Smile.

[i_am_the_owl]

//

Main:It's easy to get caught up in the individualism of life, suggesting a subjective morality, but true individualism only exists if you never interact with anyone else. Decisions made by the average individual directly affect the lives of dozens of others and indirectly affect possibly hundreds more. Thus you have society, and with that

Comments

[destruccionados]

"Primates to be given equal rights. This should make vegans happy as it is the first real countermeasure to speciesism ever legislated."

I think primates should be treated like American negroes prior to 1860. They're inferior. Sometimes I even think the Nazis should have put them into concentration camps during the 1940's.

Of course, I don't mean this to apply to Orangutans. Orangutans are practically blonde! They're the most intelligent and most Aryan of all the primates.

"Baptist military funeral protestor on Hannity and Colmes (video). I do believe that this is the first time I've ever agreed with Sean Hannity."

I love how that bitch in the interview says some legislature acted unconstitutionally, but she believes her interpretation of the Bible trumps the constitution.

And if she thinks that state legislature is bad, she's lucky I'm not a lawmaker. Because I would repeatedly introduce bills calling for a constitutional amendment, even if just on a state level, to execute every member of her church.

[i_am_the_owl]

Oddly enough, Orangutans share the least of our DNA at 96.4%.

I would vote to grant you the power to do that.

[willows_song]

Just what I've always wanted, a legalized way to marry an ape family!

[nicknoble]

A fruitfly shares 70% of the same genes as us, they sould get some rights too.

[i_am_the_owl]

A banana shares 90%.

[nicknoble]

Yeah right, there not even in the same Kingdom as Humans.

Too Bad Bill Hodges told me the fly thing.

[i_am_the_owl]

Whatever, murderer. I don't listen to banana-eaters because they're 90% cannibals.

[zorander22]

I agree wholeheartedly for your main point... I think that also comes in to play with the sex toys thing if you extend it. Harming others around you is (likely) a sub-par state overall... but by not doing the most you can for everyone (including yourself), you're also enabling a reality that isn't as good as it could be. So instead of focussing on issues of actual importance, by banning sex toys they are part of a lower morality. It's costing time and resources that could actually go to something useful. I'm tired and have no idea if what I just wrote made any sense :P

Heh, funny current events. I hope they give those rights to dolphins too... though I've heard a woman actually married a dolphin already. I wonder where you'd draw the line with species though... what do you think? Are all animals equal, except some more equal than others?

[i_am_the_owl]

It made sense, but it's a completely stupid extension of the term "harm". Also, I don't understand why you're making the distinction between "harm" and "something useful" to society; not harming society doesn't mean an obligation to contribute to it. Neither is enabling a fantasy (to say nothing of the people that enjoy sex-toys as a couple) a constitution of societal harm. Also, I fail to see how people enjoy themselves, especially in the privacy of their bedrooms, is of any consequence to society and, thus, of any consequence to morality.

It depends on who you ask. If you're going to start considering DNA similarities as a point for determining rights, though, then how close does DNA have to be to gain these rights? Can't you then justify racism by simply upping the acceptable ratio (as different races have a miniscule difference)? Do you draw the line at what animals are commonly eaten or just the ones that are tasty?

[zorander22]

I don't think it's a stupid extension. What is the difference between harming something and preventing it from being something more than it is? By failing to take a pet to a vetrinarian, if you knew that the vet could easily heal the pet for little cost, you are as guilty in some ways as if you made the pet be sick in the first place. By sterilizing the entire human population, you are in some ways, as guilty as if you'd killed all the descendants of those people.... same as if you fail to stop the human population from being sterilized when you could have. Why do you think you're obligated to not harm others, but think helping them or not isn't an obligation

[i_am_the_owl]

Your projection of blame is completely irrational. I see plenty of people chainsmoking, but I don't take the cigarettes out of their mouths because I'm not responsible for giving them cancer. If I was holding them down and forcing smoke into their lungs, then you'd certainly have a case. No one has an obligation to better society if for no other reason than freedom and liberty are things that society collectively values. If people voluntarily submitted themselves to oppression and coersion, that's quite different from society projecting coersion onto them. Furthermore, the potential for "good" does not equate to actual "good". Claiming that using birth control is the equivilent of murder is exceptionally backward. I'm sure we can agree that my freedom to swing my fist ends where the nose of another person begins, but what freedom does the collective have to put me at its whims

[i_am_the_owl]

Third times the charm, as they say.