Post your unpopular opinions

[African_Love]

I'll start with 10 of my own.

1. Moral decisions should be based on empathy and empathy alone. I define empathy as being emotionally insync with another being's state of mind (ie. happy because they are happy and sad when they are sad). This view naturally leads to ethical hedonism - the belief that pleasure/happiness is the only thing that is intrinsically good and suffering is the only thing that is intrinsically bad. If an action does not cause someone to suffer or frustrate their desire to be happy, it is not morally wrong. If an action does not minimize suffering or increase happiness, it is not beneficial.

2. All third world debts should be abolished. It is wrong for Western governments to demand payment for debts accumulated by corrupt governments that were not democratically elected.

3. Pedophilia is a sexual orientation, there is nothing inherently perverse about it nor is child-adult sex inherently harmful. I'm not saying that child-adult sex should not be discouraged but it should only be discouraged on the basis that the child might come to regret the experience (especially having been raised in a culture that would condition him/her to view the act as harmful and inappropriate in retrospect despite being consensual and harmless at the time) and suffer as a result, I think that children/young teens are more emotionally vulnerable than are adults. Simulated child pornography should be legal, pedophiles should have a right to express their sexuality so long as they don't act on their desires.


4. Marriage (including civil unions) as a legal institution should be abolished. Your personal relationships are none of the government's business. There is a religious component to Western/modern marriage and there should be a separation between church and state. Until that day comes, homosexual couples and polyamorous couples should have the same legal benefits that heterosexual and monogamous couples do.

5. Non-human animals (and we should assume that every animal with a nervous system might be sentient, no matter how different or unlike our own it may be) deserve the same equal consideration that humans do, sentience is the only morally relevant criterion and there are no 'higher' or 'lower' degrees of consciousness. Factory farming, vivisection, driving non-domesticated animals from their homes through deforestation/habitat destruction etc. aren't any more acceptable than they would be if the victims were humans. The interests (all sentient beings have an interest in pursuing happiness and avoiding distress) of all sentient beings are equally important and should be given equal respect.

6. Until science comes up with a solution for global warming and genetically engineering humans who are incapable of experiencing non-trivial distress or behaving anti-socially becomes possible, it would be compassionate to avoid reproducing.

7. There is nothing wrong with being sexually promiscuous and there is nothing noble or appropriate about being monogamous. Romantic love/sexual desire is selfish and amoral. Sex is an inherently intimate act but you don't copulate or start a relationship with someone because you feel empathy for them (even if you do), you do so for your own selfish reasons, because it benefits you. You can't force yourself to be attracted to someone you respect or care about even if you could force yourself to have a sexual/romantic relationship with them for purely altruistic reasons, you're not attracted to someone because you feel they deserve your attraction or because you think they would benefit from it. Empathy has the potential to be unconditional and universal (for all sentient beings), sexual/romantic attraction is selective and shallow to the extent that it's based on physical appearance. People should stop moralizing sex. I would also argue that while there's no moral reason to have more than one partner, it would be empathetic to allow your partner the freedom to have other sex/romantic partners if doing so would make them happy.

8. Physical phenomenon is all that exists. There is no God and no such thing as a 'soul'. Since the brain is just a physical object, it behaves according to the same laws of physics that every other physical object in the (macro) universe does. People don't choose to behave the way they they do, they mindlessly react to environmental stimuli and experience the illusion of having chosen to do so after they've already 'decided' to do so (this is supported by modern neuroscience). Nobody deserves to be punished or rewarded for their behavior. Even quantum randomness would still not be 'free will' in the sense that most people use the word. Despite believing this intellectually it's difficult for me to accept it emotionally which is why I don't feel empathy for most human beings.

9. Circumcising male infants for non-medical reasons is wrong.

10. Fiction is a better vehicle for moral commentary than ethics as an academic discipline is. Philosophy is abstract, fiction shows how moral ideas and views can be applied in real life scenarios. Besides, fiction can generate empathy by forcing you to put yourself in the shoes of the characters you read about. " You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...until you climb into his skin and walk around in it" - Atticus from To Kill A Mockingbird.

[Paulclem]

Luckily - social rules and national laws tend to be formulated by reasonable, experienced and well balanced people. Yay to that.

[MANICHAEAN]

African Love
You are away with the faries.

[Neo_Sephiroth]

Why can't we all get along?

[DanielBenoit]

I'll start with 10 of my own.

1. Moral decisions should be based on empathy and empathy alone. I define empathy as being emotionally insync with another being's state of mind (ie. happy because they are happy and sad when they are sad). This view naturally leads to ethical hedonism - the belief that pleasure/happiness is the only thing that is intrinsically good and suffering is the only thing that is intrinsically bad. If an action does not cause someone to suffer or frustrate their desire to be happy, it is not morally wrong. If an action does not minimize suffering or increase happiness, it is not beneficial.

Well-meaning, but idealistic. Pure and total empathy, that is, being able to feel exactly what another person is feeling at all times, is impossible because we are not that person.

Also, to use empathy and only empathy for each and every situaiton is not practical nor will it be fully consistent at all times. If one is fully empathetic for both the murdered man's family and fully empathetic for the murderer's social status which may have forced him to commit murder (maybe he accidently killed him while he was committing a robbery), that will not bring out rational decision, nor will it bring out justice.

Empathy is something that this cruel and impersonal world needs, but empathy alone will not fix anything.



2. All third world debts should be abolished. It is wrong for Western governments to demand payment for debts accumulated by corrupt governments that were not democratically elected.

I don't see a problem with this, though I must admit that I don't know much about the way these things work.



3. Pedophilia is a sexual orientation, there is nothing inherently perverse about it nor is child-adult sex inherently harmful. I'm not saying that child-adult sex should not be discouraged but it should only be discouraged on the basis that the child might come to regret the experience (especially having been raised in a culture that would condition him/her to view the act as harmful and inappropriate in retrospect despite being consensual and harmless at the time) and suffer as a result, I think that children/young teens are more emotionally vulnerable than are adults. Simulated child pornography should be legal, pedophiles should have a right to express their sexuality so long as they don't act on their desires.

You lost me there. Are you serious? How the hell can a 10 year old girl make any sort of rational decision about sex when she hardly has even reached puberty?! Even a 14 year old. Make pediophillia legal, and you'll have more 14 year old girls having babies born by creepy older men.

This is truly just sick. NO ONE intheir right mind would support it.



6. Until science comes up with a solution for global warming and genetically engineering humans who are incapable of experiencing non-trivial distress or behaving anti-socially becomes possible, it would be compassionate to avoid reproducing.

Please tell me how this would work?

[dafydd manton]

I presume that the Op has little experience of the real world. Terribly, terribly idealistic, and dangerously misguided, especially the revolting point about paedophilia. I should imagine that just about every sane parent of daughters, in the whole world would be horrified by that one - I know I am. I have two daughters. Worrying. Unbalanced.

[Rores28]

Posters seem to have some strong opinions against your views without really debating them at all, and the debate there is looks like a misinterpretation to me.

***5. Non-human animals (and we should assume that every animal with a nervous system might be sentient, no matter how different or unlike our own it may be) deserve the same equal consideration that humans do, sentience is the only morally relevant criterion and there are no 'higher' or 'lower' degrees of consciousness. Factory farming, vivisection, driving non-domesticated animals from their homes through deforestation/habitat destruction etc. aren't any more acceptable than they would be if the victims were humans. The interests (all sentient beings have an interest in pursuing happiness and avoiding distress) of all sentient beings are equally important and should be given equal respect.***

I think the main point that needs defense here is why should we assume every animal with a "nervous system" is sentient? How rudimentary can that nervous system be. What if it is a person who used to have a full brain and now only has 5% due to some accident, what about just 3 neurons remaining, what about just 2, just 1?

Why is a nervous system the line of demarcation for sentience. Plants, fungi, protists, and bacteria, all possess chemical systems that react in specific concert with the environment and possess biologies that have a "memory" of the environments which allow them to adapt to changes etc...

That is to say I cannot show that a dog is sentient, but neither can I show that of a tree, or even for that matter a person. How do you resolve this? Why is a nervous system no matter how rudimentary the point at which we feel confident enough to say this is sentient?

[Paulclem]

That is to say I cannot show that a dog is sentient, but neither can I show that of a tree, or even for that matter a person. How do you resolve this? Why is a nervous system no matter how rudimentary the point at which we feel confident enough to say this is sentient?

You need to clarify the definition of sentience.

[Rores28]

That is to say I cannot show that a dog is sentient, but neither can I show that of a tree, or even for that matter a person. How do you resolve this? Why is a nervous system no matter how rudimentary the point at which we feel confident enough to say this is sentient?

You need to clarify the definition of sentience.

No this is what the OP needs to do.

[dafydd manton]

The crass immaturity of banning marriage takes my breath away, and to suggest that promiscuity is a good thing is almost too ridiculous for words. Had you thought about the prevelance of sexually trnasmitted diseases, and it also goes against the idea of stopping reproducing. There is, I seem to recall, a direct link between the two.
I'm not sure who it fits in with empathy, either, but that's another story.

You cannot state that there is no God. You can state that in your opinion there is no God, that's fair enough, but regrettably you are not privy to the information. If you are wrong..................

Frankly, I sincerely hope that no society ever gets to this state.

[Rores28]

You cannot state that there is no God. You can state that in your opinion there is no God, that's fair enough, but regrettably you are not privy to the information. If you are wrong..................


I thought the title of the thread had something to do with opinions.

If you are wrong.......... what? What would the implications be for not believing in a "higher being."

[dafydd manton]

That is for the OP to decide. I can't decide that for him, and I certainly don't intend to ge involved in a religious discussion, thanks!

[Paulclem]

The crass immaturity of banning marriage takes my breath away, and to suggest that promiscuity is a good thing is almost too ridiculous for words. Had you thought about the prevelance of sexually trnasmitted diseases, and it also goes against the idea of stopping reproducing. There is, I seem to recall, a direct link between the two.
I'm not sure who it fits in with empathy, either, but that's another story.

You cannot state that there is no God. You can state that in your opinion there is no God, that's fair enough, but regrettably you are not privy to the information. If you are wrong..................

Frankly, I sincerely hope that no society ever gets to this state.

I think the purpose of the OP was to wind up the populace. I fully agree with you though.


No this is what the OP needs to do.

There's nothing to stop you doing it as they are not forthcoming. :yesnod:

[dafydd manton]

True Paul, but since the OP seems to have stirred things up and left, I shall do the gentlemanly thing, and go down the pub!

[Rores28]

That is for the OP to decide. I can't decide that for him, and I certainly don't intend to ge involved in a religious discussion, thanks!

...lol

[Dodo25]

I like the idea of this thread. I think the OP's views are interesting and in a way consequent, yet I certainly wouldn't subscribe to all of them.

Here some of my views (no particular order) which may seem provocative. If anyone is interested, I'm willing (and methinks quite able, except maybe for number 7) to defend them.

1.) Forms of Killing
Moral decisions should be based solely on the value of their consequences. The difference between drowning a child in a pond, watching a child drown in a pond, and buying a bigger house instead of helping starving children in Ethiopia is orders of magnitudes smaller than people think. Applied to euthanasia, this means there's no difference between letting someone die and killing the person. In fact, killing might even be more humane because it is faster and painless.

2.) Child Pornography
One should seriously consider to legalize virtual child porn. By this, I mean child porn with computer animated children, not produced with real ones. The only circumstance in which it shouldn't be legalized is if it can be shown empirically that it would encourage child molesting (but I highly doubt that, as with the 'killer-games leading to shool shootings')

3.) Love
Love is a feeling that evolved because it benefits the individual's genes. In our ancestors, it ensured that effort was put into getting with the genetically suitable partner, and then, in the 'bonding stage', that the children would be cared for by mother and father, at least for a couple of years. Basically, love is hormones acting in the brain like drugs.

4.) Alternative for Democracy
One should research the practicality of a state ruled by 'philosopher kings' as suggested in Plato's 'Republic'. In fact, once circumstances will be ready (good education, no fundamentalism in the population), one should try out the idea.

5.) Animal Rights and Experiments
An adult, healthy chimpanzee deserves more ethical consideration than a human infant or an Alzheimer patient (if they don't have caring friends or family that is). If experiments on chimps can be justified, they can be justified for human infants or late-stage Alzheimer patients, especially because it would be of higher medical use to us.

6.) God & Free Will
God most certainly doesn't exist. The human brain, including consciousness, is a product of evolution. We don't have 'magical free will', yet it does make sense to hold a majority of people responsible for their actions, simply because by doing so, one creates a deterrent and actually changes the behavior. People want to be responsible, and in the way it is worth wanting, we do have free will.

7.) Dark Matter
Dark matter is, IMO, the result of gravity leaking from clusters of matter in parallel universes into our universe. I think there are billions of universes, most of them much less than a milimeter away from us.

8.) Emotion & Rationality
Rationality is always more important, except when it is about love, then the issue gets difficult. If an emotion is not rationally justifiable, one should try to get rid of it. Don't get this wrong, all emotions are important sometimes, it's just that in some special circumstances they are very unhelpful. Again, love is the exception (because it makes happy and is thus an end in itself in a happiness oriented ethical system).

9.) Religion
I think the world would be a better place without it being practised (since it's wrong and potentially dangerous).

10.) Religion & Children
There should be a minimum age for when children are allowed to be referred to as belonging to a particular religion. Indoctrination is child abuse, children should be presented the views objectively and choose, once they are of a certain age, i.e. 16, whether they want to belong to a particular religion or not. Before that, one should not refer to a child as a 'Christian child'.

[The Atheist]

I think the purpose of the OP was to wind up the populace.

It has that look about it - controversy for the sake of itself.

[Alexander III]

I believe that literature contains more truth than history. History tells us that Nero committed suicide, but what if we recently discovered documents which prove that he was murdered, then history changes. However throughout space and time, Dorian Gray stabbed his portrait and killed himself.

[Lokasenna]

As I started reading this, the Dies Irae from Mozart's Requiem popped up on my music player - the sense of apocalypse was astounding, I can tell you.

If the OP is endevouring to stir up a fuss, then that is lamentable, but I'm sure I'll cope. If they are genuinely held views, then they are utterly repellent - for once, I'm hoping it is trollishness.

Perhaps you should have a long, hard think about why your views are unpopular?

[Mr. Pedantic]

1. I think God is petty.

That's all.



5.) Animal Rights and Experiments
An adult, healthy chimpanzee deserves more ethical consideration than a human infant or an Alzheimer patient (if they don't have caring friends or family that is). If experiments on chimps can be justified, they can be justified for human infants or late-stage Alzheimer patients, especially because it would be of higher medical use to us.
'.
Experiments on babies!? We've either got an Eduard Wirths on our hands, or a Jonathan Swift. Besides, animals can't join moral communities, so they have no rights. Babies however, grow into functioning adults with much more intelligence than chimpanzees. I willing to bet this poster was never a parent.

[breathtest]

1. Moral decisions should be based on empathy and empathy alone. I define empathy as being emotionally insync with another being's state of mind (ie. happy because they are happy and sad when they are sad). This view naturally leads to ethical hedonism - the belief that pleasure/happiness is the only thing that is intrinsically good and suffering is the only thing that is intrinsically bad. If an action does not cause someone to suffer or frustrate their desire to be happy, it is not morally wrong. If an action does not minimize suffering or increase happiness, it is not beneficial.

2. All third world debts should be abolished. It is wrong for Western governments to demand payment for debts accumulated by corrupt governments that were not democratically elected.

3. Pedophilia is a sexual orientation, there is nothing inherently perverse about it nor is child-adult sex inherently harmful. I'm not saying that child-adult sex should not be discouraged but it should only be discouraged on the basis that the child might come to regret the experience (especially having been raised in a culture that would condition him/her to view the act as harmful and inappropriate in retrospect despite being consensual and harmless at the time) and suffer as a result, I think that children/young teens are more emotionally vulnerable than are adults. Simulated child pornography should be legal, pedophiles should have a right to express their sexuality so long as they don't act on their desires.


4. Marriage (including civil unions) as a legal institution should be abolished. Your personal relationships are none of the government's business. There is a religious component to Western/modern marriage and there should be a separation between church and state. Until that day comes, homosexual couples and polyamorous couples should have the same legal benefits that heterosexual and monogamous couples do.

5. Non-human animals (and we should assume that every animal with a nervous system might be sentient, no matter how different or unlike our own it may be) deserve the same equal consideration that humans do, sentience is the only morally relevant criterion and there are no 'higher' or 'lower' degrees of consciousness. Factory farming, vivisection, driving non-domesticated animals from their homes through deforestation/habitat destruction etc. aren't any more acceptable than they would be if the victims were humans. The interests (all sentient beings have an interest in pursuing happiness and avoiding distress) of all sentient beings are equally important and should be given equal respect.

6. Until science comes up with a solution for global warming and genetically engineering humans who are incapable of experiencing non-trivial distress or behaving anti-socially becomes possible, it would be compassionate to avoid reproducing.

7. There is nothing wrong with being sexually promiscuous and there is nothing noble or appropriate about being monogamous. Romantic love/sexual desire is selfish and amoral. Sex is an inherently intimate act but you don't copulate or start a relationship with someone because you feel empathy for them (even if you do), you do so for your own selfish reasons, because it benefits you. You can't force yourself to be attracted to someone you respect or care about even if you could force yourself to have a sexual/romantic relationship with them for purely altruistic reasons, you're not attracted to someone because you feel they deserve your attraction or because you think they would benefit from it. Empathy has the potential to be unconditional and universal (for all sentient beings), sexual/romantic attraction is selective and shallow to the extent that it's based on physical appearance. People should stop moralizing sex. I would also argue that while there's no moral reason to have more than one partner, it would be empathetic to allow your partner the freedom to have other sex/romantic partners if doing so would make them happy.

8. Physical phenomenon is all that exists. There is no God and no such thing as a 'soul'. Since the brain is just a physical object, it behaves according to the same laws of physics that every other physical object in the (macro) universe does. People don't choose to behave the way they they do, they mindlessly react to environmental stimuli and experience the illusion of having chosen to do so after they've already 'decided' to do so (this is supported by modern neuroscience). Nobody deserves to be punished or rewarded for their behavior. Even quantum randomness would still not be 'free will' in the sense that most people use the word. Despite believing this intellectually it's difficult for me to accept it emotionally which is why I don't feel empathy for most human beings.

9. Circumcising male infants for non-medical reasons is wrong.

10. Fiction is a better vehicle for moral commentary than ethics as an academic discipline is. Philosophy is abstract, fiction shows how moral ideas and views can be applied in real life scenarios. Besides, fiction can generate empathy by forcing you to put yourself in the shoes of the characters you read about. " You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...until you climb into his skin and walk around in it" - Atticus from To Kill A Mockingbird.


African Love - I commend you immensely for starting this thread. I am really impressed. Best thread on the forum by far.

I also happen to agree with every single one of your points here. And i don't understand why people can't just admit what they really feel about something.

With regards to your third point, my eyes were really opened after reading an interview of Allen Ginsberg, where he talked about how he felt sexually attracted to young boys under the legal age for sex. The interviewer was a christian and was outraged, but what he said really makes sense. If you are attracted to children, or to somebody of the same sex, then that's the way it is. You cannot help it, and you should not be looked down upon for it.

[Haunted]

Like Dodo, I support Animal Rights.

Experiments for human products should be conducted on humans only.

Murder One should apply to those who murdered someone, human or animal.

disclaimer: animals under this protection are limited to furry animals, birds and some fish. Snakes, sharks and other unnamed species are not covered.

[Drkshadow03]

I say we abolish anyone with a middle name that begins with the letter A.

Oh, and Canada!

[breathtest]

You lost me there. Are you serious? How the hell can a 10 year old girl make any sort of rational decision about sex when she hardly has even reached puberty?! Even a 14 year old. Make pediophillia legal, and you'll have more 14 year old girls having babies born by creepy older men.

This is truly just sick. NO ONE intheir right mind would support it.


DanielBenoit - you are missing the point here i think. African Love was saying that paedophlia SHOULD be discouraged, but only on the grounds that the child may regret it or be damaged by it later. He was saying that virtual pornography should be legal because it allows paedophiles to come to terms with their sexuality so they do not have to rape a child to get the sexual release that they need.


Experiments on babies!? We've either got an Eduard Wirths on our hands, or a Jonathan Swift. Besides, animals can't join moral communities, so they have no rights. Babies however, grow into functioning adults with much more intelligence than chimpanzees. I willing to bet this poster was never a parent.


So you are saying intelligence is the only important thing here? chimpanzees feel pain the same as humans do, emotional and physical. I'm saying that's enough to stop experiments on them altogether.

[Delta40]

DanielBenoit - you are missing the point here i think. African Love was saying that paedophlia SHOULD be discouraged, but only on the grounds that the child may regret it or be damaged by it later. He was saying that virtual pornography should be legal because it allows paedophiles to come to terms with their sexuality so they do not have to rape a child to get the sexual release that they need.

does this mean that I should be grateful for all the adult pornography that is currently out there because it is a preventative measure against men raping women?

[Mr. Pedantic]

So you are saying intelligence is the only important thing here? chimpanzees feel pain the same as humans do, emotional and physical. I'm saying that's enough to stop experiments on them altogether.

I never said intelligence is the only thing that matters. Don't strawman me.

Does a zebra has the right not to be eaten by a lion?

No, of course not. Like all animals, the chimpanzee doesn't have the capacity to understand rights, therefore it has none.

Rights are a man made concept and therefore only apply to men. I'll meet you halfway and say that we have a moral obligation to not be cruel to animals purposelessly. Animal research saves human lives. How do you think vaccines are created? With lots of animal testing, of course. Think of that next time you get your flu shot.

[breathtest]

does this mean that I should be grateful for all the adult pornography that is currently out there because it is a preventative measure against men raping women?

Rape is always going to exist, but i think virtual child pornography might help to cut down on child-rape.

Adult pornoraphy might have less of an effect because sex with another adult is not illegal, and therefore people with those kinds of sexual desires can usually indulge them legally.

Understand that i am not trying to defend child rape or anything like that. I am only trying to think of ways that it can be reduced. I hope nobody takes my comments the wrong way. They are not intended to offend.



I never said intelligence is the only thing that matters. Don't strawman me.

Does a zebra has the right not to be eaten by a lion?

No, of course not. Like all animals, the chimpanzee doesn't have the capacity to understand rights, therefore it has none.

Rights are a man made concept and therefore only apply to men. I'll meet you halfway and say that we have a moral obligation to not be cruel to animals purposelessly. Animal research saves human lives. How do you think vaccines are created? With lots of animal testing, of course. Think of that next time you get your flu shot.

No no i wasn't trying to strawman you. It is just that you only mentioned intelligence in your previous comment. And i think that with our higher intelligence we should have an obligation to loook after less intelligent animals. I particularly had cosmetics testing in mind with my other comment.

And i realise that without animal testing we would not have gained so much ground within the medical field, i just cannot understand how people shamelessly use animals for testing and do not feel bad about it.

[African_Love]

Well-meaning, but idealistic. Pure and total empathy, that is, being able to feel exactly what another person is feeling at all times, is impossible because we are not that person.


I think you have an overly literal understanding of empathy. The basis of empathy is imagination. I can't literally feel what you feel but I can imagine your emotional state of mind and identify with it. If I believed that my car was sad and I wanted to alleviate it's sadness, that would be empathy (albeit misguided empathy). Empathy is a form of love.



Also, to use empathy and only empathy for each and every situaiton is not practical nor will it be fully consistent at all times. If one is fully empathetic for both the murdered man's family and fully empathetic for the murderer's social status which may have forced him to commit murder (maybe he accidently killed him while he was committing a robbery), that will not bring out rational decision, nor will it bring out justice.


Unless the killing can be undone, there can be no justice in this scenario. The goal of the state should be to prevent people from killing each other and the most effective way to do this is to eliminate the socio-economic problems that lead to most crimes (easier said than done, I admit). It might be necessary to send the killer to jail but we can try to ensure that (s)he has a decent standard of living while at the same time preparing him/her for a successful reentry into society.



Empathy is something that this cruel and impersonal world needs, but empathy alone will not fix anything.

This is true, empathy needs to be guided by logic and critical thinking. My point is that the objective of our moral decisions should be to minimize suffering and increase happiness.






You lost me there. Are you serious? How the hell can a 10 year old girl make any sort of rational decision about sex when she hardly has even reached puberty?! Even a 14 year old. Make pediophillia legal, and you'll have more 14 year old girls having babies born by creepy older men.

