Originally Posted by Technophile
Now I know - yours is the group that wears green underpants!
Now I know - yours is the group that wears green underpants!
Go to work, get married, have some kids, pay your taxes, pay your bills, watch your tv, follow fashion, act normal, obey the law and repeat after me: "I am free."
Anon
How dare you sir ! The underpants are most certainly blue, I hope you assumptions can bare the brunt of court.
Now I know - yours is the group that wears green underpants!
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.
“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.
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.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.
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.
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."
Oh man, I'm out on two counts!
Last edited by JuniperWoolf; 09-26-2010 at 03:31 PM.
__________________
"Personal note: When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun. So once when I was six, I did. At first the brightness was overwhelming, but I had seen that before. I kept looking, forcing myself not to blink, and then the brightness began to dissolve. My pupils shrunk to pinholes and everything came into focus and for a moment I understood. The doctors didn't know if my eyes would ever heal."
-Pi
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.
"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.
__________________
"Personal note: When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun. So once when I was six, I did. At first the brightness was overwhelming, but I had seen that before. I kept looking, forcing myself not to blink, and then the brightness began to dissolve. My pupils shrunk to pinholes and everything came into focus and for a moment I understood. The doctors didn't know if my eyes would ever heal."
-Pi
I agree with this.
"We are animals with problems that no other animal has." - Radam J. Starkiller
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.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).
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.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.
People have become a plague. An artificially sustained plague.
You know I had brain fever, and that is to be mad.
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.
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"?
~
"It is not that I am mad; it is only that my head is different from yours.”
~
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.
Last edited by Propter W.; 09-27-2010 at 07:14 PM.
You know I had brain fever, and that is to be mad.
Injustice, if it is on a large enough scale, is stronger, freer, and more masterly than justice!
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