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Atavism?

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- Tue, 06 Dec 2016 15:26:13 EST Y5UP2WQL No.207410
File: 1481055973605.jpg -(8587B / 8.39KB, 200x246) Thumbnail displayed, click image for full size. Atavism?
Does anyone else have a bad reaction to the mentally handicapped? Am I literally hitler?
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Cornelius Blecklenudge - Tue, 06 Dec 2016 15:55:05 EST 0aDGMcny No.207411 Reply
...yes?
Not sure if troll, so little information with a baity OP, hm....
>>
Polly Genkinfield - Wed, 14 Dec 2016 09:49:31 EST 54PBc7Id No.207451 Reply
OP, I'm going to be blunt with you; a lot of us humans don't see handicapped people as human. That's just how it is.

It makes perfect sense, too.

What's the difference between a human and an ape? Mental capability. The ability to hold an intelligent conversation. The ability to enter into discussion.

A lot of us don't see humans who can't speak intelligently as human, and why should we? Survival of the fittest is within us. Nature is within us. In nature, the mentally and physically handicapped die very quickly, period. They don't fall in love, they don't reproduce, and they aren't welcomed into the pack because they are a liability.

Nature has no room for liabilities. Liabilities die in nature, and that's that. That being said, we've surpassed nature to the point where we commonly spend 18 years with a liability in our homes (child-rearing). But we know those children will grow up to create more wealth than they took up, so that they're not leeches. But some, the mentally handicapped, will leach for 100 years if you don't put them down.

You're just an honest-to-goodness human, OP, and everyone who says you're Hitler is out of touch with nature.

OP, human life means nothing to me. Life means nothing to me. Actions, however, mean everything. You and I will undoubtedly perform actions in our life that better society (work, education, etc), where as some, such as the heavily mentally handicapped, will never perform a useful action, meaning that their life is essentially one big negative cost. You're inner nature tells you, de facto, that this cannot be allowed.
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James Goodspear - Wed, 14 Dec 2016 12:19:00 EST d4DXKOh3 No.207452 Reply
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>>207451
>this entire post

CUT MY LIFE INTO PIZZA THIS IS MY PLASTIC FORK
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Reuben Brarringladge - Wed, 14 Dec 2016 13:06:22 EST xA39R98b No.207453 Reply
>>207451
>19yo
>anti-social
>pussy = internet
>switches between /pol/ /b/ and /pss/ and some other venting boards
>middle-class
>non-athletic, either really skinny or overweight
>unemployed and probably off education (spends full time hours on internet and video games)
>lives with mother and has rather negative relationship with her

here's my profile on you, you're welcome
>>
Molly Blettingstodge - Wed, 14 Dec 2016 16:25:48 EST 0aDGMcny No.207454 Reply
>>207451
Disgusting.
Existence has value. The instrumental utility of any one person is unknowable and therefore granting carte blanche for executing a certain category of humans has theoretically infinite utility costs, all in exchange for what, saving a measly amount of food, board and energy in a civilization that exhausts nearly 50% of all those quantities to waste?
Have you ever considered that the cultural and societal impacts of adopting such a policy civilization wide would far outstrip whatever meagre amount was saved by imposing it? Never mind that many of the people you would define as 'mentally handicapped' contribute greatly to civilization.
Never mind that doing so directly undermines the dignity of all people, because of our shared experience and sentience. It is a slap in the face of a species that was able to rise above the mere rigors of survival of the fittest -- we have abundance beyond our mere individual productive force, we have group resilience beyond our mere individual ability to evade death, we spat in the face of natural selection as being the real shaper of change in the world with the agricultural revolution. We use that abundance to allow us to invest in things that improve our lives beyond merely making sure our bellies our full, and while adopting this kind of stance might make our collective bellies microscopically fuller, it would leave our souls completely empty.
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Fanny Seshhotch - Wed, 14 Dec 2016 19:54:23 EST iAquTtgI No.207455 Reply
They definitely make me uncomfortable one time I touched one of their hands during a transaction, it was way too soft.
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Lillian Dozzledock - Thu, 15 Dec 2016 21:15:13 EST U2zzQaX4 No.207460 Reply
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>>207451
>I'm going to be blunt with you;

>Nature has no room for liabilities.

