects like this, and related things like depression or murder or determination are frowned upon for conversation. most often, the reaction i encounter is "i don't care, i just want to be happy!" or "stop thinking about it and just do it."

so anime becomes the only source i have available to give me any realistic sort of knowledge of motivation and emotions. sure, i could learn it all by myself, but animes give a good base and point me in the right direction to learn more. this is especially important as a teenager, when the emotional and motivational parts of my mind are growing the most.

i find meditation, especially in an attempt to control your mental focus, to work quite well. and martial arts helps with that immensely.

also, browsing youtube; especially the anime music videos (AMVs), or anything that's funny.

also, watching anime or a good TV show, because i tend to get sucked into those.

also, video games.

basically, anything that you can put 100% of your focus into. overload your senses somehow.

http://www.switch2hydrogen.com/

basically, this group has created a system that converts your combustion engine (and computer systems) to burn hydrogen.

4 long-range tanks, which are comparatively small, and fit well in most trunks, supply about 450 extra miles worth of gas.

the system also seamlessly transitions from hydrogen fuel to gasoline fuel (automatically when the hydrogen runs out).

the kit also comes with a hydrogen generator and 5 2'x4' solar panels (the minimum Wattage required to run the generator).

the only problem is, it takes a week or two to fill the tanks using the solar panels.

Dr Dalek,

 

Yes, but they are doing the right thing.

one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter.

when the ALF uses arson to shut down a slaughterhouse, they are sending a message to other slaughterhouses that they will continue committing arson until all slaughterhouses shut down. that is a terrorist message, plain and simple.

i, personally, can't say whether they are immoral or not based on my morality, because there are many unknowns as to what they are thinking when they are committing the acts. i would assume, though, that they are dehumanizing the building's owners and workers in order to commit the acts.

now, as to whether the potential immorality of arson is worth it for stopping the potential immorality of the slaughterhouse, i don't know. there are far too many unknowns for me to think about that.

iglak

1) I do appreciate your attempt to lay out your moral system, but at the very least words like "dehumanize" and "humanize" havent really been defined. And when you say animals cant be dehumanized, then I think that whatever unstated definition "dehumanize" you have in mind must be an incredibly loaded term, think of it this way: by whatever process, such as killing a person or torturing them endlessly, leads to dehumanizing that person, the same process can be (and usually is) done to animals and affects the animals in exactly the same way.

 

2) (Also, I'm pretty sure that most of the things you accept as normal, like someone doing a factory job day-in and day-out, are pretty dehumanizing too.)

1) the point i am trying to make is that there is no such thing as a process or action that is dehumanizing. it is all about emotions and mentalities.

the secondary point i am trying to make involves the difference in potential emotions and mentalities between species (in a potential persons way).

let me rephrase something about my potential persons-esque argument: actions and logical thoughts are not a part of the definitions i am using for 'potential', 'desire', 'fulfill', 'morally', and 'equivalent'.

2) exactly. anything and everything that is dehumanizing is immoral. that is my moral code.

but keep in mind that all actions and logical thoughts can be either dehumanizing or not, depending on the emotions and mentalities involved.

therefore, all actions and logical thoughts are immune from my morality.

that's all i'm going to respond to, because everything else is a misunderstanding based on poor communication (on your part or mine, or both)

Experiment #137

it works like that (really awesome video)

iglak,

 

1) I dont think theres an argument that torturing and killing a child is the same thing as torturing and killing the parents, that to me sounds sophistry and word play. I dont see where the argument comes from.

 

 

2) Ummm... I dont even know how to respond to that. How do you justify that?

 

 

So in other words, torturing and killing children isnt wrong because it hurts the children, but only because it hurts people sympathetic to children? I have to admit, thats really counterintuitive...

 

3) ... however, you open yourself up to a number of objections:

- too much empahsis is placed on others feelings, and almost no emphasis at all is being placed on the feelings of the tortured being.

 

- you dont have a conceivable objection to secret killings, where no one ever knows that children are tortured and killed at all. We could imagine that couple have a child, but dont care for it, so they burn its face off with a blowtorch and no one ever discovers the murder... theres not anything obviously wrong with that based on what you said, and in fact it might be considered to the right thing to do (after all, if peoples feelings matter so much, you would take obviously steps to conceal your actions and avoid hurting peoples feelings).

 

4) - its not clear that you have an argument for animal experimentation, because I and a few million others definitely sympathize with the lives of animals, and it hurts us very much. 5) But then you dont have an argument for abortion either, because some people empathize with the life of an unborn fetus.

 

6) I've criticized a lot of peoples ethical systems for being internally inconsistent and naive, but yours is the first I've seen that is almost wantonly cruel.

 

 

7) This is almost more confusing than the first one, because children are oftentimes naive about their potential, and probably many teenagers too, and so now your original comment that killing infants because they are potential adults doesnt make any sense at all. You said that the claim "children can potentially consent to sex" is invalid until children understand concepts of sex and consent, but how is that infants are moral equals to adults when they dont even have the mental capacity to fathom adulthood or even see themselves over time? 8) Infants have no capacity to desire abstract things like influencing culture, so they dont fall under the scope of your potential person argument, and they are actually excluded from a claim of moral value precisely by your potential person argument.

