Maybe so, but his words were less of a considered point of view (IMNSHO) and seemed more like political rhetoric (again, IMNSO).
Nice. Try using that in a court of law.
“Your honor, my clinet killed those one-hundred twenty people because he belives human lives are a dime a dozen. My client was short on change and wanted to buy a $1 Twix bar from a vending machine.”
While in principle I agree with the point of humans not being above nature, I think your sentiments are rather callous nevertheless.
There’s a good possibility this is true, but look at the birthrates around the world and you’ll notice that many (if not all) of the biggest increases are in the poorest parts of the world.
Besides, what do I know about increasing the world’s population, I’m a goddamn virgin!
Do you use this line with the opposite sex? I’m sure they’d love it.
As I said, I am not very informed on this subject. I apologize for the error, but from what I had heard they were taking stem cells from aborted fetuses.
**
I believe this sort of thing (failing to stop a murder or assault, or doing nothing about it) is unlawful in some areas nowadays.
I don’t give a damn about your cat, but that high school might just be where some of my friends go to school. I’d hate to think that they died so your cat could live. In fact, I’d probably come after the furball myself.
Glad to know that, I don’t want or need your protection. I’ll happily entrust myself to someone who gives a damn about other people’s well being.
Sounds to me that foolsguinea is suggesting that an entire species is more valuable to an ecosystem than the individuals of another species.
I certainly think it worth the lives of a thousand rats to keep them from destroying the last kakapo, for example.
And in broad terms, for the sake of biodiversity, humanity can much better afford to lose a thousand individual members than quite a number of other species.
So now that I’ve said that, who wants to accuse me of “moral bankruptcy?” :rolleyes:
But he didn’t mean rats, andros, he said human beings. To put it another way, would you sacrifice 1000 of the Dopers on this board to save a species? To make up an example, lets use the Specticled Weasel Hawk.
Just imagine the following:
“Goodbye Libertarian, Coldfire, SueSponte, SPOOFE, GingerOfTheNorth, jab1, manhattan, CrankyAsAnOldMan, Alphagene, Enderw24, Scylla, Collunsbury, Manda JO, spooje, Drastic, TheNerd, jarbabyj, Freedom, etc…, you’re all going to die so that a solitary Specticled Weasel Hawk might live.”
This list may even end up including you and me, since said selection of Weasel Hawk martyrs would of course be random. You can’t let a personal grudge enter into this.
I wonder how many would say that a single bird of any species is worth 1000 people who they know. It’s always other people, never their friends.
And damn you for bringing the kakapo into the argument, it’s one of my favorite birds!
I certainly won’t, but it does take a certain quality to post stuff like the biodiversity argument. (Which may be true, but is quite unsettling to hear or read.)
Odd, i thought animal cruelty was illegal, too. I guess not. Or is that what they teach people who live in their parents’ basements nowadays…
Of course, if you hurt my cat, you’re dead, its as simple as that, so by not stopping yourself, you are technically not stopping your own murder, so you are breaking the law.
Many of them are, originally, but you can clone them from fetus cells, or from marrow, or potentially many other parts of the body. Its just now fetal cells are easier to obtain and duplicate. Abortions are going to happen if you are opposed to them or not, so maybe we should use the cells to help people who can live outside their mothers rather than throwing them in the trash.
Having followed this thread from the first, I will now say, that I, jarbabyj, would in fact sacrifice myself in order to save the Specticled Weasel Hawk.
you see, animals with names like that, deserve to thrive. Ibexes? Not so much.
Always make your point by going for a cheep shot. That’s what I say. :rolleyes:
Oh, and my parents don’t have a basement. And I don’t torture animals, I just eat them.
Lighten up!
My point was that I wouldn’t like it if my friends died because you stopped a man from killing your cat instead of stopping a shooting at my old high school.
Odd, I find it disgusting when people put human life sooo far above animal life, as if we weren’t also animals. Frankly, I don’t see that much difference. Yeah, Person > cockroach and Person > field mouse (though I still find value in the lives of both the cockroach and the field mouse) however I think that when it comes to Person vs dog or cat or cow or monkey… well it’s more on a person by person, dog by dog, monkey by monkey basis. I’d sacrifice my dog to save my son, but I would sacrifice my neighbor to save my cat. For that matter, I’d consider sacrificing my neighbor just because, if it wasn’t so gosh-darned illegal. But that is neither here nor there.
One of the reasons this is such an emotional issue, I think, is because the “human over animal” superiority thing is often used as carte blanche to run roughshod over any animal species in the way of corporate profit… er… I mean, progress, without any thought to consequences or how to avoid it. Sort of a Natural Manifest Destiny, “them rainforests would look great all paved over, sez Rush” type of thing. “Animals don’t have souls. So what if a few insect species die so we can drill for oil? Screw 'em! Screw 'em all! We need gas for our SUVs!”
Heck, if you think this issue is hard to deal with, try getting into the “environment vs. economy” thing, which is even more grey. Fun fun fun!