Hells yeah.. Fucking awesome thread contribution, my fellow [*perfect human being[/*].

And speaking of which, I want every person who came from a cesarean birth off this precious Earth right goddamn now.

Same goes for anyone who (were it not for modern surgery) would have died of appendicitis, cancer, or brain infection from impacted wisdom teeth. Stop ruining everything for everyone with your diseased DNA, you handicapped SCUM.
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Thomas Crunkinstire - Thu, 15 Dec 2016 22:08:52 EST 0aDGMcny No.207461 Reply
>>207460
>>anyone who can't live naturally should die
>>he says into his computer while sucking down conditioned air and eating food that comes in plastic containers from a magical building where they appear in exchange for funny pieces of paper

You know, and I hope you believe me that I am saying this with the utmost sincerity, I really hope someday we can put all the people like you in a big hole in the ground.
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Eugene Henkinfuck - Fri, 16 Dec 2016 08:55:50 EST 54PBc7Id No.207464 Reply
>>207452
Lol just being honest.

>>207453
Don't project onto someone just because you felt butt hurt by their rationality.

>>207454
>Disgusting
Great way to begin an argument haha.
But I like that you're actually prepared to philosophize, so let's do that.
>Existence has value, and instrumental utility is unknowable.
Bro, those are directly contradictory, you just didn't do the math on that one. If utility is unknowable, then it's both plausible that a human life can have incredible positive or negative utility, and if the utility is negative, which happens all the time, then you have to concede that some life has no value or even a negative value, and therefore is not valuable.
>Mentally handicapped people contribute greatly to civilization.
LOL dude just stop. You're grabbing at thin air here. Someone with an IQ of 50 has never contributed greatly to society.
>It would leave our souls completely empty.
Ok so now it turns out you're one of those, huh. You see, I'm not religious like you, or spiritual or whatever, so clearly you and I are going to have basic differences, but I respect your willingness to discuss this with me.

>>207460
Fun fact, Lillian; the only reason I'm alive is because of regular chemotherapy. Nobody here understands what it's like to survive on modernization more than myself. Or at least that is most likely the case.
Lillian, don't be smart with me. I stated a simple fact, that humans see humans not as homo sapiens but as intelligent beings and that unintelligent homo sapiens aren't even viewed as humans by the majority, which is true, and here you are playing Devils Advocate for the philosophy that nothing unnatural must be allowed by humanity.
I believe everything humanity does is natural, everything from C-sections to psychiatry to sky-scraper building. There's nothing unnatural about these things. There's nothing even unnatural about using mechanical parts to replace dead human parts. But don't act like people who can't even speak a single language at age 21 due to mental disabilities is one of us.

>>207461
Confirmed tolerant liberal. Thanks for contributing.

Lol guys this is a philosophy board. We speak philosophy here. I don't care how fucking butthurt you are that someone had the balls to say, 'Hey, humans who can't perform basic human functions aren't considered human.' If you want to scream at me for being blunt with you and telling you something you don't want to hear, at least scream philosophy and logic at me instead of your whiny little quips.
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Eugene Henkinfuck - Fri, 16 Dec 2016 08:57:34 EST 54PBc7Id No.207465 Reply
Fun question aimed at all of you;

What is a human being? Where do you draw the line between human and non-human?
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Eugene Henkinfuck - Fri, 16 Dec 2016 09:03:28 EST 54PBc7Id No.207466 Reply
>>207461
Hey wait a minute, I'm sorry, I thought you were directing that comment at me hahaha when really you were directing it at Lillian.

I completely retract calling you a tolerant liberal now because clearly there's been confusion here.