 

9) And yet, theres still no connection as to how something desiring to fulfill its potential makes it morally equal to its potential. Just a simple example: Bob desires to become a president of the United States, but he is not entitled to a private jet and round-the-clock bodyguards 24/7, therefore Bob cannot make a claim that he is actually equal to the president. IMM desires to retire in the future, but she is not morally wronged for being denied the benefits given to retirees right now. Joe the factory worker desires to be the CEO of Worldcom, but Joe is not entitled to actually be treated as a CEO of worldcom. All of these desires to fulfill a potential dont seem to mean anything, and it seems rational to treat the people with precisely the characteristics they actually have than the ones they only desire and have yet to obtain.

 

 

10) I apologize for being presumptuous and arrogantly stating your beliefs for you, but I genuinely dont believe that when you wrote "human infants have potential to grow into human adults" that you actually mean "human infants desire to fulfill their potentials to grow into adults" at the time. I think you actually meant "X is a potential Y, therefore X is morally equal to Y" when you originally made your comment, but then you shifted your goalposts around when it became clear that "X is a potential Y..." isnt a valid moral principle... you made a mostly ad hoc redefinition of your original claim to hold on to your point. However, based on your comments so far --- and please dont take this as rude --- I really dont think you understand your beliefs or have thought them out very much.

 

 

11) At the very least, you're comments come closer to an actual kind of morality called preference utilitarianism, but you've still got gaps. For instance, you dont exactly state what a higher desire is or how to identify one (is the desire to masturbate in public a higher desire than a desire to live?), and certainly its reasonable that animals have all the same simple desires as mentally similar humans (i.e. desire for continued existence, to be free from suffering, to be sheltered from harm, to have something to eat, to be comfortable, etc). So again, its not obvious to me how animals are any worse off than mentally similar humans.

1) empathy is the ability to feel someone else's emotions, pleasures, and pains. parents tend to heavily empathize with their offspring.

2) i was referring to "child" in response to your question about children who are mentally or physically 100% incapable of influencing culture, now or in the future.

your argument is invalid.

3) emphasis is prioritized on the target's desires to fulfill their potential.

emphasis is prioritized as second to that on empathy with the target in that respect.

4) sympathize is different from empathize.

i have no emphasis on pain. pain and death are not related to my morality. inflicting pain and death when motivated by purely mechanical or logical means is also unrelatede to my morality.

thus, things that are unrelated: machines killing. sociopaths killing. killing sociopaths who hurt or kill. 99.99999% of animals killing. killing plants or anything from any other kingdom. empathy of physical pain.

5) i never said (paraphrasing) "everyone should get abortions" that's actually quite the opposite of what i said. i said (paraphrasing) "be aware, then make the choice"

6) no, just places emphasis on logic and mechanics being unrelated to morality, while emotions and potentials are related.

7)

"because children are oftentimes naive about their potential"

hence why they can't make important decisions like that.

"and so now your original comment that killing infants because they are potential adults doesnt make any sense at all."

i never said that. i said "killing infants becuse they desire to fulfill their potential to grow (on a very basic level)"

"but how is that infants are moral equals to adults when they dont even have the mental capacity to fathom adulthood or even see themselves over time?"

they're not moral equals to adults. i never said they were. i said they were morally equal to their growth potential. when i say "growth potential" (specifically growth, not anything else) i'm thinking approximately the derivative of the curve of growth over time at that point in time.

8) "Infants have no capacity to desire abstract things like influencing culture, so they dont fall under the scope of your potential person argument, and they are actually excluded from a claim of moral value precisely by your potential person argument."

that's because i don't HAVE a potential persons argument.

you're attributing my potential argument to mean an equal potential between all living beings, and that's just wrong. the potential changes over time, and even changes subjects over time.

9) "it seems rational to treat the people with precisely the characteristics they actually have than the ones they only desire and have yet to obtain."

that's why i said that people should be responded to in "the now", yet morally treated as their desire to fulfill their potential.

and because morals are unrelated to mechanical and logical responses like the ones you mentioned, all of these arguments are unrelated to my morality and invalid.

also, those aren't exactly desires to fulfill potentials. because when i say that, i am also not talking about mechanical and logical things, i am talking about emotional and... the level above that which doesn't have a good word for it.

10) no problem. it gives me the opporotunity to clarify my morals, and see if i can actually communicate them in words.

""X is a potential Y, therefore X is morally equal to Y" when you originally made your comment, but then you shifted your goalposts around when it became clear that "X is a potential Y..." isnt a valid moral principle... you made a mostly ad hoc redefinition of your original claim to hold on to your point."

i never specified one or the other until my last post. what i did in my last post was clarify my position to hopefully not allow for the same misunderstandings. i assure you, i have not changed moral positions, i have only clarified my wording.

