4 ms·

I am a vegetarian and agree with most of the article up until the very last sentence - "where would you have stood on the issue of slave labour" or words to tha

I am a vegetarian and agree with most of the article up until the very last sentence - "where would you have stood on the issue of slave labour" or words to that effect. I feel like that confuses the issue and makes it easier to argue against - humans are very clearly different to dolphins and equating the two does noone any favours.

ColinWright 14y ago
It used to be that people would say: "These savages are clearly different from civilised people" and I can easily imagine them saying: "... and equating the two does no one any favours." There's the point of the entire article: In the future, perhaps people will find it incomprehensible that we, today, considered humans different from dolphins in a significant aspect.
- markive 14y ago
  They didn't then try to eat the savages did they? It's comparing apples and oranges..
  - ColinWright 14y ago
    I don't believe it is comparing apples and oranges. It was once considered by some slave owners to be a mere trifling problem occasionally to beat one of them to death, or work them to death, or otherwise behave in ways that are now considered unacceptable. In the same way, some people put dolphins in captivity, and consider it an inconvenient side-effect of tuna fishing that dolphins are regularly killed in large numbers. And yes, some people eat dolphins, and that supports an industry that kills them for profit, just as slave traders used to capture people and ferry them across oceans. For profit. Deaths of a percentage were considered acceptable losses. It seems to me that the parallels are stronger than the differences, and I also wonder how people of the future will judge the actions of today, and silence of those who didn't speak up.
swombat 14y ago
Humans are certainly different to dolphins, but I sure hope that some alien race doesn't land on Earth some day and say "It's ok to kill and enslave humans indiscriminately because even though they are sentient and intelligent, they are very different from us Xlarblargians." This is very simply an extension of the Golden Rule to other sentient species beyond humans, starting with the ones that we know about and are closest to us. And as Colin points out, the "equating X to humans does no one any favours" line has been used before in history.

ColinWright 14y ago

It used to be that people would say: "These savages are clearly different from civilised people" and I can easily imagine them saying: "... and equating the two does no one any favours." There's the point of the entire article: In the future, perhaps people will find it incomprehensible that we, today, considered humans different from dolphins in a significant aspect.

markive 14y ago
They didn't then try to eat the savages did they? It's comparing apples and oranges..
- ColinWright 14y ago
  I don't believe it is comparing apples and oranges. It was once considered by some slave owners to be a mere trifling problem occasionally to beat one of them to death, or work them to death, or otherwise behave in ways that are now considered unacceptable. In the same way, some people put dolphins in captivity, and consider it an inconvenient side-effect of tuna fishing that dolphins are regularly killed in large numbers. And yes, some people eat dolphins, and that supports an industry that kills them for profit, just as slave traders used to capture people and ferry them across oceans. For profit. Deaths of a percentage were considered acceptable losses. It seems to me that the parallels are stronger than the differences, and I also wonder how people of the future will judge the actions of today, and silence of those who didn't speak up.

swombat 14y ago

Humans are certainly different to dolphins, but I sure hope that some alien race doesn't land on Earth some day and say "It's ok to kill and enslave humans indiscriminately because even though they are sentient and intelligent, they are very different from us Xlarblargians." This is very simply an extension of the Golden Rule to other sentient species beyond humans, starting with the ones that we know about and are closest to us. And as Colin points out, the "equating X to humans does no one any favours" line has been used before in history.