Dude, Lillian was talking in complete sarcasm to shit on my ideas. I posted that humans who can't act within the norm of 'human' enough aren't considered human by and large, and Lillian took that as 'everything unnatural (as I see it) must be destroyed' or some shit like that when that's not even what I was discussing at all. Like I also said, things like C-sections and curing cancer seem perfectly natural to me, because our intelligence is natural and our intelligence is how we deduce these sorts of techniques. Like I see surgery as no less natural than an ape using a stick to grab bugs.
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Thomas Crunkinstire - Fri, 16 Dec 2016 14:46:49 EST 0aDGMcny No.207467 Reply
>>207464
I know it's not the best way to start a discussion, but I think leaving my emotional reaction to what you're saying out would paint an incomplete picture. Humans have an instinctive drive to protect their own kind, so what you're saying hits me at a gut level. But I do appreciate that you actually have a reasoned argument which is why I engaged you with points, vs Lillian who I could only lash out at with a cruel comment because that's all he originally posted.

>>Utility math
Well, not necessarily, I mean any ascribing of mathematical values to utility functions is inherently subjective, I wasn't making a claim that any measure of utility is objective, just that a certain definition of positive utility is shared by most of our species. If we were members of VEHMT, we would measure all human life as having at it's ceiling zero utility and then as a floor all negative utility values. By saying existence has value I don't mean it may have a positive or negative value, I'm saying that innately, without bringing in considerations like humans who harm other humans, the value for a human life has as it's floor some value greater than zero and it's ceiling some unknowably great positive number.
I reason this from the simple idea that if the existence of humans isn't innately good in and of itself, then we must posit that the world would be better without humans, and by extension without sentience or self awareness. This is not true -- regardless of whatever evils humans may do, without us there wouldn't even be the possibility of understanding, growth, even perception. It is better that humans are here than that they are not, and subjectively, as a human, I positively value their existence inherently.
You may counter and say 'well what about evil people, surely they have negative utility' yes, relatively speaking, but that negative utility only derives from the fact that they rob the positive utility from others. Their negative utility comes from the acts they do, nothing connected to their innate human condition.
>>Someone with an IQ of 50 has never contributed greatly to civilization
There are other kinds of mental disabilities than low IQ. Asperger's is considered a mental disability, and many with it contribute greatly in specialized, particularly STEM, fields. More subtly, the genes which allow for the kind of neuro-divergent states that render some people mentally disabled are the same which occasionally render some people geniuses. Removing them from the gene pool altogether thus may have unforseen downstream consequences.
>>not spiritual or whatever
That's not at issue, in that line I'm using the term 'soul' in a literary, poetic sense. Re-parse the sentence and insert the word 'ethos' or 'human spirit' or whatever and see if you continue to disagree.
>>
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Graham Trotfoot - Sat, 17 Dec 2016 09:03:24 EST xA39R98b No.207469 Reply
>>207464
What exactly are you comparing our society to? A wolfpack? Penguin flock on an iceberg? Your views are not rational, they are premature and anti-social.
Our modern society is based on the promise that if you were to develop a disability, there are systems in place that would help you progress from it and thrive regardless of the unfortunate circumstances one developed or were born with. It's based on the promise of well-being for every member of the society, not utility and maths.

You have successfully and anti-socially detached yourself from an average man. Therefore you have a thinking of a 19-year-old. Understanding that human life has inherent value does not require spirituality, but empathy and feeling that others feel all the things that you feel, experience all the things like you experience.

The way I see it, your "honest-to-goodness rational" reasoning that disabled people are impractical to society, therefore they are sub-human and don't deserve life that you deserve is just you trying to rationalize the more honest, more real and more basic reason you don't like them. And the main reason is that they make you feel insecure. Empathizing with them brings out your fear of being like one. And that fear is what you're trying to avoid, not the thought exactly that they are the same members of the society you are that you have to work for while they don't. That might be just an additive to your thinking.