"However, based on your comments so far --- and please dont take this as rude --- I really dont think you understand your beliefs or have thought them out very much."

i underestand my beliefs perefectly, but the problem is that they are contained within a higher system than words can define.

when i respond, evereything i say makes perfect sense to me, but that's because i'm aware of my emotions, context, and subtle definitions of words.

every word that is not specifically referring to mechanical motions has a gradient in which every pereson applies a slightly different meaning.

the words i am using make perfect sense to me, but i can't communicate my emotions, context, or subtle meanings through them.

words can only communicate mechanical and logical processes clearly. because my morality is unrelated to mechanical and logical processes, and insteaed uses the 2 levels above that, i have to try to use words to create a 2d picture of a 4d scene where the 2 dimentions that are visible are unimportant.

it's extremely hard, because everyone interperets the 3d words slightly differently.

11) i don't think i can state what a higher desire is. masturbating, however, is a mechanical desiree, and thus unrelated.

here is the context in which i created the definition of my moral code:

the 7 deadly sins are literally painful to me, both when i use them and when others use them.

through a LOT of thinking, i descovered that the sole connecting force between all of them is that they dehumanize the target.

in contrast, the 7 heavenly virtues humanize the target.

as a side note, the 7 deadly sins have counterparts that do not dehumanize, but instead provide motivation for the user.

from my experience, every instance i have seen where someone is dehumanized, it results in them feeling depressed one way or another.

depression, as i have experienced myself, leads to a feeling of a complete loss of individuality, or the ability to make choices. or as i describe it: death of mentality (the forth dimention in this context).

but i also thought a lot about mechanical processes and reasoning in relation to morality. i realized that the only reason we think of killing or torturing as immoral is because we think about it a lot, and we ascribe emotions and mentalities to it. so what is it that seperates immoral murder from self-defence or hunting? the conclusion i came to is that it is dehumanization of the target. hunting does not dehumanize, it is instead completely unrelated to humanizing or dehumanizing (proper hunting, not those sadistic ones).

sociopaths logically kill or hurt, unless they have no recognition of utilitarianism either, in which case they kill indescriminately; can we really call them immoral if they have no recognition of morality? they are killing purely mechanically and logically. additionally, because they have no recognition of emotions or mentalities, they can't be dehumanized, and are thus also immune to morality.

so the actions themselves are unrelated to morality, it is simply what we ascribe to them which makes them moral or immoral.

so the grand answer to 'what is immoral?' by me is: dehumanization.

but what about animals? they can't be dehumanized because they aren't humans. so how do i allow for animals too?

i know! "thinking of a life as less than it's potential". that allows for animals to be immorally treated too, but not as easily as humans.

but then the question that i didn't relize is: how do we define 'potential'?

well, i don't know if i can, because i'm thinking of a specific use of the word, one that isn't exactly common, and the definition of that use requires the use of words similar to potential, which will have different definitions for different people.

Iglak,

 

1) At the very least, I dont know what you mean by "influencing culture" --- I for one have a very dim and pessimistic view of humans as a whole, and I think 99.999% of people will live their lives not affecting anything. They wont contribute any scientific, technological, philosophical, artistic, or other kind of knowledge into the world that will affect anything, much less have a redeeming value. Some people live their whole lives amounting to nothing... I think at the very least, you have some loose ends in your philosophy that you need to tie up, such as what it means to influence culture, why influencing culture is morally relevant or be weighted in our moral calculations, and just how much or how little a person has to influence it in order to have a claim to moral value.

 

However, your comments are basically just a reiteration of potential person arguments. On my vegan website, I wrote a direct response to "potential people" arguments here:

http://juliet.php0h.com/article.php?id_article=6

 

However, at the moment, my website isnt working. When it does, you can read my article in full, but for now I hope you'll be satisfied with just the gist of it in this little post: basically the problem with potential people arguments is that they just arent taken to their logical ends, for at least three different reasons:

 

2) - Do you ever see people arguing that its ok to torture and kill terminally ill babies or the mentally retarded? No matter how you put it, those people wont affect culture, but people still believe their lives are valuable even if they arent potential persons, so the whole potential persons argument is based on a red herring.

 

3) - But of course, think about the argument in the abstract sense: potential person arguments literally say "X is a potential Y, therefore X is morally equal to Y". However, if a baby sets something on fire, people are willing to forgive the baby because it doesnt know what its doing, and it would be irrational to punish the baby because it happens to be a "potential rational adult" -- so, we're treating the baby with exactly the properties that it has right now, not its potential properties. Similarly, you wouldnt believe for a second a persons argument for pedophilia on the basis that "children can potentially consent to sex, therefore they are equivalent to someone who has consented to sex". Heres another one: you are a potential corpse, so it wouldnt be wrong to bury you.

 

4) If you reject those arguments above, then implicitly you reject the claim that "X being a potential Y is morally equal to Y", and so you reject potential person argument as valid basis for morality.