If you reread my post carefully, you'll see that I never advocated child-adult sex. I only said that if child-adult sex should be discouraged, it should be discouraged on the basis that it might result in the child's suffering and not because the act itself is inherently wrong or inappropriate. I would point out that not all children become emotionally damaged as a result of having had sex with an adult (some studies of gay men who have had sex with young boys actually showed that the effects ranged from neutral to positive), in some cultures child-adult sex is the norm and even practiced ritualistically as a rite of passage. I would also argue that some children and young teens are capable of making rational decisions. I have no bias in arguing that child-adult sex does or does not necessarily result in the suffering of children or that they are or are not capable of giving informed consent to sex with an adult. My point is that it's the consequences that make an action undesirable and not the action itself. If *hypothetically* it could be guaranteed that a child having sex with an adult would not suffer as a result then there would be no moral reason to discourage him/her from doing so. Rationality is only required for decision making because irrational decisions are more likely to lead to long-term distress. If it could be guaranteed that the child would not suffer as a result of having sex with an adult, then a capacity to make rational decisions simply wouldn't be necessary.




Please tell me how this would work?

Google 'abolition of suffering' or 'paradise engineering'.


I think the main point that needs defense here is why should we assume every animal with a "nervous system" is sentient? How rudimentary can that nervous system be. What if it is a person who used to have a full brain and now only has 5% due to some accident, what about just 3 neurons remaining, what about just 2, just 1?

If an animal has a functioning, developed enough nervous system that allows him/her/it to behave as though they are sentient, we should give them the benefit of the doubt. The negatives consequences of assuming that a sentient being is not sentient outweigh the negative consequences of assuming that a non-sentient thing is sentient. By 'sentient' I mean capable of conscious experience. I don't *know* that dogs are sentient but I don't know that other humans are sentient either. The evidence suggests the probability of all mammals and vertebrates being sentient and most modern day scientists accept this (they are unanimously in agreement about the likeliness of non-human mammals being sentient).


Why is a nervous system the line of demarcation for sentience. Plants, fungi, protists, and bacteria, all possess chemical systems that react in specific concert with the environment and possess biologies that have a "memory" of the environments which allow them to adapt to changes etc...

We 'know' that human consciousness is a neurological activity and only animals have a network of specialized cells that is anything like our nervous system. I would have had a better response some time ago, based on something Joan Dunayer (author of Animal Equality and Speciesism) wrote but I'm a little rusty.


The crass immaturity of banning marriage takes my breath away

Why should a government legally recognize romantic relationships and not platonic friendships? Why should the former be given certain tax and civil benefits that the latter does not have? Why on Earth is it a legal issue who you choose to cohabit or raise children with? I'm not saying that the relationship married couples have should be banned, only that marriage is a religious/cultural concept and not something a secular government should concern itself with.



and to suggest that promiscuity is a good thing is almost too ridiculous for words. Had you thought about the prevelance of sexually trnasmitted diseases, and it also goes against the idea of stopping reproducing. There is, I seem to recall, a direct link between the two.

So is protected, casual sex with more than one partner bad in and of itself or because it can result in std's? If std's were eliminated tomorrow, would sexual promiscuity still be 'wrong'? Why? I view sex as an amoral issue, I neither advocate nor discourage sexual promiscuity. And sex is not 'for' reproduction, children are just a consequence that can normally be avoided with condoms, birth control pills, vasectomies etc.


I'm not sure who it fits in with empathy, either, but that's another story.

It has nothing to do with empathy which is why I consider it to be amoral. It isn't empathetic or unempathetic to sleep with many different people. It is unempathetic to judge and demean people for how they choose to express their sexuality.


You cannot state that there is no God. You can state that in your opinion there is no God,


That's what I was doing. I was stating an opinion.

I might respond to the comments on the second page later. Thanks for the replies!

[The Comedian]

Here's a couple:

1. Sometimes freedom is a son of a *****.

2. Your parents know more than you.

[papayahed]

W a r n i n g

Please do not personalise your arguments.

Comments containing personal and/or off-topic comments will be removed without further warning.

[Mr. Pedantic]

If you reread my post carefully, you'll see that I never advocated child-adult sex. I only said that if child-adult sex should be discouraged, it should be discouraged on the basis that it might result in the child's suffering and not because the act itself is inherently wrong or inappropriate. I would point out that not all children become emotionally damaged as a result of having had sex with an adult (some studies of gay men who have had sex with young boys actually showed that the effects ranged from neutral to positive), in some cultures child-adult sex is the norm and even practiced ritualistically as a rite of passage. I would also argue that some children and young teens are capable of making rational decisions. I have no bias in arguing that child-adult sex does or does not necessarily result in the suffering of children or that they are or are not capable of giving informed consent to sex with an adult. My point is that it's the consequences that make an action undesirable and not the action itself. If *hypothetically* it could be guaranteed that a child having sex with an adult would not suffer as a result then there would be no moral reason to discourage him/her from doing so. Rationality is only required for decision making because irrational decisions are more likely to lead to long-term distress. If it could be guaranteed that the child would not suffer as a result of having sex with an adult, then a capacity to make rational decisions simply wouldn't be necessary.
\

On one hand, Queequeg's sister got married at age ten.
On the other hand ewwwwww! That's completing disgusting and immoral. Children should be allowed to play and act as children without any creepy adults befouling them. I think 'Lolita' ought to be required reading for all proponents of your plan.

[stlukesguild]

2. All third world debts should be abolished. It is wrong for Western governments to demand payment for debts accumulated by corrupt governments that were not democratically elected.

And who is to absorb this debt? Its always easy to imagine some great evil faceless capitalist corporations that doesn't need any more money... but investments in the economic development of other countries must be paid for by someone and this someone includes not merely the corporate CEOs and high-stakes investors but many small investors, retirement plans, etc... If debt to all third world nations were eliminated who eats the financial loss? The taxpayers of the Western nations who had nothing to do with the investments or the corruption of the third world governments? And what will be the likely result? An immediate halt to all investment in developing nations. Who is going to take such a risk?

3. Pedophilia is a sexual orientation, there is nothing inherently perverse about it nor is child-adult sex inherently harmful.:ack2::yikes: I'm not saying that child-adult sex should not be discouraged but it should only be discouraged on the basis that the child might come to regret the experience (especially having been raised in a culture that would condition him/her to view the act as harmful and inappropriate in retrospect despite being consensual and harmless at the time) and suffer as a result, I think that children/young teens are more emotionally vulnerable than are adults. Simulated child pornography should be legal, pedophiles should have a right to express their sexuality so long as they don't act on their desires.

So incest, rape, necrophilia and every other sexual deviation should also be imagined as merely a variation upon the individual's sexual orientation? The notion that there is nothing inherently harmful about adult/child sexual relations is an absolute absurd statement that shows no knowledge at all about the emotional/psychological scars that such "relationships" leave.

4. Marriage (including civil unions) as a legal institution should be abolished. Your personal relationships are none of the government's business. There is a religious component to Western/modern marriage and there should be a separation between church and state. Until that day comes, homosexual couples and polyamorous couples should have the same legal benefits that heterosexual and monogamous couples do.

Not likely to happen. You are asking for the protection of the government in guaranteeing your rights as a spouse in matters of health insurance, tax benefits, social service benefits, death benefits, inheritance, etc... but you want the government to have no say as to what relationships they will or will not recognize. Yes, homosexual marriage should be recognized... but polygamy? I have great health benefits through my employer. Perhaps I should be able to declare that I am married to ten or 15 women guaranteeing them all access to my health benefits (perhaps at a small cost to them)? Or perhaps I should be allowed to marry my dog and claim she has the same rights to free health care?

5. Non-human animals (and we should assume that every animal with a nervous system might be sentient, no matter how different or unlike our own it may be) deserve the same equal consideration that humans do, sentience is the only morally relevant criterion and there are no 'higher' or 'lower' degrees of consciousness. Factory farming, vivisection, driving non-domesticated animals from their homes through deforestation/habitat destruction etc. aren't any more acceptable than they would be if the victims were humans. The interests (all sentient beings have an interest in pursuing happiness and avoiding distress) of all sentient beings are equally important and should be given equal respect.

You really do live in a fantasy land, don't you? So whenever we need to build further housing we need to get permission from the rabbits, frogs, tadpoles, and gnats who live there? Whenever we wish to tear down a home or building that has become unsafe or unusable we need to think about the rights of the rats, mice, and ****-roaches that call that building "home"?:crazy:

6. Until science comes up with a solution for global warming and genetically engineering humans who are incapable of experiencing non-trivial distress or behaving anti-socially becomes possible, it would be compassionate to avoid reproducing.

Starting with yourself, no doubt... which may be a good thing.

8. Physical phenomenon is all that exists. There is no God and no such thing as a 'soul'. Since the brain is just a physical object, it behaves according to the same laws of physics that every other physical object in the (macro) universe does. People don't choose to behave the way they they do, they mindlessly react to environmental stimuli and experience the illusion of having chosen to do so after they've already 'decided' to do so (this is supported by modern neuroscience). Nobody deserves to be punished or rewarded for their behavior. Even quantum randomness would still not be 'free will' in the sense that most people use the word. Despite believing this intellectually it's difficult for me to accept it emotionally which is why I don't feel empathy for most human beings.

Thats got to be one of the dumbest things I've ever read... and I've read quite a lot. So... if someone decides to repeatedly rape and then murder a child its all the fault of their environment... or rather there is no fault at all... just physical action and reaction... and as a result there should be no consequences (good or bad) for any behavior. Which would of course lead to "justice" solely dealt out on a basis of "might makes right". The child murderer did nothing wrong... but neither di the parent who killed the child murderer.

Luckily - social rules and national laws tend to be formulated by reasonable, experienced and well balanced people. Yay to that.

Or I could have just said that.:yesnod:

1.) Forms of Killing
Moral decisions should be based solely on the value of their consequences. The difference between drowning a child in a pond, watching a child drown in a pond, and buying a bigger house instead of helping starving children in Ethiopia is orders of magnitudes smaller than people think. Applied to euthanasia, this means there's no difference between letting someone die and killing the person. In fact, killing might even be more humane because it is faster and painless.

And so... rather than wasting your time and money upon something as trivial as an on-line literature discussion board you will undoubtedly be spending all of your free-time raising the money needed to end world hunger, warfare, rape, racism, sexism, etc...

2.) Child Pornography
One should seriously consider to legalize virtual child porn. By this, I mean child porn with computer animated children, not produced with real ones. The only circumstance in which it shouldn't be legalized is if it can be shown empirically that it would encourage child molesting (but I highly doubt that, as with the 'killer-games leading to shool shootings')

Unfortunately, studies have shown the link between violent pornography, child pornography, and violence in film, music, and video games and behaviors acted out by certain individuals. Not all individuals are impacted to the point that they are likely to act out in a violent or sexual manner, but some will... and almost certainly everyone is impacted by such experiences. The corporations of the world spent billions and billions of dollars upon advertising and PR. They would not invest such wealth if they were not certain of a positive return... if they were not certain that such advertising and PR would have a measurable influence upon public behavior. Now if a 30-second commercial has this much influence you cannot state that the 2 hour movie or the endless hours spent in playing violent video games has no influence upon behavior. It is simply logic.

3.) Love
Love is a feeling that evolved because it benefits the individual's genes. In our ancestors, it ensured that effort was put into getting with the genetically suitable partner, and then, in the 'bonding stage', that the children would be cared for by mother and father, at least for a couple of years. Basically, love is hormones acting in the brain like drugs.

Never been in love, eh? Sad.

4.) Alternative for Democracy
One should research the practicality of a state ruled by 'philosopher kings' as suggested in Plato's 'Republic'. In fact, once circumstances will be ready (good education, no fundamentalism in the population), one should try out the idea.

And how do we go about this? Logistics please.

5.) Animal Rights and Experiments
An adult, healthy chimpanzee deserves more ethical consideration than a human infant or an Alzheimer patient (if they don't have caring friends or family that is). If experiments on chimps can be justified, they can be justified for human infants or late-stage Alzheimer patients, especially because it would be of higher medical use to us.

Another naive, inexperienced, dreamer who confuses fantasy for reality and should never be given the least position of responsibility or authority.

1.) Forms of Killing
Moral decisions should be based solely on the value of their consequences. The difference between drowning a child in a pond, watching a child drown in a pond, and buying a bigger house instead of helping starving children in Ethiopia is orders of magnitudes smaller than people think. Applied to euthanasia, this means there's no difference between letting someone die and killing the person. In fact, killing might even be more humane because it is faster and painless.

2.) Child Pornography
One should seriously consider to legalize virtual child porn. By this, I mean child porn with computer animated children, not produced with real ones. The only circumstance in which it shouldn't be legalized is if it can be shown empirically that it would encourage child molesting (but I highly doubt that, as with the 'killer-games leading to shool shootings')

3.) Love
Love is a feeling that evolved because it benefits the individual's genes. In our ancestors, it ensured that effort was put into getting with the genetically suitable partner, and then, in the 'bonding stage', that the children would be cared for by mother and father, at least for a couple of years. Basically, love is hormones acting in the brain like drugs.

4.) Alternative for Democracy
One should research the practicality of a state ruled by 'philosopher kings' as suggested in Plato's 'Republic'. In fact, once circumstances will be ready (good education, no fundamentalism in the population), one should try out the idea.

5.) Animal Rights and Experiments
An adult, healthy chimpanzee deserves more ethical consideration than a human infant or an Alzheimer patient (if they don't have caring friends or family that is). If experiments on chimps can be justified, they can be justified for human infants or late-stage Alzheimer patients, especially because it would be of higher medical use to us.

6.) God & Free Will
God most certainly doesn't exist. The human brain, including consciousness, is a product of evolution. We don't have 'magical free will', yet it does make sense to hold a majority of people responsible for their actions, simply because by doing so, one creates a deterrent and actually changes the behavior. People want to be responsible, and in the way it is worth wanting, we do have free will.

7.) Dark Matter
Dark matter is, IMO, the result of gravity leaking from clusters of matter in parallel universes into our universe. I think there are billions of universes, most of them much less than a milimeter away from us.

A genius of both theology and science, no less.:smash::sosp:

9.) Religion
I think the world would be a better place without it being practised (since it's wrong and potentially dangerous).

Yeah... the same idea made China, the Soviet Union, Cambodia, and Nazi Germany safe, idealistic havens in which to raise the kids.

10.) Religion & Children
There should be a minimum age for when children are allowed to be referred to as belonging to a particular religion. Indoctrination is child abuse, children should be presented the views objectively and choose, once they are of a certain age, i.e. 16, whether they want to belong to a particular religion or not. Before that, one should not refer to a child as a 'Christian child'.

Brave New World... the state shall decide what is best for the individual.

[OrphanPip]

Although no stores in Western countries are likely to sell animated child pornography, it is produced quite regularly in japan, producing two major genres, loli and shouta, which you can wiki if you like. Those are illegal in Canada, but police rarely bother to charge people or seek it out unless someone also has real child pornography, or has been charged with assaulting a minor. I'm not sure how I feel about the existence of this animated porn, some studies have shown that it does lower the likelihood of some people to act out sexual fantasies. However, there is also a correlation between people who are likely to commit those acts, and those who consume that pornography.

As to conflating pedophilia with sexual orientation, this is not as enlightened as it seems. One thing we have to clear up, since Ginsberg's remarks about adolescent boys have been brought up, is there is a difference between finding a teenager sexually attractive occasionally, which is normal but acting on those urges is socially frowned on in our society. The question shouldn't be about whether or not pedophiles have a choice about being attracted to children, clinical test suggest they don't. It's the fact that pedophilia is non-consensual, and is directly harmful and exploitative of the minor.

I would suggest there are some pedophilic practices which may not be psychologically harmful. Tribes in New Guinea practice ceremonial insemination of pubescent boys around ages 13-14. The thing about this is that at that point the adolescents can make consensual sexual decisions, but it's generally wrong because of how vulnerable and easily manipulated these minors are. It's hard to say how this affects those people in the long run, but it's considered normal for them.

It's also a bit icky because 13 seems obscenely young to most of us with modern Western mindsets. I once had a history prof suggest that age of consent should be 13 though. I think 16 is a better marker for age of consent because the vast majority will have gone through puberty and be capable of consensual decisions.

There could be societal benefits for lowering the stigma against pedophiles, mainly because it has been shown that the best way to prevent one from harming a child is for them to be open about who they are and attend support groups that monitor their behavior. It would help prevent these crimes if someone could openly say they are a pedophile, so people could just keep their children away from them, without that person then being at risk of a lynching.

Edit: It should be noted though that not all cases of child molestation involve pedophiles, people occasionally sexually abuse children in order to humiliate them and harm them in a sadistic way rather than for their own sexual pleasure.

Edit2: @stlukes - Nazi Germany was not an atheist state, many religious organizations were plenty complicit in those atrocities.

[stlukesguild]

stlukes - Nazi Germany was not an atheist state, many religious organizations were plenty complicit in those atrocities.

Hitler made various claims as to his religious beliefs but religion and religious institutions seems to have been useful only so far as they furthered his own ends... which seems to have gone against the tenets of any religion... although one might claim he sought to replace older religions with his own messianic cult that was something of a twisted interpretation upon ideas of Nietzsche among others. I agree that leaders and clerics of various religious organizations were indeed complicit in the Holocaust... and undoubtedly they would claim this was largely as a result of fear and the desire to escape the same fate as those earmarked as undesirables. Of course the main thrust of my comment was to point out that atheists, atheistic states, and those who would do away with religion are no less likely to engage in the same atrocities as anyone else... they simply carry out such atrocities in the name of the state or progress or some other ideal as opposed to carrying them out in the name of God, Allah, Jehovah, etc...

[bouquin]

2. All third world debts should be abolished. It is wrong for Western governments to demand payment for debts accumulated by corrupt governments that were not democratically elected.






You can do better than that . You can say the West should not, in the first place, lend money to countries whose governments are not democratically elected!

[breathtest]

As to conflating pedophilia with sexual orientation, this is not as enlightened as it seems. One thing we have to clear up, since Ginsberg's remarks about adolescent boys have been brought up, is there is a difference between finding a teenager sexually attractive occasionally, which is normal but acting on those urges is socially frowned on in our society. The question shouldn't be about whether or not pedophiles have a choice about being attracted to children, clinical test suggest they don't. It's the fact that pedophilia is non-consensual, and is directly harmful and exploitative of the minor.

I would suggest there are some pedophilic practices which may not be psychologically harmful. Tribes in New Guinea practice ceremonial insemination of pubescent boys around ages 13-14. The thing about this is that at that point the adolescents can make consensual sexual decisions, but it's generally wrong because of how vulnerable and easily manipulated these minors are. It's hard to say how this affects those people in the long run, but it's considered normal for them.

It's also a bit icky because 13 seems obscenely young to most of us with modern Western mindsets. I once had a history prof suggest that age of consent should be 13 though. I think 16 is a better marker for age of consent because the vast majority will have gone through puberty and be capable of consensual decisions.

There could be societal benefits for lowering the stigma against pedophiles, mainly because it has been shown that the best way to prevent one from harming a child is for them to be open about who they are and attend support groups that monitor their behavior. It would help prevent these crimes if someone could openly say they are a pedophile, so people could just keep their children away from them, without that person then being at risk of a lynching.



That's exactly right. What ginsberg was saying was that it is natural for some people to experience those sexual desires. He was not advocating that they should be acted upon. And neither was i. I do think paedophiles should be helped. They should be able to talk about how they feel without instantly being hated for it. We - as a society - need to approach the subject more objectively in order to both prevent children being harmed and to help somebody who, after all, cannot help the fact that he/she is attracted to children. I think we are too sensitive on the subject (which in many cases is understandable).

[Dodo25]

1. And so... rather than wasting your time and money upon something as trivial as an on-line literature discussion board you will undoubtedly be spending all of your free-time raising the money needed to end world hunger, warfare, rape, racism, sexism, etc....

It costs money? Wasting your time is relative, I think rational debate, writing and reading literature is a good way to spend time. Books can change the way people think - positively. And since I'm 19 and soon go to college, I'm not earning any money yet. But if I ever make a comfortable living, I will indeed donate a lot of it to sensible charities.



2. Unfortunately, studies have shown the link between violent pornography, child pornography, and violence in film, music, and video games and behaviors acted out by certain individuals. Not all individuals are impacted to the point that they are likely to act out in a violent or sexual manner, but some will... and almost certainly everyone is impacted by such experiences. The corporations of the world spent billions and billions of dollars upon advertising and PR. They would not invest such wealth if they were not certain of a positive return... if they were not certain that such advertising and PR would have a measurable influence upon public behavior. Now if a 30-second commercial has this much influence you cannot state that the 2 hour movie or the endless hours spent in playing violent video games has no influence upon behavior. It is simply logic..

It's very possible that those people prone to such behavior are the ones who seek out the material in the first place. The studies have to eliminate that variable. If it's done properly and it shows that there is a significant correlation as you claim, I retract my point (as I said). I'm no expert on the effects of pornography/violence.



3. Never been in love, eh? Sad..

Is that supposed to be an argument? And actually, I have.



4. And how do we go about this? Logistics please..

There'd have to be a curriculum, a detailed overview in philosophy and science that every candidate has to go through. The 'philosopher kings' would have to apply for the job, pass tests and eventually get chosen.

The life of these 'kings' would be the opposite from the life of a normal king. They life comfortable, but no luxury and no fame. There should be nothing that corrupts them, no possibility for more power/money.

Then they make decisions for the state together. Maybe there still should be separation of power, in that case, a third would be 'supreme court', a third legislative and a third executive (but maybe that's unnecessary, I'm not sure about this, it needs research).

Every decision will be justified with a final report that goes out to the public. This means, the public can always read through the arguments of the greatest philosophical minds and understand why something was chosen. If people from the public want to veto something, they have to send in argumentative essays. Those are checked by the philosophers (or helpers thereof if there's a lot to do) and replies are sent back to the people.

That's just a rough draft. I'm not saying it must be done, all I'm saying it is worth research and even trying it out on small scale. Maybe in 100 years, the population of a small, wealthy and well-educated country would democratically vote for changing the system.



5. Another naive, inexperienced, dreamer who confuses fantasy for reality and should never be given the least position of responsibility or authority..

So self-righteous. Why do you resort to calling me a dreamer instead of providing arguments for your position?

Imagine you're an employer (architect) that gets applications. Would you reject all the women, because, ON AVERAGE, they are worse at spatial vision and math? Or would you look at the individuals and their personal qualifications?

In considering ethics, is it intelligence that matters? Should intelligent people be treated with more consideration than dumb ones? I highly doubt that, I think the capacity to suffer is what matters.

So when looking at chimps and human beings, should we always ignore the chimps because ON AVERAGE, their capacity to suffer is lower (less emotional suffering, reflecting)? That would be speciesist, which is no different from racism. A healthy chimp can suffer worse than a human infant or an Alzheimer patient.

And I never advocated experiments, I just said if they're justified on chimps, why the hell don't we do them on the fetus, small infants, late-stage Alzheimer patients? If that repells you, then why do you think torturing sentient chimpanzees is okay?

And for the record, if the medical benefit is enormous (i.e. cure for cancer), I think experiments on humans are justifiable. Yet they are certainly horrendous when done for just new cosmetic products (as has been done with chimps many times).



6. & 7. A genius of both theology and science, no less.:smash::sosp:


Argument?



9. [oh wow, apparently no insulting comment found for 8.] Yeah... the same idea made China, the Soviet Union, Cambodia, and Nazi Germany safe, idealistic havens in which to raise the kids.

Uhm, that's communism. And in the case of Nazi Germany it's an anti-semitic ideology based on the wrong assumption that the 'Arian race' (which is in no way a 'race' biologically speaking) is superior to the rest of humanity.

Furthermore, I don't remember advocating the abolition of freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Stop the straw-men, and go research some history if you don't understand what communism is.



10. Brave New World... the state shall decide what is best for the individual.

Not really, I don't see how there are parallels. The children can still choose eventually, they should just have a free choice. Have you ever looked on a world map based on religions? Isn't it odd that people tend to follow the religion of their parents? After all, if there are n relgions, at least n-1 of them are wrong! So why should we encourage children to adopt them for bad reasons? Why allow indoctrination and label children? Would you call the 5 year old child of neo-nazi parents a nazi?

[African_Love]

And who is to absorb this debt? Its always easy to imagine some great evil faceless capitalist corporations that doesn't need any more money... but investments in the economic development of other countries must be paid for by someone and this someone includes not merely the corporate CEOs and high-stakes investors but many small investors, retirement plans, etc... If debt to all third world nations were eliminated who eats the financial loss? The taxpayers of the Western nations who had nothing to do with the investments or the corruption of the third world governments? And what will be the likely result? An immediate halt to all investment in developing nations. Who is going to take such a risk?