You should be real honest and consider how do you contribute to society, besides sharing your know-it-all wisdom with 420chan and whether you are being any better than the people that you have twisted views of.
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Shitting Gadgefoot - Sun, 18 Dec 2016 04:29:20 EST j9/Y0UW9 No.207471 Reply
>>207465
A human being is a living organism that was birthed from another human being. Is this hard to understand? Do you want to ask what a dog is or what a cat is now? A human is a human is a human no matter what attributes you attach to it. It can be stupid, ti can be crippled, it can be dead, but it's still human. You can say, does that human possess a consciousness? No, it is just a human body, it is dead because it does not possess a mind or a soul but it is still human, just with different attributes. Human is just the term we use to refer to the organism.
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Shit Noblingfire - Sun, 18 Dec 2016 16:22:12 EST 0aDGMcny No.207476 Reply
>>207471
Obviously, but the posters implied meaning is 'at what point is a human so disabled you no longer consider them worthy of basic human rights?' pointing out that there could be no easy dividing line since humans vary so much, it would be an arbitrary demarcation.
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Clara Mebbleway - Sun, 18 Dec 2016 19:31:49 EST 18ZbUhya No.207477 Reply
>>207476
NO NOT OBVIOUSLY DAMNIT HOW DO WE KNOW HUMANS HAVE SOULS? HOW DO WE KNOW CORPSES SHOULD BE CLASSIFIED AS HUMAN? AT WHAT POINT IN THE DECAYING PROCESS DO HUMAN CORPSES STOP BEING HUMAN? MAYBE ALL THIS SHIT IS SUBJECTIVE AND ONLY FITS INTO CLEARLY-DEFINED CATEGORIES IN OUR OWN MINDS, BUT IT CERTAINLY ISN'T OBVIOUS.

THE INHUMANITY
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Shit Sinkinstotch - Sun, 18 Dec 2016 23:29:45 EST 08y9C8Hy No.207479 Reply
>>207476
This is precisely why the line of reasoning is so dangerous. The movement from a clinically affirmed mental disability and a socially affirmed mental disability is a fuzzy as the people sitting with the prescription paper. Are people who hear voices also sub-human? People who are prone to depression or exhibit bi-polar symptoms?

And to complete the slippery slope argument, tacking on a political twinge to this reasoning, is someone who is violently opposed to the government now sub-human (a mental affliction because only childish, undeveloped morons would possibly disagree with my -rational- and -logically- based political theories)? How about someone who vehemently disagrees with your own political opinions? Etc. etc.
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Basil Donningbid - Mon, 19 Dec 2016 01:01:03 EST 0aDGMcny No.207480 Reply
>>207477
>>aARHIHRAIEG
O-okay man, whatever. The satire is so extreme I can't even tell what your actual point is, so I will say, sure? Dead people are people too, kinda? Please don't hit me...

>>207479
Yup, I concur completely. To add a little sauce, let's throw in some borderline cases. What about an artificial (cloned) human? What about a machine whose mind is a copy of a human's? What about an ape that we uplift to sapience? What about someone who is currently completely mentally disabled but who we can predict we will be able to cure in 20 years? Do human rights extend to them?

Surely they do. Because human rights are really just 'sentience rights' and derive not only from the fact that something is alive, or a member of a certain species, but moreover that it is aware of it's own existence and thus has the capacity to choose what is good for it, to be able to be aware of it's own struggle for existence, and thus have the right to determine on it's own certain things about what happens to it.
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Ernest Hizzlehall - Mon, 19 Dec 2016 13:59:25 EST 54PBc7Id No.207485 Reply
>>207467
I'm glad you're willing to talk to me about this in a rational way. What you mentioned about the subjectivity of utility is so true. It really is something that needs to be talked about when this topic comes up. It's like the way I see it the innate human condition is meaningless but only utility is significant, but regardless utility's negative and positive aspects are subjective so it all depends on where you stand in opposition to whatever the utility is you're talking about. But like I'm not talking about humans with Asperger's or mentally ill humans in general, when I mentioned 'humans who aren't seen as humans' I really meant the ones who can't communicate even as adults or like who are dangerously violent by nature due to mental problems. Like I know that there are legit idiot savants and shit like that but really I wasn't talking about high-functioning mentally-ill people.
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Ernest Hizzlehall - Mon, 19 Dec 2016 14:03:51 EST 54PBc7Id No.207486 Reply
>>207480
>Human rights
>Sentient rights
See, this is why I asked 'what is a human' and so on, because, in my opinion, sentient rights are what we really focus on more so than human rights. Like, people are funny about how they describe what is a human. Some people would see a clone or a sentient ape as just as significant as humans, while others would see them as insignificant compared to humans. And then what about the humans who's rights we take away? We kill humans regularly. We lock humans up like animals regularly. What about the significance of their rights?