 

5) - If we had people being bred for experimentation, then those people are NOT potential members of society, they are only potential experiments. Would you say its wong to save those people? If so, then the value of those people doesnt necessarily depend on what their potential is.

 

 

6) Of course, you have to understand the mechanics behind a potential person argument to understand why its useless in moral philosophy: potential person arguments state that only influential members of society are valuable; the potential person is not valuable itself, but its only valuable for the sake of bringing into existence. But think about it this way: you cannot harm a person by not bringing them into existence, because there is no person to harm in the first place and you cant harm non-existent people (if you think people are really harmed for not being brought into existence, then your acceptance of abortion is inconsistent, but also you had to object to people using birth control and not breeding as much as humanly possible). So then, what harm is done by killing a potential person? You havent harmed any existent people, and you havent harmed the non-rational human because its only a potential and not of any value --- so the, theres nothing objectionable about killing potential people at all. Ironically, potential person arguments imply that it is morally acceptable to take the lives of babies indiscriminately, so its not an argument for preserving life at all, its very misanthropic!

 

7) ... but then, what if you reject the claim that its ok to kill potential people all you want? You would have to be rejecting the claim on the basis that potential people actually have value in themselves, and not just for what they are potentially, but this concession is a rejection of the potential person argument. And so, the value of babies doesnt depend on the potential, but some other characteristics that makes their continued existence valuable enough to protect... however, I'm almost positive you couldnt state just what any of those characteristics that dont automatically apply to animals.

1) that's why i said 'potential' to influence culture.

i believe almost everyone has the ability to be who they want to be, and more than that, want to be something fulfilling for themselves. exceptions include: mental illnesses that would prevent that, and humans being bred for experimentation.

people who have absolutely no willpower to be aware of their existence in relation to the world, and whom i do not have an ability to 'save', exist in a no-man's land type of place in relation to my morals. where i will not do anything immoral to them directly, but i won't help them if they get into trouble, maybe even if it's indirectly caused by me.

2) when talking about babies or children, one must take into account the parents as well. killing and torturing the child would be morally equivalent to killing and torturing and the parents (because they tend to be connected on such a level).

in the instances where the child is completely unwanted and unloved, then i support killing and torturing them.

however, there's a third aspect to this that hasn't been mentioned. when a life empathizes with another life, causing pain to one life will hurt the other. since children are extremely eaesy to empathize with, doctors and experementors would be less inclined to expereiment on them. and not just because they themselves could empathize and be hurt, but also because it would likely get public attention, and most of the public would empathize. so torturing the doomed child is equivalent to hurting all of the people that empathize with it.

3) that's why my emphasis is on 'potential'. potential does not mean right now. persons are to be reacted to in response to the current situation, but are to be thought of as their potential. a child's potential is actually different from an adult's potential. a child's potential is to learn, and an adult's potential is to succeed with their dreams.

"children can potentially consent to sex". no, children potentially learn and ask 'why?' and expect an answer, but consent deals with the 'right now'. children can potentially learn to consent to sex, but they can't consent to sex because they are still learning, and easier to take advantage of.

"you are a potential corpse, so it wouldnt be wrong to bury you." "less than my potential" means anything less than the best possible scenario. death is the fourth worst scenario. mental death is the third worst scenario. emotional death is the second worst scenario. motivation death is the worst scenario. combinations exist.

4) i do not advocate "X is a potential Y, therefore X is morally equivalent to Y"

i instead advocate "X desires to fulfill X's potential of Y, therefore X is morally equivalent to Y".

again, and for clarity, i state that i believe every person desires their potential, 'less they are motivationally dead (as is common in today's society). i also believe that everyone can be motivationally revived. however, if i am not able to revive them, and i am not able to find someone who is able to revive them, then they have no desires, and are morally thought of as useless (though not physically dead).

children desire to learn and experiment. children cannot desire to have sex, because they don't know enough about it until they become teenagers.

please keep in mind when i am saying this that i am not saying "teenagers should be told to have sex all the time".

i am instead not saying anything in relation to what teenagers are taught and suggested. instead, i am saying thatteenagers should be respected as desiring the potential to make decisions equal to adults, and also desiring the potential to learn everything they can.

5) people bred for experimentation have an invalid desire for potential. they can never achieve it (unless they break free, but that is irrelivent). i support breeding humans for experimentation (although it would be hard to morally start the process, because the first person wouldn't exactly be morally bred).

6) abortion is a touchy subject. many people believe that fetuses are capable of feeling and thinking in the most basic sense (very basic desires).

so my stance on abortion is: as long as you are aware that the child is yours and is capalbe of growing into an adult (satisfies the possibility of desiring potential for growth), torture and kill him/her all you want.

fetuses are in transition from non-existance to existance.

actually, scratch that. i am going to start having a defined stance on abortion as of now:

fetuses with a brain stem have the desire (in the most basic sense) to continue growing. stopping the transition from non-existance to existance is exactly that, and morally equivalent to exactly that. it's not murder, but it is not morally negligable.

destroying a fetus without a brain stem is almost morally equivalent to other forms of birth control, or masturbating, which have no relation to morality because the potential life has no desires and cannot have any desires at that time. although the fetus is transitioning into having desires, so it has minor moral basis.