I have to read more about the issue and this is a reasonable argument as far as legitimately acquired debt is concerned (despite the need to lower as much debt as is possible for humanitarian reasons) but the U.S and other Western countries were never justified in lending money to non-representative governments and expecting their citizens to pay for it.




So incest, rape, necrophilia and every other sexual deviation should also be imagined as merely a variation upon the individual's sexual orientation?

A sexual orientation is a pattern of sexual and romantic feelings towards a certain demographic. Relatives and corpses are not a demographic (and I don't see how someone can have romantic feelings for a corpse itself rather than the person they used to be) and rape is just forced/unwanted sex so I think these things are better thought of as 'fetishes' or preferences but still, I will apply the same logic. I see nothing wrong with consensual sex between adult relatives, who they want to be with is none of my business. Necrophilia would be harmless were it not for the demoralizing effect that it has on the deceased's friends, family members and members of the community in general, for that reason alone (and not a concern for the deceased) it should be discouraged. Rape is wrong because it causes suffering. If a man wants to fantasize about raping other people, I think this is unempathetic but thoughts are free. Rape fantasies are harmless as long as he doesn't act on them.



The notion that there is nothing inherently harmful about adult/child sexual relations is an absolute absurd statement that shows no knowledge at all about the emotional/psychological scars that such "relationships" leave.

I'm not interested in convincing you that not all children who have had sex with an adult become emotionally damaged as a result and that sometimes the effects are actually positive. Just tell me this - if hypothetically it could be guaranteed that a child having sex with an adult would not cause them to suffer, in fact, the experience would be pleasurable for them, would there still be a moral reason to discourage them from having sex with that adult? Why?




Not likely to happen. You are asking for the protection of the government in guaranteeing your rights as a spouse in matters of health insurance, tax benefits, social service benefits, death benefits, inheritance, etc... but you want the government to have no say as to what relationships they will or will not recognize. Yes, homosexual marriage should be recognized... but polygamy? I have great health benefits through my employer. Perhaps I should be able to declare that I am married to ten or 15 women guaranteeing them all access to my health benefits (perhaps at a small cost to them)? Or perhaps I should be allowed to marry my dog and claim she has the same rights to free health care?

As far as health insurance, tax benefits, medical decisions etc. are concerned, why should a romantic partner have these benefits anymore than a close family friend? Why do romantic relationships warrant greater respect than platonic ones? Isn't it strange how when an immigrant marries a native born citizen they have to prove to a government official that their relationship is genuine rather than a scam to acquire citizenship? How do you prove love and why should love be a legal issue? Why is it any more important to the government that people have a right to bring lovers from other countries into their own and not friends or extended family members?

And I do think that domesticated, non-human animals should receive free medical care if the 'owner' can not afford it, since human society is responsible for their existence.


You really do live in a fantasy land, don't you? So whenever we need to build further housing we need to get permission from the rabbits, frogs, tadpoles, and gnats who live there? Whenever we wish to tear down a home or building that has become unsafe or unusable we need to think about the rights of the rats, mice, and ****-roaches that call that building "home"?:crazy:

We can't walk on egg shells but we can avoid wiping out 90% of West Africa's original forests. Entire species are extinct because of human behavior.




Thats got to be one of the dumbest things I've ever read... and I've read quite a lot. So... if someone decides to repeatedly rape and then murder a child its all the fault of their environment... or rather there is no fault at all... just physical action and reaction... and as a result there should be no consequences (good or bad) for any behavior. Which would of course lead to "justice" solely dealt out on a basis of "might makes right". The child murderer did nothing wrong... but neither di the parent who killed the child murderer.

Ask yourself, when you hear of a man raping a woman, are you primarily angry because he had the audacity to break social rules and to violate somebody else's rights or are you upset because an innocent person was made to suffer? If instead of being raped that woman was in a car accident that left her paralyzed from the neck down,would you still care, since there's no one to be blamed for her misfortune? It's possible to feel empathy for the victim without feeling anger towards the victimizer. We don't need to blame people for their actions in order to want to prevent anti-social behavior anymore than we need to be able to blame the weather in order to want to prevent tsunami's or floods. The child murderer did do something 'wrong', he just can't be blamed for it.

If I've given the impression that I'm generally a kind or empathetic person, I'm not. I have the deepest contempt for most human beings. I'm just giving you my opinion on what I consider to be ethical or unethical.


Edit: It should be noted though that not all cases of child molestation involve pedophiles, people occasionally sexually abuse children in order to humiliate them and harm them in a sadistic way rather than for their own sexual pleasure

This is also a good point. In regards to one of the other posts, I don't believe any distinction should be made between healthy, adult chimpanzees, human infants and elderly humans with Alzheimers.

[Butosai]

Maybe the original poster wasn't clear, or maybe I just slightly agree and disagree. Marriage should NOT have anything to do with government. If you want to get married, go to your church, but it's not something that should have legal emphasis around it.


The crass immaturity of banning marriage takes my breath away, and to suggest that promiscuity is a good thing is almost too ridiculous for words. Had you thought about the prevelance of sexually trnasmitted diseases, and it also goes against the idea of stopping reproducing. There is, I seem to recall, a direct link between the two.
I'm not sure who it fits in with empathy, either, but that's another story.

You cannot state that there is no God. You can state that in your opinion there is no God, that's fair enough, but regrettably you are not privy to the information. If you are wrong..................

Frankly, I sincerely hope that no society ever gets to this state.

Right, because marriage automatically protects you from STDs.

[dafydd manton]

Maybe the original poster wasn't clear, or maybe I just slightly agree and disagree. Marriage should NOT have anything to do with government. If you want to get married, go to your church, but it's not something that should have legal emphasis around it.

Whilst I might agree in principle, there is a slight hole in the argument in that in many places the Church and State are all but the same thing. Religious leaders chosen by parliament, churches wielding extreme power..... church leaders in governmental seats!

[Butosai]

Whilst I might agree in principle, there is a slight hole in the argument in that in many places the Church and State are all but the same thing. Religious leaders chosen by parliament, churches wielding extreme power..... church leaders in governmental seats!

And that is the sad reality of the world. Government function has many implications in peoples personal lives where it should not.

[Rores28]

If an animal has a functioning, developed enough nervous system that allows him/her/it to behave as though they are sentient, we should give them the benefit of the doubt. The negatives consequences of assuming that a sentient being is not sentient outweigh the negative consequences of assuming that a non-sentient thing is sentient. By 'sentient' I mean capable of conscious experience. I don't *know* that dogs are sentient but I don't know that other humans are sentient either. The evidence suggests the probability of all mammals and vertebrates being sentient and most modern day scientists accept this (they are unanimously in agreement about the likeliness of non-human mammals being sentient).


This point gets a little more complicated, because now I can apply that to plants and bacteria etc... If we assume all mammals are sentient then morally we would basically have to stop nearly all animal testing and there would be alot at stake for the "truly" sentient humans. So I think this importance "weighting" gets more complicated. In an equation it might look something like this..........if such a thing could be put to an equation....

(Percent Certainty of Sentience) * (Suffering of Animal)(2) = (Benefit to Human/Humanity or Anti-Suffering of Human/Humanity)

With a balanced equation being of neutral morality.

Implicit in this equation would be the idea that if an animal (or other "being") is sentient than it has to be treated within the same moral framework as a human.

So anyway I think this is the big issue with such a discussion is how certain is certain enough (in my equation 50% certain would be the threshold) and also how do we reliably gauge our own certainty... that is "what criteria would make me able to comfortably say that I am in fact 50% certain."

Anyway I would suggest a book (and not jsut with regards to this issue) entitled "Natural Born Cyborgs" by Andy Clark. An argument counter to sentient animals regards their lack of language (or their lack of brain stuff that allows them to acquire language) precluding self-referentiality / memory, which is posited as a requisite or even possibly the defining characteristic of consciousness.





We 'know' that human consciousness is a neurological activity and only animals have a network of specialized cells that is anything like our nervous system. I would have had a better response some time ago, based on something Joan Dunayer (author of Animal Equality and Speciesism) wrote but I'm a little rusty.


Right but just because a nervous system produces consciousness says nothing about whether other systems can also give rise to consciousness. How would we define our current consciousness? Reactions against the environment and the remembrance of those actions for later reactions etc... Or do we need to actually experience qualia etc....To remember and have later access to that qualia? Is it still qualia if I'm only remembering it?

I would suggest checking out "The Web of Life" by Fritjov Capra. It provides interesting ideas about why bacteria, plants etc... could be considered conscious, as well as larger systems such as communities, societies, the world etc.. Though be warned it is a difficult if you do not come from a science background, and maybe even if you do.

But anyway I would seriously urge you to check out both these books, as gauging by your opinions I would think you would really enjoy them. Also they are not so narrow as I have described them here but are in fact very broad.

Also of your book rec's which do you suggest as the better or more informative read?

[Alexander III]

Hmm well this thread shows how the pursuit of freedom is one of the most dangerous things known to man.

Oh and as for the Child Porno thing, sorry Affrican love and Breathtest but I have to disagree based on personal experience. I have noted that when I watch Porn, I am more likely to get laid when I go out, as my sexual desire considerably increases and I am far more likely to take risks ( flirting) and act upon my sexual desire. So in my opinion child porn, makes pedoe's more likley to act upon it.

As to abolishing animal testing, as with almost everything we are in a huge moral gray area. I do agree animal testing on cosmetics should be abolished, however if they don't test it on animals and their first tests are on humans, several women each ear shall have permanent disfigurations due to bad reactions. At which point, the question is difficult, which is the lesser evil ? Oh and animal testing for developing new medicines is a necessary evil ( I know that the term "necessary evil" has been used in the past to commit some of humanities greatest atrocities which sometimes shame us of being part of this race) But I do believe that while we should try to be as human and empathetic with these creatures during the experimentation, it must be done. At the end when we have to choose between the death of a chimp and a loved one, we all know who we would rather make it. Is it evil ? yes, is stopping it a greater evil ? probably.

I think a general system of misconception in regards to all GOVERNING toddies is that there is a good way. In regards to governing bodies there isn't, all ways are evil, just some are less evil than others, and here is the irony, that evil is necessary.

Oh and for the abolition of religion, I totally disagree. Religion is necessary, in fact taking away religion from man, is something cruel, very cruel, it would cause an amount of suffering which would be unprecedented. For many people religion is the ONLY comfort and beacon of light in their lives, would you take that away from them ?

Besides banning religion would only increase it popularity dramatically. Human nature I believe. Baby one has a toy which he doesnt consider, baby two comes and takes said toy, all of a sudden baby one desperately craves his toy back.

Oh and to the opinion of love that it was only an basic evolutionary concept controlled by neurons...so what ? If you have been in love you will know that that bit of information is worth jackship, who cares what causes it ? It is one of the most beautiful emotions which really does give meaning to life.

Oh and I have to more opinions

1) There are two types of people in this world; those who admit their hypocrisy, and those who don't.

2) the attempt to force ones opinions on others is wrong is wrong, from hitler to jesus, no matter if they be good or bad, the second you try to convert others to your mode of though you are in the wrong.

[OrphanPip]

That's exactly right. What ginsberg was saying was that it is natural for some people to experience those sexual desires. He was not advocating that they should be acted upon. And neither was i. I do think paedophiles should be helped. They should be able to talk about how they feel without instantly being hated for it. We - as a society - need to approach the subject more objectively in order to both prevent children being harmed and to help somebody who, after all, cannot help the fact that he/she is attracted to children. I think we are too sensitive on the subject (which in many cases is understandable).

My point actually was that Ginsberg was referring to ephebophilic feelings, i.e. feelings toward minors in the legal sense who are post-pubescent, which is considered normal by psychologist. The standards of age of consent vary between cultures, in Canada an adult can pursue a relationship with a 16 year old legally, in some parts of the US as well, but in California the age is 18. Not that I generally approve of adults who date older teenagers, I just don't think it is immediately impossible for such a relationship not to be exploitative, nor is any participant in the relationship at any great risk of mental anguish.

The rest I mostly agree with, frankly just because I think such an approach would lower the number of victims.

[Dodo25]

Oh and to the opinion of love that it was only an basic evolutionary concept controlled by neurons...so what ? If you have been in love you will know that that bit of information is worth jackship, who cares what causes it ? It is one of the most beautiful emotions which really does give meaning to life.

Exactly.

[breathtest]

Oh and as for the Child Porno thing, sorry Affrican love and Breathtest but I have to disagree based on personal experience. I have noted that when I watch Porn, I am more likely to get laid when I go out, as my sexual desire considerably increases and I am far more likely to take risks ( flirting) and act upon my sexual desire. So in my opinion child porn, makes pedoe's more likley to act upon it.



I agree that that may be the case for some people, but if you masturbate over pornography then the endorphins released make you more chilled out and less sexually charged. I think providing an outlet would be helpful. Maybe controlled studies should be done to see whather it would work or not.

[stlukesguild]

SLG- 1. And so... rather than wasting your time and money upon something as trivial as an on-line literature discussion board you will undoubtedly be spending all of your free-time raising the money needed to end world hunger, warfare, rape, racism, sexism, etc....

Dodo25- It costs money? Wasting your time is relative, I think rational debate, writing and reading literature is a good way to spend time. Books can change the way people think - positively. And since I'm 19 and soon go to college, I'm not earning any money yet. But if I ever make a comfortable living, I will indeed donate a lot of it to sensible charities.

Last I heard a computer costs money, an internet connection cost money. Why waste this money on something so frivolous when you could be ending world hunger? Why spend the thousands of dollars to attend college... borrowing from taxpayers and from banks... with the goal of your own personal enrichment... when you could be ending warfare internationally? You need to consider your pretensions. You equate the indifference of those buying a bigger home to the sufferings and starvation of countless individuals on the other side of the world but you ignore your complicity when measured by the same standards.

Dodo25- It's very possible that those people prone to such behavior are the ones who seek out the material in the first place. The studies have to eliminate that variable.

How do we do that? How do we know who is or is not prone to anti-social or sociopathic behavior ahead of time?

SLG- And how do we go about this? Logistics please..

Dodo25- There'd have to be a curriculum, a detailed overview in philosophy and science that every candidate has to go through. The 'philosopher kings' would have to apply for the job, pass tests and eventually get chosen.

Who chooses them? Why are we to assume that a knowledge of philosophy is at all useful for a ruler? Leadership involves organization and administration, delegation of responsibilities to appropriate individuals, selection of qualified employees, the ability to motivate individuals, social skills, etc...

Dodo25- The life of these 'kings' would be the opposite from the life of a normal king. They life comfortable, but no luxury and no fame. There should be nothing that corrupts them, no possibility for more power/money.

And thus... what is their motivation? This is always the question that every Utopian concept of government fails.

Dodo25- Every decision will be justified with a final report that goes out to the public. This means, the public can always read through the arguments of the greatest philosophical minds and understand why something was chosen. If people from the public want to veto something, they have to send in argumentative essays. Those are checked by the philosophers (or helpers thereof if there's a lot to do) and replies are sent back to the people.

OK... every decision has to be justified by a report that goes out to the public (Of course all bills and laws must be accessible to the public today... but let's play along). So every decision as to when to fill in a given pothole, plow the snow on a given road, promote this or that individual must be justified in writing to the nation as a whole? And any individual who wishes to challenge any decision may do so simply by submitting an argumentative essay which must be read and relied to? And when will these philosopher kings have time to do anything else?

Dodo25- Why do you resort to calling me a dreamer instead of providing arguments for your position?

One needs not waste time arguing an absurd statement with logic. No one is going to waste time refuting the teen who posts "Shakespeare sucks" by offering up an essay with cited examples in order to prove Shakespeare doesn't suck. The statement is unworthy of such... beneath contempt... just as your suggestion that a Chimpanzee "deserves more ethical consideration than a human infant or an Alzheimer patient" and that experiments can be justified upon experiments on chimps can be justified "for human infants or late-stage Alzheimer patients, especially because it would be of higher medical use to us." This was also the "thinking" Doctor Mengele... the needs of the state outweigh the rights of the individual.

SLG-A genius of both theology and science, no less.

Dodo25- Argument?

There is no argument to faith or belief. You state that there is no God as fact... yet you cannot know this one way or the other. There is no unquestioned scientific proof of the existence of God... but the absence of proof is not the same as proof that something doesn't exist. You dismiss the belief of others... many others... many others far more educated and intelligent than yourself or myself... because these beliefs are founded upon faith and not scientifically measurable fact... and then you turn around and throw out a suppositions (unsupported by fact) about parallel universes that is surely no less "fantastic" than a belief in God. In other words you would replace one belief system with another.

SLG- 9. Yeah... the same idea made China, the Soviet Union, Cambodia, and Nazi Germany safe, idealistic havens in which to raise the kids.

Dodo25- Uhm, that's communism. And in the case of Nazi Germany it's an anti-semitic ideology based on the wrong assumption that the 'Arian race' (which is in no way a 'race' biologically speaking) is superior to the rest of humanity.

Furthermore, I don't remember advocating the abolition of freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Stop the straw-men, and go research some history if you don't understand what communism is.

Junior, I have little doubt that I have a greater grasp of history than you will ever likely have. You declare that the world would be a better place without religion. The 20th century was most certainly the most secular in history. Great faith was placed in the sciences and pseudo-sciences and technology. The result was to have been a Utopia. Instead what occurred was the most destructive and murderous century in the history of humanity. The reality is that hatred, prejudice, envy, avarice, jealousy, violence, and murder have always been part and parcel of human existence. Religion is simply one aspect of humanity used by individuals to justify these behaviors. Atheists are no less prone to such behaviors as the Soviet Union, Cambodia, and China, prove. Race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, class... anything that differentiates one human being from another can be and have been employed as a justification for antisocial and sociopathic behaviors.

SLG- 10. Brave New World... the state shall decide what is best for the individual.

Dodo25- Not really, I don't see how there are parallels.

The parallel is that you are dictating what belief system a parent may pass down to their child. While I quite agree that every individual should approach the issue of religion as an adult and not simply hold firm with the faith in which they were raised(just as any thinking adult should question, test, and explore all that they learned as a child), the notion that indoctrination of... or some might say the idea of passing on a religious tradition to a child is a form of child abuse is absurd. How do we enforce this idea? Do we conduct random searches of homes to make sure that parents are not attempting to pass on their beliefs such as were carried out in the East Block? (And we can see how successful that was. Christianity is a greater presence in Poland and Russia today than it is in France.) Where do we draw the line in limiting parents from passing on belief and value systems... and how do we draw the line once we start down the path of limiting freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and freedom to raise one's children as one sees fit?




The children can still choose eventually, they should just have a free choice. Have you ever looked on a world map based on religions? Isn't it odd that people tend to follow the religion of their parents? After all, if there are n relgions, at least n-1 of them are wrong! So why should we encourage children to adopt them for bad reasons? Why allow indoctrination and label children? Would you call the 5 year old child of neo-nazi parents a nazi?

[Rores28]

As to abolishing animal testing, as with almost everything we are in a huge moral gray area. I do agree animal testing on cosmetics should be abolished, however if they don't test it on animals and their first tests are on humans, several women each ear shall have permanent disfigurations due to bad reactions. At which point, the question is difficult, which is the lesser evil ? Oh and animal testing for developing new medicines is a necessary evil ( I know that the term "necessary evil" has been used in the past to commit some of humanities greatest atrocities which sometimes shame us of being part of this race) But I do believe that while we should try to be as human and empathetic with these creatures during the experimentation, it must be done. At the end when we have to choose between the death of a chimp and a loved one, we all know who we would rather make it. Is it evil ? yes, is stopping it a greater evil ? probably.


I still think this is missing the point of what the gray area is (though there may be a communication breakdown and I may not be understanding you correctly).

The gray area is whether or not the animal is conscious or has sentience like that of a human, which I guess is just to say sentience.

If the animal does, than they basically need to be enjoying all the moral "rights" that human's do. I just can't see a way around this. What would the justification be?

They aren't as intelligent?
Counter: So then experimenting would be okay on mentally challenged

They are a different species?
Counter: This sounds a lot like slavery/racism

Greater good?
Counter: See previous two points

I can't even think of any other justifications
-----------------------------------------------

That being said, currently I am of the opinion that no animal has sentience and therefore I have no rational sympathy whatsoever for them. I think no kind or amplitude of animal experimentation is wrong. I even don't think there is anything morally wrong with someone straight up torturing an animal for fun, though I would of course have the visceral response of being appalled. Also I would shrewdly take this as an indicator that this may be a mentally unstable person :smilewinkgrin:

[stlukesguild]

SLG- And who is to absorb this debt? Its always easy to imagine some great evil faceless capitalist corporations that doesn't need any more money... but investments in the economic development of other countries must be paid for by someone and this someone includes not merely the corporate CEOs and high-stakes investors but many small investors, retirement plans, etc... If debt to all third world nations were eliminated who eats the financial loss? The taxpayers of the Western nations who had nothing to do with the investments or the corruption of the third world governments? And what will be the likely result? An immediate halt to all investment in developing nations. Who is going to take such a risk?

African Love/AL- I have to read more about the issue and this is a reasonable argument as far as legitimately acquired debt is concerned (despite the need to lower as much debt as is possible for humanitarian reasons) but the U.S and other Western countries were never justified in lending money to non-representative governments and expecting their citizens to pay for it.

The reality is that individual companies, investment firms, etc... invest in developing countries with the intention of making a profit. Investors measure potential gains against the possible losses. A company looks to a developing nation... China for example... and they may see a large population of potential customers, or great natural resources. They weigh the potential profits against the stability of the nation. The developing nations need the investments to further development and growth... ideally to better the lives of the population as a whole. It is unrealistic to suggest that the Western democracies are wrong to invest in any nation that is not governed by a representative government such as our own. Nations of different systems of government and different belief systems have engaged in trade throughout the whole of history.

SLG- So incest, rape, necrophilia and every other sexual deviation should also be imagined as merely a variation upon the individual's sexual orientation?

AL- A sexual orientation is a pattern of sexual and romantic feelings towards a certain demographic. Relatives and corpses are not a demographic

Semantics. You are simply defining the term in a highly limited manner. Sexual orientation simply describes a pattern of sexual (and/or romantic) attraction. Such orientation may refer to hetero- or homosexuality... attraction to individuals of the opposite of the same sex... but it need not be so limited. Human sexual desire is certainly not so limited. There are individuals sexually attracted to animals (bestiality), children (pedophilia), to corpses (necrophilia), to feces (coprophilia), to the grossly obese, to the wealthy, to blonds, to redheads, etc... There are those who garner sexual thrill from raping or even killing. Society as a whole has come to the determination that some of these patterns of sexual attraction should not be acted upon... should be deigned as illegal. The fact that the individual may not be able to control such thoughts or desires may make them "natural"... but this does not justify the individual from acting upon these desires. There are time in rush hour traffic when my thoughts lean toward running some idiot off the road and into a ditch... but this does not justify my actually doing so.

AL-(and I don't see how someone can have romantic feelings for a corpse itself rather than the person they used to be) and rape is just forced/unwanted sex so I think these things are better thought of as 'fetishes' or preferences but still, I will apply the same logic. I see nothing wrong with consensual sex between adult relatives, who they want to be with is none of my business. Necrophilia would be harmless were it not for the demoralizing effect that it has on the deceased's friends, family members and members of the community in general, for that reason alone (and not a concern for the deceased) it should be discouraged. Rape is wrong because it causes suffering. If a man wants to fantasize about raping other people, I think this is unempathetic but thoughts are free. Rape fantasies are harmless as long as he doesn't act on them.

Jonathan Swifts brilliant fiction, A Modest Proposal was a masterpiece of logic applied to the absurd or even obscene and taken to the absurd and obscene conclusion. Of course Swift was being ironic. No such luck here.:mad2:

SLG- The notion that there is nothing inherently harmful about adult/child sexual relations is an absolute absurd statement that shows no knowledge at all about the emotional/psychological scars that such "relationships" leave.

AL- I'm not interested in convincing you that not all children who have had sex with an adult become emotionally damaged as a result and that sometimes the effects are actually positive. Just tell me this - if hypothetically it could be guaranteed that a child having sex with an adult would not cause them to suffer, in fact, the experience would be pleasurable for them, would there still be a moral reason to discourage them from having sex with that adult? Why?

