5 ms·
At some point we're going to have to take something like responsibility for our actions in the face of other sentient species... Or accept that we do things onl
by M_Grey 10y ago
At some point we're going to have to take something like responsibility for our actions in the face of other sentient species... Or accept that we do things only because we can, and abandon even the semblance of ethics. It's starting to become very clear even with a strong degree of skepticism, that while we may be the most advanced intelligence on Earth, we're not the only ones.
That should have implications for our species, if we let it.
- coliveira 10y agoHumans don't respect even their own species, good luck with respect for other sentient species...
- M_Grey 10y agoDepressing, but no less true for that.
- eanzenberg 10y agoNeither do other animals...? We're not all that different.
- wavefunction 10y agoMost other animals won't fight to the death. They might fight far enough to determine a victor, but usually the fight or conflict is over quickly or before the conflict actually takes place. Humans on the other hand will pursue the illogical course of self-destruction for the slight chance of "moral victory."
- coliveira 10y agoAnimals have not created the concept of "wealth" and "money" to justify the death of other animals. In this regard, other animals are way ahead of our species.
- Ma8ee 10y agoMost of us actually do. Not all humans respect all other humans all the time, but most of the time we behave quite decently against each other.
- droopyEyelids 10y agoThe way you're thinking about things is very natural in the realm of computers and math, but insane in life at large. We do not follow universal, perfect rules. Humans make judgements on what is appropriate or not based on preference. It would be perfectly in keeping with sanity and normal behavior to decide something is worth the regrettable extinction of an intelligent species, while maintaining actual codes of morality.
- M_Grey 10y agoWhat's the value in extinguishing intelligent species? Otherwise you're right, but it's not in keeping with the professed morality that the vast majority of the public appears to claim to follow. As I said, it might be time to simply admit that our overriding ethic is, "Because we can."
- flukus 10y ago> What's the value in extinguishing intelligent species? More resources for us.
- M_Grey 10y agoWhat resources are we competing for with crows exactly?
- ItsDeathball 10y agoDesirable tropical beachfront property?
- flukus 10y ago> Or accept that we do things only because we can, and abandon even the semblance of ethics. That's not abandoning ethics, just changing them. The holocaust is something we almost universally consider unethical today, but it was within the nazis ethical framework.
- sporkologist 10y agoCannibalism is unethical too, until it's a matter of life and death.
- M_Grey 10y agoCannibalism isn't really unethical, it's unsafe. Murdering someone to cannibalize them is very unethical.
- M_Grey 10y agoWas it? Was the "Nazi ethical framework" actually a framework or just a conveniently half-assed set of pseudo philosophies? Take the "Aryan" concept or their racial "science"; just because someone claims to have a different ethical system isn't reason enough to accept on its face. Questions I'd ask would be along the lines of questioning whether or not there were actual ethical principles at play, and if so what were they? I'm not sure that racial or national supremacy is really meaningful when you're not the person believing in it. "Race" for example isn't a particularly rigorous concept, so what ethical structures could you build around it?
- felixschl 10y agoThen again Hitler banned vivisection, introduced hunting restrictions, required animals to be under aneastetic for slaughter and there were plans to ban slaughter houses after the war altogether.
- M_Grey 10y agoI feel that only emphasizes how arbitrary and inconsistent any supposed "Nazi Ethics" were.
- noonespecial 10y agoIt was easy when sentience was considered binary. There were just 2 groups, man and animals. If not man then not sentient. Once sentience is considered a continuum, you can say things that we kind of felt all along like "its less morally bad to eat a chicken than a dolphin". The reason that this meets resistance is because it forces the question "is it morally bad to eat the chicken at all?" and then we have to pick a spot on the continuum as a dividing point. There may be some small disagreement as to where to draw this line...
- derefr 10y agoSentience being a continuum also suggests that there might be points where man overlaps animals. For example, an adult crow might have more ethical value than a newborn human baby. Taking such a notion seriously would require restructuring a lot of society.
- noonespecial 10y agoWorse still, some people are more sentient than others. Its a deep rabbit hole that will lead you straight into conflict with many prevailing orthodoxies. Also very easy to abuse to create some very dangerous ideologies. Put some in the chamber of your Godwin accelerator and its damn near hypergolic. Almost enough to make you shudder and try not to think so much.
- M_Grey 10y agoIt really does, but if we don't do the thinking, someone else will do it for us and come to conclusions we may not like.