Again, this is why it all comes back to utility for me. If a human has a negative utility, like let's say we're talking about a serial killer here, then society reserves the right to strip that human of their basic rights and privileges and essentially treat them as cattle used for labor and nothing more.
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Basil Donningbid - Mon, 19 Dec 2016 16:30:48 EST 0aDGMcny No.207489 Reply
>>207486
I suppose I knew you weren't talking about savants or the high-functioning mentally disabled, but I brought them up to point out that there are borderline cases and coming down with some hard rule is problematic.
And I completely agree that there are some people whose behavior is so extreme in one direction or another that they must be separated from the rest of society, even if it lowers their utility, because of their utility costs on the whole. But, I still think that no matter how severe someone's negative utility is, if it's possible to stop them from being negative without killing them, then we should sequester them but maintain their life (i.e. obviously I support taking someone down if they are imminently about to cause great harm.)

This because I think that the abundance in our society is so great that the costs of maintaining their lives is much less than the costs to our shared human dignity if we were to execute them merely for the way they were born.

Because I think that human cognition and development is largely deterministic, I think that that qualification about 'how they were born' extends even to people like sociopathic murderers, who have little choice in how they behave, and so as you can imagine I'm not a supporter of capital punishment, and ideally I think the justice system should be about rehabilitation instead of punishment. But that's a separate discussion.
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Shit Gimmerwell - Fri, 23 Dec 2016 05:04:19 EST U1j3ZEZp No.207499 Reply
>>207486
>What about the significance of their rights?

We should respect them, unlike what we do now. Those are the last traces of old testament customs, it's ridiculous we still do it.
Even economically it makes no sense, paying a person's income costs less than maintaining their prison stay, with the advantage of not ruining their life and giving them a chance. And how many reasons will remain to commit crimes once you have a roof over your head and a full belly?
It's different for extreme cases like serial killers of course, but still, everyone is changeable, to give up on that just shows poor self-esteem on the part of the government, not firmness.
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Henry Fanworth - Fri, 23 Dec 2016 10:37:24 EST 54PBc7Id No.207500 Reply
>>207499
>And how many reasons will remain to commit crimes once you have a roof over your head and a full belly?
Very idealistic, but definitely in the right direction.
>It's different for extreme cases
Well, I'm talking about extreme cases. I'm talking about the rights of murderers and rapists. I'm talking about the way humanity dehumanizes murderers and rapists and forfeits their rights.

But on another note; why should rights be respected? Not saying anything, just asking for the sake of gathering information about what people think around here, I want to know why you think rights are so significant and that us humans must respect other human's rights.
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Phoebe Semmlestog - Mon, 26 Dec 2016 22:54:56 EST DLzNkYBL No.207510 Reply
>>207500
>> why should rights be respected?
This is a very interesting point, and it kind of brings to fore the reality that the concept of rights is kind of circular. A right is a right because if you try to deny someone that right they will feel 'right' (justified) in preventing you from preventing them from exercising it. To say that it is anything more than that requires appeal to some system of metaphysics.
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Jack Goodhood - Tue, 27 Dec 2016 15:23:10 EST 54PBc7Id No.207515 Reply
>>207510
Well part of the issue is (from my somewhat educated understanding) is that originally the concept of 'rights' were 'things humans can innately perform unless physically oppressed' where are today 'rights' has been turned into something more like 'standard privileges' like 'the right to vote' and the idealistic 'right to healthcare'. Like the right to free speech and the right to bear arms and such all stem from this original idea of rights (which I think was Roman, maybe Greek) where in you cannot stop someone from speaking their mind or arming themselves with weaponry.