Not every child who has been involved in a sexual relationship has been traumatized and left with life-long emotional scars... thus we should legalize pedophilia? And by the same token, since not all rape victims are traumatized or left emotionally wasted we should also legalize rape? The reality is that most children before a given age are not prepared for the emotional baggage that comes with sex... although they may be physically prepared. The child who does jump into sexual relationships early on is in a great majority of the instances simply seeking attention... acceptance... even love... or an escape. Any adult who enters into such a relationship is simply taking advantage of a vulnerable child... most commonly because he or she has emotional issues himself/herself and feels inadequate to engage in an appropriate relationship with another consenting adult... or simply desires to control the relationship and the other individual.

SLG- Not likely to happen. You are asking for the protection of the government in guaranteeing your rights as a spouse in matters of health insurance, tax benefits, social service benefits, death benefits, inheritance, etc... but you want the government to have no say as to what relationships they will or will not recognize. Yes, homosexual marriage should be recognized... but polygamy? I have great health benefits through my employer. Perhaps I should be able to declare that I am married to ten or 15 women guaranteeing them all access to my health benefits (perhaps at a small cost to them)? Or perhaps I should be allowed to marry my dog and claim she has the same rights to free health care?

As far as health insurance, tax benefits, medical decisions etc. are concerned, why should a romantic partner have these benefits anymore than a close family friend? Why do romantic relationships warrant greater respect than platonic ones? Isn't it strange how when an immigrant marries a native born citizen they have to prove to a government official that their relationship is genuine rather than a scam to acquire citizenship? How do you prove love and why should love be a legal issue? Why is it any more important to the government that people have a right to bring lovers from other countries into their own and not friends or extended family members?

One might argue that an individual's spouse is afforded certain rights and benefits as a result of having earned it... and in many cases this may be true. The wife loses time at work and income during pregnancy and perhaps even in raising the children. Many spouses support the other's efforts in attending school, during illnesses, etc... Ultimately, it comes down to the issue of money. Employers recognize that offering benefits to the spouses and children of an employee is a means of attracting and retaining quality employees. At the same time... they are not about to dole out coverage where they don't need to... beyond the accepted notion of the family. By the same token, the government is not likely to be willing to count your 20 close friends, your dog, or the 10 Mexican women you married last week in Vegas among those eligible for government recognition and benefits.

AL- And I do think that domesticated, non-human animals should receive free medical care if the 'owner' can not afford it, since human society is responsible for their existence.

That would be ideal... but unlikely in a nation that cannot even agree upon free medical care for its citizens.

SLG- So whenever we need to build further housing we need to get permission from the rabbits, frogs, tadpoles, and gnats who live there? Whenever we wish to tear down a home or building that has become unsafe or unusable we need to think about the rights of the rats, mice, and roaches that call that building "home"?

AL- We can't walk on egg shells but we can avoid wiping out 90% of West Africa's original forests. Entire species are extinct because of human behavior.

What you suggest here is not what you initially suggested. I quite agree that we need to become aware of our impact upon the environment. I am appalled by the fact that the US government often offers benefits and incentives to developers to develop lands further and further from the large urban centers thus increasing gasoline consumption, pollution, the costs of the highways, etc... and contributing to the collapse of the inner cities... rather than offering incentives for rebuilding and developing in the inner cities... including appropriately funding the schools and public services. The problem with development in developing countries is how to limit the environmental damage while still allowing for growth. How do we tell the Africans or Brazilians to stop depleting their rain-forests after we in the West... in Europe and the United States... have depleted our natural resources? Do we suggest that all you Brazilians and Africans continue to live in huts... and not aspire to our standard of living?

So... if someone decides to repeatedly rape and then murder a child its all the fault of their environment... or rather there is no fault at all... just physical action and reaction... and as a result there should be no consequences (good or bad) for any behavior. Which would of course lead to "justice" solely dealt out on a basis of "might makes right". The child murderer did nothing wrong... but neither did the parent who killed the child murderer.

Ask yourself, when you hear of a man raping a woman, are you primarily angry because he had the audacity to break social rules and to violate somebody else's rights or are you upset because an innocent person was made to suffer? If instead of being raped that woman was in a car accident that left her paralyzed from the neck down,would you still care, since there's no one to be blamed for her misfortune? It's possible to feel empathy for the victim without feeling anger towards the victimizer. We don't need to blame people for their actions in order to want to prevent anti-social behavior anymore than we need to be able to blame the weather in order to want to prevent tsunami's or floods. The child murderer did do something 'wrong', he just can't be blamed for it.

No. That's just idealistic fantasy... or once again... logic/illogic applied to an absurd proposition and taken to the point of extreme absurdity and even obscenity. The individual who cannot abide by the most basic rules of society needs to be removed from society. If the government cannot achieve this, it will be carried out in a vigilante manner.

[Dodo25]

Last I heard a computer costs money, an internet connection cost money. Why waste this money on something so frivolous when you could be ending world hunger? Why spend the thousands of dollars to attend college... borrowing from taxpayers and from banks... with the goal of your own personal enrichment... when you could be ending warfare internationally? You need to consider your pretensions. You equate the indifference of those buying a bigger home to the sufferings and starvation of countless individuals on the other side of the world but you ignore your complicity when measured by the same standards.

If I go to college, I'll get a job where I can make more money and hence donate more. Living like Thoreau in a hat isn't productive. And of course, some basic priviledges that make life fun just have to be there. Humans aren't perfect, self-interest is a strong drive. All I'm saying is people, and governments, should give more than what's given now.

Dodo25- It's very possible that those people prone to such behavior are the ones who seek out the material in the first place. The studies have to eliminate that variable.



How do we do that? How do we know who is or is not prone to anti-social or sociopathic behavior ahead of time?

There's probably a genetic component, one could sample the genes of the consumer or anti-social behavior group and compare it to the average population. Brain scans might be helpful too, technology will soon allow fairly decent analyses.



Who chooses them? Why are we to assume that a knowledge of philosophy is at all useful for a ruler? Leadership involves organization and administration, delegation of responsibilities to appropriate individuals, selection of qualified employees, the ability to motivate individuals, social skills, etc...

Many of these tasks can be given to people with less power. I'm just talking about the important decision making.



And thus... what is their motivation? This is always the question that every Utopian concept of government fails.

Compassion? A sense of duty? Having the priviledge of studying the fruits of thousands of years of human culture and using them humanely.



OK... every decision has to be justified by a report that goes out to the public (Of course all bills and laws must be accessible to the public today... but let's play along). So every decision as to when to fill in a given pothole, plow the snow on a given road, promote this or that individual must be justified in writing to the nation as a whole? And any individual who wishes to challenge any decision may do so simply by submitting an argumentative essay which must be read and relied to? And when will these philosopher kings have time to do anything else?

Does the president of the US make decisions concerning potholes? Does the supreme court or the senate? And okay, let's add that the argumentative essay needs to be signed by 50'000 people first before the rulers bother with reading it.



One needs not waste time arguing an absurd statement with logic. No one is going to waste time refuting the teen who posts "Shakespeare sucks" by offering up an essay with cited examples in order to prove Shakespeare doesn't suck. The statement is unworthy of such... beneath contempt... just as your suggestion that a Chimpanzee "deserves more ethical consideration than a human infant or an Alzheimer patient" and that experiments can be justified upon experiments on chimps can be justified "for human infants or late-stage Alzheimer patients, especially because it would be of higher medical use to us." This was also the "thinking" Doctor Mengele... the needs of the state outweigh the rights of the individual.

I made a coherent argument for this and you still didn't respond.



There is no argument to faith or belief. You state that there is no God as fact... yet you cannot know this one way or the other. There is no unquestioned scientific proof of the existence of God... but the absence of proof is not the same as proof that something doesn't exist. You dismiss the belief of others... many others... many others far more educated and intelligent than yourself or myself... because these beliefs are founded upon faith and not scientifically measurable fact... and then you turn around and throw out a suppositions (unsupported by fact) about parallel universes that is surely no less "fantastic" than a belief in God. In other words you would replace one belief system with another.?

I stated 'there MOST CERTAINLY is no god'. Faith is irrational and dangerous. Faith is belief without evidence, which is a stupid thing. The parallel universe has nothing to do with religion or god. It's just an opinion I hold. And I did mention that this is the one I'm least able to defend.

However, there is some evidence for it, some string theorists think there are parallel universes. CERN will show what's the case.



Junior, I have little doubt that I have a greater grasp of history than you will ever likely have. You declare that the world would be a better place without religion. The 20th century was most certainly the most secular in history. Great faith was placed in the sciences and pseudo-sciences and technology. The result was to have been a Utopia. Instead what occurred was the most destructive and murderous century in the history of humanity. The reality is that hatred, prejudice, envy, avarice, jealousy, violence, and murder have always been part and parcel of human existence. Religion is simply one aspect of humanity used by individuals to justify these behaviors. Atheists are no less prone to such behaviors as the Soviet Union, Cambodia, and China, prove. Race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, class... anything that differentiates one human being from another can be and have been employed as a justification for antisocial and sociopathic behaviors.

Actually, Mr IKnowSoMuchHistory, the 20th century was the most peaceful time in the history of humanity. There's a talk by Stephen Pinker on it (titled the 'myth of violence' or something like that. Of course, it was the century of large scale genocide and almost nuclear war. Yet if one adds everything together, the improvements in education, healthcare and technology in general have lowered the homicide rate considerably. Also keep in mind that nowadays there are much more people than hundred years ago, the argument is of course percentage wise.

The problem with religion is that it can motivate good people to do evil. Few other things can do that. If one sincerely believes that i.e. the Qu'ran is divinely inspired, there's a logical pathay leading over an airplane right into the twin towers.



The parallel is that you are dictating what belief system a parent may pass down to their child. While I quite agree that every individual should approach the issue of religion as an adult and not simply hold firm with the faith in which they were raised(just as any thinking adult should question, test, and explore all that they learned as a child), the notion that indoctrination of... or some might say the idea of passing on a religious tradition to a child is a form of child abuse is absurd. How do we enforce this idea? Do we conduct random searches of homes to make sure that parents are not attempting to pass on their beliefs such as were carried out in the East Block? (And we can see how successful that was. Christianity is a greater presence in Poland and Russia today than it is in France.) Where do we draw the line in limiting parents from passing on belief and value systems... and how do we draw the line once we start down the path of limiting freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and freedom to raise one's children as one sees fit?

These are important questions. A lot can be achieved by simply stopping to refer to children as 'Christians' or 'Muslims' before a certain age. Furthermore, one can make it mandatory to have comparative religion in school, so the children get the information from a neutral source.

[Haunted]

The gray area is whether or not the animal is conscious or has sentience like that of a human, which I guess is just to say sentience.

If the animal does, than they basically need to be enjoying all the moral "rights" that human's do. I just can't see a way around this. What would the justification be?

They aren't as intelligent?
Counter: So then experimenting would be okay on mentally challenged

They are a different species?
Counter: This sounds a lot like slavery/racism

Greater good?
Counter: See previous two points

I can't even think of any other justifications


No, I can't either.

Just answer this question: Would you experiment on a 3 year old child?

If the answer is no, then don't experiment on animals. Cats have the intelligence of a 3 year old child.

We shouldn't discriminate based on species. Experiment on animals if it's a product for animals. Experiment on humans if it's for humans. There'll always be willing participants. If I were terminally ill and there's an experimental drug, I would volunteer. Pay people enough money or give them hope, they'll come out of the woodwork. No need to put animals through the torture.

[stlukesguild]

Dodo25 (DD)- If I go to college, I'll get a job where I can make more money and hence donate more. Living like Thoreau in a hat isn't productive. And of course, some basic priviledges that make life fun just have to be there. Humans aren't perfect, self-interest is a strong drive. All I'm saying is people, and governments, should give more than what's given now.


Self interest tends to become more powerful when the money you are talking about was earned by your own labor... at a job that you quite often find less than ideal... and especially if you have a family whose immediate needs and wants concern you far more than something that appears but an abstraction. Should "we" give more? What country donates any where near what the US contributes to half of the developing nations of the world?

SLG- How do we know who is or is not prone to anti-social or sociopathic behavior ahead of time?

DD-There's probably a genetic component, one could sample the genes of the consumer or anti-social behavior group and compare it to the average population. Brain scans might be helpful too, technology will soon allow fairly decent analyses.

I doubt that we might simply attribute socio-pathic behavior to a given genetic component. Even if we could identify those individuals prone to sociopathic behavior ahead of time... what do we do with them?

SLG-And thus... what is their motivation? This is always the question that every Utopian concept of government fails.

DD- Compassion? A sense of duty? Having the priviledge of studying the fruits of thousands of years of human culture and using them humanely.

"Self-interest is a strong drive..." or so you stated above. What is in it for the individual? Compassion? A sense of duty? Priviledge? :lol::rofl: How many individuals do you imagine would put forth the effort and the expense of medical school and residency if a doctor were paid the same as a school teacher or an office clerk? You are suggesting a ruler... a leader of a nation... with all that entails... the stress, the long hours, the time spent away from the family, the lack of privacy... and for little or no personal reward. The reality is that those willing to do the job under such conditions probably aren't the best qualified, and the best qualified aren't likely to be willing to do the job under those conditions. Of course Plato's solution was to essentially "draft" the philosopher kings... force them into doing the job as a great noble sacrifice due to society. What a noble idea. The poor philosopher suffering for the sake of humanity.:sosp:

SLG- OK... every decision has to be justified by a report that goes out to the public (Of course all bills and laws must be accessible to the public today... but let's play along). So every decision as to when to fill in a given pothole, plow the snow on a given road, promote this or that individual must be justified in writing to the nation as a whole? And any individual who wishes to challenge any decision may do so simply by submitting an argumentative essay which must be read and relied to? And when will these philosopher kings have time to do anything else?

DD- Does the president of the US make decisions concerning potholes? Does the supreme court or the senate?

No... but are we assuming that only the presidency or its equivalent runs under the philosopher king? How effective will this be if all of the vast members of the bureaucracy are the same as they ever were?

DD-And okay, let's add that the argumentative essay needs to be signed by 50'000 people first before the rulers bother with reading it.

You seem to be slipping back to the notion of a populist system which is what we essentially have at this time. So now the brilliant individual can have the most profound idea but if that idea is not popular with the masses...? While a moron like Glenn Beck can be assured that all of his complaints will be heard?

SLG- There is no argument to faith or belief. You state that there is no God as fact... yet you cannot know this one way or the other. There is no unquestioned scientific proof of the existence of God... but the absence of proof is not the same as proof that something doesn't exist. You dismiss the belief of others... many others... many others far more educated and intelligent than yourself or myself... because these beliefs are founded upon faith and not scientifically measurable fact... and then you turn around and throw out a suppositions (unsupported by fact) about parallel universes that is surely no less "fantastic" than a belief in God. In other words you would replace one belief system with another.?

DD- I stated 'there MOST CERTAINLY is no god'.

Yes... a statement of fact... which you cannot substantiate with proof.

DD- Faith is irrational and dangerous.

So is love.

DD- Faith is belief without evidence, which is a stupid thing.

Is it? We all engage in acts of faith each an every day. How many things do you take for granted without ever having proven them? The Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776... Was it? How do you know? Were you there? Or are you merely taking the word of others for fact? Faith is stupid? Again it would seem no stupider than love for those in love will often trust one another... without the need of empirical proof. faith is stupid? Yet amazingly there are so many brilliant individuals... far more brilliant than you are I... who had faith.

DD- The parallel universe has nothing to do with religion or god. It's just an opinion I hold. And I did mention that this is the one I'm least able to defend.

It is a fantastic "belief without evidence" (which have suggested is stupid).

DD- However, there is some evidence for it, some string theorists think there are parallel universes. CERN will show what's the case.

You seemingly place a great deal of "faith" in science... considering some of the achievements of science in the last 100 years during two world wars and elsewhere, some might suggest that your "faith" is a belief contrary to evidence.

DD- The problem with religion is that it can motivate good people to do evil. Few other things can do that. If one sincerely believes that i.e. the Qu'ran is divinely inspired, there's a logical pathay leading over an airplane right into the twin towers.

Nationalism, Racism, prejudice, envy, fear, lust, love, any number of things may motivate the individual into doing evil. Even striving toward ideals. The French, Soviet, and Russian Revolutions all devolved into atrocity and horror in spite of the noblest intentions. Of course, "the road to hell... "

[OrphanPip]

I don't want to derail this into another atheism vs. theism thread. However, it is ridiculous to say that certain kinds of beliefs are not more valid than others. While nobody ever acts always on the basis of empirical evidence, it is perfectly reasonable to reject the claims of others when they lack empirical support.

If I were on the phone with someone in Morocco and they told me it was raining there, I may be inclined to believe them purely out of faith in their honesty. However, when the claims of that person over the phone contradict conventional logic, say if they told me it was raining fire, I think it would be reasonable to disagree with them and call them a liar unless they provide some sort of evidence. Likewise, claims about deities fall into that category of outlandish claims that one would be perfectly reasonable to be skeptical of without empirical evidence.

Merely saying that everyone makes decisions based on "faith" occasionally doesn't really add anything to the credibility of theistic claims.

Edit: I also don't want to get into the multiple universe thing, by education I'm a biologist not a physicist, however I would caution Dodo against making absolutist claims, which are never made in science. The realm of facts is only relevant to measurements and qualities of observable phenomena, our hypotheses and theories are merely supported by the evidence not proven. The scientific method operates off of the basis of falsification, thus the current status quo is always open to refinement as our knowledge improves.

[Alexander III]

Hm I think Religion is not the problem it is an outlet, take for example the french revolution, they removed religion stating it along with nobility was the cause of suffering. Yet in one year 1793-1794, more people were guillotined than in the last hundred years of french history. They simply replaced Religion with Nation. Before it was, you go against the church you suffer, then it became you go against the Nation, you suffer. The problem is human nature, and there is no cure, I think genocide is the closest cure for that a sort of human extermination, but that goes against the interests of well everyone...



"DD- Faith is irrational and dangerous.

So is love."

Freedom and Love are the most dangerous things known to man, yet they are the only things worth living, it is rather beautiful...in a twisted sort of way.

Oh and blind belief in atheism is just as dangerous as blind belief in religion, the best way is tolerance, I think in Europe, we have achieved an almost perfect balance, all religions are tolerated and none suffer due to their beliefs. Well the muslim extremist in the last few years kinda ****ed up the balance, but we were almost there.


"Compassion? A sense of duty? Having the priviledge of studying the fruits of thousands of years of human culture and using them humanely."


Ok im sorry I don't want to sound patronizing here, but that just made me laugh, it is this type of idealism which leads to creatures such as, The French republic in the 1790's, the soviet union as well as the Communist states in china and south eats asia, as well as fascism. These were all states founded on an idealism which reflected reality just as much as ones dreams reflect reality, and the results...well, we all know them.

History is such an important subject, as no other subject teaches us about mankind and ourselves as much as history. If we study history we can avoid the repetition of most mistakes, for example for historians the Nazi genocide of jews was no surprise, as merely 40 years perviously the German empire had conducted a very similar style of genocide, though more crude, with an African ethnicity, in one of their colonies which kept annoying the germans, so they wiped them all out, from infant to men, everyone was killed, in a form of rough and undeveloped concentration camp.

An also history is why most of the political ideas suggested on this thread are laughed at, because history of the last century has showed us what happens when these ideas are put into practice.

Sorry if I sounded preach there, I hate it when I do that, hypocrisy is such a tempting vice, the most tempting of all I should say.

[Rores28]

SLG-And thus... what is their motivation? This is always the question that every Utopian concept of government fails.

DD- Compassion? A sense of duty? Having the priviledge of studying the fruits of thousands of years of human culture and using them humanely.

"Self-interest is a strong drive..." or so you stated above. What is in it for the individual? Compassion? A sense of duty? Priviledge? :lol::rofl: How many individuals do you imagine would put forth the effort and the expense of medical school and residency if a doctor were paid the same as a school teacher or an office clerk? You are suggesting a ruler... a leader of a nation... with all that entails... the stress, the long hours, the time spent away from the family, the lack of privacy... and for little or no personal reward. The reality is that those willing to do the job under such conditions probably aren't the best qualified, and the best qualified aren't likely to be willing to do the job under those conditions. Of course Plato's solution was to essentially "draft" the philosopher kings... force them into doing the job as a great noble sacrifice due to society. What a noble idea. The poor philosopher suffering for the sake of humanity.:sosp:


There is a book I highly highly recommend entitled "Stumbling On Happiness" by Daniel Gilbert. No matter what your interests, it has relevance to everyone, and so to this topic.

There have been numerous studies done on what metrics affect people's happiness, and as the saying goes money can't buy it... kinda. There is very little correlation between happiness and income/money unless one is below the poverty line. Guess what a strong indicator of happiness is... job satisfaction, along with love/marriage, and some other big metrics which my fuzzy memory can't ascertain. Anyway this book/studies are pretty illuminating and as far as I know have been replicated many times with consistent findings.. that is to say most don't consider them particularly debatable.

Given that, I would say that this job of philosopher king would offer perhaps an unprecedented degree of job satisfaction, while offering I don't know what Dodo suggested, a middle class income/living situation?

So I would say these philosopher kings would be quite happy, though that is not exactly the point, because what this book also highlights, is how woefully bad we are at gauging what actions might bring future happiness. So it would only need to be perceived as a relatively unhappy situation for individuals to consider it so. So that is a complicated issue I think.

Anyway SLG and Dodo I think the problem with the philosopher king scenario and with rulers in general may lie more in this

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."

The most thoughtful and reflective often shy away I think from leadership positions especially in an arena as sprawling as politics because they realize what a truly staggering clusterfcuk of variables it is. There is a constant anxiety about making the "correct" decisions, which paradoxically may lead to the aphoristic paralysis by analysis. It seems to me like leadership positions are often filled by confident decisive morons (this may be too harsh) who also possess above average proportions of charisma.

But seriously check out stumbling on happiness... its excellent. Be warned though it is written by a psychology professor, and so is not terribly literary for those of you with such inclinations:smile5:

[stlukesguild]

There is a book I highly highly recommend entitled "Stumbling On Happiness" by Daniel Gilbert. No matter what your interests, it has relevance to everyone, and so to this topic.

There have been numerous studies done on what metrics affect people's happiness, and as the saying goes money can't buy it... kinda. There is very little correlation between happiness and income/money unless one is below the poverty line. Guess what a strong indicator of happiness is... job satisfaction, along with love/marriage, and some other big metrics which my fuzzy memory can't ascertain. Anyway this book/studies are pretty illuminating and as far as I know have been replicated many times with consistent findings.. that is to say most don't consider them particularly debatable.

Whether the grossly wealthy are more happy than the moderately wealthy or the merely comfortable is irrelevant when we come to the question of motivation. Very few individuals are going to be willing to put fort the effort and make the sort of sacrifices necessary to a position of national leader without a powerful incentive... and I doubt that telling them that you'll make a moderately comfortable salary but you'll have lots of job satisfaction and studies have proven that you'll be just as happy if not more so than if you were paid an attractively high salary is likely to be a great selling point: "Honest kid, trust me on this. I know it sounds absurd, but you'll be happier knowing that you were a compassionate leader than you would be with the million dollar salary." Let's face it... we already get a lot of unqualified figures in the political sphere. It is quite likely that a great deal more of the best qualified individuals will reject any thoughts of the public sector when the benefits are so little in comparison to what can be gained in the private sector.

[breathtest]

Whether the grossly wealthy are more happy than the moderately wealthy or the merely comfortable is irrelevant when we come to the question of motivation. Very few individuals are going to be willing to put fort the effort and make the sort of sacrifices necessary to a position of national leader without a powerful incentive... and I doubt that telling them that you'll make a moderately comfortable salary but you'll have lots of job satisfaction and studies have proven that you'll be just as happy if not more so than if you were paid an attractively high salary is likely to be a great selling point: "Honest kid, trust me on this. I know it sounds absurd, but you'll be happier knowing that you were a compassionate leader than you would be with the million dollar salary." Let's face it... we already get a lot of unqualified figures in the political sphere. It is quite likely that a great deal more of the best qualified individuals will reject any thoughts of the public sector when the benefits are so little in comparison to what can be gained in the private sector.


I know that you scoffed at the idea of a person wanting to become a leader because of the priviledge and because of compassion, but i think there are a lot of people in the world who would be well-enough motivated by that. Even if people really are only self-interested, i think there are many delusional (maybe delusional's a bit harsh, maybe not) people out there who believe that they are truly patriotic and want to help people and have no personal gain themselves. After all, there are many people, philosphers especially, who are not motivated by material possessions, so money would not be something they want.

