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[Thecard]

Does this mean old and washed up people should be killed then?

[GlyphGryph]

Noooo, you don't understand. Nadaka wouldn't agree with that, and Nadaka can't understand how you would have an opinion Nadaka disagrees with! You will have to explain how you can believe that, when it quite clearly contradicts the conclusion Nadaka wants you to reach.

[misko27]

Personal insults? You gave up any point you had when you stooped that low.

[King DZA]

Forgive me for sounding like an ancient tribal sage, but the way I see it, all beings are merely interconnected strands in the metaphorical web of life; humans may indeed be superior intellectually, but many creatures have important roles in various ecosystems that I highly doubt humans would be able to fill on their own. When all life depends on other life to live, it just doesn't really feel approppriate to me to say that one particular form of it is flat out better than every other.

On a more individual scale, I believe that if the value of life is to be measured by anything, it should be by what one does with that life. I've seen plenty of animals, insects, and even plants do more with their lives than plenty humans have chosen to do or are capable of doing with theirs. From such a perspective, it is perfectly possible for the life of a non-human entity to be of equal or greater worth than a member of mankind. (Note: no, that does not suddenly make killing those who are "worth less" alright.)

Of course, in the end, the question which life form is best isn't of much importance to me, because I already have the answer in the grand scheme of things, we're all just components of creation, man.

[Frumple]

Eesh, things have gone harsh the last handful of posts.

Yeah, own $0.02 is that I don't think humans are morally superior, at all. We're the world's top superpredators, and because of that have achieved dominance, but there's no prescriptive nature to that -- no "should" in relation to our ability to (functionally) value ourselves more than other species. Frankly, they can't stop us, and that's the absolute core of the difference between humanity and the rest of the animals -- most attempts I've seen to find justification otherwise is just an attempt to rationalize what amounts to atrocity. Most of our population isn't noticeably different from "lesser" species, behaviorally; there's not really a hard factual line to draw between homo sapiens and the rest of the fleshy things roaming around the planet.

We've got somewhat more impressive communication abilities, our tool-use has managed an interesting sort of generational development that's done some really neat things, and we've got some neat physical tricks that let us leverage that to the point we took over, but that's not really a moral or objective superiority, imo. More of a "victor writing history" sort of thing.

Which... I don't try to justify it. It's a horrible thing, but, y'know, we're the group-enabled superpredator, and the non-human world is our victim. Until a majority of our species actually groks that what we're doing is morally bankrupt and basically nothing but dominance play (no better than a dog, y'ken?) or a better predator comes along, nothing is going to stop us. What we do to other species is far from the greatest moral atrocity we commit with regularity, heh.

[Criptfeind]

How can you say there is no clear line, this list three clear lines?

[GlyphGryph]

Personal insults? You gave up any point you had when you stooped that low.

I have very little patience for deception or dishonesty. There is literally no way to win an exchange like this, even if I wanted to, so why bother? If someone enters a conversation with "I didn't read this thread, but I demand people answer my loaded question that is almost totally irrelevant to the last 10 pages of posts so I can attack them for being wrong!", derision may not grant a "victory", but it's certainly satisfying, especially since they've pretty effectively derailed a conversation I was actually interested in having in favour of one that is exceptionally stupid.

[Hanslanda]

We haven't reached that impoliteness line, but we skirted it for a moment there. Let's not do that again. I'm about to the point where the continuance of this discussion would cause more harm than good, so let's all be nice, m'kay?

[Nadaka]

Personal insults? You gave up any point you had when you stooped that low.

I have very little patience for deception or dishonesty. There is literally no way to win an exchange like this, even if I wanted to, so why bother? If someone enters a conversation with "I didn't read this thread, but I demand people answer my loaded question that is almost totally irrelevant to the last 10 pages of posts so I can attack them for being wrong!", derision may not grant a "victory", but it's certainly satisfying.

I am being absolutely honest here. You are the one throwing around bullshit and attacking me with made up motives, agenda's and fictional ideas that don't even remotely match my words.

[Thecard]

We haven't reached that impoliteness line, but we skirted it for a moment there. Let's not do that again. I'm about to the point where the continuance of this discussion would cause more harm than good, so let's all be nice, m'kay?

[Frumple]

How can you say there is no clear line, this list three clear lines?

Because they're not really clear. They're incremental improvements that we managed to leverage a little better at the right time, and in many cases are matched or surpassed by other species in specific situations. When folks have actually gone down the behavioral brass tacks and tried to display where humans are well and clearly superior to other species... everything I've seen as shown we've had a hell of a time actually doing it. Other species have strong communication abilities -- some approaching human capability, and definitely better than subsets of our population. Other species have incremental tool use improvement (parents teaching children), we just apparently got there earlier, or for whatever reason have managed to improve faster. Our physical capabilities are more luck than anything, and are matched or surpassed in specific ways by a lot of things.

S'basically what I meant by the "victor writing history" thing. It's not so much that our capabilities are special or genuinely superior-in-all-ways or anything, we just basically stole a march on the other species on our planet. We just hit the sweet spot first and rode it to what amounts to the position of global tyrant.

[GlyphGryph]

Nadaka:
Yeah, right.

The worst part is, I don't even disagree with your conclusions. I thought the animals comment in the other thread was incredibly rude and inappropriate, and I don't think the suffering of random chickens was even close to comparable to the situation we were discussing, and was, in fact, actively harmful in the way it was presented.

But you came in with incredibly dishonest framing and a loaded question. I initially assumed you were simply confused and didn't realize what you were doing, but when I tried to explain the issue to you, you proceeded to claim that you were perfectly aware of the fact, which left dishonesty as the only possible motive. I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt, and you denied it.

Are you, or are you not, satisfied with the multitude of answers you've received since? Do you understand now, and can we move on?

[Hanslanda]

This is about enough. Either something changes and you two stop going at each other so harshly, or I'm locking the thread. This seems to have become rather personal, perhaps you could take it to the PMs instead?

[misko27]

In case it's locked...
LAST.

[Nadaka]

Nadaka:
Yeah, right.

The worst part is, I don't even disagree with your conclusions. I thought the animals comment in the other thread was incredibly rude and inappropriate, and I don't think the suffering of random chickens was even close to comparable to the situation we were discussing, and was, in fact, actively harmful in the way it was presented.

But you came in with incredibly dishonest framing and a loaded question. I initially assumed you were simply confused and didn't realize what you were doing, but when I tried to explain the issue to you, you proceeded to claim that you were perfectly aware of the fact, which left dishonesty as the only possible motive. I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt, and you denied it.

Are you, or are you not, satisfied with the multitude of answers you've received since? Do you understand now, and can we move on?

No. I came in with a completely honest question. I wanted to know why people thought that way. So I asked. There was no game or deception involved like you are imagining. I have no idea why you suddenly decided to start attacking me.