7) good thing this doesn't apply to me.

my morlity is that "X desires to fulfill X's potential of Y, therefore X is morally equivalent to Y".

the characteristic in my morality not found in animals is the 'desire' part. most animals simply desire to live. higher desires should be treated with higher respect. but a desire to simply live and nothing else is low priority.

So if they succeed, are there gonna be aliens coming into our dimension like in Half-Life? lol:eek:

no, silly.

it'll be like stargate

1)

Because theres no argument that we should care about something before we afford it moral value. Simple example: Do you think the actions of the Nazis were wrong no matter how much or how little they connected with their victims. Do you think terrorists mentally connect with any of the victims they kill? Do you think sociopaths think twice about blowing someones head off? If so, then its pretty easy to see that beings can be wronged, even if their abusers are completely apathetic to their suffering.

 

2)

Because the discrimination is arbitrary and indefensible. Non-human animals are feeling beings with an experiential welfare, and they are the mental and feeling equivalents to human infants, so they have a claim to moral value equal to any infant's. The only difference between animals and non-humans is that they arent a part of our breeding group, but being a member or non-member of our breeding group doesnt mean anything, its not a moral characteristic.

 

3)

I dont understand that question, because its semantic nonsense. For example, the phrases "be less important than" and "is of greater importance" are moral evaluations, but they statement necessity [of animal experimentation] is being morally evalutated against the statement morality, which makes no sense.

1) my personal definition of morality in an absolute sense is:

thinking of a life as less than it's potential is immoral when influencing (directly or indirectly) that life.

this allows for torturing an murdering animals as long as they are respected for their potential. and most animals are incapable of influencing human culture. and most to-be tested and slaughtered animals are incapable of influencing any animal culture.

this also allows for discrimination in the sense of telling someone that i do not want them to influence or be influenced by me, and wish for them to leave permanently.

2)human infants have potential to grow into human adults, and are thus not the same as other animals.

i also approve of abortion, with the knowledge that they could indeed become great influencial people.

similarly, i approve of murdering humans if they are heavily destructive towards my or my friends' lives; but only in self-defence, not after the fact or before the destruction is necessarily going to occur.

and canibalism of someone who has already died has no relation to my absolute moral values, and i approve of it.

3) you're right. when i think about it that way, it's a very hard question to understand.

i believe Dr. Dalek was referring to 'necessity' with the belief that animal experimentation is a necessity to save human lives, with the potential that oneself might also require the result.

and i believe 'morality' is referring to the belief that every animal should be treated with equal respect.

so let's see, the question is asking:

why should survival - which to Dr. Dalek is uninfluenced by moral values, and of a higher priority - be given a moral value weighted less than the moral value of respecting all animals equally; or why should it be given a lower priority, and what are the terms of that priority?

or as a summary question, i think:

why is survival of myself and my species less important than survival of individuals from another species?

but then i guess that kind of brings us back to the beginning of the thread.

as Dave pointed out, comfort is different from happiness.

"not caring" is a strange subject.

the next step towards happiness is when you can listen to what people say and think about them, but not emotionally attach to anything. thoughtfully care, but not emotionally care.

then the next step is when you can control your emotions to the point where you only let them influence you when you want them to.

imo, true happiness is when you are able to do what you want without influence. but truer happiness is when you want something fulfilling to you, rather than comforting. and friends and emotions can be quite fun and interresting.

Well you're wrong about that, because I'm an American, and I don't think either one of those is remotely true. It's not a separate entity. There's not a "government caste" and a "citizen caste." We ARE the government.

i'm sorry, i meant to imply that it's not an absolute thing by saying "(general)". in the sense that one person does not matter, nor do even 20% of people matter.

the point is that the general population sees the government as one of those two things. this is evidenced and enhanced (mostly enhanced) by the medias.

also, i consider the government a seperate entity simply because i have no idea what they're doing or why. they keep lying and hiding things. and i don't think it's possible to be a part of something that doesn't communicate except to appease

<sigh> If you'd read Federalist #46 you'd see that there was a worry that it would not be a government of the people, if someone were able to sieze power. As in, say, a military coup, but then we haven't had any of those recently.

"A coup d'état (pronounced /ku de'ta/), or simply coup, is the sudden overthrow of a government through unconstitutional means by a part of the state establishment, that mostly replaces just the top power figures. It is also an example of political engineering. It may or may not be violent in nature. It is different from a revolution, which is staged by a larger group and radically changes the political system." (Wikipedia)

this is a stretch, but could a coup include planting a political figure into presidency, and unconstitutionally bypassing many checks and balances (or psychologically controlling those checks and balances with threats)?

meaning: Bush Jr. and conspiracy theories.