Idk, I like the classic concept of rights. My rights are my body and my ideas and that's about it as far as I care. Everything else is just a privilege. But don't let me throw us into a tangent. I'd love to talk more about the significant of rights and what's up with robbing people of their rights by throwing them in prison, and where that line needs to be drawn. Those are all fun, subjective subjects where there really is no right or wrong answer, just concensusses.
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Phoebe Semmlestog - Tue, 27 Dec 2016 18:45:21 EST DLzNkYBL No.207517 Reply
>>207515
I agree with the classic concept of rights and I think it is probably accurate, however I will say that that concept still relies on certain metaphysical assumptions. Why is it that the 'right to life' is innate? What is it about a human being that intrinsically gives them the right to defend their own existence? Other kinds of living entities we do not extend the concept of those rights too, why? It requires postulating that being human extends something to unique to what we see as 'our rights.'

I would contend that kind of statement must come from some metaphysical theory that at minimum defines the existence of humans as an inherent good, which does not logically follow from the pure concept of rights. I don't disagree though, but merely cautioning that an extreme skeptic might even object to that minimal conception of 'rights.'
>>
Basil Fishdirk - Wed, 28 Dec 2016 15:07:12 EST 54PBc7Id No.207520 Reply
>>207517
I don't think the right to life is innate, I think that's more along the lines of privileges, but the right to kill is definitely innate. Like, if I wanted to kill people, I could, period. That's my right. That's every living creature's right, and every living creature tries to capitalize on that right. Yes, the right to kill is definitely innate while the right to live is not, because you don't choose whether or not you live, you just either get lucky or get unlucky. You either are born and live, or you never are born, or you're born and die before you really get to live.

But you seem more upset by the laws surrounding killing. You wonder why society allows humans to kill animals but will not allow animals to kill humans, and why society allows humans to kill other humans to defend their own lives.

This is the way I see it; everything and everyone, especially alive, is/are self-centered. Any living creature wants it's own kind to surpass all other races and species, and humans are no different. We willingly oppress all other species, and the majority of humans concur that this is acceptable because it only advantages them greatly, and in life we must take advantage of all advantages unless we wish to perish, which we don't.

As for killing other humans in self-defense, well, like I said, the right to kill is innate within us, and I suppose the way society sees it, the right to kill must be suppressed heavily to sustain order, however, the right to kill may be enjoyed against humans who are not considered important to society, such as a human being that is causing serious chaos and disorder by doing something like robbing a bank or going on a rampage.

Humans rely heavily on society. Society is this massive entity that engulfs pretty much all of us. And when we act in ways counter to society, society strikes back. Slay random/peaceful/active members of society and society quickly slays you back. Haha don't even get me started on my whole 'society is like a human brain and the humans within society are like the cells of a body' speech.
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Ernest Godgestare - Thu, 29 Dec 2016 17:13:59 EST 2IPvcf8v No.207523 Reply
I have a basically non reaction to the handicapped in general. I feel like gawking at them makes the whole thing worse. I don't try and talk around it though either. I don't really run into them all the time. Can't say I'd willing place myself around them all the time either.

Worst reaction is that I might find them kind of hard to deal with. I've met one in the past who was like that. But I don't think anyone but certain people would ever try and put themselves around the handicapped unless they wanted to take care of them or something.
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Sidney Bonningput - Tue, 17 Oct 2017 18:45:11 EST zh7hRadW No.208465 Reply
>>207464
In a very literal sense, a human is a biological signifier. A human is a human being, a homo sapien. Whether or not the mentally handicapped should be treated as people, they're still humans and literally nothing changes that because they have the same biological makeup we do.
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Cornelius Geggleline - Fri, 20 Oct 2017 01:21:58 EST ANlBzDj8 No.208466 Reply
>>207520

naw nigga

the freeways is blood vessels and the people is o2 and glucose and ligands. shit yo car is hemoglobin and the fuckin keycode scanner at work is the fuckin troponin complex dog

one person aint usually a cell dog thats like a business or a family yo
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Nell Ficklepene - Sat, 21 Oct 2017 13:47:05 EST ANlBzDj8 No.208468 Reply
>>208465

if someone doesnt have 46 chromosomes they dont have the same biological makeup
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Esther Gittingtotch - Sun, 22 Oct 2017 18:48:18 EST fsINZFTw No.208471 Reply
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we arbitrarily attach importance to certain things that we have learned make us more or less human than others - such and such person is human because he has X amount of chromosomes, or can do basic mathematics, or can walk upright. some ideal human form that we consider the standard.

