Hell on Earth (Vivisection)

Still funny, and whatshisfuck has a name...reduced to insults again aye NGMN85? :/

 

Nah, I think the word is dickhead. So ok, Mr Dickhead, tell me about the latest book you read, init? I wanna hear your latest quote, yeah, gimme.

 

Actually, I think everything was pretty on-point. Whatever. I thought that was self-explanatory. Without using animals we can't do a lot of medical research, therefore, either we expiriment on our own species, perhaps by bribing poor people, or maybe by a lottery, or, we just stop an enormous and vital proportion of our medical research. Either way, you're talking about significant loss of human life. If you endorse the latter position, then the resulting human death is exponentially increasing over time. Either way, the claim that these are more moral solutions is ridiculous. What I find interesting is that technically, this belief system actually places greater value on non-sentient life.

 

Ahaha. Sorry but that post about made me piss myself. Nothing against either of you I just thought it was clever.

 

I don't see that there is anything else to understand. It seems like it's just the same arguments recycled, ad infinitum. The same dubious conclusions, the same logical hopscotch. I've read everything that has been posted, I read most of an FAQ somebody linked to, did a little further checking on Peter Singer, read some of that Professor Dixon's work. I'm fully willing to read this stuff, but I haven't seen any formulation that doesn't contain the same flaws. If you had some artful formulation that somehow resolved these issues, I'd certainly be intrigued. Ultimately, it comes down to the ideas themselves.

I believe this charge is especially dubious because, I think I have proven, if nothing else, time and time again, to be one of the most independent-minded here. I'm not looking for a medal; I'm just making a point. The reason why I have so many disagreements here is that I refuse to conform to popular positions that I think are plainly wrong.

This is absolutely untrue. You can dislike my position intensely; you can say it's wrong, you can say it’s immoral, in your view. However, it's anything but arbitrary. I explained it very carefully, and very specifically. I explained this at length on the other thread, and in brief, here. I don't see how there could be any confusion.

The last? I hope not. I interpret this as a weak excuse for laziness. Thinking might be painful but it’s ultimately, rewarding. If you’re going to take extreme positions, you’re going to have to be able to defend them. Invest in a helmet.

Hyperbole, nonsense…

Incidentally, it’s an abbreviation of “No Gods No Masters.”

 

you didn't say anything 'mr quotey' as all your post appears to be a personal, i am merely pointing that out again, thats not an argument, thats being s dickhead so 'wat r u up too', i said the devil was in the detail and how noble of you to think your so awesome in dogs eyes, ah well, i'm ofta yell at a wailing wall, its sposed ta help.

 

I'm going to take a little preemptive action, here. This charge has been made multiple times. I recall you making the same charge on the other thread, and it was untrue then, and it’s even less true, now.

A phrase is coming to mind: “I can't tell if you're being deliberately obtuse or if you just really don't understand.” Wonder where I got that one..

I think you most clearly articulated this idea when you said; You are setting up a measure of worth that puts your own interests at 100 and those of non-human animals at 0, and then declaring the self-evident superiority of your interests.” As well as this; “…you ostensibly respect these desires in some individuals, it just seems like you exclude non-human animals because it would be inconvenient for you.” You were almost communicating. Of course, I don’t want to give too much credit because in the same post you proceeded to misrepresent what I said and quote and paraphrase deliberately eliminating the context.

First of all, it is a matter of basic Darwinian logic that every creature places it’s own species first and foremost. Although, incidentally, it should be noted that humans ARE uniquely capable of overriding this programming, for good or ill. So, that’s the first reason.

The second reason is the biggest distinction between humans and all other forms of terrestrial life is that we are sentient. I would think you might attach some value to this if only because it’s so rare. I can already imagine the reply that ‘humans are wiping out other organisms that have traits that are completely unique to them and no other species.’ That’s probably true. However, that has nothing to do with scientific experimentation; no endangered species are used in lab experiments. (As an aside, I am very concerned about the environment and am a strong proponent of decreasing our carbon footprint, protecting endangered species, etc.) In fact, all these animals are specifically bred for this purpose so the population remains unaffected. Now, I would anticipate some snide remark about how I might feel if humans were bred specifically for experimentation so as not to affect the population. The difference is that they’re humans. Sometimes you need different standards because you’ve got two different things. The different moral weight is from the natural consideration for our own species, but also because of that aforementioned unique quality we call ‘sentience.’

At this point I should address the charge of “speciesism.” First of all, I hate the word, it’s like Xenu, a neon sign saying you’ve taken the exit ramp from sanity. This is incorrect for two reasons; that the notion of speciesism, at least, for the moment, is a fallacious construct, second, that my preference is necessarily limited to humans, alone. First of all, this made-up word was constructed to deliberately draw parallels with historical prejudices we should be familiar with; anti-Semitism, racism, sexism, heterosexism. This is a bogus comparison, first because all of these other unpleasant isms are all within the category of human beings. Second, these prejudices involved preconceptions ascribing negative traits to these groups which have no basis in fact and are demonstrably false. There is no excusable reason to devalue a human being based on race, gender, or orientation. Therefore it is false in this regard. For my second point, for the sake of accuracy, I would be more correctly described as a ‘sentientist.’ While no other sentient life has been discovered or created, when/if that occurs, then that being should be given all the rights and respect accorded to another human. That we are presently the only sentient life we know of is irrelevant.

I have elaborated more fully, before, but to recap; sentience is undeniably more precious, and profound than any other biological trait. It opens the doors to infinite possibilities. It may ultimately play a role in the ultimate fate of the universe as I was saying.