I think it’s not very easy to strike a balance, since it’s soooo easy to tilt against a reaction you find extreme. Heck, I think I need to start a GD thread, to satisfy my curiosity…
About what? I was making the point that someone who says that 1000 people should die to save a bird should probably stop and think about what he’s saying.
I also find that putting a fixed value on human life very troubling. But maybe I’m just too nice a person. We should all be so coldly logical.
Although the idea of sacrificing certain people does have an appeal to me, whether they’re killed to save animals or not.
And don’t anyone accuse me of being a “pave it, zone it and sell it” person. If I was I wouldn’t be living in the middle of nowhere surrounded by wildlife, now would I?
if you are willing to lay down your life for your fucking pet, you are a fool. Remember a couple of years back when LA was experiencing terrible fires in the canyon regions, and lots of homes were burned to the ground? There was a story of a wealthy individual whose home was burning. He evacuated, but re-entered the inferno to save his cat. He died. The cat lived. He was a fool.
I’m all for the preservation of species, and against cruelty to animals, but they are lower species. We are, with a few notable exeptions, more important. I understand people having genuine affection for their animals, and I love my dog, but I would not take a bullet for her. I will mightily smote whoever fired that bullet but…well, you get the idea.
Yawn. Let’s quote someone out of context, then go for some cheap emotional point scoring. Here’s Foolsguinea’s original statement:
Seems fairly logical. If 75 million people were killed by some disease or disaster, as tragic as that would be (and obviously it’s a greater level of tragedy than anything mankind has seen in it’s recorded history) it would not actually eradicate mankind. If 800 bald eagles were killed, that could be enough to end their species.
So then you come down to which is the worse event. How do you come up with a completely objective value for which is a greater tragedy? 75 x 10[sup]6[/sup] people against one species. A tricky question, and I don’t see how anyone can give a definitely correct answer, so it’s down to value judgements. FG goes for the one above, which is at least a valid one for debating. What do you go for:
Which shows what exactly? From our point of view, then the death of one loved one is probably too great a cost to save a species. But, to be honest, I would probably rather that a hundred posters on this forum died than my wife did. Nothing personal, but there you go - personal is personal, and objective is objective. Is my wife worth more than a hundred of you, objectively? No. Is she worth more than a hundred of you to me, personally. 'Fraid so. That either makes me entirely callous from one point of view, or too sentimental from another.
But I wouldn’t then go railing into someone who claimed that, objectively, my wife’s life is not of greater value than a whole species. And I really wouldn’t start throwing out names like “Callous bastard” and “hideously twisted son-of-a bitch”, just for trying to present a valid argument. Worse than that though, you go into Maude Flanders mode:
And won’t someone please consider the children, eh? Please, won’t they consider the children.
An issue is started as a question, becomes a debate, and when someone says something you disagree with you call them names and start using cheap trick arguments. Classy.
And another thing - if you’re going to start a pit thread about someone’s comments in a debate, have the decency to give them a link and a heads up, rather than letting someone else do it 40 minutes later.
Thank god I wasn’t mentioned! That means that the lady Dopers that survived and I get to repopulate the planet. Think of how smart the kids will be.
[Dennis Miller]
Y’know, if it comes to a choice between my heart and a gorilla’s heart, well, sorry, Koko…it’s been nice signing with you.
[/Dennis Miller]
This arguement is basically stupid. First of all, NO life is sacred. Let me ask this (and I take this from George Carlin): If everything that’s ever lived is dead, and everything alive is gonna die, where does the sacred part come in? That said, I see both sides. Yeah, I’d let my cat die if that meant saving my niece. Yeah, I’d let my cat die if it meant that Columbine never happened. Whatever happened to “The good of the many outweighs the good of the few?” Yeah, humans suck. And we DO cause some extinction of animals. But (according to this) species go extinct at an average of about 25 a day, and humans don’t kill them all. That’s what nature does. If the bald eagles are doomed to extinction, that’s nature’s plan. It’s supposed to happen. When humans go extinct (and we will), that’s nature’s plan, too.
I didn’t suggest it. But my point was that when foolsguinea said 1000 humans could be sacrificed for a single bird of which there are 799 perfectly good others around was quite a silly thing to say.
Oh fuck it, I give up. Come to think of it, I think we should sacrifice Coronado, CA to save the kakapo.
This is my first time flaming another poster here, I’m sorry I didn’t do everything correctly. I’m human, OK.
{By “we”, I assume you mean humans.}
I just don’t believe that humans are more important, or that animals are lower than us. Life on Earth is a net, not a pyramid. We humans are links in the net, not the top of the pyramid. I think the persistent idea that we are the top of the pyramid and have dominion over every other species in the world is one more thing to thank Christianity for.
Michael Ellis, even though I don’t agree with your OP, I think you did a fair job at your first flame. You had a problem with something someone said, you brought it to the Pit, and you stuck with the thread you started.