[Rores28]

[COLOR="DarkRed"]]

Whether the grossly wealthy are more happy than the moderately wealthy or the merely comfortable is irrelevant when we come to the question of motivation. Very few individuals are going to be willing to put fort the effort and make the sort of sacrifices necessary to a position of national leader without a powerful incentive... and I doubt that telling them that you'll make a moderately comfortable salary but you'll have lots of job satisfaction and studies have proven that you'll be just as happy if not more so than if you were paid an attractively high salary is likely to be a great selling point: "Honest kid, trust me on this. I know it sounds absurd, but you'll be happier knowing that you were a compassionate leader than you would be with the million dollar salary." Let's face it... we already get a lot of unqualified figures in the political sphere. It is quite likely that a great deal more of the best qualified individuals will reject any thoughts of the public sector when the benefits are so little in comparison to what can be gained in the private sector.


Right this is what I was suggesting here

So I would say these philosopher kings would be quite happy, though that is not exactly the point, because what this book also highlights, is how woefully bad we are at gauging what actions might bring future happiness. So it would only need to be perceived as a relatively unhappy situation for individuals to consider it so. So that is a complicated issue I think.

However, I think my position on that subject is a little more optimistic than yours. Perhaps if there were a spokesperson of hilterian charisma and rhetorical skill.......

I maintain though, that a more damning barrier is the one I mentioned above

[stlukesguild]

I know that you scoffed at the idea of a person wanting to become a leader because of the priviledge and because of compassion, but i think there are a lot of people in the world who would be well-enough motivated by that.

The problem is that those people are likely to be idealistic dreamers who are far from what is needed to administer the complex issues that face a national leader. Where, for example, do you find positions of a like nature today: a job that is incredibly high-stress, that involves long hours and time spent away from friends and family, that places the individual in a position of continual scrutiny and criticism, the eliminates any privacy, that demands much of the individual in terms of education and experience... and in return offers but minimal in terms of tangible benefits to the individual outside of abstractions such as a sense of privilege and duty? Thomas More and even Plato were throwing out such ideas ages ago and yet faltered on the same issue of motivation. More simply glossed the question over as you have attempted with the naive notion that contrary to what we know of human nature from history, individuals will gladly sacrifice for little or no personal gain. Plato at least had the common sense to recognize that his ideal philosopher kings were not likely to enter into such responsibilities voluntarily, and so he suggested that they be forced... "drafted" if you will. In part he took this position because he recognized the reality that Rores28 alludes to... that "the most thoughtful and reflective often shy away... from leadership positions especially in an arena as sprawling as politics because they realize what a truly staggering clusterfcuk of variables it is..." (among other reasons) and as a result "leadership positions are often filled by confident decisive morons (this may be too harsh) who also possess above average proportions of charisma." Or more likely... leadership positions will often be filled by individuals who recognize the personal gain possible once they have taken the helm of power. Simply put, Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Even if people really are only self-interested, i think there are many delusional (maybe delusional's a bit harsh, maybe not) people out there who believe that they are truly patriotic and want to help people and have no personal gain themselves.

So... we should imagine that these delusional or painfully idealistic individuals are what are needed for the administration of a nation?

After all, there are many people, philosphers especially, who are not motivated by material possessions, so money would not be something they want.

Yep... lots of social workers, philosophers, teachers in parochial schools, etc... who earn but a middling income in spite of all that they attempt to do for society. And how many are expected to have to put forth the sacrifices and the preparatory effort that would be demanded of our "philosopher king"?
( a job that is incredibly high-stress, that involves long hours and time spent away from friends and family, that places the individual in a position of continual scrutiny and criticism, the eliminates any privacy, that demands much of the individual in terms of education and experience... )

Idealism and dreams come cheap. Experience and the ability to deal with reality comes with a price.

[breathtest]

More simply glossed the question over as you have attempted with the naive notion that contrary to what we know of human nature from history, individuals will gladly sacrifice for little or no personal gain.

I wasn't being naive. I don't actually think the 'philospher kings' theory would work, i was merely addressing the idea of motivation. I don't think everybody would shy away from the sheer volume of work, time and effort needed, because some people don't have families, and some people are 'workaholics' and are not happy unless they are working hard all the time.

I just don't think motivation would be a problem. I think what would be a problem is, like you said, if some people are delusional enough to think they are wholly unselfish, then they won't be ideal for running a country. But i do think that is where this theory faulters, not with regards to motivation.

[Dodo25]

Self interest tends to become more powerful when the money you are talking about was earned by your own labor... at a job that you quite often find less than ideal... and especially if you have a family whose immediate needs and wants concern you far more than something that appears but an abstraction. Should "we" give more? What country donates any where near what the US contributes to half of the developing nations of the world?

Pretty much any industrialized country. The US gives away less than 1% of its budget. Furthermore, just as an example, the crazy subventions for the US cotton industry used to lower prizes for cotton and lead to third world countries not being able to sell their stuff. I'm not sure if that's still the case, it might very well be.



I doubt that we might simply attribute socio-pathic behavior to a given genetic component. Even if we could identify those individuals prone to sociopathic behavior ahead of time... what do we do with them?

This ain't minority report. Since genes aren't absolutely responsible (alone), there's few justification for proactive action. One could suggest treatment in bad cases I guess and make further tests..



"Self-interest is a strong drive..." or so you stated above. What is in it for the individual? Compassion? A sense of duty? Priviledge? :lol::rofl: How many individuals do you imagine would put forth the effort and the expense of medical school and residency if a doctor were paid the same as a school teacher or an office clerk? You are suggesting a ruler... a leader of a nation... with all that entails... the stress, the long hours, the time spent away from the family, the lack of privacy... and for little or no personal reward. The reality is that those willing to do the job under such conditions probably aren't the best qualified, and the best qualified aren't likely to be willing to do the job under those conditions. Of course Plato's solution was to essentially "draft" the philosopher kings... force them into doing the job as a great noble sacrifice due to society. What a noble idea. The poor philosopher suffering for the sake of humanity.:sosp:

I disagree. I think the pursuit of knowledge and challenging yet fruitful tasks is one of the best ways to be satisfied in life. If the education offered includes, obviously, a shoarship for a program better (and harder) than Harvard, I'm sure the right people would even volunteer. Think of Kant, Mill, Singer, I'm sure they would. I really don't think motivation would be the problem.

Concerning the required signatures for essays to be presented to the philosopher kings:



You seem to be slipping back to the notion of a populist system which is what we essentially have at this time. So now the brilliant individual can have the most profound idea but if that idea is not popular with the masses...? While a moron like Glenn Beck can be assured that all of his complaints will be heard?

Good point, that was a bad suggestion. I think a compromise would be best, a smaller number of people signing and an entry fee would cut down the numbers enough..

About me saying 'I didn't make an absolute statement, I said "there most certainly is no God"':



Yes... a statement of fact... which you cannot substantiate with proof.

"There most certainly are no unicorns". Do I have to provide proof for this statement? As long as there's no postive evidence for a thing's existance, there really is no reason whatsoever to think that it is likely to exist.

Furthermore, God is extremely improbable. Creationists like to say things like how crazily improbable amino acid sequences are. Think of whole human beings, they are orders of magnitudes more complex. If they just came out of nowhere, that wouldn't make any sense! Evolution of course explains that, it explains how SIMPLE beginnings over time GRADUALLY lead to complexity.

Complexity cannot be the beginning itself. Something as complex as God (or intelligence, consciousness, all that fancy stuff) just existing is absurd to the highest degree. Believing in God is thinking that one solves the problem of finding an explanation by postulating something that's even harder to explain. Any child sees the problem. As long as there's no evidence, I can say with all intellectual honesty that the existance of God is virtually impossible.

I've had countless discussions about this, I've heard virtually all the arguments there are. I've read the Bible and parts of the Qu'ran and the Hadiths. I've studied evolutionary biology in my free time and read books on philosophy and theism. The answer to the question of God's existance is very obvious, so much speaks against it, nothing for.

DD- Faith is irrational and dangerous.



So is love.


Indeed. There are even more parallels. Faith can be a 'good thing' in certain situations, even though it is always wrong, it can give hope and stuff. Still, I'm convinced that we have other, more justified, more worthy values we can tie or hopes to. I think the disadvantages of faith outweigh its benefits.

At least love is the best feeling ever, so that kinda justifies it. And while many crimes do have to do with love, major wars don't (at least at this stage of history).

Scientific advances of the nuclear age just don't do well if people hold beliefs from the bronze age. If the American president talks about 'holy war' (I don't mean Obama), and a complete nut case like Palin almost gets elected as vice president, where does it end? And don't even get me started on Jerusalem.

If people would stop giving 'faith' undeserved respect, if the idea itself became frowned upon, maybe fundamentalism would finally start to disappear and we could live in a more peaceful and educated world. Education is actually very much the key here, there's a strong correlation between atheism and education.

Faith being a stupid thing:



Is it? We all engage in acts of faith each an every day. How many things do you take for granted without ever having proven them? The Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776... Was it? How do you know? Were you there? Or are you merely taking the word of others for fact? Faith is stupid? Again it would seem no stupider than love for those in love will often trust one another... without the need of empirical proof. faith is stupid? Yet amazingly there are so many brilliant individuals... far more brilliant than you are I... who had faith.

I don't base my life on acts of faith. In fact, I DO NOT HAVE FAITH IN ANYTHING. Not in the sense defined 'belief without evidence'. When I 'believe' that I'm the son of my father, I don't have 'faith' in it, I assume it because in more than 90% of the cases, when the 'parents' tell you they're your parents, they're right. Furthermore I can see some similarities which support the idea of shared genes. Furthermore, my parents have a very good record for telling me the truth (with the exception of Santa Claus).

"Where you there?" What kind of question is that? You say you're good at history, why would you study anything about it if you don't have a time machine? We know about historical 'facts' (never 100% proveable, yet still supported by evidence beyond reasonable doubt) because of evidence. That's not faith, it is well-supported belief.

And the argument about brilliant individuals is flawed too. For one thing, there were/are also many 'brilliant individuals' that agree with me. Moreover, some which you may have in mind lived before 1859, and that doesn't really count for the question. Also, I hope you don't mean Einstein or Hawking, because they certainly weren't/aren't religious.

DD- The parallel universe has nothing to do with religion or god. It's just an opinion I hold. And I did mention that this is the one I'm least able to defend.



It is a fantastic "belief without evidence" (which have suggested is stupid).

I'm starting to regret having brought that up. As I said, there is some evidence for it, but among expert circles, it is a minority view. I have my own argument for the existance of multiverses, I think it is sound. Whether that also justifies the explanation for dark mater is a different question. Either way, I guess I can see how you consider this 'faith', note however that I in no way base my life, or for that matter, any important decisions on this 'belief'. Moreover, I don't state 'I know it for sure', I was very careful to emphasize how weak my belief is in this case. And finally, at least there is SOME evidence for it, however small.



You seemingly place a great deal of "faith" in science... considering some of the achievements of science in the last 100 years during two world wars and elsewhere, some might suggest that your "faith" is a belief contrary to evidence.

'Belief contrary to evidence', that's a good phrase! That's fundamentalism, faith taken to the extreme. I hav no idea how this applies to me though. Science has made a tremendous progress in the last 100 years. The track record is considerable. So many things once believed because of religion are now explained and attributed to different, natural causes - all due to science. Science isn't perfect, in fact, that's a strength. When mistakes are made, scientists discard the wrong hypotheses and come up with new, improved concepts. Science changes and grows, dogmatic religion doesn't, it's stuck in the barbaric bronze age!

DD- The problem with religion is that it can motivate good people to do evil. Few other things can do that. If one sincerely believes that i.e. the Qu'ran is divinely inspired, there's a logical pathay leading over an airplane right into the twin towers.



Nationalism, Racism, prejudice, envy, fear, lust, love, any number of things may motivate the individual into doing evil. Even striving toward ideals. The French, Soviet, and Russian Revolutions all devolved into atrocity and horror in spite of the noblest intentions. Of course, "the road to hell... "

Yeah sure, but the 'logical pathway' is often lacking, while in religion, it is all too obvious. Also, while the bad aspects of most of the things you mentioned are generally condemned, this is not the case about religion.

Christian quote:

"I believe there are two kinds of people: People who do believe in Jesus, and people who don't"

Isn't that the worst form of prejudice? Yet if one is actually sincere about faith in the Bible, that's the only view that makes sense, it is the only virtuous view, it is the rigtheous view.

And please let's not start another discussion about religion, there are thousands of threads already.

[Alexander III]

Sorry Dodo but what I mentioned in my previous post shows how your argument is severely flawed, and only choosing the quote thing from people which you can argue to and prove wrong while ignoring the things you cant argue against, speak to the validity of your argument.

[Dodo25]

I didn't see anyhting that'd render my argument completely flawed. But you're right, your argument is of course worth discussing. And so is Rores28's objection.


Hm I think Religion is not the problem it is an outlet, take for example the french revolution, they removed religion stating it along with nobility was the cause of suffering. Yet in one year 1793-1794, more people were guillotined than in the last hundred years of french history. They simply replaced Religion with Nation. Before it was, you go against the church you suffer, then it became you go against the Nation, you suffer. The problem is human nature, and there is no cure, I think genocide is the closest cure for that a sort of human extermination, but that goes against the interests of well everyone...

The solution is education. And education doesn't work if there's fundamentalist religion. And as long as there is 'moderate religion', the fundamentalist don't experience enough pressure to let go of their extreme beliefs.

And again, there's the logical pathway to violence. Certainly, sentiments like nationalism and anger can lead to violence. Yet religion actually tells you what to do. It tells you precisely how to execute the women that was raped (if she didn't scream loud enough). It tells you what precisely will happen when one dies a martyr. Or (now Christianity, not Islam) it tells you precisely what will happen when Jesus comes back (which 20% of Americans are convinced will happen DURING THEIR LIFETIME). There are 20% of people in the world's most militarily powerful country that would take the outbreak of World War III as a happy event, the beginning of Armageddon, the coming of their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.



Freedom and Love are the most dangerous things known to man, yet they are the only things worth living, it is rather beautiful...in a twisted sort of way.

I don't think love is that dangerous, yet apart from this I do agree with you.



Oh and blind belief in atheism is just as dangerous as blind belief in religion, the best way is tolerance, I think in Europe, we have achieved an almost perfect balance, all religions are tolerated and none suffer due to their beliefs. Well the muslim extremist in the last few years kinda ****ed up the balance, but we were almost there.

We are far from any balance. Extremism also exists in Christianity. Even in a comparatively educated country like Switzerland, 25% of people don't accept evolution. This might not seem like a 'dangerous thing', yet it does undermine education and leads to an anti-scientific attitude.

Have you ever entertained the thought that 'extremists' are the only believers that aren't hypocrites? At least they ACTUALLY BELIEVE what their holy texts state. Most moderate believers haven't even read the Bible/Qu'ran, and if they have, they just ignore and rationalize large parts of it.

And for the last time, atheism is no a faith and not a religion. It's as much a religion as 'not collecting comics' is a hobby. If atheism was based on faith, one would base it on faith to not believe in pink unicorns or Narnia in your wardrobe.

"Compassion? A sense of duty? Having the priviledge of studying the fruits of thousands of years of human culture and using them humanely."



Ok im sorry I don't want to sound patronizing here, but that just made me laugh, it is this type of idealism which leads to creatures such as, The French republic in the 1790's, the soviet union as well as the Communist states in china and south eats asia, as well as fascism. These were all states founded on an idealism which reflected reality just as much as ones dreams reflect reality, and the results...well, we all know them.

Rores28 made an excellent argument in favor of my claim about motivation. I think the 'right people' would be willing to do the job. Democracy is founded on 'idealism' as well, does your argument prove that it must lead to atrocities?



An also history is why most of the political ideas suggested on this thread are laughed at, because history of the last century has showed us what happens when these ideas are put into practice.

You fail to make an important distinction. All the atrocities were based on WRONG BELIEFS. Communism just doesn't work, especially if one doesn't even follow what Marx wrote and tries to 'accelerate' the process, as Stalin and Mao did. And the German 'Arian race' is not superior to other humans, there's no ethical justification for that. Also, the Jews did not kill Jesus, and they most likely did not poison any water sources. And even if 'some Jews killed Jesus' and 'some Jews poison water', that wouldn't justify holding all of them accountable would it?

Also the nazi's eugenics program was based on wrong assumptions and was not justifiable by an utilitarian approach to ethics (even more so by a Kantian one of course).

You can't just declare it 'deemed to fail' without making that important distinction and actually look at it closely.




"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."

The most thoughtful and reflective often shy away I think from leadership positions especially in an arena as sprawling as politics because they realize what a truly staggering clusterfcuk of variables it is. There is a constant anxiety about making the "correct" decisions, which paradoxically may lead to the aphoristic paralysis by analysis. It seems to me like leadership positions are often filled by confident decisive morons (this may be too harsh) who also possess above average proportions of charisma.


Good point. The problem with any 'committee' instead of a sole ruler is that discussions take time. My hope is that on many issues, the answer is relatively obvious. I think there a 'peaks on a moral landscape' which can be found by logical and analysis, and different individuals with knowledge as perfect as possible would come up with similar solutions.

Again, I never said I was fully convinced with my suggestion. My initial statement was to 'research the possiblity of such a form of government'. I think it's worth it, democracy is far from perfect. We need good leaders to solve problems like i.e. energy and resources.

As of now, it couldn't work because of religion. As soon as a government might make decisions like legalizing euthanasia or confirming Roe v. Wade, some fundamentalist Christians would likely react with terrorism. The first thing that needs to be done is 'critical thinking classes' in all schools as well as a change in education policy so that people don't learn WHAT to think but HOW to think.

[Propter W.]

1. We are overpopulating the world. It's more destructive to feed those who are starving. Stop sending food to countries where famine is a reality. It's not our responsibility to save every human. By feeding those who are starving (and sending aid to those who have been struck by natural disasters) we are only ensuring that the human population will increase (and more and more people will be born into poverty and famine). Humans are not sacred and we are bound by the laws of nature just like any other animal (just because we can feed and save them, doesn't mean we should... and soon enough we'll find out that saving them means ensuring our demise). What we are doing is not sustainable. This is, of course, connected to the system put in place by the West (or the North, whatever you want to call it). We should abandon our "modern ways". We're won't find a way out of this well by digging deeper.

This is the only thing that matters, imo: finding a way out of this. People want to save the animals, the plants, the fragile eco-systems... Yet they are not willing to make sacrifices. Sure, they'll be more careful with their wood, but chop down the last tree anyway... They'll eat less meat, but shoot the last animal in order to survive...

All these new green and humanitarian initiatives are great, and sure enough they make a difference... but we're not changing our course, we're only changing how we get there. And the longer we wait, the faster we'll arrive.

This is an unpopular view because, in general, people believe they are special.


What you suggest here is not what you initially suggested. I quite agree that we need to become aware of our impact upon the environment. I am appalled by the fact that the US government often offers benefits and incentives to developers to develop lands further and further from the large urban centers thus increasing gasoline consumption, pollution, the costs of the highways, etc... and contributing to the collapse of the inner cities... rather than offering incentives for rebuilding and developing in the inner cities... including appropriately funding the schools and public services. The problem with development in developing countries is how to limit the environmental damage while still allowing for growth. How do we tell the Africans or Brazilians to stop depleting their rain-forests after we in the West... in Europe and the United States... have depleted our natural resources? Do we suggest that all you Brazilians and Africans continue to live in huts... and not aspire to our standard of living?

Our standard of living is based on the illusion that we can continue like this and we can assure this standard for everyone. I suggest we (or they) take a look at the price we've paid for our standard of living. Not only should all the Brazillians and Africans continue to live in huts, as you put it, the West should aspire to their standard of living. That is, if we want to continue living.

[iamnobody]

A thread for unpopular ideas. I love it! So here's mine. I don't think men who choose not to parent their children should be forced to pay child support. You see, I believe in equal rights. Any woman may choose not to mother her child (she may give it for adoption) with no further responsibility, financial or otherwise. Men, however, do not have this same right. No one would dream of saying to a woman,"Sure you can give the child up, but you are still financially responsible until it's 18 weather you want it or not. " But this is exactly what happens if you are a man. I think equal rights should mean equal rights FOR ALL. In case it matters, I am a single mother. My son's father is ordered to pay child support. I tried to waive the support,this of course was not allowed

[breathtest]

1. We are overpopulating the world. It's more destructive to feed those who are starving. Stop sending food to countries where famine is a reality. It's not our responsibility to save every human. By feeding those who are starving (and sending aid to those who have been struck by natural disasters) we are only ensuring that the human population will increase (and more and more people will be born into poverty and famine). Humans are not sacred and we are bound by the laws of nature just like any other animal (just because we can feed and save them, doesn't mean we should... and soon enough we'll find out that saving them means ensuring our demise). What we are doing is not sustainable. This is, of course, connected to the system put in place by the West (or the North, whatever you want to call it). We should abandon our "modern ways". We're won't find a way out of this well by digging deeper.


I think a better solution to overpopulation is restricting the amount of children one family is allowed to have. We cannot ignore the amount of suffering going on in the world. I think people who are currently alive and suffering because of lack of food and water and shelter deserve our attention. Reducing the amount of children two people have together will reduce the population down to a better size, but ignoring suffering on the scale that you have suggested i think would be pretty heartless. I think overpopulation needs to be addressed quickly, but there are more humane and empathetic ways.

[Propter W.]

I think a better solution to overpopulation is restricting the amount of children one family is allowed to have. We cannot ignore the amount of suffering going on in the world. I think people who are currently alive and suffering because of lack of food and water and shelter deserve our attention. Reducing the amount of children two people have together will reduce the population down to a better size, but ignoring suffering on the scale that you have suggested i think would be pretty heartless. I think overpopulation needs to be addressed quickly, but there are more humane and empathetic ways.

You say we cannot ignore the amount of suffering going on in the world. I say we cannot remedy it. Suffering is a part of the world. It's an illusion to think we can stop suffering, or even alleviate it.

I am certainly an advocate of restricting the amount of children a family can have, however, I don't think it's something that can be put into practise successfully.

I am not suggesting we ignore their suffering. If we take a look at why so many people in the (third) world suffer, we'll find that their suffering is directly linked to how we live. The way we lead our lives is unsustainable and they happen to be those who suffer first. Aiding them without adjusting the way we live is pointless. But people would rather maintain their standard of living and their way of life and send food and aid, than alter their way of life and create a more balanced world.

[Dodo25]

Very good points @Propter and breathtest.

And the Holy Catholic Church keeps sending priests into HIV-ridden villages preaching the inherent sinfulness of condom use. Here we have people with undoubtedly good motivations doing something absolutely horrible solely due to faith. We cannot tolerate such atrocities, and we should think about the underlying cause for all this. Which is NOT 'human nature', rage, anger, love or nationalism. The cause is religion, faith.

[Propter W.]

Very good points @Propter and breathtest.

And the Holy Catholic Church keeps sending priests into HIV-ridden villages preaching the inherent sinfulness of condom use. Here we have people with undoubtedly good motivations doing something absolutely horrible solely due to faith. We cannot tolerate such atrocities, and we should think about the underlying cause for all this. Which is NOT 'human nature', rage, anger, love or nationalism. The cause is religion, faith.

A very good point, Dodo.

But in my opinion equally dangerous, or perhaps even more dangerous is the faith in humanity and human capabilities. We should accept that we cannot control everything. It is the desire and our drive to control every aspect of our lives that is pushing us towards the abyss.

[Alexander III]

I didn't see anyhting that'd render my argument completely flawed. But you're right, your argument is of course worth discussing. And so is Rores28's objection.



The solution is education. And education doesn't work if there's fundamentalist religion. And as long as there is 'moderate religion', the fundamentalist don't experience enough pressure to let go of their extreme beliefs.

And again, there's the logical pathway to violence. Certainly, sentiments like nationalism and anger can lead to violence. Yet religion actually tells you what to do. It tells you precisely how to execute the women that was raped (if she didn't scream loud enough). It tells you what precisely will happen when one dies a martyr. Or (now Christianity, not Islam) it tells you precisely what will happen when Jesus comes back (which 20% of Americans are convinced will happen DURING THEIR LIFETIME). There are 20% of people in the world's most militarily powerful country that would take the outbreak of World War III as a happy event, the beginning of Armageddon, the coming of their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.


education doesn't change human nature, dress a chimp in a tux, its still a chimp. Your logical pathway to violence is true but it applies just as well to nationalism. The Furher demands expects it of us ! was just as powerful as It is what God wishes of us ! You committed a logical fallacy there, just because 20% belief the resurrection shall take place in their life time DOES NOT EQUAL 20% are happy to have WWIII. Fundamentalism is fundamentalism, if people cannot do it with religion, they will do it with state or nation or race or gender, as the 20th century has so kindly thought us.


