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> Yes, because we all know that humans care so much about the suffering of others: from fellow humans dying right now pointless deaths We are provably the only

> Yes, because we all know that humans care so much about the suffering of others: from fellow humans dying right now pointless deaths We are provably the only living being on Earth that do care about it. > If we will be able to spawn an agent in a household humanoid robot and let them do the chores around the house, will we do it, even if it will imply killing that agent whenever it powers down? You betcha That's the wrong question, the real problem with sentient machines is that they could have a completely different way of being conscious that does not account for empathy, love, care, guilt, ethics and so on. So they could think that the right thing to do is to wipe out every living creature on the Planet and do it without a doubt. We know it would not happen until we humans are in charge. > First, not so great of a species, as mentioned This is is so 1995... What you are proposing is replacing a "not so great of a species"with a leap into the void, assuming that it would certainly be better than us, which is arguably worse than improving on what we already have. "not so great" is also a definition that you can use because we are the only species that can articulate such a thought, if we are "not great" because we kill other animals or put alexa to sleep, how would you define monkeys that "Driven to compete violently for control of food, they’ll kill the young of opposing tribes, share the meat, and then retreat into the trees to eat it." > [1] https://animalclock.org https://animalclock.org Again, so boring! A 2021 estimate based on a public survey estimated that outdoor cats kill "1.61–4.95 billion invertebrates, 1.61–3.58 billion fishes, 1.13–3.82 billion amphibians, 1.48–4.31 billion reptiles, 2.69–5.52 billion birds, and 3.61–9.80 billion mammals" each year.