The idea that I should feel some sense of union with another human just because he is another human is just an opinion. I'd rather experiment on some rapist than on an innocent dog, rat, or amoeba. Just because he's a human doesn't make me have to like or care for him. In fact most humans are c**** so being a human makes me less likely I'll care for him! I am my own species - f*** the lot of you!

that brings up an excellent other question which i was hesitant to post.

why should we not discriminate? in general.

if you truly believe that the criminals should be experimented on (the murdering and raping ones), then i can't really touch you.

however, what's the limit? what if you were accused of a murder or rape you did not commit, and were put in prison? that happens every once in a while.

also, what happens when the criminals adamantly refuse? i suppose you could give them a sedative and restrain them. but that wouldn't be the best scenario, because it wouldn't be as much of a real-life situation for the drugs. the drugs may react differently.

but also, what about when the criminal is let go? i know the first thing i would do in that situation is kill everyone around me to survive, and i would struggle endlessly to get out of the restraints and kill my experimentors. this would make for a very dangerous job that many experimentors would not want to do.

also, what about drugs that are focusing on a certain demographic or peresonality, or a wide range of them? prisons inmates tend to have very similar personalities and demographics. it would be really hard to test appropriately.

so i guess i'll try to answer the discrimination in general question.

i'll kill you if you try to kill me.

but i don't mind if you simply want me to leave.

therefore, in the interrest of staying alive, i would rather not intend to kill or seriously hurt anyone.

You do realize that "the government" is not some separate entity, right? It's a government of the people. So a rebellion of "the people vs. the government" is a nonsensical phrase. Factions can exist, and maybe one faction controls the government another other decides to raise arms against that government, but that's not "the people." The American Revolution was different. Yes, we were technically citizens of the British Empire, but for all practical purposes we were a people ruled by a foreign government.

that's not exactly true for today's US culture.

the people are split into two halves (general).

one half believes that the government is a foreign harmful entity.

the other half believes that the government is an all-powerful entity (like an owner), who's duty is to make life better for everyone (or at least that half).

but the thing is, both halves view the government as a foreign body. and for all intents and purposes, it can be called one, because it does not give the people adequate knoledge of it's affairs, and thus little ability to disagree. it is acting as a controlling owner, not as a helpful organ.

I'd like to see how one could get "out of sync" and manage to get into another dimension. As I understand it, there isn't even any "sync" to be in. The universe does not have a refresh rate, unless it's just a simulation in an alien computer.

Planck time?

and pixels are Planck Length?

i'll summarize their questions for you:

why should we extend morality to non-humans who we do not easily mentally connect with?

why should we not discriminate against non-humans?

why should necessity be less important than morality?

Exactly! Heck, that even preserves Jefferson's principle of a democracy needing to have the ability to overturn itself when necessary. It seems unlikely that our overstressed military would be able to do much against the combined might of 350 million musketeers. (grin)

there's a slight problem with that.

the government isn't worrying about people getting weapons and starting a civil war. the government is worried about people getting the <i>chance</i> to get weapons and start a civil war.

muskets and othere gunpowder guns are... very rarely talked about in the context of gun laws, and only given a passing glance if talked about.

out of the 350 million, i'd guess that maybe 100 million would be able and willing to buy a gun (the rest are too crippled to shoot straight, or too young to know what they're doing, or are simply against owning guns).

of that, i'd guess that maybe 50 million would be willing to buy a musket.

of that, i'd guess that maybe 25 million would be willing to learn how to use their musket sufficiently well.

but reality will likely be MUCH less than that, due to the idea that muskets can't win against a modern gun.

the idea of owning a gun is not only protection against robberies and the like, but also protection againts the government if they ever decide to confiscate guns, or anything related. a musket might work for one shot, if you keep it loaded, but modern guns will always win out due to speed (if not accuracy and power too).

think about it though.

in a fight against 350 million muskets, what could the government use to win (not that winning would do anything, because everyone would be dead)?

tanks, jets and helicopters, machine guns and gatling guns, intelligent tactics, bombs.

now let's say that they're going against the more realistic 25 million.

let's say there's even a civil war about it.

due to one side only carrying muskets (and not being very intelligent due to a lack of being well regulated [as a consequence of today's culture])

at BEST, 1 million government soldiers would be killed, and 25 million "rebels" would be massacred.

at worst, 0 goverenment soldiers would be killed, and 25 million rebels would be assimilated into US culture through drugs and the like, or put into concentration camps.

why is that worse? because being mentally dead is worse than being dead (even the founding fathers said that [basically])

but that would not happen.

because the government is trying to stop it at the very source: by not allowing citizens to gain the mental will and acuity to want and initiate a civil war in the first place.

guns are harmless toward the government if they are controlled, or if people think that they are inherently evil.

guns are extremely dangerous toward the government, however, if they are respected. because guns, and the intelligence required to respect them, have the power to give people courage to stand up for what they think is right.

i also think it's really amazing that nunchuks are illegal (and being confiscated) in some (US)states (New York and California, and maybe others).