Therefore, the preeminence granted to other humans is logical, moral, and anything but arbitrary.
Please refrain from making this charge in the future as it's completely untrue.

 

So if at some future point, Artificial Intelligence becomes sentient, and I am convinced that its not far from true now, we should afford that machine more respect than any animal?

 

Ok, and you got plenty of hard evidence to back that up, right? Or not. It's ok, I understand with our human brains being so far advanced, it makes sense to examine lower animals if we want to learn about ourselves. Yeah, that's what I do all the time, I want to learn how to fix a land rover, I read a manual on mini metros, obviously. Duh. Anyway, mostly it's just product testing, you know, let's see what happens if we feed this rabbit three gallons of bleach, oh, it dies, big surprise, ok stick a hazardous warning on it, then. They gotta do this each year, I dunno, maybe they think the stuff get less lethal over time, or something, maybe. Or could it be that our mates Mr Blair & Co (ltd) got a share in the vivisection industry, surly not. Don't trust me on it, go do your research, you love doing that stuff, right? You think the animal enterprise laws brought in to protect research, or business? Er, it not hard, there big hint in the name. Exponential increase, that sound cool, though kinda meaningless. I guess you correct though, maybe, as far as I know there are no immortal humans around. Yeah, everyone dies, that's not exactly news. Oh, that last sentence, you might want to think about that a bit more, it so obviously dumb, worth maybe 3 points on the dickhead meter, is that. Come on, I sure you can make it 5.

 

Absolutely. Just as we would give a person more consideration than a rodent. A synthetic person is still a person, even if it's very different. Substrate is irrelevant.

 

Apparently so.

 

Is it? Bullshit, I'm afraid. It works in favour of the local group, first and foremost. Wiping our vast number of your own species is fine if it benefits local gene pool. That the species may ultimately prosper is just coincidental.

You best drop this one as you are arguing in favour of fascism.

 

You sir are bonkers, bananas, bats in the belfry, toys in the attic, loco, looney tunes, out to lunch, two rolled tacos short of a special, touched, special, gone, receded, lost.......

 

I love you NGNM85 but I wouldn't want to be on a spaceship with you. You might decide to eat the wub.

 

You're coherence and grammar seem to be degrading, if this continues you and ASA might have to work out a shift rotation. Actually, in terms of animal research product testing is about....wait for it....10%. A decidedly underwhelming figure. Animal research is an integral part of developing new genetic therapies, surgical techniques, etc., etc.

It's pretty simple. If you were to follow what has been suggested and cease all animal research, without creating a new system for expirimenting on humans to pick up the slack, medical science will slow to a crawl. This will mean new medicines, treatments, and surgical techniques would be indefinitely delayed, or never come into existence. Therefore, countless individuals will die from things we cannot treat. The number of individuals who have died prematurely, especially if you factor in the children and grandchildren, etc., that would have otherwise existed, would grow at a fantastic rate. The death rate would grow exponentially, 2, 4., 8, 16...etc. (As opposed to a linear or cubic growth.) which would exhibit the characteristic "J" curve when graphed.

So far. Like the Stanford biochemist Elliot Crooke said; "By design, the human body should go on forever." We're at the point where we could acheive "engineered negligible senesence." essentially, the "end of aging." Aging is a complex phenomena, but it's been suggested by Aubrey de Gray and others that it can really be pared down to seven or so root causes, shortening teolmeres, genetic mutations, free radicals, etc. In the next few years burgeoning technologies may allow us to live almost indefinitely, that could very well include you and I. However, this wouldn't be immortality, exactly. If you got hit by a bus, or fell from 20 stories up, you'd still be quite dead, but assuming you can avoid such things you could theoretically live hundreds or thousands of years. True immortality would pretty much only be possible for a Type 4 civilization.

Getting back to the point, so far, everybody dies, but this isn't always unavoidable. To suspend medical research to the proposed degree would eventually result in a mass murder that would eventually eclipse Stalin and the Third Reich, combined. Morally, this is no different.

No, it's actually quite true. Like the medical research thing. The extreme animal liberation philosophy actually accords more rights and protections for non-sentient life.

 

If you think about it, you'll see I'm quite right. Imagine we could download your consciousness, in entirety, into a computer. Your memories, feelings, thoughts, personality, everything. That would BE you. I mean, what are you? You're a brain, or really, part of a brain, because there's the parts that control autonomic functions and vision and hearing, etc. Our brains are presently communicating. Our bodies are merely substrate. If your sentient mind existed in a synthetic thinking machine as opposed to the present organic thinking machine, you would still be a thinking, feeling, sentient entity. These qualities have moral weight. Thus, we would be morally obliged to treat an artificial intelligence ("Strong AI") just the same as we would treat eachother.

 

Social Darwinism is different, and unscientific, among other things. I'm talking essentially in terms of interspecies interaction. The problem is evolution isn't very smart. Richard Dawkins gave the example of recreational sex, even though contraceptives are being used, the drive is still there. It's a very primitive program.
Philosophy aside, the instinct of empathy towards other people, while laudable, is probably, likewise, a misfiring of an original program to protect and promote our immediate circle back from hunter-gatherer times or earlier. However, that doesn't mean it's not a positive thing, or that it will disappear, any more than the reproductive drive.

 

Thanks, I think.

Good reference, I had to look that up. I haven't read much of Phillip K. Dick, although I've seen a several movies based on his works.