this is what the whole IQ thing is about. we created a standard, then try to pretend as though nature created it and we're just observing as things fall into place. it's a man-made conundrum. all discriminations are trap doors we fall through when viewing "what is true" in reality.

there is no answer to the question of what makes a human human. just observe without judgment and you won't ever be plagued by such questions ever again, you won't have any questions whatsoever because everything will be answered for you by simply being here and now.
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Samuel Pobberspear - Mon, 23 Oct 2017 19:09:37 EST e5C650gC No.208472 Reply
>>208471

a human being is sentient, capable of imagination, and (for now) made by combining DNA from 2 existing humans. any human without the capacity for sentience and imagination is for all intents and purposes not a human. for example the little shrivelled deformed girl that gets posted as a meme a lot. there is a popular gif where her dad is holding her, jumping her around. i think it might be 2 sisters actually. that i do not consider to be a human. however the conjoined 2 headed sister twins, i consider that 2 humans. this in the end always comes down to personal opinion though, similar to trying to legislate morality. and considering the overwhelming influence of SJW thinking in 1st world countries, legally recognized personhood may only expand further as the years go on
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Samuel Hannershaw - Tue, 24 Oct 2017 06:32:19 EST /hgiLgki No.208473 Reply
>>208472

So.. We're not human when we're sleeping? Or in a coma?
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Graham Billingdale - Sat, 28 Oct 2017 01:28:48 EST fsINZFTw No.208480 Reply
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>>208472
is a decapitated human body no longer human? we can say that a decapitated body is no longer sentient or able to make use of an imagination. also, dead. are the deceased still human? or is humanity a living phenomenon only? and then, what is living, when does it begin and end?

our definition of humanity seems to be subjective, even when we try being objective about it we eventually hang onto subjective definitions of what it means to be human

like you said, personal opinions make up humanity, and i agree
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Nicholas Bidgespear - Sat, 28 Oct 2017 12:40:22 EST e5C650gC No.208481 Reply
>>208472

regarding sleeping or comas, i suppose my response would be, the humanness is retained if it is a temporary loss of consciousness and the previous conscious state can be resumed upon reawakening. if this potential does not exist, they are dead, no longer human. but then we get into "well how long?" hard to say. maybe when a medical team agrees there is zero potential of the person waking from the coma. but then there will probably be instances where the team is wrong. so, generally... only if the consciousness-loss is temporary is humanhood retained

>>208480

a decapitated person is a former human. a dead human. a specimen of a once living human. i think human life is present with a resume-able stream of sentient imaginative consciousness, and death is when that consciousness ends can no longer be resumed.
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Nicholas Drirringstone - Sun, 29 Oct 2017 07:35:50 EST pf1/qTT/ No.208484 Reply
>>208481
>maybe when a medical team agrees there is zero potential of the person waking from the coma. but then there will probably be instances where the team is wrong

But the problem is, you can't prove a negative. "This isn't possible" is indistinguishable from "This is the limit of my abilities".

>only if the consciousness-loss is temporary is humanhood retained

But the permanent of today is the temporary of tomorrow. So what, someone isn't a human if he's in a kind of coma where we aren't able to recover his abilities afterward? And if he woke up like 1 year after today, when a new technology has come out allowing him to recover, then he's magically human again? So what IS a human after all?
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Hugh Fibblestin - Mon, 30 Oct 2017 01:04:36 EST e5C650gC No.208489 Reply
>>208484

i agree dude and i tried to say that. those are my personal definitions as best i can word them, but anything i say will have gaps and limitations. which is why i think conversations like these are healthy to have on a regular basis, even though this conversation may be as old as dirt, until we have a unifying satisfactory answer we must continually discuss it
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Phoebe Nullerton - Mon, 30 Oct 2017 11:20:09 EST c1i9jeUP No.208490 Reply
>>207520
>but the right to kill is definitely innate.