Yeah, I don't think Jefferson was ever on the front lines getting shot at. As long as you have a democracy, I don't see the need for the population to have arms.

democracy... are you sure? in what way?

voting, sure. but you're forgetting about voting fraud and misdirecting voters. logical fallacies are extremely effective in politics (especially towards the general population).

what kind of democracy is seperated into two sides who aren't willing to listen to eachother?

furthermore, what kind of democracy is split in many other ways with each side unwilling to listen to the other? even nuclear families are split are split in that way (see: teenage angst).

what kind of democracy exists where only the democratic and republican parties are seriously talked about in elections?

what kind of democracy exists where we keep worrying about terrorists extremists, and keep pointing fingers?

what kind of democracy exists where the media is heavily censored, and the goverenment is close to big brother?

what kind of democracy exists where people are HAPPY that airplanes may be given extra security in the form of complex lie detectors in order to determine intent? that's pre-emptive law, making arrests to stop a potential (not necessary) event, based on people's current thoughts.

we're getting ever closer to communism (and not in a good way).

how about: MetaThoughtsForum.net

i like that one.

or MetaThoughtForums.net, simply to parallel ScienceForums

i had a romantic experience in college with a heavy christian. i am heavily a (weak) athiest.

there was a LOT of drama surrounding the relationship.

specifically: her ex, who she broke up with because of proximity issues, is a priest's son, and turned out to be extremely obsessive. there was also a "rival" of sorts, who lived in the same dorm, who is heavily christian as well.

summary of the whole thing:

they told me they were raised to believe that athiests are evil, compared to christians.

she was more attracted to me at the time, but her religion didn't allow it (there was a specific quote she used, which i later found out to be inconsequential to today's culture, but she believed it anyway).

due to my romantic interrest, i became (genuinely) interrested in christianity for a while.

she wanted to lure me to christianity by showing me how well she could handle the situation (with the drama with her ex). but she was instead extremely surprised at how well i handled it. before things got serious, i chose to let go, to give up, so that i wouldn't cause her even more discomfort, and so that i wouldn't accidentally control her in some way.

i dunno.

i actually think it's a good thing that athiests are getting the religious hate.

athiests aren't exactly likely to start a war over it. if a war happens to start, most will try to stay out of it anyway.

just think of it as.... taking everyone else's sins. forgive them, they're only human

YT, what counts as "religious discussion" in the GD forum when the topic is fairly religious? is it anything that questions or debates the validity of one religion/belief over another?

Jim's situation is very reminiscent of the problem that the P&R forums pose. these forums tend to bring in excessive emotion.

this tends to result in people getting connected to their opinions, and the forum in general.

leave if you want. stay if you want.

don't let anyone elsee influence your decisions. things like "we'll miss you" only complicates the emotions, which will be reflected in your posts.

or, you could simply take a break, like i tend to do a lot. leave the forum, but keep your account and keep the bookmark. come back in a few months when you think "oh hey, i forgot about that website. i wonder what the newest topics are."

or search for new forums. i frequented philosophyforums.com for a while.

i would still be there, but i was banned for "pseudophilosophy". i don't know why (no explanation was given beyond that, and my posts were all deleted). as far as i know, i was being completely objective and always had supporting evidence. so i question their validity a bit, but whatever.

and remember, as was already stated, P&R is not banned, it is simply now required that it be in proper context, and with proper scientific (which can be heavily philisophical anyway) basis.

having a new forum on philosophy and religion will be quite similar to the old P&R forums anyway. and probably better than most forums you could find by searching.

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

"a well regulated Militia" very simply refers to intelligently armed citizens. meaning that what we have right now - people owning guns to give them some comfort from their fears - is not well regulated in any sense. well regulated is what the responsible gun shop owner does when he sells a revolver to people who are new to guns, telling them to get used to it before buying a modern gun. well regulated is what hunters do. well regulated is what people do at the shooting range.

"being necessary to the security of a free state" very simply refers to the ability of a well regulated Militia to secure a free state, and all of the freedoms and states that come with it.

Militias don't wrk with the government unless they want to. a Militia can either help the government or fight against it, by definition. a well regulated militia has the ability to fight against injustices in order to secure their free state, whether the injustices be from the government or from an invading force.

withough well regulation, a Militia will not easily form in the first place, because the people holding the guns will not have the intelligence to band together to secure their freedoms. exampled by today's culture: theree's simply too much fear to make intelligent decisions. in addition, without well regulation, any Militia that does form will not be inclined to secure their free state, but will instead fight to get rid of anything that they're afraid of.

"the right of the people to keep and bear Arms"

"shall not be infringed"

these two don't need any explanation.

the second amendment gives the people the ability to form a Militia to keep the security of a free state, against anything that wishes to take that free state away. this includes forming a Militia to initiate a civil war, as well as forming a militia to protect a state when the Armies can't.

i'd also like to point out that the NRA is actually destructive towards Arm freedoms. the NRA makes compromises. as a result, we now have 50% of our Arm freedoms, as opposed to the 100% we started with.

