# OK, ZPG: Let's get a room. I'm paying. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 21, 2016, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557 "2016-08-21T20:37:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 18
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2016, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/341 "2016-08-24T17:50:34Z")
> [@Sarahfeena](#): > > So children only have as much value as assigned to them by their biological parents, and therefore a society who places value on them independent of their biological parents has some kind of sickness. Yeah, that’s a reasonable conclusion. A society that would place the potential good that can result from said children over the already present benefit of having their adult parents as members is sick. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2016, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/342 "2016-08-24T17:51:19Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > The attitude of valuing an fetus or an infant over a adult sentient woman chilling. It total gives me the creeps. Too many people on the Dope seem to worship children, especially babies which quite honestly don’t even seem human to me (the ability to think and communicate is what separates us from animals, not the ability to breathe and shit). There’s no such empathy for adults and the problems unwanted babies produce in their lives and the attitude that a mature adult ready and able to contribute to the good humanity should sacrifice everything for a baby that’s just a possibility is something I find very horrifying. You’re not entirely human, are you? ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2016, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/343 "2016-08-24T17:53:20Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > You’re not entirely human, are you? Somehow this thread turned into the Twitter feed of a malfunctioning evil robot. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2016, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/344 "2016-08-24T17:55:03Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > You’re not entirely human, are you? I would ask that same question of you if you would value a fetus or a baby over an actually walking, talking, thinking adult. The ability to reason is what makes us human. Beasts reproduce, but they abstract not. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2016, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/345 "2016-08-24T17:56:32Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > Somehow this thread turned into the Twitter feed of a malfunctioning evil robot. Oh, don’t be so hard on yourself Martian. I don’t think you are evil. You actually seem like a decent person though with a weak spot for things that aren’t toilet-trained. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2016, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/346 "2016-08-24T18:00:39Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > Oh, don’t be so hard on yourself Martian. I don’t think you are evil. You actually seem like a decent person though with a weak spot for things that aren’t toilet-trained. Well, I was talking about you. Yikes, you don’t like me now, do you? That’s disgusting. I’m not adopting you, if that’s what you think. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2016, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/347 "2016-08-24T18:04:18Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > A society that would place the potential good that can result from said children over the already present benefit of having their adult parents as members is sick. Eh, some adults are horrible people. I’d take a kid with a not-fully-formed personality any day over a good number of adults. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2016, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/348 "2016-08-24T18:06:00Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > I would ask that same question of you if you would value a fetus or a baby over an actually walking, talking, thinking adult. The ability to reason is what makes us human. Beasts reproduce, but they abstract not. Wherein you’re the adult in question, I choose infant every time. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2016, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/349 "2016-08-24T18:08:49Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > And you are a disgusting misogynist that incapable a constructing a logical argument falls to accusing people of being trolls. I am not disgusting… ---
**Author:** ![Memnon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Memnon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Memnon)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2016, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/350 "2016-08-24T18:11:09Z")
I think I might regret this but… > [@ZPG Zealot](#): > > I would ask that same question of you if you would value a fetus or a baby over an actually walking, talking, thinking adult. Okay, so here’s the situation: You’re a firefighter heading into a burning building. In the east wing is a newborn baby. In the west wing is a 99 year old with terminal cancer and a life expectancy of about 3 months. You can only save one. Repeat. You can _only_ save one and you _have_ to save one, otherwise Jesus will kill you. Which one do you choose? Follow-up questions: 1. Assuming you choose to save the baby, would you change your answer if the 99 year old _didn’t_ have a terminal illness? 2. Assuming the hypothetical stays exactly as it is, and assuming you choose to save the baby, would you change your answer if you were to learn, just prior to entering the building, that the baby was due to be adopted by a loving, affluent, well-educated couple? 3. Assuming you choose to save the baby (whether it’s adopted or not doesn’t matter for this one) would you change your answer if the old man was 89, or 79, or 69? If so, where do you draw the line and why? ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2016, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/351 "2016-08-24T18:12:21Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > In other words because you had a tragic experience and lost a baby you loved everyone should worship infants and value them above everything on earth. As sad as your experience with a dying infant was, I don’t doubt it was horrifying and painful to you, try holding the hand of a twenty-year old screaming in pain and eventually dying from the complications of self-induced abortion. Been there. Done that too often. Watch the life drain out of a brilliant, talented artist as she bleeds to death from a pregnancy that should not have been allowed to continue. then watch the infant her life was sacrificed for grow up to be rapists gang-banger. See a young man with the intelligence and leadership abilities to be a future President be ground to dust by the toll of working two minimum-wage jobs to support a baby he hates and then eventually have to call the police when you find his body swinging from a rope in the family garage. That’s the reality baby worshipping gives us. It doesn’t improve the world for infants. When there are too many of them, they quickly lose their value. It does make life hell for adults however. Interesting how the goal posts shifted from the USA (gangbangers and minimum wage jobs) to Yugoslavia. :rolleyes: > [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > Yugoslavia 1990s, lots of rape victims, not a lot of available medical care, desperate women do desperate things. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2016, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/352 "2016-08-24T18:12:37Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > You’re not entirely human, are you? She’s either badly damaged or a troll. But I’d prefer we never go down the road of thinking that someone horrible is not human. The brain behind the persona, fictional or not, is a real person. A contemptible human, but human. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2016, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/353 "2016-08-24T18:15:29Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > I have a four nieces and five nephews in my immediate family and two god daughters. I would lay down my life for them. And I would kill to protect them. Ha ha ha! You just outed yourself troll. If you honestly believe the things you’ve said you would have murdered your nieces and nephews and god daughters when they were just little shit machines but you didn’t. Well, it was fun not really believing you were really this crazy but now that you’ve outed yourself I’m off to watch the real crazies. Bye troll. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2016, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/354 "2016-08-24T18:26:41Z")
> [@Memnon](#): > > I think I might regret this but… > > Okay, so here’s the situation: You’re a firefighter heading into a burning building. In the east wing is a newborn baby. In the west wing is a 99 year old with terminal cancer and a life expectancy of about 3 months. You can only save one. Repeat. You can _only_ save one and you _have_ to save one, otherwise Jesus will kill you. Which one do you choose? > > Follow-up questions: > > 1. Assuming you choose to save the baby, would you change your answer if the 99 year old _didn’t_ have a terminal illness? > 2. Assuming the hypothetical stays exactly as it is, and assuming you choose to save the baby, would you change your answer if you were to learn, just prior to entering the building, that the baby was due to be adopted by a loving, affluent, well-educated couple? > 3. Assuming you choose to save the baby (whether it’s adopted or not doesn’t matter for this one) would you change your answer if the old man was 89, or 79, or 69? If so, where do you draw the line and why? In all scenarios, I would save the old person out of the principle of respect and honor for the elderly and hope he or she was a decent person worth having to sacrifice some one else. If it turns out they are not, well, that couldn’t be known at the time. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2016, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/355 "2016-08-24T18:27:42Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > Interesting how the goal posts shifted from the USA (gangbangers and minimum wage jobs) to Yugoslavia. :rolleyes: Interesting that human experience around the globe often has shared characteristics. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2016, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/356 "2016-08-24T18:36:35Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > I would ask that same question of you if you would value a fetus or a baby over an actually walking, talking, thinking adult. The ability to reason is what makes us human. Beasts reproduce, but they abstract not. Hang on just one goddamned second here. Did you read the Peter Singer stuff we posted about earlier, and then just went right ahead and incorporated that into your so-called worldview? Now you seem to be arguing from a position that infants don’t have personhood. I don’t recall seeing you do that \*before \*we talked about Singer upthread. Earlier, it was about saving children from slavery, and you seemed to care about those children. Also, you were calling them “children”, not “things”. Note the difference between this: > [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > I have seen too many bad adoption experiences to risk that fate on a child which shared my blood. and this: > [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > […] things that aren’t toilet-trained. Quite the tonal shift there, dontcha think? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2016, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/357 "2016-08-24T18:39:08Z")
Two things: Did I misss something? Is ZPG Zealot a swimsuit model or something because I’m not really getting it, she seems more than a tiny bit eccentric and high maintenance. There are worse things to put on a pedestal than babies. With that said, the rate of married people with out children has remained fairly constant over the last 30 years. The rate of married couples has dropped significantly. This is largely due to divorce rather than a rise in childlessness. Hypothesis, children add strain to a marriage that significantly increases the incidence of divorce. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2016, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/358 "2016-08-24T18:41:32Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Two things: > > Did I misss something? Is ZPG Zealot a swimsuit model or something because I’m not really getting it, she seems more than a tiny bit eccentric and high maintenance. > > There are worse things to put on a pedestal than babies. With that said, the rate of married people with out children has remained fairly constant over the last 30 years. The rate of married couples has dropped significantly. This is largely due to divorce rather than a rise in childlessness. Oh, yeah, people like their babies, no doubt. These hoards of people ZPG knows who hate their children enough to kill them is pretty far out of the ordinary IME. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2016, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/359 "2016-08-24T18:58:08Z")
So, **ZPG** , there’s a Dopefest in Austin next month. Can we count on you? ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2016, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/360 "2016-08-24T19:38:25Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > So, **ZPG** , there’s a Dopefest in Austin next month. Can we count on you? At the beginning of the Fall Semester with a couple of thousand freshman converging on the campus and a new group of student workers to train not a chance. Besides you would probably get mad when I refused to shake your hands. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557.md?page=17) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557.md?page=19)