4 ms·

It's not really a new idea. Seen any homo neanderthalensis around lately?

by aaronem 12y ago

Thrymr 12y ago
That was not really an "idea", but the result of collective actions. This is to previous extinctions [1] as premeditated murder is to negligent homicide. [1] with the possible exception of smallpox
krick 12y ago
Well, I don't really think that killing all the neanderthals was conscious action. Of course I haven't been there and cannot know for sure, but it seems to me to be more likely a natural competition, when one species eventually loses and dies out, not a genocide. And idea of killing all the mosquitos (I don't argue if it's good or bad) definitely is a genocide. So it's better to compare it to the idea of eliminating all the jews during WWII (however it also isn't perfect comparison, because jews aren't really a different species). But the spirit of it is really the same.
- pavel_lishin 12y ago
  > So it's better to compare it to the idea of eliminating all the jews during WWII (however it also isn't perfect comparison, because jews aren't really a different species). I've also never been bitten by anyone of Jewish descent, and while they're as susceptible to infection disease as any other human, they don't carry a disease that kills hundreds of thousands of people per year. So maybe this is kind of a silly comparison altogether.
- jamesaguilar 12y ago
  That is probably the weakest Godwin-ing of a thread I've ever seen. Eliminating an unthinking species for good reasons is no no way morally equivalent to massacring an ethnicity for no particular reason.
  - krick 12y ago
    You see, people who wanted to kill all the jews or whatever you may think of as "evil" did so not because they are "evil". They didn't think "oh, I come up with such a horrible idea, cannot wait to put it into action!". They had perfectly fine reasons why they think it is worth doing so. And surely they didn't think of the creatures they want to destroy (jews, in case of the holocaust) as of their equals. As well as you have perfectly fine reasons to want to kill all the mosquitos and don't think of them as your equals. While saying it I don't honestly expect for you to understand that, because double standards are such a common thing today, especially for western people, but I find it both sad and funny that you are really thinking what you are saying. As do many others like you. At this point it might be expected for someone to point out that the same reasoning could be applied to, say, parasitic flatworms. Well, yeah. (Actually, I see the difference here, because when dealing with cestoidae we don't care about eliminating them totally, only about preventing them to get inside of you, your cow, etc. But that isn't the point.) That's why I'm not trying to argue if the idea of killing all the mosquitos is good or bad. (And if you are curious, I think it's bad idea, for purely ecological, and not some moral reasons, but, again, it's not the point.) But I'm feeling uncomfortable to the point of being irritated by hypocrisy of those who are implying that eliminating the whole species for the single reason of it making their own lives more comfortable has less moral complications than, say, holocaust. Because it doesn't. And, yeah, I find equally disgusting the way you try to use word "unthinking" as an excuse. "Thinking" is label you give to some chemical process in your brain. The life of mosquito is some chemical process as well, whether you chose to label his behavior as "thinking" or not. Technically speaking, there's no fundamental difference between you and mosquito. We may agree that level of complexity in mosquito's behavior doesn't deserve the glorious name of "thinking", but surely you can judge by mosquito's behavior that she isn't trying (I'm avoiding words like "wants" or "thinks" for purpose) to die. And of course for mosquito your life isn't of more value than her own. More than that: there's no real reason why your life should be more valuable than one of mosquito for some other human, especially if you are completely unrelated. So, ideally, by writing this I would want to make somebody to feel conscious of the fact that killing the mosquito is killing and killing out the whole species is genocide, whith all moral and biological implications of that. But, as I said already, I don't really believe I will. And the last thing: what I mean by saying "ecological reasons" or "biological implications" is that bringing cane toads to Australia also should've sounded as safe and really very cool and maybe even somewhat futuristic idea back then. I hope that everybody daring to participate in discussions about ecology and whatsoever knows how it turned out. And few dozen of similar stories as well. I don't really believe that we can be significantly more confident in our reasoning about such complicated matters today, with all our fancy theories and computing devices.