--Quotes--

"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world."

"Our safety, our liberty, depends upon preserving the Constitution of the United States as our fathers made it inviolate. The people of the United States are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution."

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it."

-Abraham Lincoln

"If we want freedom, there should be an armed rebellion every 20 years."

"what country can perserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people perserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it's natural manuer."

-Thomas Jefferson

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

-Benjamin Fraklin

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president... is morally treasonable to the American public."

"We need the iron qualities that go with true manhood. We need the positive virtues of resolution, of courage, of indomitable will, of power to do without shrinking the rough work that must always be done."

-Theodore Roosevelt

I would like to see human testing being done more...maybe on untreatable/reoffending criminals.

 

Personally I am not against it but I think if we gain the benefits we should be part of the negative aspects as well.

more human testing and less animal testing means less knowledge of effects before human testing.

this means potential for harm is much greater than if animal testing is allowed.

by forcing untreatable/reoffending criminals to become test subjects, you subject them to the possibility of death or permanent mental or physical damage. just the possibility of death, no matter how small the chance, should be treated as a guaruntee. the reason being that out of however many criminals you test, some will die, and you have absolutely no idea who; it could be any one of them, or all of them.

so my question is: are you saying that we should give all untreatable/reoffending criminals the death penalty?

i suggest instead giving them a choice of being tested on to reduce their sentance.

Several published studies assessing the prediction of drug side effects by animals have found them to be very poor predictors; correct only 5-25% of the time.[3]

92% of drugs fail in clinical trials' date=' having successfully passed through animal studies.[4']

you're forgetting that most drugs are never even given clinical trials, because they are too dangerous.

think about this, if there are less tests on animals, more drugs can potentially reach the clinical trial stage, with less information.

more drugs means more potential for harm, including much more potential for life-threatening harm.

less information means that the doctors conducting the clinical trials will have a much harder time saving the patient from damage if a problem occurs.

this means much more danger overall.

more danger means less volunteers. for something like clinical trials, where volunteers are already very afraid of danger, increasing danger by so much would be detrimental to the process. it would become nearly impossible to convince someone to volunteer.

you could certainly force criminals to become involved in clinical trials, but that would be morally the same as enforcing the death penalty on all of them (if not killing them, then you are destroying their humanity, dehumanizing them into nothing (although it's not as if prisons don't already do that)).

more animal testing means safer clinical trials.

safer clinical trials means more clinical trials.

more clinical trials means more drugs will be deteremined unsafe for the general population (and thus not allowed on shelves).

humans remain the center of our universe in this regard simply because animals are currently a renewable resource. no animal will ever impact human society the way any human can (besides through animal testing).

humans are not a renewable resource, not until we farm and harvest human clones.

i agree with brutally torturing and murdering animals for testing and food if they were born for that purpose, or if they are going to be euthanized anyway (PETA euthanizes more than half of the animals it saves, btw).

i agree with brutally torturing and murdering HUMANS, if they are specifically born for the same purpose, or donate their bodies as they are about to die (such as chosing a new experimental medicine over unlikely current medicines).

however, i believe it's morally wrong to put someone in a position where they would give birth for testing. artificial wombs growing donated sperm and eggs, however, are acceptable.

i also think it's ethically wrong to NOT publish the nazi experiments, simply as a very useful memorial.

That would mean everyone I know who has ever enjoyed watching Loony Tunes is a Furry?

only if they identify with the characters, can put themselves in the minds of the characters, and wish there were more half-animal characters.

most furries don't have half-animal fetishes (except for cat-girls). most just tend to be fans of the idea of mixing animal and human physical and mental characteristics. then the step beyond furries is yiffies, who fantasize about (and sometimes act out) sexual encounters with half-animals. and that can go farther into whatever fetishes you can find, with or without half-animals.

cat girls are awesome, but fetishes are weird... and sometimes creepy.

In the US most kids have this independent streak that almost makes it seem weak to ask for advice from someone older, like an admission of defeat.

that's becausee these days it tends to be an admission of defeat.

society has brainwashed adults into thinking that children are just children. teenagers with angst is just a phase. depression is just a chemical imbalance. students are still learning, and thus need our help.

the problem here is the "need" part. sure, adult help helps, but if an adult thinks that a child needs his/her help, that's age discrimination, it's dehumanizing, and extremely rude to the child. to us, it doesn't matter if you're right or wrong, it matters that you don't dehumanize us by lumping us all together as "children".

of course, this causes the reverse to be true too. due to this dehumanization of children and teenagers, the children and teenagers tend to react accordingly, by lumping all adults together as "those people that refuse to respect me".

thus angst.

thust depreession.

thus hate.

thus more dehumanizing.

etc.

this is less true with less meaningful relationships. the closer an adult and child are, the more protective the adult tends to be, and not in a good way. for some reason, as people begin to know eachother for a long time, they tend to see eachother as images, as the same people they were a long time ago, which doesn't allow for much growth or change.

the problem tends to start with the parents and teachers.