I think we're conflating "rights" with "capacities." Rights are social constructs, not innate truths or potentials about the world. They change over time in response to the change of rulership, culture, and technology. They only exist when a society 1) chooses to acknowledge them and 2) provides a pathway through which individuals can invoke them.

>if I wanted to kill people, I could, period. That's my right.

There are all sorts of things that we can hypothetically do, but that doesn't make them rights. In fact, rights are moreso about what you can't do, in that most rights are protective in nature. For example, I have a right to not be killed by you or any other human. This is a right of mine because our legal system acknowledges and upholds it in a society in which we've all (probably implicitly) agreed to that right. If they didn't uphold it, then I would have no way of invoking that right when you try to kill me.

I thought about mentioning this essay on /b/ the other day, but mentioning the idea behind it led to a flurry of knee-jerk "animal hater" accusations. I think it would be better understood here though, since this thread seems more thoughtful:

back in undergrad ethics, I remember reading this essay (I wish I could remember the author, but I've spent too much time on /benz/ and /weed/) which, on the surface, alleged to take a contentious position: that animals have no rights. At the time I was a staunch believer of animal rights, mostly because I think we should treat living creatures with respect. However, upon closer inspection, I realized that his argument wasn't about whether or not we should respect animals (he explained in his conclusion that we have obligations to treat animals with respect), but that the nature of rights is such that they can only exist when upheld by a society or other authority. Unfortunately, this idea is easily confused with "we should abuse animals" when not given more than a passing glance. Fingers crossed that that doesn't happen here.
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Simon Ninkinmurk - Mon, 06 Nov 2017 01:11:08 EST dWvanT/s No.208500 Reply
>>208490
>For example, I have a right to not be killed by you or any other human.
But you don't. There isn't a legal system in place to stop you from being killed, if you try to say that to someone who is trying to kill you, you are going to die. But, you do have a right to bear arms(in the US), and that can be used to stop someone from killing you. And you do have a right for the person who did the action to get justice, but there is no magical mechanism that will pop up between you and death. Only those ready to defend themselves will survive.

>In fact, rights are moreso about what you can't do
Incorrect, rights are about what the government cant do to you. Laws are about what you cant do to others without consequences from society. Neither of those things make those actions impossible.

>alleged to take a contentious position: that animals have no rights
>but that the nature of rights is such that they can only exist when upheld by a society or other authority
Before humans, all animals took their rights, or they didn't get them. At this point, we are no longer just animals, so we offer all rights to our whole species. Even with all that, we still cannot take care of our own, why should we move on to other species. I would slaughter every animal on the planet if it meant longterm success for humans. We can either subjugate force, the only power, or be at its mercy.
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Samuel Shittinglock - Mon, 06 Nov 2017 15:19:22 EST nX761Sq0 No.208503 Reply
>>208500
>all animals took their rights, or they didn't get them.
No, animals operated without rights. A lion catching a gazelle isn't the lion taking a right. Rights are societal constructs. They exist only as much as a society is willing to uphold them.

>There isn't a legal system in place to stop you from being killed
Just because I can't stop a murderer with an explanation of my rights doesn't mean that they don't exist. The capacity for a right to be violated doesn't prove its nonexistence.
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Priscilla Pennernerk - Tue, 07 Nov 2017 14:30:14 EST wRqF/W2w No.208504 Reply
ITT: People conflate arguing about semantics with ethical debate.

Spoiler: The fuck does it matter how we describe these things? Isn't what really matters (and the point of the thread) what we should or shouldn't do viz. other people (i.e. ethical debate) rather than what we do or don't call our ideas about what to do? Rights, capacities, justification...all just human meat-sounds to cover up our incomprehension of how we ought to behave or what even reality is...mistaking semantics for epistemology or ethics, a very primitive kind of misunderstanding...
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Fuck Diffingridge - Tue, 14 Nov 2017 20:24:27 EST oX3f4KlI No.208537 Reply
>>208503
Belief in biological rights is a sure sign of a social darwinist.
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