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Abstractions are useful, this is true, but the exceptions are a reminder that they are not reality, they are just a categorization we overlay on top of reality
by AnIdiotOnTheNet 3y ago
Abstractions are useful, this is true, but the exceptions are a reminder that they are not reality, they are just a categorization we overlay on top of reality to help us understand it. Their utility is contextual.
Your abstraction ignores all the sterile men and women too, by the way. That's because it is a particularly bad one.
- flippinburgers 3y agoThe fact of the matter is that if someone is missing a leg they are absolutely human but they are broken nonetheless.
- ben_w 3y agoThat analogy illuminates nothing.
- flippinburgers 3y agoTo be sterile is to be broken but it doesn't reduce ones humanity.
- ben_w 3y agoNobody's suggesting that it might. You're the one who wrote: > Mammals on the other hand have males that impregnate the females. We're all saying "that's not a very useful definition".