I don't think love is that dangerous, yet apart from this I do agree with you.

You dont think, I do think - both of us have just as much right to claim said opinion in this regard



We are far from any balance. Extremism also exists in Christianity. Even in a comparatively educated country like Switzerland, 25% of people don't accept evolution. This might not seem like a 'dangerous thing', yet it does undermine education and leads to an anti-scientific attitude.

Have you ever entertained the thought that 'extremists' are the only believers that aren't hypocrites? At least they ACTUALLY BELIEVE what their holy texts state. Most moderate believers haven't even read the Bible/Qu'ran, and if they have, they just ignore and rationalize large parts of it.

What you say here would be completely correct if people were all of the same intellect, but they are not, there have always been and always shall be idiots, that is a fact, unless someone decides to launch an intelligence genocide.


And for the last time, atheism is no a faith and not a religion. It's as much a religion as 'not collecting comics' is a hobby. If atheism was based on faith, one would base it on faith to not believe in pink unicorns or Narnia in your wardrobe.

Atheism is belief in no god, which is a belief, and not a fact, so yes in some regards it can be deemed a fait. I am personally atheistic my self, though I often wander around in deism and then back to atheism, like a ping pong ball. However saying unicorns and the existence of god have the same probability is flawed. The existence of Unicorns and God as depicted in the Bible, probably do have the same probability, but a God as perceived in other relligions such as Taoism and Budishm, or even Deism, forces one to wander on such abstract an unknown plains of the cosmos that speculations and imagination are the only things which could allow us to comprehend the immensity of such a notion.

On Religion I agree with principles of what you say. However you say remove religion and everything is good, I say remove religion and as history has shown people just replace it with another word, and the same evils are committed except under a new cause.

"Compassion? A sense of duty? Having the priviledge of studying the fruits of thousands of years of human culture and using them humanely."



Rores28 made an excellent argument in favor of my claim about motivation. I think the 'right people' would be willing to do the job. Democracy is founded on 'idealism' as well, does your argument prove that it must lead to atrocities?

His description of the right people is just as likely to attract Stalins and Hitlers as it is to attract George Washingtons. It's a bit like russian roulette that way.



You fail to make an important distinction. All the atrocities were based on WRONG BELIEFS. Communism just doesn't work, especially if one doesn't even follow what Marx wrote and tries to 'accelerate' the process, as Stalin and Mao did. And the German 'Arian race' is not superior to other humans, there's no ethical justification for that. Also, the Jews did not kill Jesus, and they most likely did not poison any water sources. And even if 'some Jews killed Jesus' and 'some Jews poison water', that wouldn't justify holding all of them accountable would it?

So your beliefs are right but that of all the men in the past were wrong ? All Ideals are beautiful on paper but on practice they DONT work. in the last 3000 years of human history all attempts to create utopias ended in dystopias, but you somehow are above reality ? wrong beliefs never start as wrong, they just get corrupted because, there is always one visionary who see the truth, but his pure message reaches the masses which don't have his insight and they **** it up. So the only utopia which can work is a one man utopia. I mean look at christianity, Jesus, a great man, one of the greatest men humanity has had, however I don't see him at his desk creating the plans for the Inquisition, Slavery of Blacks...and all the other countless **** ups.

Also the nazi's eugenics program was based on wrong assumptions and was not justifiable by an utilitarian approach to ethics (even more so by a Kantian one of course).

How do we know our assumptions are not wrong ? Science is in continual change every year we learn that we were wrong before.

You can't just declare it 'deemed to fail' without making that important distinction and actually look at it closely.




Good point. The problem with any 'committee' instead of a sole ruler is that discussions take time. My hope is that on many issues, the answer is relatively obvious. I think there a 'peaks on a moral landscape' which can be found by logical and analysis, and different individuals with knowledge as perfect as possible would come up with similar solutions.

Again, I never said I was fully convinced with my suggestion. My initial statement was to 'research the possiblity of such a form of government'. I think it's worth it, democracy is far from perfect. We need good leaders to solve problems like i.e. energy and resources.

You are just describing democracy here, the same identical democracy the USA was founded on.


As of now, it couldn't work because of religion. As soon as a government might make decisions like legalizing euthanasia or confirming Roe v. Wade, some fundamentalist Christians would likely react with terrorism. The first thing that needs to be done is 'critical thinking classes' in all schools as well as a change in education policy so that people don't learn WHAT to think but HOW to think.

If it aint religion its something else, you just use religion as a scapegoat to avoid to come to terms with the unlikable reality of human nature.

[breathtest]

You say we cannot ignore the amount of suffering going on in the world. I say we cannot remedy it. Suffering is a part of the world. It's an illusion to think we can stop suffering, or even alleviate it.

I am certainly an advocate of restricting the amount of children a family can have, however, I don't think it's something that can be put into practise successfully.

I am not suggesting we ignore their suffering. If we take a look at why so many people in the (third) world suffer, we'll find that their suffering is directly linked to how we live. The way we lead our lives is unsustainable and they happen to be those who suffer first. Aiding them without adjusting the way we live is pointless. But people would rather maintain their standard of living and their way of life and send food and aid, than alter their way of life and create a more balanced world.

Well that makes complete sense to me. I have to agree. But somehow i can't see us changing the way we live. Not ever. Because, as you say, we are unwilling to make sacrifices.

[Propter W.]

Atheism is belief in no god, which is a belief, and not a fact, so yes in some regards it can be deemed a faith. I am personally atheistic my self, though I often wander around in deism and then back to atheism, like a ping pong ball. However saying unicorns and the existence of god have the same probability is flawed. The existence of Unicorns and God as depicted in the Bible, probably do have the same probability, but a God as perceived in other relligions such as Taoism and Budishm, or even Deism, forces one to wander on such abstract an unknown plains of the cosmos that speculations and imagination are the only things which could allow us to comprehend the immensity of such a notion.


Define god, and only then I can tell you whether I'm an atheist or not. Some people's definition of god is simple "nature". I usually call myself an atheist, but I do happen to believe in nature.

[Dodo25]

I'll only respond to one bit, not because I agree with all the rest, but because I think I've said enough on the subjects. Especially atheism not being a faith has been covered in a huge thread on this forum.


So your beliefs are right but that of all the men in the past were wrong ? All Ideals are beautiful on paper but on practice they DONT work. in the last 3000 years of human history all attempts to create utopias ended in dystopias, but you somehow are above reality ? wrong beliefs never start as wrong, they just get corrupted because, there is always one visionary who see the truth, but his pure message reaches the masses which don't have his insight and they **** it up. So the only utopia which can work is a one man utopia. I mean look at christianity, Jesus, a great man, one of the greatest men humanity has had, however I don't see him at his desk creating the plans for the Inquisition, Slavery of Blacks...and all the other countless **** ups.


I think your being pessimistic. To be honest, I am fairly convinced that humanity won't survive the next 200 years. Yet that doesn't mean we shouldn't at least try our best to do so.

How to tell which believes are right or wrong? That's exactly why we need a committee of experts and DISCUSSION. By the way, by 'philosophers' I don't mean what is normally understood by the term. In the thread 'When does philosophy become drivel' it has been noted repeatedly that a lot of philosophy is either nonsense or unable to come to conclusions.

What is right only emerges in discussions among informed individuals. I can only make the case as far as my knowledge, intelligence and the beliefs I hold allow. It is then on others to improve my ideas by attacking parts of it that are wrong/inconsistent, and by adding their own views and improvements.

If rational and knowledgeable individuals engage in such fruitful discussions, there is a result, because some views are simply wrong, others are most likely wrong, still others are just uncertain, and yet others are reasonable. Never 100% proveable, yet this doesn't mean we shouldn't try to get it as right as possible.

In the end, this comes down to epistemology and all this talk about moral relativism or objectivism. I don't want to get into all this stuff again, but I think it is obvious that some ideas just are superiors to others, and smart, rational people will find them in discussion.

[Technophile]

I only have one unpopular opinion, and it is this: Being Autistic is nothing to be proud of, it is simply a fact of who I am, like the fact that I'm a human being.

[Alexander III]

I'll only respond to one bit, not because I agree with all the rest, but because I think I've said enough on the subjects. Especially atheism not being a faith has been covered in a huge thread on this forum.



I think your being pessimistic. To be honest, I am fairly convinced that humanity won't survive the next 200 years. Yet that doesn't mean we shouldn't at least try our best to do so.

How to tell which believes are right or wrong? That's exactly why we need a committee of experts and DISCUSSION. By the way, by 'philosophers' I don't mean what is normally understood by the term. In the thread 'When does philosophy become drivel' it has been noted repeatedly that a lot of philosophy is either nonsense or unable to come to conclusions.

What is right only emerges in discussions among informed individuals. I can only make the case as far as my knowledge, intelligence and the beliefs I hold allow. It is then on others to improve my ideas by attacking parts of it that are wrong/inconsistent, and by adding their own views and improvements.

If rational and knowledgeable individuals engage in such fruitful discussions, there is a result, because some views are simply wrong, others are most likely wrong, still others are just uncertain, and yet others are reasonable. Never 100% proveable, yet this doesn't mean we shouldn't try to get it as right as possible.

In the end, this comes down to epistemology and all this talk about moral relativism or objectivism. I don't want to get into all this stuff again, but I think it is obvious that some ideas just are superiors to others, and smart, rational people will find them in discussion.


I have studied the rise of the soviet union extensively and the french revolution, if you did to, you would see the huge irony in all of what you said.

But as it seems that you are steadfast in your opinions (which is the greatest philosophical and political sin) let us just agree to disagree.

[Dodo25]

I have studied the rise of the soviet union extensively and the french revolution, if you did to, you would see the huge irony in all of what you said.

I only know the basics of the French Revolution, but I'm very familiar with the rise of the Soviet Uniton. I don't see any irony at all.

There was indeed this Volonté générale notion of democracy which is similar to what I am advocating to consider. The huge difference is that in the system I suggested, there would be transparency and open discussion.

Was there discussion among experts in the Soviet Union? The menschewiki won a vote and then seized power, after that, Lenin set up a dictatorship. And all the small transparency and open dialogue was destroyed and turned into the opposite in Stalinism, which, with it's dogmas and persona cult is almost religion-like, the very opposite of what I was proposing.



But as it seems that you are steadfast in your opinions (which is the greatest philosophical and political sin) let us just agree to disagree.

I disagree indeed.There are different kinds of being 'steadfast in opinion'. If one has a coherent, well-supported argument and is thus convinced of one's case, that's not a bad thing. It only becomes bad if one refuses to take other views into consideration, if one dogmatically rejects evidence of better views and opinions. I am willing to change my mind, I'm open for being persuaded by arguments and evidence.

[The Atheist]

does this mean that I should be grateful for all the adult pornography that is currently out there because it is a preventative measure against men raping women?

Yes.

I've pointed out on several occasions that the decrease in sex crimes equivalent to the increase in porn and internet availability is nowadays compelling evidence that watching porn decreases the likelihood of sex crime, rather than what some people would like us to think.




The problem with religion is that it can motivate good people to do evil.

I don't agree. People who can be motivated to do evil in the name of religion are equally likely to do so in the name of something else, or as more frequently happens, in the name of nothing at all.

There must be an inherent defect in the person first, genetic or learned.



The problem is that those people are likely to be idealistic dreamers who are far from what is needed to administer the complex issues that face a national leader.

I agree.

Oddly, early indications are that our current PM is the unique member of that group.



A thread for unpopular ideas. I love it! So here's mine. I don't think men who choose not to parent their children should be forced to pay child support. You see, I believe in equal rights. Any woman may choose not to mother her child (she may give it for adoption) with no further responsibility, financial or otherwise. Men, however, do not have this same right. No one would dream of saying to a woman,"Sure you can give the child up, but you are still financially responsible until it's 18 weather you want it or not. " But this is exactly what happens if you are a man. I think equal rights should mean equal rights FOR ALL. In case it matters, I am a single mother. My son's father is ordered to pay child support. I tried to waive the support,this of course was not allowed

Bravo!

Unfortunately, you're about 1 millennium ahead of the majority of humankind.


I think your being pessimistic. To be honest, I am fairly convinced that humanity won't survive the next 200 years.

I'd take that bet. It'll take more than 200 years to rid the planet of us.


I only have one unpopular opinion, and it is this: Being Autistic is nothing to be proud of, it is simply a fact of who I am, like the fact that I'm a human being.

I don't quite get why that's unpopular - can you explain? I can't say I've seen anyone seeming to be proud of it.

[Dodo25]

I don't agree. People who can be motivated to do evil in the name of religion are equally likely to do so in the name of something else, or as more frequently happens, in the name of nothing at all.

There must be an inherent defect in the person first, genetic or learned.


Isn't the 'learned' aspect done by religion in the cases we're talking about? Take the Catholic priests who preach the sinfulness of condom use as an example. Apart from all the sick pedophiles, I'm sure there are some 'good' Catholic priests who do bad things.

Even terrorists are often 'moral' and kind people.

[The Atheist]

Isn't the 'learned' aspect done by religion in the cases we're talking about?

Sure, but my point was that someone who was born or conditioned to be a fanatic is equally likely to become fanatical about something else, if religion doesn't catch him.

Charles Manson and Timothy McVeigh needed no religion.


Take the Catholic priests who preach the sinfulness of condom use as an example. Apart from all the sick pedophiles, I'm sure there are some 'good' Catholic priests who do bad things.

Priests who preach condoms being evil are just misguided rather than evil. In one way, they're quite right - abstinence, marriage and fidelity are almost 100% foolproof ways of avoiding HIV, but it isn't realistic, because humans don't work like that.

I think that the anti-condom plans and paedophilia are both more the result of the idiotic "celibacy" rules for the priesthood.


Even terrorists are often 'moral' and kind people.

Well, the meaning of "terrorist" is politically charged for starters. Nelson Mandela was a terrorist under any meaning of the word, but he's internationally respected as a freedom fighter.

One man's meat...

[Alexander III]

"but I'm very familiar with the rise of the Soviet Uniton. I don't see any irony at all."

I was hoping you wouldn't say this. {edit}

[Dodo25]

Priests who preach condoms being evil are just misguided rather than evil.

To me, the motivation is irrelevant when judging the moral value of an action. I don't believe in 'evil' motivations, so it was probably the wrong word to use.

[stlukesguild]

SLG- Self interest tends to become more powerful when the money you are talking about was earned by your own labor... at a job that you quite often find less than ideal... and especially if you have a family whose immediate needs and wants concern you far more than something that appears but an abstraction. Should "we" give more? What country donates any where near what the US contributes to half of the developing nations of the world?

Dodo- Pretty much any industrialized country. The US gives away less than 1% of its budget. Furthermore, just as an example, the crazy subventions for the US cotton industry used to lower prizes for cotton and lead to third world countries not being able to sell their stuff. I'm not sure if that's still the case, it might very well be.

The US is by far the largest contributer in foreign aid in actual dollars although this may amount to a smaller percentage of the over-all US budget than some other countries. Of course this doesn't take into consideration the dollar amount of foreign aid that is donated by private citizens in the US which is more than twice the federal aid and by far the largest in the world. Nor does it take into consideration that almost all aid from any Western nation has political ties. A huge donation by Bill Gates to India is impressive... but certainly helps Microsoft's future in the growing Indian economy. Financial aid goes far less to desperately poor nations than it does to nations which are strategically important to the donor nation (Israel, Saudi Arabia, etc...) What is also ignored is the cost of military spending incurred in policing all the hot spots of the world. The United States, Britain, and several other nations incur this cost which whether we like it or not is a necessity for maintaining the freedoms afforded in the West.

SLG- "Self-interest is a strong drive..." or so you stated above. What is in it for the individual? Compassion? A sense of duty? Priviledge? How many individuals do you imagine would put forth the effort and the expense of medical school and residency if a doctor were paid the same as a school teacher or an office clerk? You are suggesting a ruler... a leader of a nation... with all that entails... the stress, the long hours, the time spent away from the family, the lack of privacy... and for little or no personal reward. The reality is that those willing to do the job under such conditions probably aren't the best qualified, and the best qualified aren't likely to be willing to do the job under those conditions. Of course Plato's solution was to essentially "draft" the philosopher kings... force them into doing the job as a great noble sacrifice due to society. What a noble idea. The poor philosopher suffering for the sake of humanity.

Dodo-I disagree. I think the pursuit of knowledge and challenging yet fruitful tasks is one of the best ways to be satisfied in life. If the education offered includes, obviously, a scholarship for a program better (and harder) than Harvard, I'm sure the right people would even volunteer. Think of Kant, Mill, Singer, I'm sure they would. I really don't think motivation would be the problem.

You disagree... based upon what? Your own personal feeling? How many employers attempt to entice employees by promising long hours, lots of stress, lots of time away from the family, constant public scrutiny and criticism with little chance of personal gain? What you are ignoring is that the private sector offers many opportunities which include a challenging pursuit of knowledge... properly compensatory. Kant and Mill would jump at the chance? Of course. But do you really imagine that they were the best qualified to lead a nation?

SLG- Yes... a statement of fact... which you cannot substantiate with proof.

Dodo- "There most certainly are no unicorns". Do I have to provide proof for this statement? As long as there's no positive evidence for a thing's existance, there really is no reason whatsoever to think that it is likely to exist.

A statement of fact demands proof. The suggestion that you have yet to see proof of an event is not proof. Personally, I am of an agnostic persuasion... because I don't think the questions of the origin of the universe, creation, God, spirituality, or what occurs after death have been answered one way or another.

Furthermore, God is extremely improbable. Creationists like to say things like how crazily improbable amino acid sequences are. Think of whole human beings, they are orders of magnitudes more complex. If they just came out of nowhere, that wouldn't make any sense! Evolution of course explains that, it explains how SIMPLE beginnings over time GRADUALLY lead to complexity.

No... evolution does not explain that. It does not explain just how probable it is that something as improbable as life began... or something as improbably complex as humanity evolved. What is the probability of life in other solar systems? What is the probability that any given planet will be blessed with the temperatures, the atmosphere, and all else that is necessary to sustain life? In a universe bordering on infinity... what is the probability that that there would not be life?

Something as complex as God (or intelligence, consciousness, all that fancy stuff) just existing is absurd to the highest degree.

Just as life... human beings... the universe just existing by luck... seems equally absurd.

I've had countless discussions about this, I've heard virtually all the arguments there are. I've read the Bible and parts of the Qu'ran and the Hadiths. I've studied evolutionary biology in my free time and read books on philosophy and theism. The answer to the question of God's existance is very obvious, so much speaks against it, nothing for.

And yet as obvious at it seems to you... so many far greater minds than your have taken a different view... or simply suggested that "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

DD- Faith is irrational and dangerous.

SLG- So is love.

Indeed. There are even more parallels. Faith can be a 'good thing' in certain situations, even though it is always wrong, it can give hope and stuff. Still, I'm convinced that we have other, more justified, more worthy values we can tie or hopes to. I think the disadvantages of faith outweigh its benefits.

So the dangers of love also outweigh the benefits?

Dodo-At least love is the best feeling ever, so that kinda justifies it. And while many crimes do have to do with love, major wars don't (at least at this stage of history).

There are many who would argue that faith might bring an equal if not greater "feeling"... that the two are inherently intertwined. As for the consequences of faith, it is not faith but religion that lies at the cause of the wars of which you speak... and again... religion is but an excuse for prejudice and hatred. If it were not for religion, those in power would find another justification for war. Ultimately, war is about prejudice, envy, avarice, and all the range of human hatreds that will not be eliminated with the elimination of religion and the establishment of some great secular world.

Education is actually very much the key here, there's a strong correlation between atheism and education.

Is there? So you imagine that you are more educated than Thomas Aquinas or Pope John Paul II or Robert Alter, or Abdullah Yusuf Ali? There is a separation of church and state in most Western nations so that religion is not part of public education. This in no way correlates to the notion that atheists are more likely to be educated.

Dodo- Faith (is) a stupid thing:

Is it? We all engage in acts of faith each an every day. How many things do you take for granted without ever having proven them? The Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776... Was it? How do you know? Were you there? Or are you merely taking the word of others for fact? Faith is stupid? Again it would seem no stupider than love for those in love will often trust one another... without the need of empirical proof. faith is stupid? Yet amazingly there are so many brilliant individuals... far more brilliant than you are I... who had faith.

I don't base my life on acts of faith. In fact, I DO NOT HAVE FAITH IN ANYTHING.

And that is your loss.

"Where you there?" What kind of question is that? You say you're good at history, why would you study anything about it if you don't have a time machine? We know about historical 'facts' (never 100% proveable, yet still supported by evidence beyond reasonable doubt) because of evidence. That's not faith, it is well-supported belief.

One might ask how you define "well supported"? What one might call "well supported" another might call blind faith. History, by the way, is far from being beyond doubt. Certain events and interpretations face continual revision.

Dodo-And the argument about brilliant individuals is flawed too. For one thing, there were/are also many 'brilliant individuals' that agree with me. Moreover, some which you may have in mind lived before 1859, and that doesn't really count for the question. Also, I hope you don't mean Einstein or Hawking, because they certainly weren't/aren't religious.

"Some" brilliant individuals agree with you... so that makes you right beyond all doubt? There are any number of artists, writers, poets, theologians, composers, educators, philosophers, etc... who take an opposing view... or admit to doubt (Agnosticism). One can always pick and choose who to quote based upon who supports one's views.

Dodo- I'm starting to regret having brought (multiple universes) up. As I said, there is some evidence for it, but among expert circles, it is a minority view. I have my own argument for the existance of multiverses, I think it is sound.

That would sound a lot like "faith" to me.:ihih:

Dodo- Whether that also justifies the explanation for dark mater is a different question. Either way, I guess I can see how you consider this 'faith', note however that I in no way base my life, or for that matter, any important decisions on this 'belief'. Moreover, I don't state 'I know it for sure', I was very careful to emphasize how weak my belief is in this case. And finally, at least there is SOME evidence for it, however small.

You don't know for sure about God or the creation of the universe... but you are prepared to make a statement of fact.

SLG- You seemingly place a great deal of "faith" in science... considering some of the achievements of science in the last 100 years during two world wars and elsewhere, some might suggest that your "faith" is a belief contrary to evidence

'Belief contrary to evidence', that's a good phrase! That's fundamentalism, faith taken to the extreme. I hav no idea how this applies to me though. Science has made a tremendous progress in the last 100 years. The track record is considerable. So many things once believed because of religion are now explained and attributed to different, natural causes - all due to science. Science isn't perfect, in fact, that's a strength. When mistakes are made, scientists discard the wrong hypotheses and come up with new, improved concepts. Science changes and grows, dogmatic religion doesn't, it's stuck in the barbaric bronze age!

One might point out that your concept of religion is rather primitive or barbaric. Yes... there are illiterate fundamentalists... but serious religious scholars... be they Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, etc... do not take such a primitive view of the world. Most admit that there is a clear separation between science and what science can know and religion. The problem is when the line is crossed... when scientists presume to know the answers that pertain to religion... or when religious leaders presume to challenge scientific fact.

You speak of science' willingness to abandon a hypothesis when it is proven wrong. There are more than a few instances of scientists holding on to certain hypotheses as "fact" contrary to other "facts". You glory in science's conquering much that was once unknown... but with every advance, scientists discover that what they do not know also increases. As brilliant as our scientist may be they have not been able to conquer cancer... or even something as simple as the common cold... and yet you would have us presume that these same scientists have the ultimate understanding of human nature, the universe, creation... the possibility of God?

DoDo- The problem with religion is that it can motivate good people to do evil. Few other things can do that. If one sincerely believes that i.e. the Qu'ran is divinely inspired, there's a logical pathay leading over an airplane right into the twin towers.

SLG- Nationalism, Racism, prejudice, envy, fear, lust, love, any number of things may motivate the individual into doing evil. Even striving toward ideals. The French, Soviet, and Russian Revolutions all devolved into atrocity and horror in spite of the noblest intentions. Of course, "the road to hell... "

Dodo- Yeah sure, but the 'logical pathway' is often lacking, while in religion, it is all too obvious. Also, while the bad aspects of most of the things you mentioned are generally condemned, this is not the case about religion.

So you imagine there was no logic behind the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, Mao's Cultural Revolution? If anything, the exact opposite was true. These events were rooted is cold, calculated reason and rationale that placed abstract ideals above human individuals... with horrific results.