It's not really a new idea. Seen any homo neanderthalensis around lately?

by aaronem 12y ago

It's not really a new idea. Seen any homo neanderthalensis around lately?

That was not really an "idea", but the result of collective actions. This is to previous extinctions [1] as premeditated murder is to negligent homicide. [1] with the possible exception of smallpox

krick 12y ago

Well, I don't really think that killing all the neanderthals was conscious action. Of course I haven't been there and cannot know for sure, but it seems to me to be more likely a natural competition, when one species eventually loses and dies out, not a genocide. And idea of killing all the mosquitos (I don't argue if it's good or bad) definitely is a genocide. So it's better to compare it to the idea of eliminating all the jews during WWII (however it also isn't perfect comparison, because jews aren't really a different species). But the spirit of it is really the same.

pavel_lishin 12y ago
> So it's better to compare it to the idea of eliminating all the jews during WWII (however it also isn't perfect comparison, because jews aren't really a different species). I've also never been bitten by anyone of Jewish descent, and while they're as susceptible to infection disease as any other human, they don't carry a disease that kills hundreds of thousands of people per year. So maybe this is kind of a silly comparison altogether.
jamesaguilar 12y ago
That is probably the weakest Godwin-ing of a thread I've ever seen. Eliminating an unthinking species for good reasons is no no way morally equivalent to massacring an ethnicity for no particular reason.
- krick 12y ago
  You see, people who wanted to kill all the jews or whatever you may think of as "evil" did so not because they are "evil". They didn't think "oh, I come up with such a horrible idea, cannot wait to put it into action!". They had perfectly fine reasons why they think it is worth doing so. And surely they didn't think of the creatures they want to destroy (jews, in case of the holocaust) as of their equals. As well as you have perfectly fine reasons to want to kill all the mosquitos and don't think of them as your equals. While saying it I don't honestly expect for you to understand that, because double standards are such a common thing today, especially for western people, but I find it both sad and funny that you are really thinking what you are saying. As do many others like you. At this point it might be expected for someone to point out that the same reasoning could be applied to, say, parasitic flatworms. Well, yeah. (Actually, I see the difference here, because when dealing with cestoidae we don't care about eliminating them totally, only about preventing them to get inside of you, your cow, etc. But that isn't the point.) That's why I'm not trying to argue if the idea of killing all the mosquitos is good or bad. (And if you are curious, I think it's bad idea, for purely ecological, and not some moral reasons, but, again, it's not the point.) But I'm feeling uncomfortable to the point of being irritated by hypocrisy of those who are implying that eliminating the whole species for the single reason of it making their own lives more comfortable has less moral complications than, say, holocaust. Because it doesn't. And, yeah, I find equally disgusting the way you try to use word "unthinking" as an excuse. "Thinking" is label you give to some chemical process in your brain. The life of mosquito is some chemical process as well, whether you chose to label his behavior as "thinking" or not. Technically speaking, there's no fundamental difference between you and mosquito. We may agree that level of complexity in mosquito's behavior doesn't deserve the glorious name of "thinking", but surely you can judge by mosquito's behavior that she isn't trying (I'm avoiding words like "wants" or "thinks" for purpose) to die. And of course for mosquito your life isn't of more value than her own. More than that: there's no real reason why your life should be more valuable than one of mosquito for some other human, especially if you are completely unrelated. So, ideally, by writing this I would want to make somebody to feel conscious of the fact that killing the mosquito is killing and killing out the whole species is genocide, whith all moral and biological implications of that. But, as I said already, I don't really believe I will. And the last thing: what I mean by saying "ecological reasons" or "biological implications" is that bringing cane toads to Australia also should've sounded as safe and really very cool and maybe even somewhat futuristic idea back then. I hope that everybody daring to participate in discussions about ecology and whatsoever knows how it turned out. And few dozen of similar stories as well. I don't really believe that we can be significantly more confident in our reasoning about such complicated matters today, with all our fancy theories and computing devices.