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We help our own, and destroy and torture with great pleasure and no remorse everything else, including animals, whole ecosystems, and other human beings we deci
by bambax 6y ago
We help our own, and destroy and torture with great pleasure and no remorse everything else, including animals, whole ecosystems, and other human beings we decide, for some reason or another, are "aliens".
The moment we give another human community a special name is the first step towards abomination.
Being territorial and aggressive towards others is a trait we share with other species, but we are also superpredators and conquerors and will not rest until there is no more "others".
- _greim_ 6y ago> We help our own, and destroy and torture with great pleasure and no remorse everything else... When you say "we" do you mean you personally partake in all these activities, or do you count yourself as an exception to the rule?
- bambax 6y agoWe includes the person talking, of course. I don't see how I could say this and not include myself. I'm human (for better and worse).
- _greim_ 6y agoI hear you. While I may not have committed major atrocities personally, I believe the potential for all those things lies within me due to my human nature. Had I been born in a different time and place, I may well have participated in some of that stuff. I shudder to think about it and believe we should nurture the better aspects of our nature as much as we can, both individually and collectively.
- kiba 6y agoI like to eat chicken, beefs, and porks for no other reason than it's tasty food. Does that make me a bad person?
- i_haz_rabies 6y agoAre you aware of the impact it has, consider that impact to be negative in a moral sense, but make no changes to your behaviour?
- bambax 6y agoI don't decide who's good or bad, and I'm not your mother. You should form your own opinion about yourself.
- munificent 6y agoAccording to the chicken, cow, and pig, yes. It's up to you to determine how much their opinion informs your own.
- dsubburam 6y agoAnother way to reframe this is to ask if this is a free action, rather than a good or bad one. Free as in free from animal passions that compel one to act in a pseudo-deterministic way ("I am hungry so I eat", "I am scared so I run"), and instead according to higher-order reason and principle only humans (so far) have access to. So, if we choose meat for a meal in an automatic way because our tongue asks for it, it might be an unfree choice. But if we do so after some consideration, including factors beyond our bodily impulses, it could be seen as a choice made by a free person. This my take/interpretation of Immanuel Kant's transcendental freedom[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative#Freedom_and_autonomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative#Freedom...
- chillacy 6y agoHumans (sapiens) are very altruistic to their in-group and downright brutal to their out-group. The easiest trick may just be to adjust these boundaries over time. If sentient aliens showed up to wage war, I'm sure the different human nations on earth would suddenly find themselves to have a lot more in common.
- bambax 6y agoYes, agreed.
- carapace 6y ago> A human being is a part of a whole, called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. —Einstein