[stlukesguild]

breathtest- I think a better solution to overpopulation is restricting the amount of children one family is allowed to have. We cannot ignore the amount of suffering going on in the world. I think people who are currently alive and suffering because of lack of food and water and shelter deserve our attention. Reducing the amount of children two people have together will reduce the population down to a better size, but ignoring suffering on the scale that you have suggested i think would be pretty heartless. I think overpopulation needs to be addressed quickly, but there are more humane and empathetic ways.

How do you address this issue in a way that is not prejudiced... if not outright racist? The reality is that most Western nations have greatly controlled their populations since the Black Death of the Middle Ages. There was a recognition that one cannot stretch the population beyond the ability of the nation to meet the needs of that population. Most of the problem with population exists in poorer nations or the third-world... or within the poorer populations of the Western nations. In part this is due to a lack of education and a lack of access to contraceptives... but it is also due to the misguided belief in the need for larger families... multiple children... both to support the parents when they age... and as a means of countering the high infant and child mortality rates in these cultures. It isn't France or Germany or the US that needs to curtail its growth and we cannot expect families there to stop having children so that India, China, and the nations of Africa and South America can continue to add to the population.

[Propter W.]

As brilliant as our scientist may be they have not been able to conquer cancer... or even something as simple as the common cold... and yet you would have us presume that these same scientists have the ultimate understanding of human nature, the universe, creation... the possibility of God?

There are many cancers that can be successfully treated already. The common cold is not one virus, but hundreds of different ones so it's certainly not "simple." Scientists, however, have decoded the genomes of a big sample of these viruses. This information could lead to the production of an efficient medicine. The question is whether it's really necessary to find a "cure" for something that lasts, on average, a week and is typically considered to be a minor nuisance. The costs of developing any drug are extremely high, it's unlikey that many people would buy this drug. So even if they do find a "cure" drug manufacturers will probably not invest in it.

As for that last part of your post... When I read Dodo's post I don't see where he says scientists have the ultimate understand of anything. On the contrary, he says science is not perfect at all.

Personally, I think science does not need to tackle the god issue. It's a waste of time and it's impossible to prove a negative. God does not exist. If you think he does, fine, show me. There is nothing that indicates the existence of a god. If there is, I'll gladly accept it.

[Propter W.]

How do you address this issue in a way that is not prejudiced... if not outright racist? The reality is that most Western nations have greatly controlled their populations since the Black Death of the Middle Ages. There was a recognition that one cannot stretch the population beyond the ability of the nation to meet the needs of that population. Most of the problem with population exists in poorer nations or the third-world... or within the poorer populations of the Western nations. In part this is due to a lack of education and a lack of access to contraceptives... but it is also due to the misguided belief in the need for larger families... multiple children... both to support the parents when they age... and as a means of countering the high infant and child mortality rates in these cultures. It isn't France or Germany or the US that needs to curtail its growth and we cannot expect families there to stop having children so that India, China, and the nations of Africa and South America can continue to add to the population.

It's not about prejudice or racism.

That "recognition that one cannot stretch the population beyond the ability of the nation to meet the needs of that population" never happened. Can the US quench its thrist for oil without going abroad? How many mouths in the US are fed with imported food? Are dressed by imported clothes?

It's the entire world that needs to curtail its growth. If we fail to do that, we will ultimately face the consequences of our irresponsibility.

[The Atheist]

No... evolution does not explain that.[QUOTE]

Well, it does actually - read on!

[QUOTE=stlukesguild;950287]It does not explain just how probable it is that something as improbable as life began... or something as improbably complex as humanity evolved.

It certainly does, because the probability is clearly 1.

Life, including complex ones exist, ergo the probability cannot be less.

There are clearly only two choices - either the universe and life were created by a god or they were not.

[breathtest]

How do you address this issue in a way that is not prejudiced... if not outright racist? The reality is that most Western nations have greatly controlled their populations since the Black Death of the Middle Ages. There was a recognition that one cannot stretch the population beyond the ability of the nation to meet the needs of that population. Most of the problem with population exists in poorer nations or the third-world... or within the poorer populations of the Western nations. In part this is due to a lack of education and a lack of access to contraceptives... but it is also due to the misguided belief in the need for larger families... multiple children... both to support the parents when they age... and as a means of countering the high infant and child mortality rates in these cultures. It isn't France or Germany or the US that needs to curtail its growth and we cannot expect families there to stop having children so that India, China, and the nations of Africa and South America can continue to add to the population.

When i talk about reducing the amount of children a couple can have, i am not just referring to western cultures. I am talking about all cultures, and that is how we can make it fair and not at all racist. This probably isn't likely to happen, but i think it would be a better solution than trying to pretend that third-world countries are not suffering

[Alexander III]

[QUOTE=stlukesguild;950287]No... evolution does not explain that.[QUOTE]

Well, it does actually - read on!



It certainly does, because the probability is clearly 1.

Life, including complex ones exist, ergo the probability cannot be less.

There are clearly only two choices - either the universe and life were created by a god or they were not.

There are two choices that we know of...who knows how many that we dont know of, yet

[Dodo25]

@ SLG, dang it!! I wrote the whole response to your post and then accidentally deleted it.

I don't feel like writing it all again now, I'll do so later, tomorrow or in a couple of days.

[stlukesguild]

There are many cancers that can be successfully treated already. The common cold is not one virus, but hundreds of different ones so it's certainly not "simple." Scientists, however, have decoded the genomes of a big sample of these viruses. This information could lead to the production of an efficient medicine. The question is whether it's really necessary to find a "cure" for something that lasts, on average, a week and is typically considered to be a minor nuisance. The costs of developing any drug are extremely high, it's unlikey that many people would buy this drug. So even if they do find a "cure" drug manufacturers will probably not invest in it.

Can be successfully treated how... and with what degree of success and at what cost physically to the patient... and after how many years and how many billions of dollars invested in research. And the common cold? Perhaps of little consequence... except when it leads to something worse in the young, the elderly, the diabetic, etc... not to speak of the ever-looming potential for the mutation and epidemic spread of a deadly virus. Yet just the simply common cold surely costs billion of dollars in lost productivity alone... yet science has give erections to octogenarians and grow hair on a bowling ball so it seems we know where the focus lies.

As for that last part of your post... When I read Dodo's post I don't see where he says scientists have the ultimate understand of anything. On the contrary, he says science is not perfect at all.

He makes repeated statements of fact with regard to evolution, creation, and God. Theories regarding evolution and creation are being continually revised... while any question of God would seem to be unknowable... unless one simply employs a simplistic, literal concept of God as some old man with a flowing white beard who lives in the sky.

Personally, I think science does not need to tackle the god issue. It's a waste of time and it's impossible to prove a negative. God does not exist. If you think he does, fine, show me. There is nothing that indicates the existence of a god. If there is, I'll gladly accept it.

No one needs to show you the existence of God. That seems to be an issue best left to the individual. Again I state this from the position of an agnostic... someone who freely admits that he has no irrefutable proof one way or the other.

[Propter W.]

Can be successfully treated how... and with what degree of success and at what cost physically to the patient... and after how many years and how many billions of dollars invested in research. And the common cold? Perhaps of little consequence... except when it leads to something worse in the young, the elderly, the diabetic, etc... not to speak of the ever-looming potential for the mutation and epidemic spread of a deadly virus. Yet just the simply common cold surely costs billion of dollars in lost productivity alone... yet science has give erections to octogenarians and grow hair on a bowling ball so it seems we know where the focus lies.

Your expectations and demands are unrealistic.

[stlukesguild]

It's not about prejudice or racism.

It becomes racially charged when you make assumptions that a developing nation should curtail its growth for the good of the planet... at the cost of remaining poor and undeveloped as opposed to the Western nations. It becomes racially charged when you suggest families limit the number of children they have when families in these developing nations face the very real problem of high child and infant mortality.

That "recognition that one cannot stretch the population beyond the ability of the nation to meet the needs of that population" never happened.

Maybe you need to read your history a little better. There are studies that show that prior to the Black Death (Bubonic Plague) of the 1300s European populations had grown to a level that was unsustainable. Many were already facing malnutrition which further weakened them when ultimately confronted with the plague. The populations of Europe did not again match the period before the plague for 150-200 years. Various documentation used for measuring population growth and family size show that family size was curtailed... especially in the Northern European nations... and this curtailment correlated with the growing wealth of the same nations (England, Holland, France ). By the time the population had returned to the pre-plague numbers Europe was able to sustain this population through increased agricultural production and trade.

Can the US quench its thrist for oil without going abroad? How many mouths in the US are fed with imported food? Are dressed by imported clothes?

So you suggest that we return to an era of pre-civilization where there is no trade... where every small community must be able the fully sustain itself? That's ridiculous. The US, by the way, is the third largest agricultural producer in the world. It ranks only after India and China. The US produces far more than can be used by the US population and as a result they sell much on the international market. The US is actually responsible for fully half the food sold in export in the world. In return the US consumers import foods that are not native to the US (banana, kiwi, etc...) as well as foods that can be more inexpensively grown elsewhere (grapes). Few if any nations are wholly self-sustaining and this has been true for eons.

It's the entire world that needs to curtail its growth. If we fail to do that, we will ultimately face the consequences of our irresponsibility.

What will be the consequence? Does anyone really have a notion as to where the line of sustainability is broached? As populations grow the productivity also increases... as a result of the science you so champion. Some nations have already passed the level at which they can sustain themselves as the results are warfare, malnutrition, famine, etc... Again, how do we dictate to these developing nations that they need to curtail their growth and not strive to match the standard of living of the wealthier Western nations that are able to sustain themselves? How does one dictate to the wealthy Western nations that they need to cut back and lower their standards of living to offset population explosions in the third world? And do you imagine that if the US and Western Europe and Japan and China were to cut back upon their standard of living that this would translate into increased productivity in the developing nations?

[stlukesguild]

Can be successfully treated how... and with what degree of success and at what cost physically to the patient... and after how many years and how many billions of dollars invested in research. And the common cold? Perhaps of little consequence... except when it leads to something worse in the young, the elderly, the diabetic, etc... not to speak of the ever-looming potential for the mutation and epidemic spread of a deadly virus. Yet just the simply common cold surely costs billion of dollars in lost productivity alone... yet science has give erections to octogenarians and grow hair on a bowling ball so it seems we know where the focus lies.

Your expectations and demands are unrealistic.

My expectations are very realistic. I "expect" that human beings will always act like human beings... that they will put forth their best effort where there is the most personal gain. Scientists and those who employ scientists are no different. There was more money to be made from giving perpetual erections and growing hair on bald men than there is in treating the common cold. There is more money to be made for the huge pharmaceutical companies in "treating" many illnesses with a continual need for treatment than there is in developing an actual cure. There is more money to be made by continuing oil dependency... even at the cost of shipping the oil around the globe or dangerously drilling in the oceans than there is to be made from developing alternative fuel sources.

[Propter W.]

My expectations are very realistic.


Can be successfully treated how... and with what degree of success and at what cost physically to the patient... and after how many years and how many billions of dollars invested in research.

First you say scientists can't cure cancer, and when they do... it's not fast enough, not comfortable enough and not cheap enough. I call that unrealistic expectations.

[stlukesguild]

First you say scientists can't cure cancer, and when they do... it's not fast enough, not comfortable enough and not cheap enough. I call that unrealistic expectations.

Science is grossly limited in "curing" cancer. They are able to stop some forms of cancer but this often involves major surgery, radiation, and chemo therapy. To suggest this is an issue of comfort suggests you know nothing whatsoever about cancer or what patients face with regard to treatment. Chemo therapy essentially involves poisoning and killing the cells of the body and hoping that it is the cancer cells that dies off before the rest of the body. There is little or no chance of a cure for many forms of cancer or for cancer that has progressed beyond a given stage. Still billions are funneled into research with little or no result and one is left to wonder how it is that science can drill for oil miles beneath the ocean floor, land on the moon and mars, create weapons that can hit targets that are selected employing satellites in outer-space but they still seem confounded by any number of realities of human existence. I find it surprising that anyone living past the horrors of the 20th century... many wrought by blind faith in progress and technology... would still have such an idealistic belief in the miracles of science.

[Dodo25]

I find it surprising that anyone living past the horrors of the 20th century... many wrought by blind faith in progress and technology... would still have such an idealistic belief in the miracles of science.

Why so pessimistic? Watch this:
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence.html

[OrphanPip]

My expectations are very realistic. I "expect" that human beings will always act like human beings... that they will put forth their best effort where there is the most personal gain. Scientists and those who employ scientists are no different. There was more money to be made from giving perpetual erections and growing hair on bald men than there is in treating the common cold. There is more money to be made for the huge pharmaceutical companies in "treating" many illnesses with a continual need for treatment than there is in developing an actual cure. There is more money to be made by continuing oil dependency... even at the cost of shipping the oil around the globe or dangerously drilling in the oceans than there is to be made from developing alternative fuel sources.

This is not really an accurate view of science today. Hell if you want to complain about science's priorities, it's society at fault not the scientist. Scientist don't self-finance, they rely on the government, or increasingly, private financing. If people really wanted a cure for the common cold, they'd finance it (and actually large amounts of private money has gone into producing cold remedies, I'm not sure why we should even try to cure the common cold). Is that the fault of the scientist? I don't think so. The best and the brightest scientist working today still work in the universities, off of public money, on projects with humanitarian goals. The head of my department at McGill worked on more cost effective treatments of Leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease that effects primarily poor rural South Americans. Other research conducted in the department include a large HIV lab, a tuberculosis research lab, and some theoretical basic science labs. Scientist want to feed their families as much as the next person, but people don't choose to be scientist to get rich, it's a horrible career path if you want job security and good pay.

[Propter W.]

Science is grossly limited in "curing" cancer. They are able to stop some forms of cancer but this often involves major surgery, radiation, and chemo therapy. To suggest this is an issue of comfort suggests you know nothing whatsoever about cancer or what patients face with regard to treatment. Chemo therapy essentially involves poisoning and killing the cells of the body and hoping that it is the cancer cells that dies off before the rest of the body. There is little or no chance of a cure for many forms of cancer or for cancer that has progressed beyond a given stage. Still billions are funneled into research with little or no result and one is left to wonder how it is that science can drill for oil miles beneath the ocean floor, land on the moon and mars, create weapons that can hit targets that are selected employing satellites in outer-space but they still seem confounded by any number of realities of human existence. I find it surprising that anyone living past the horrors of the 20th century... many wrought by blind faith in progress and technology... would still have such an idealistic belief in the miracles of science.

I know what chemo is. Some cancers can be cured rather easily, especially if they are discovered early enough. Some are very difficult to treat.

Either way, this isn't a debate about cancer. Like I said, you have unrealistic expectations and demands of science.

You want a cure for cancer, but you don't want money to go to research or you think the research's not fast enough. When they find ways to cure cancers or treat them successfully, you consider it "little or no result". I can tell you that all this money and time, which you consider wasted, has saved a lot of people. You object to chemo, yet don't understand why more money is invested in cancer research...

Then you suddenly change the topic from cancer to oil, to moon landings to weapons. It's odd you don't focus on all the drugs that do work for countless other diseases or the successful surgeries that save lives on a daily basis. Why not a word about the amazing advances in prostheses?

Your assumption that no one is left to wonder about those things you listed is simply wrong. Your assumption that I have an idealistic belief in science is also wrong. Science is neither good nor bad.

[Technophile]

@ The Atheist: My opinion is unpopular amongst followers of the Neurodiversity movement, which is why I've moved away from them to start the True Neurodiversity movement. They think all of us should be proud and not simply accept the fact of difference.

[OrphanPip]

I know what chemo is. Some cancers can be cured rather easily, especially if they are discovered early enough.

His description of chemotherapy is rather narrow as well. Although, in basic terms it is "poisoning the body" in an attempt to kill the cancer cells before you, it is not as willy-nilly as he implies. The drugs used are particularly targeted to non-senescent cells, radiotherapy also disproportionately effects rapidly dividing cells (where mutations can multiply much quicker) than senescent cells. It's not directionless use of poisons. Likewise, many of our last ditch antibiotics are toxic against our own mitochondria. Life shares common origins, so it is not so easy to find things that only kill the harmful stuff. We are lucky to have drugs like beta-lactams (penicillin family drugs) that target gram-negative cell wall production, instead of still using sulfa drugs that are highly toxic to both humans and bacteria. Our knowledge of cancer, and human molecular biology in general, increases annually, eventually we will understand enough, and have the technology, to target cancer cells directly in the way we are now able to target bacteria directly with a vast array of drugs.

The thing is that drilling oil from the bottom of the ocean and flying to the moon were simply easier problems to solve than curing all cancers (which are diverse) or HIV.

This isn't to say there aren't problems with the way biological science is conducted. Public funding for basic research science, like understanding molecular biology, has to be goal based these days. So, I know from personal experience that many researchers in biology tag on possible uses for cancer research, even if they aren't interested in cancer, to get funding. It's really hard to get funding otherwise if you're trying to figure out how X transcription factor expressed in the kidneys functions. Our society doesn't want to foster basic science research anymore, instead they want all our efforts directed towards practical applications, the problem with this is that we rely on our knowledge of basic science to access new practical applications. The basic sciences in biology have done decently well in the molecular and biochemical fields, because their relation to practical solutions is much more apparent. However, physics and physical chemistry have suffered greatly. As have behavioral biology and ecology, who rely entirely on increasingly slim government funding. Likewise, the vast majority of HIV research is concentrated on finding treatments and vaccines for the prominent Western strain, while many other strains exist in Africa with little scientific attention.

The old adage about how "we can put a man on the moon but can't cure the common cold" is entirely misguided. First of all, the number of strains of rhino viridae and adeno viridae is so large as to make cold vaccination an entirely futile effort when we could much better use our resources to study Hepatitis C and HIV, which actually kill people. Likewise, parasitic disease are fairly easy to eliminate with increases in hygiene and killing the vectors (like mosquitoes) than it is to develop direct cures. So, as much as I appreciate the efforts of scientist to find helpful cures for Leishmaniasis, the ultimate problem for those rural Peruvians isn't flesh eating parasites but poverty. I'd also add that HIV is controllable with widespread education campaigns, Nigeria and Thailand have proven this, so Sub-Saharan Africa's AIDS epidemic is largely a result of poor government. Tuberculosis, likewise, is easily controllable with proper medical infrastructure (cases pop up annually in developed countries and are quickly controlled), but kills millions annually in Asia and Africa. Much of the "failures" of modern science are more so the failures of governments than they are of individual scientist.

[breathtest]

First of all, the number of strains of rhino viridae and adeno viridae is so large as to make cold vaccination an entirely futile effort when we could much better use our resources to study Hepatitis C and HIV, which actually kill people.

The common cold does kill people. Granted not on the same scale as HIV and hepatitis, but it does kill. Most people who die from it are the elderly, the young, and people whose immune system is already weakened, perhaps by another minor illness.

[OrphanPip]

The common cold does kill people. Granted not on the same scale as HIV and hepatitis, but it does kill. Most people who die from it are the elderly, the young, and people whose immune system is already weakened, perhaps by another minor illness.

Influenza, yes, pneumonia, frequently, but the common cold, not often. The common cold is usually used to refer to viral rhinitis, a viral infection of the sinuses, not usually implicated int he deaths of the elderly.

Edit: Specifically, strains of rhinovirus are very rarely indicated in severe upper respiratory tract infections.

Edit: Bacterial pneumonia, and influenza are often causes of death in infants and the elderly though. But we do have effective treatments for both when they are diagnosed in time, and we have a very effective preventative against influenza.

[Alexander III]

His description of chemotherapy is rather narrow as well. Although, in basic terms it is "poisoning the body" in an attempt to kill the cancer cells before you, it is not as willy-nilly as he implies. The drugs used are particularly targeted to non-senescent cells, radiotherapy also disproportionately effects rapidly dividing cells (where mutations can multiply much quicker) than senescent cells. It's not directionless use of poisons. Likewise, many of our last ditch antibiotics are toxic against our own mitochondria. Life shares common origins, so it is not so easy to find things that only kill the harmful stuff. We are lucky to have drugs like beta-lactams (penicillin family drugs) that target gram-negative cell wall production, instead of still using sulfa drugs that are highly toxic to both humans and bacteria. Our knowledge of cancer, and human molecular biology in general, increases annually, eventually we will understand enough, and have the technology, to target cancer cells directly in the way we are now able to target bacteria directly with a vast array of drugs.

The thing is that drilling oil from the bottom of the ocean and flying to the moon were simply easier problems to solve than curing all cancers (which are diverse) or HIV.

This isn't to say there aren't problems with the way biological science is conducted. Public funding for basic research science, like understanding molecular biology, has to be goal based these days. So, I know from personal experience that many researchers in biology tag on possible uses for cancer research, even if they aren't interested in cancer, to get funding. It's really hard to get funding otherwise if you're trying to figure out how X transcription factor expressed in the kidneys functions. Our society doesn't want to foster basic science research anymore, instead they want all our efforts directed towards practical applications, the problem with this is that we rely on our knowledge of basic science to access new practical applications. The basic sciences in biology have done decently well in the molecular and biochemical fields, because their relation to practical solutions is much more apparent. However, physics and physical chemistry have suffered greatly. As have behavioral biology and ecology, who rely entirely on increasingly slim government funding. Likewise, the vast majority of HIV research is concentrated on finding treatments and vaccines for the prominent Western strain, while many other strains exist in Africa with little scientific attention.

The old adage about how "we can put a man on the moon but can't cure the common cold" is entirely misguided. First of all, the number of strains of rhino viridae and adeno viridae is so large as to make cold vaccination an entirely futile effort when we could much better use our resources to study Hepatitis C and HIV, which actually kill people. Likewise, parasitic disease are fairly easy to eliminate with increases in hygiene and killing the vectors (like mosquitoes) than it is to develop direct cures. So, as much as I appreciate the efforts of scientist to find helpful cures for Leishmaniasis, the ultimate problem for those rural Peruvians isn't flesh eating parasites but poverty. I'd also add that HIV is controllable with widespread education campaigns, Nigeria and Thailand have proven this, so Sub-Saharan Africa's AIDS epidemic is largely a result of poor government. Tuberculosis, likewise, is easily controllable with proper medical infrastructure (cases pop up annually in developed countries and are quickly controlled), but kills millions annually in Asia and Africa. Much of the "failures" of modern science are more so the failures of governments than they are of individual scientist.

Thank you for this, I gained a lot of insight, but it seems to me that you blame politics and, the mindset that science is only useful to solve practical problems; as the problem of modern science. But this problem has been there since the dawn of time, there has never been a society where scientific progress was not driven by politics, and the favorance of applicable science as opposed to theoretical science.

[breathtest]

Influenza, yes, pneumonia, frequently, but the common cold, not often. The common cold is usually used to refer to viral rhinitis, a viral infection of the sinuses, not usually implicated int he deaths of the elderly.

Edit: Specifically, strains of rhinovirus are very rarely indicated in severe upper respiratory tract infections.

Edit: Bacterial pneumonia, and influenza are often causes of death in infants and the elderly though. But we do have effective treatments for both when they are diagnosed in time, and we have a very effective preventative against influenza.

thanks, i didn't know any of that.

[OrphanPip]

Thank you for this, I gained a lot of insight, but it seems to me that you blame politics and, the mindset that science is only useful to solve practical problems; as the problem of modern science. But this problem has been there since the dawn of time, there has never been a society where scientific progress was not driven by politics, and the favorance of applicable science as opposed to theoretical science.

I think this is generally true, except for brief periods where science flourished off of individual patronage rather than institutionalized funding. Many early scientist just conducted experiments in their free time, as many came from the nobility. Mendel, a Catholic monk, had all the time in the world to grow peas and build his theory of inheritance. I think the problem of modern science is largely that science is very expensive to conduct, a scholar of literature is relatively cheap to maintain as opposed to a biology lab with expensive machines and a full staff of technitians and assistants. So, there is much less willingness to invest in research that might not produce returns, other than expanded knowledge. Scientist operate under the maxim of "publish or perish," if you don't produce results your career is over, this results in a cutthroat industry of pre-empting the publications of others. A PhD. student I had as a T.A. had his thesis work pre-empted by a Chinese research group one month before publishing his own research. His research went from a top tier publication to a 2nd tier, virtually stifling his career options for several years. A publication in Nature or Science, the giants of science publishing, will make you set for life. The focus on high impact publishing, i.e. you not only have to produce results, but results people will care about, further serves to focus research onto a few key fields (cancer and HIV being the giants in biomedical research) and leads to the neglect of areas where research might be more fruitful.