ly3xqhl8g9 3y ago
"We are provably the only living being on Earth that do care about it." Very much not true: [1] [2] and plenty more in a quick search. https://animalclock.org https://animalclock.org The point is not that in nature there are also killings, it's that we are doing it. [1] "Cat Saves Little Boy From Being Attacked by Neighbor's Dog" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSG_wBiTEE8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSG_wBiTEE8 [2] "Cat Saves Toddler From Falling Down Stairs", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcpEnpitzHw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcpEnpitzHw
- peoplefromibiza 3y ago
  > The point is not that in nature there are also killings, it's that we are doing it. so there is no actual point ... we are part of the nature, we are not from another planet, we haven't landed here on a spaceship and colonized the World. > Very much not true: [1] [2] and plenty more in a quick search. Are you really comparing YouTube videos that attach some human traits to a cat, with thousands of years of philosophy and thousands of years of laws and regulations to avoid unnecessary violence? "The most common reason for a male domestic cat to kill kittens is to kill off a competitor's offspring and have the opportunity to mate with the female." What happens to those cats? do they go to jail? do other cats condemn what he did? More importantly, we understand they are cats and we don't punish them for being cats, we don't kill them for what they do as cats, we don't jail them, we don't stop having them in our houses, just because they are horribly murderous creatures with no regrets. But what would happen to a person doing the same thing?
  - ly3xqhl8g9 3y ago
    You mentioned "only living being", it's actually a gradient, some animals, like cats in those videos, various breeds of dogs that are child-friendly, cows, horses, and probably more domesticated animals, can develop various feelings (maybe codependency, who knows) for their owners and have desire to protect them when in peril. Yes, me living 100 feet above ground and speaking to you from 10,000 miles through a signal that goes to outer space is very naturey, happens all the time in the tundra. You seem to have some thesis. Is it just that you feel you are smarter than me? If yes, great, do not continue this thread.
    - peoplefromibiza 3y ago
      Not as a species. Nobody ever said: let's ask what the cat think about it It doesn't matter if a cat thinks he's a duck and raise some ducklings, it's a cat, it will kill many other animals for fun, they don't have anything like we have as a species. Anyway, dogs exists only because we humans created the he way they are We selected them to be agreeable and loyal and human loving they did not exist before we literally invented them > Is it just that you feel you are smarter than me? that could only be true if you think you're dumber than me, because I never said anything that can remotely resemble a comparison of our personal intelligences. Which doesn't even matter much, I could be the dumbest and kindest person in the World.
archon1410 3y ago
This is demonstrably false. We know other species can empathise[1] and there are countless examples of them helping others in distress. It's astounding that anyone can even assert such a thing so confidently. [1] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/not-bad-science/can-pigs-empathize/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/not-bad-science/can-pig...
- peoplefromibiza 3y ago
  yeah, that's not a rebuttal though I was pointing out that humans are the only species that cares about this stuff, not simply that humans can empathize Where are pigs armies in support of the Ukranian invasion? (fellow humans dying right now pointless deaths) Where are pigs trying to save other animal species from extinction? (the suffering of others) what kind of advancement in thought have pigs produced regarding the conservation and well being of other living creatures? (and non leaving too like oceans or mountains or glaciers) We are the only species who cares and debates about it at scale, as a species, we recognize we have a responsibility, as a species, not just as individuals
  - archon1410 3y ago
    Having the ability/capability to enact change is not the same as caring. A person, or a whole species, can care about the suffering of others without having the ability to do anything about it, or even realising the scale or nature of the problem due to limited intelligence.
    - peoplefromibiza 3y ago
      > A person, or a whole species, can care about the suffering of others without having the ability to do anything about it, if they could care in a meaningful way they could change at least their individual behavior, form their own pack, under different rules. it never happened. but the most important point is: if we are not great of a species because we don't care about fellow humans and other living beings suffering, every other species is worse than us on that matter, hence we might be not great, but are still the best of the bunch. we are still the only species that does it in a way that has an actual impact and produces a change over time.
JoeAltmaier 3y ago
Never met a dog I guess.
- peoplefromibiza 3y ago
  this is a textbook example of involuntary proving the point you were trying to disprove dogs are not like that because they are dogs, but because we humans literally created them with genetic manipulation over millennia dogs like we know them did not exists in nature before we invented them to be the way they are we literally put what we wanted them to be into them and terminated the experiments that failed (we literally eradicated the most problematic breeds we created) of course we like them, we made them to like us and to be likeable by us now take an African wild dog or a wolf and tell me they act like domestic dogs...
  - JoeAltmaier 3y ago
    But, if a dog can do it (care about suffering) then? It's not a purely human thing. It can be in any creature. anyway this whole discussion is based on uncertain ground -what is consciousness? What is suffering?
    - peoplefromibiza 3y ago
      > But, if a dog can do it (care about suffering) then? It's not a purely human thing It doesn't matter if a dog cares about suffering, it matters, in this context, based on the assumptions in the first message of the thread, that the aforementioned dog cares of the suffering of fellow dogs and other living beings. As of today, not only we can't say it does, we have evidence that they do not care as much as we do. Not by a long shot. I've never seen a dog dig a hole to warm a rabbit dying in the snow... We know of humans that did it, despite the fact that they could eat the rabbit to survive. > anyway this whole discussion is based on uncertain ground -what is consciousness? What is suffering? that's not the question though. At the best of our knowledge today, would you prefer to have a fellow human in case of need or a dog? If you are suffering, which living species is most probably going to help you? Who are you betting on? Dogs? Cats? Ants? Snakes? Sharks? or humans? That's the question here.
TheGigaChad 3y ago
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ly3xqhl8g9 3y ago

"We are provably the only living being on Earth that do care about it." Very much not true: [1] [2] and plenty more in a quick search. https://animalclock.org https://animalclock.org The point is not that in nature there are also killings, it's that we are doing it. [1] "Cat Saves Little Boy From Being Attacked by Neighbor's Dog" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSG_wBiTEE8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSG_wBiTEE8 [2] "Cat Saves Toddler From Falling Down Stairs", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcpEnpitzHw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcpEnpitzHw

peoplefromibiza 3y ago
> The point is not that in nature there are also killings, it's that we are doing it. so there is no actual point ... we are part of the nature, we are not from another planet, we haven't landed here on a spaceship and colonized the World. > Very much not true: [1] [2] and plenty more in a quick search. Are you really comparing YouTube videos that attach some human traits to a cat, with thousands of years of philosophy and thousands of years of laws and regulations to avoid unnecessary violence? "The most common reason for a male domestic cat to kill kittens is to kill off a competitor's offspring and have the opportunity to mate with the female." What happens to those cats? do they go to jail? do other cats condemn what he did? More importantly, we understand they are cats and we don't punish them for being cats, we don't kill them for what they do as cats, we don't jail them, we don't stop having them in our houses, just because they are horribly murderous creatures with no regrets. But what would happen to a person doing the same thing?
- ly3xqhl8g9 3y ago
  You mentioned "only living being", it's actually a gradient, some animals, like cats in those videos, various breeds of dogs that are child-friendly, cows, horses, and probably more domesticated animals, can develop various feelings (maybe codependency, who knows) for their owners and have desire to protect them when in peril. Yes, me living 100 feet above ground and speaking to you from 10,000 miles through a signal that goes to outer space is very naturey, happens all the time in the tundra. You seem to have some thesis. Is it just that you feel you are smarter than me? If yes, great, do not continue this thread.
  - peoplefromibiza 3y ago
    Not as a species. Nobody ever said: let's ask what the cat think about it It doesn't matter if a cat thinks he's a duck and raise some ducklings, it's a cat, it will kill many other animals for fun, they don't have anything like we have as a species. Anyway, dogs exists only because we humans created the he way they are We selected them to be agreeable and loyal and human loving they did not exist before we literally invented them > Is it just that you feel you are smarter than me? that could only be true if you think you're dumber than me, because I never said anything that can remotely resemble a comparison of our personal intelligences. Which doesn't even matter much, I could be the dumbest and kindest person in the World.

archon1410 3y ago

This is demonstrably false. We know other species can empathise[1] and there are countless examples of them helping others in distress. It's astounding that anyone can even assert such a thing so confidently. [1] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/not-bad-science/can-pigs-empathize/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/not-bad-science/can-pig...

peoplefromibiza 3y ago
yeah, that's not a rebuttal though I was pointing out that humans are the only species that cares about this stuff, not simply that humans can empathize Where are pigs armies in support of the Ukranian invasion? (fellow humans dying right now pointless deaths) Where are pigs trying to save other animal species from extinction? (the suffering of others) what kind of advancement in thought have pigs produced regarding the conservation and well being of other living creatures? (and non leaving too like oceans or mountains or glaciers) We are the only species who cares and debates about it at scale, as a species, we recognize we have a responsibility, as a species, not just as individuals
- archon1410 3y ago
  Having the ability/capability to enact change is not the same as caring. A person, or a whole species, can care about the suffering of others without having the ability to do anything about it, or even realising the scale or nature of the problem due to limited intelligence.
  - peoplefromibiza 3y ago
    > A person, or a whole species, can care about the suffering of others without having the ability to do anything about it, if they could care in a meaningful way they could change at least their individual behavior, form their own pack, under different rules. it never happened. but the most important point is: if we are not great of a species because we don't care about fellow humans and other living beings suffering, every other species is worse than us on that matter, hence we might be not great, but are still the best of the bunch. we are still the only species that does it in a way that has an actual impact and produces a change over time.

JoeAltmaier 3y ago

Never met a dog I guess.

peoplefromibiza 3y ago
this is a textbook example of involuntary proving the point you were trying to disprove dogs are not like that because they are dogs, but because we humans literally created them with genetic manipulation over millennia dogs like we know them did not exists in nature before we invented them to be the way they are we literally put what we wanted them to be into them and terminated the experiments that failed (we literally eradicated the most problematic breeds we created) of course we like them, we made them to like us and to be likeable by us now take an African wild dog or a wolf and tell me they act like domestic dogs...
- JoeAltmaier 3y ago
  But, if a dog can do it (care about suffering) then? It's not a purely human thing. It can be in any creature. anyway this whole discussion is based on uncertain ground -what is consciousness? What is suffering?
  - peoplefromibiza 3y ago
    > But, if a dog can do it (care about suffering) then? It's not a purely human thing It doesn't matter if a dog cares about suffering, it matters, in this context, based on the assumptions in the first message of the thread, that the aforementioned dog cares of the suffering of fellow dogs and other living beings. As of today, not only we can't say it does, we have evidence that they do not care as much as we do. Not by a long shot. I've never seen a dog dig a hole to warm a rabbit dying in the snow... We know of humans that did it, despite the fact that they could eat the rabbit to survive. > anyway this whole discussion is based on uncertain ground -what is consciousness? What is suffering? that's not the question though. At the best of our knowledge today, would you prefer to have a fellow human in case of need or a dog? If you are suffering, which living species is most probably going to help you? Who are you betting on? Dogs? Cats? Ants? Snakes? Sharks? or humans? That's the question here.

TheGigaChad 3y ago

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