However, I mainly object to the common criticism of science as being about big money and private interest, this isn't the fault of science, we all share the blame in private funding shaping the focus of research. I'm not saying science was better in the past, I actually think it was worse. Today we have an international publishing community, the scientific endeavors of every university in the world are pooled in the major journals. The standardized system of research and publishing is also much more efficient for producing reliable results than we ever had in the past. Now science is a collaborative effort, we rarely hear of great scientist like Pasteur or Newton anymore because individual breakthroughs are a thing of the past, rarely is a major paper published without 10 co-authors from various institutions. I think science works better today than it has in the past, but it's not perfect, as if any human endeavor could be.

Edit: I'd like to add though that the USA actually does a very good job of financing the basic sciences. Funding in Canada involves even more bureaucratic hoop jumping.

[The Atheist]

@ The Atheist: My opinion is unpopular amongst followers of the Neurodiversity movement, which is why I've moved away from them to start the True Neurodiversity movement. They think all of us should be proud and not simply accept the fact of difference.

:D

Now I know - yours is the group that wears green underpants!

[Alexander III]

:D

Now I know - yours is the group that wears green underpants!

How dare you sir ! The underpants are most certainly blue, I hope you assumptions can bare the brunt of court.

[African_Love]

This point gets a little more complicated, because now I can apply that to plants and bacteria etc... If we assume all mammals are sentient then morally we would basically have to stop nearly all animal testing and there would be alot at stake for the "truly" sentient humans. So I think this importance "weighting" gets more complicated. In an equation it might look something like this..........if such a thing could be put to an equation....

(Percent Certainty of Sentience) * (Suffering of Animal)(2) = (Benefit to Human/Humanity or Anti-Suffering of Human/Humanity)

With a balanced equation being of neutral morality.

Implicit in this equation would be the idea that if an animal (or other "being") is sentient than it has to be treated within the same moral framework as a human.

So anyway I think this is the big issue with such a discussion is how certain is certain enough (in my equation 50% certain would be the threshold) and also how do we reliably gauge our own certainty... that is "what criteria would make me able to comfortably say that I am in fact 50% certain."

Anyway I would suggest a book (and not jsut with regards to this issue) entitled "Natural Born Cyborgs" by Andy Clark. An argument counter to sentient animals regards their lack of language (or their lack of brain stuff that allows them to acquire language) precluding self-referentiality / memory, which is posited as a requisite or even possibly the defining characteristic of consciousness.





Right but just because a nervous system produces consciousness says nothing about whether other systems can also give rise to consciousness. How would we define our current consciousness? Reactions against the environment and the remembrance of those actions for later reactions etc... Or do we need to actually experience qualia etc....To remember and have later access to that qualia? Is it still qualia if I'm only remembering it?

I would suggest checking out "The Web of Life" by Fritjov Capra. It provides interesting ideas about why bacteria, plants etc... could be considered conscious, as well as larger systems such as communities, societies, the world etc.. Though be warned it is a difficult if you do not come from a science background, and maybe even if you do.

But anyway I would seriously urge you to check out both these books, as gauging by your opinions I would think you would really enjoy them. Also they are not so narrow as I have described them here but are in fact very broad.

Also of your book rec's which do you suggest as the better or more informative read?

No other cell is specialized to process information like neurons are. Consciousness is just the brain processing information. We have no actual direct access to the world, sensory stimuli is converted by the brain into electrical signals which we process subjectively, it isn't the sensory stimuli itself that we process, it's what we make of it (the electrical signals). No non-animals have any kind of system like this, reacting to external stimuli isn't the same thing as turning it into useful information and processing that information subjectively.

Thanks for the book recommendations, on animal rights I've only read Animal Equality and Speciesism by Joan Dunayer as well as Animal Liberation by Peter Singer and I would recommend those.

If I don't respond to any other posts, it's because I'm too lazy and there are too many replies, lol.

[Aragorn Elessar]

“Pedophilia is a sexual orientation, there is nothing inherently perverse about it nor is child-adult sex inherently harmful. I'm not saying that child-adult sex should not be discouraged but it should only be discouraged on the basis that the child might come to regret the experience (especially having been raised in a culture that would condition him/her to view the act as harmful and inappropriate in retrospect despite being consensual and harmless at the time) and suffer as a result, I think that children/young teens are more emotionally vulnerable than are adults. Simulated child pornography should be legal, pedophiles should have a right to express their sexuality so long as they don't act on their desires.”

I look at pedophilia more as a sexual/psychological disorder than an orientation. I agree that some humans instinctively prefer [sexually] people much younger than themselves, and although that may be viewed as an orientation, it is only acceptable to a degree. In today’s societies, it is almost unacceptable altogether. I don’t believe that age should be a highly emphasized factor of true love; take my favorite politician, Dennis Kucinich, for example: he is 60 and his wife is 30, yet they are both [seemingly] very happy together and love each other, and they are both very intelligent and “in the right.” Yet I don’t consider them foolish for being lovers because of their age! Certainly not! I think that age is not a factor of love, but I also think that many children do not quite understand love; or, perhaps I should say, they may think they are in love, and are much more vulnerable to believing it than adults, and so the resulting actions may be harmful and regretted by the child, such as sex.

The child and the adult, if they are truly in love, will have the patience to wait until the child is of age and they can begin their relationship as two adults. Surely, if they are in love, they will have patience enough to wait for each other. When the child develops into an adult and can make more rational decisions, then it should be right for the two people to decide that they wish to have a life together as something more than friends. It is just not acceptable on the adult’s behalf to rush into a relationship before the child has developed mentally. Once they are both adults and can decide for themselves the kind of lives they wish to lead, I do not consider any relations between them as wrong, even if one is 20 and the other is 60. But if one is 15 and the other is an adult, then there is a problem. It may sound harsh, but it must be done this way, in my opinion.

[African_Love]

they may think they are in love, and are much more vulnerable to believing it than adults, and so the resulting actions may be harmful and regretted by the child, such as sex.

I've never understood how someone can mistakenly think that they feel an emotion that they don't. What does age or maturity have to do with your capacity to feel a certain emotion? Anyways, I agree that children are more vulnerable than adults are and that an adult could use their position of authority to persuade a child into having unwanted sex or sex that they might later regret.

[iamnobody]

Many people (most?) are capable of thinking that they feel an emotion that they don't. There was recently a thread regarding "love at first sight". A physical response is NOT an emotion (love) but the two are often confused.

[JuniperWoolf]

We don't have to stop sending aid to poor countries. Our compassion compels us to do so, and that's okay because it's human. If you want a population crash, you don't have to worry. As soon as our population/resources balance gets so far off the scale that we're not sitting in comfortable houses or internet cafes, eating a sandwich and ordering a latte, the population crash will happen because that's just how ecology works. We don't have to stop sending aid, or stop curing diseases, or sterilize people or implement laws on reproduction, that's all unnatural and extreme. It's against ecological principals to suggest artificial selection on a human level, it'll have consequences that we can't predict because there are all of these little relationships and fail safes that we can't see unless an aspect of the system is missing (at which point, it'll be too late). Just let things happen as they happen and stop thinking about screwing with nature, the laws of which have been around for billions of years before you were born. Trust me, it doesn't need your help.

Also, I hate it when pseudo-scientists say that love isn't real because it's correlated with a chemical release in the brain and glands, and neurons firing. "Oh, love isn't real, it's just physical!" Um, what? So is EVERYTHING. How exactly does that make it fake? Every human thought and emotion is correlated to chemical releases and feedback mechanisms in the body. Emotions and drives (including love) are "real."


I say we abolish anyone with a middle name that begins with the letter A.

Oh, and Canada!

Oh man, I'm out on two counts!

[iamnobody]

If that last was meant for me, allow me to clarify. I'm not trying to imply that LOVE is not real, I believe it may be the only thing that is. I'm just saying not every instance of attraction is love. Personally I don't think ANY initial attraction is love, but may in time become love.

[JuniperWoolf]

"Love" is just a word representing a subjective experience. What anyone believes is love, is love. If I see a little girl walking outside of my house trip over a crack in the sidewalk and hurt her knees, then I feel a rush of tenderness for the kid and define it as a "feeling of love" to myself, then that's what it is.

[Revolte]

"Love" is just a word representing a subjective experience. What anyone believes is love, is love. If I see a little girl walking outside of my house trip over a crack in the sidewalk and hurt her knees, then I feel a rush of tenderness for the kid and define it as a "feeling of love" to myself, then that's what it is.

I agree with this.

[Propter W.]

Our compassion compels us to do so, and that's okay because it's human.

It's "human", and therefore it's good?


It's against ecological principals to suggest artificial selection on a human level, it'll have consequences that we can't predict because there are all of these little relationships and fail safes that we can't see unless an aspect of the system is missing (at which point, it'll be too late).

It's unnatual to do everything we can, despite the cost, to ensure the (comfortable) survival of mankind. There's nothing artificial about diseased or starving people dying. It's against ecological principles to feed every animal and insect that's starving or to cure every animal that's ill.


Just let things happen as they happen and stop thinking about screwing with nature, the laws of which have been around for billions of years before you were born. Trust me, it doesn't need your help.

I think creating cures for diseases, sending food to those who are starving, attempting to create rain, genetically manipulating plants and animals, locking up animals in tiny places, importing food is not natural at all. It's "civilisation" that has been screwing with nature. People seem to think they're above everything else, including the 'laws that have been around for billions of years' before we were born. People want to control every little aspect of their lives. I'm not concerned about the planet or nature. They'll be fine.

People have become a plague. An artificially sustained plague.

[OrphanPip]

I'm all for going against "nature." Nature is indistinguishable from humanity in any serious way, human use of tools is no different than termite mounds, beaver damns, or even the use of tools by birds and other primates. The only difference is the scale to which humans shape the environment around us.

Personally, the environment has very little value to me beyond its use to humanity. What good is a world that I don't exist in to me? Not that I think reckless destruction of the environment is a good thing, of course there is a limit where such behavior eventually will harm us. However, I'm all for the exploitation, alteration, and abuse of natural resources and other living things as long as it continues to benefit human beings.

Why? Because I'm a speciesist and self-interested.

People in this thread are speaking of "laws of nature" and "ecological principles" as if these were normative frameworks that describe how things should be, when in fact they are nothing more than descriptions of how things are. There is nothing inherently good or bad about the way nature is, we can maybe assume it's relatively functional since we're around to enjoy ourselves, but that's no reason to assume we aren't able to do better through interference, after all our tendency to do so has been selected for and made us, arguably, the most successful mammals on Earth.

[Scheherazade]

"Love" is just a word representing a subjective experience. What anyone believes is love, is love. If I see a little girl walking outside of my house trip over a crack in the sidewalk and hurt her knees, then I feel a rush of tenderness for the kid and define it as a "feeling of love" to myself, then that's what it is.
I agree with this.Interesting.

If the same little girl's father visits her bedroom everytime he's drunk and calls that love; if he beats up the little girl's mother out of boredom and calls that love, can all these acts be considered love too because that is his definition of "feeling of love"?

[Propter W.]

I'm all for going against "nature." Nature is indistinguishable from humanity in any serious way, human use of tools is no different than termite mounds, beaver damns, or even the use of tools by birds and other primates. The only difference is the scale to which humans shape the environment around us.

Personally, the environment has very little value to me beyond its use to humanity. What good is a world that I don't exist in to me? Not that I think reckless destruction of the environment is a good thing, of course there is a limit where such behavior eventually will harm us. However, I'm all for the exploitation, alteration, and abuse of natural resources and other living things as long as it continues to benefit human beings.

Why? Because I'm a speciesist and self-interested.

People in this thread are speaking of "laws of nature" and "ecological principles" as if these were normative frameworks that describe how things should be, when in fact they are nothing more than descriptions of how things are. There is nothing inherently good or bad about the way nature is, we can maybe assume it's relatively functional since we're around to enjoy ourselves, but that's no reason to assume we aren't able to do better through interference, after all our tendency to do so has been selected for and made us, arguably, the most successful mammals on Earth.

Well, at least you're honest about it. You should know, however, that man's use of tools and general behaviour won't be able to benefit humans that much longer. We are bound by the laws of nature just like any other creature on this planet. To think you can escape or control them, is utterly foolish.

[Thrasymachus]

Injustice, if it is on a large enough scale, is stronger, freer, and more masterly than justice!

[JuniperWoolf]

It's "human", and therefore it's good?

It's unnatual to do everything we can, despite the cost, to ensure the (comfortable) survival of mankind. There's nothing artificial about diseased or starving people dying. It's against ecological principles to feed every animal and insect that's starving or to cure every animal that's ill.

I think creating cures for diseases, sending food to those who are starving, attempting to create rain, genetically manipulating plants and animals, locking up animals in tiny places, importing food is not natural at all. It's "civilisation" that has been screwing with nature. People seem to think they're above everything else, including the 'laws that have been around for billions of years' before we were born. People want to control every little aspect of their lives. I'm not concerned about the planet or nature. They'll be fine.

People have become a plague. An artificially sustained plague.

So you want to end suffering by keeping the fat, comfortable white first world alive and letting everyone else die a slow, painful and utterly disgusting death? End suffering by letting the sufferers die, so that everyone else can go on living a nice existence at their local Starbucks, completely free of guilt?

The problem isn't that our population is so large that there aren't enough resources in existence to sustain us, it's that 90% of the resources that exist are being used up by 10% of the population. The other day my friend Sean spent $700 on a hat. The leading cause of death in America is obesity, from over-consuming resources. Before genocide, couldn't we just try to share? Global poverty hasn't stretched so far, and overpopulation hasn't reached the point where some white kid in the first world has any right to call for the death of Africa.

Two questions:

1. Have you ever eaten so much that you made yourself sick?

2. Have you ever sat next to someone who was starving to death?

If the answer to the first question is "yes" and the answer to the second "no," then you might want to reconsider your opinion.


If the same little girl's father visits her bedroom everytime he's drunk and calls that love; if he beats up the little girl's mother out of boredom and calls that love, can all these acts be considered love too because that is his definition of "feeling of love"?

Actually, I have doubts that even a woman beater and pedophile would be warped enough to honestly believe in his mind that incestual child rape and assault for the sake of boredom is "love." Even if that's what he calls it when he's talking to the cops, he knows that that isn't what he's feeling. I'd be willing to try to prove that.

Again, "love" is just a word, which means that it's nothing more than a symbol. This symbol is representing something that's complex to say the least, because love is subjective and can't be accurately defined. For anyone to say that love at first sight isn't love is silly. What is love, then? And why try to prove that feelings of love for someone that you don't personally know isn't real? The world needs more love anyway.

[Propter W.]

So you want to end suffering by keeping the fat, comfortable white first world alive and letting everyone else die a slow, painful and utterly disgusting death? End suffering by letting the sufferers die, so that everyone else can go on living a nice existence at their local Starbucks, completely free of guilt?

No and no. Where did you get that?


The problem isn't that our population is so large that there aren't enough resources in existence to sustain us, it's that 90% of the resources that exist are being used up by 10% of the population. The other day my friend Sean spent $700 on a hat. The leading cause of death in America is obesity, from over-consuming resources. Before genocide, couldn't we just try to share? Global poverty hasn't stretched so far, and overpopulation hasn't reached the point where some white kid in the first world has any right to call for the death of Africa.

It doesn't matter who uses up 90% of the resources. If you give everyone an equal share, which, I agree, would be better, we'd still be using the same amount of resources at the same rate. And that is the real problem, because we are rapidly depleting our natural resources, which we desperately need.

Feeding everyone who is starving ameliorates the problem. You might not want to hear this and you might imply I'm a racist but it is simply the truth. The same goes for saving people from floods, earth quakes, tsunamis, volcano eruptions, and in general disease etc. You'd rather cover your ears, beause the truth is ugly. It doesn't change the facts, however. People think they can play god, without there being consequences. Well, you're wrong.

Agriculture is a means to an end and that end is to feed mankind. Who gets fed or what percentage of the population gets fed is beside the point, or rather a different point. In order to feed ourselves, we need land. So everything that grows and lives on that land has to be removed or killed. By doing this, we are threatening the very ecosystem we are a part of. But that's just the beginning. Once we've killed and destroyed a part of nature, we plant whatever it is we want to plant or we raise cattle on this new ground. Of course, the food we plant is meant for humans, we can't have animals, insects for example, eating our plants. So we kill them. Nevermind what this could do to the ecosystem. We kill them with pesticides, more than 90% of which reaches other targets, killing others species as well and affecting our soil, water and air. If we raise sheep, for example, for food, again we can't have any competition. Mankind doesn't share. Kill the wolves and all the other predators that might threaten our flock of sheep, our supply of food.

The more people on earth, the more land we need to feed them. To produce one steak, thousands of litres of water is need. Agriculture demands extremely high amounts of freshwater, which is (becoming) scarce already. This precious resource, which we cannot live without, is polluted by pesticides and fertilizer. Well, there's always fish. Wait, no... we are currently screwing up marine ecosystems at an alarmingly fast rate!

And that's just agriculture. This ever-increasing population will need wood, stone, cotton, apparently hats that cost $700, books, air conditioning, computers, cars, ducktape etc. Most of these things directly or indirectly contribute to the destruction of our environment.

It's a problem people like yourself are not willing to face because the implications are too daunting. So, you'd rather ignore the problem. Accepting this truth, equals recognising that the foundations of our entire society are wrong.


Two questions:

1. Have you ever eaten so much that you made yourself sick?

2. Have you ever sat next to someone who was starving to death?

If the answer to the first question is "yes" and the answer to the second "no," then you might want to reconsider your opinion.

1. No
2. No

[1n50mn14]

Oh, boy, oh, boy this is a great thread, Lit-Net, once again reminding me why I have NOT been around the forums for the past several months. The OP has some VERY valid points, yet you immediately jump to conclusions about his/her moral standing, and accuse said poster of trolling, when really he/she just has different view points from the majority of you. I see nothing wrong with the OP's opinions. And the majority of you take the crap you're fed about why things are the way they are and the way things 'should' be.

How's THAT for an unpopular opinion?

[JuniperWoolf]

No and no. Where did you get that?

You said:


1. We are overpopulating the world. It's more destructive to feed those who are starving. Stop sending food to countries where famine is a reality

We have so much food that it's literally hurting our health, and there are people on the other side of the ocean that are starving to death. The problem isn't overpopulation, it's distribution. Yet, you call for us to just sit around and let starving people die.



It doesn't matter who uses up 90% of the resources. If you give everyone an equal share, which, I agree, would be better, we'd still be using the same amount of resources at the same rate. And that is the real problem, because we are rapidly depleting our natural resources, which we desperately need.

Actually, not really. The technology that we're using to produce and deliver the things that we need to live (food, fresh water, clothing, whatever) is inefficient because it uses a material that takes too long to produce (carbon fuels, mostly). Bad old technology and scientific advancement are working on alternatives, and finding them too. Resistance is mostly from corporations and apathy, but we’re pretty close to living without oil dependence.

Again, if overpopulation were really that bad, there wouldn't be so many fat people having heart attacks everywhere. If you really want to get all pushy about overpopulation, you should argue in favour of providing funds to poor countries so that people can become educated and learn how to prevent pregnancy, or we could send them money for food so they would have what they need for their families so that they don't have to whore themselves out for money to eat and feed the children that they have from when they were children and were forced into that lifestyle by want. Or, if you wanted to take it a step further, you could get onto the pope and the catholic church and protest the fact that they'll only provide aid to poor countries if they are allowed to set up churches in communities to preach against the use of birth control. Instead of asking for people in the first world to let poor people die, maybe you should learn more about the issue.


Feeding everyone who is starving ameliorates the problem. You might not want to hear this and you might imply I'm a racist but it is simply the truth. The same goes for saving people from floods, earth quakes, tsunamis, volcano eruptions, and in general disease etc. You'd rather cover your ears, beause the truth is ugly. It doesn't change the facts, however. People think they can play god, without there being consequences. Well, you're wrong.

I'm not covering my ears, I'm researching an issue fully before I come to a decision. You think that you're being groundbreaking, brave and honest. Well, you're not. You aren't the first person to say "let dying people die," look into history. You're one of the people that are standing in the way of human progress. I’m not a coward (I think it's funny how you say that like sitting on your *** and letting a continent die is somehow “brave“), you’re just looking for an easy fix. Lay back and let them die, no work involved! And, you can feel good about yourself because you're just "letting the natural thing happen." Forget the fact that our predecessors moved in and stole land and forced people into slavery dehumanizing them and prohibiting Africans from learning, thus preventing their progress and making white Europeans a huge contributing factor to Africa's current situation, that's in the past.


The more people on earth, the more land we need to feed them. To produce one steak, thousands of litres of water is need. Agriculture demands extremely high amounts of freshwater, which is (becoming) scarce already. This precious resource, which we cannot live without, is polluted by pesticides and fertilizer. Well, there's always fish. Wait, no... we are currently screwing up marine ecosystems at an alarmingly fast rate!

The excess people aren't being fed, so they aren’t using up your precious “resources.” They're standing around with stomachs that are digesting themselves waiting for a bag of flour to drop from the sky. There are so many of them because they don't know how to control the rate of birth, or they're prohibited to by the people who promise them salvation, or they need to have sex because it's the only way that they can afford to eat their one serving of food a week. Focus on the rate of birth, not the rate of death.

Also, you're pretty pessimistic. Cheer up, man. Look at how much noise the "green" movement has made in the last decade. When I was a kid, anyone who recycled was considered a freak. Now people who don't are shunned. Anyone who smokes a damn cigarette is ostracized. It's irritating because you can tell that these people are getting off on their own self-righteousness, but as long as this trend continues we as a species have a pretty good chance. It’s progress. Really, really annoying progress.


And that's just agriculture. This ever-increasing population will need wood, stone, cotton, apparently hats that cost $700, books, air conditioning, computers, cars, ducktape etc. Most of these things directly or indirectly contribute to the destruction of our environment.

Haha, we need those things, do we? You kind of missed my point of throwing my stupid friend in there. There’s so much pointless stuff in the first world, I’m sitting here looking at a $70 lamp. WE DON'T NEED SO MUCH CRAP. If you were to take the money that we've used on stupid, pointless crap you'd be able to solve global poverty, no problem. Your views are too extremist, I think you might like the "emotionally detached rebel visionary" style that they give you. Moderation is the key, my friend.


It's a problem people like yourself are not willing to face because the implications are too daunting. So, you'd rather ignore the problem. Accepting this truth, equals recognising that the foundations of our entire society are wrong.

"Accepting the truth?" The facts are "too daunting?" Not really, buddy. Getting right in there, seeing people who are sick or dying from poverty and trying to find an actual solution that doesn't include sitting there in your house and hearing about things from a nice safe distance so that you can separate yourself emotionally from human suffering, THAT'S truth. I’ve got to just say, you have a pretty limited scope of technology and development. See, the problem is that you don't really understand how the problem was brought about or how the system works. Overpopulation on one continent in one generation could be rectified within fifty years given a bit of education and funds, it's not like these excess people are going to live forever and steal the subway sandwich out of your hands.


1. No


Bull. You've never stuffed yourself on Christmas or Thanksgiving? If not, then you're among the few in the first world. Most people eat until they make themselves uncomfortable at every meal.


I see nothing wrong with the OP's opinions.

Even the weird pedophilia thing?

[1n50mn14]

Even the weird pedophilia thing?

Except that.
That requires further analysis.

[Cunninglinguist]

I think these comments might be impertinant now but,


Many people (most?) are capable of thinking that they feel an emotion that they don't. There was recently a thread regarding "love at first sight". A physical response is NOT an emotion (love) but the two are often confused.

Depending on how you define the word, love is not necessarily a state of mind. It can be used as the state of a relationship between two (or more) people, just as happiness is not necessarily a state of mind but a state of ones life (i.e. he lives a happy life, though not every moment is pleasurable). The definitions are rather loose and often used interchangably. For example, you can say "I love x," which is to state the state of the relationship between you and x in the exact same way you can say "I own x." On the other hand, however, you can say "I feel love," which is to state your state of mind (Note how absurd it is to say "I feel own"). This is something to keep in mind while approaching an argument (or crafting one).


"Love" is just a word representing a subjective experience. What anyone believes is love, is love. If I see a little girl walking outside of my house trip over a crack in the sidewalk and hurt her knees, then I feel a rush of tenderness for the kid and define it as a "feeling of love" to myself, then that's what it is.

Same point here. Depending on how you want to define it, love is not necessarily subjective. In other words, it is not necessarily a state of mind but the state of a relationship.