Why is species more important then sentience and intelligence? Species seems even more arbitrary then intelligence. Then again a little black book from 2,000 years ago tells us species is important and I guess using it lets you sleep at night safe from the moral ambiguity. But imagine if we had have said that skin colour is what determines who gets rights, instead of species. I'm sure most here wouldn't want such a thing.
Pigs have all those attributes, maybe not in the same measure, but I don't want be told that I can't have my bacon because pigs have rights. That's very much like people saying "if homosexuals can marry then next we'll have people marrying pigs." Just as it isn't a valid argument in marriage, if you read my post a bit more carefully you'll see a pig will never qualify for human rights.
Wow, I love that logic. Let's keep oppressing the blackie who has grown up in another society. Let us not educate them or give them any education. Instead let us keep the blackie locked up in cages for our amusement and medical benefit. But hey, the second the blackie learns how to file a tax return, we'll let him out of his cage.
Now if only we had of had that logic when it came to granting blacks equal rights. "Let us oppress the blackie until all Caucasians are no longer starving. Let us cut the blackie up and perform experiments on it to improve the Caucasian until there exists no Caucasian whose stomach grumbles at night. I'm all in favour of ethical treatment of animals, but that doesn't extend to granting them rights that we can't assure for other Caucasians."
I will never turn into a chimp, but I may very well one day end up being one of the dispossessed. You have no empathy, you're merely selfish and looking out for yourself. I pity you, and if you are white, I hope you never consider oppressing blacks is a good solution. After all, you would as soon turn into a monkey as turn into a black.
Oh! So that's where we went wrong. We shouldn't have called it human rights, we should have called it Caucasian rights. If only our ancestors had of had that foresight, I could have my black slaves working for me still. Damn our ancestors and their lack of foresight!
So wait, we should continue to torture beings that are quite possibly sentient and intelligent and could be a productive member of society just because there's a human who doesn't have enough food to eat? Wow. Just, wow.
I don't know if Chimps should have human rights. I think what we need to do is research that does work to gauge how well chimps could cope in human society when raised in that society and how intelligent they can then become.
Then compare that with the lowest human being and work your way up through the human being scale (if the chimp is better then the lowest human beings we have) until we find a type of human (most likely suffering some form of mental retardation) that is comparable with your average chimp. Then assign chimps the same rights as that human being has.
Unfortunately until now most research has been far too biased or faulty one way or another, and as such we don't know if chimps are equal to some humans. As such, how are we suppose to know if they deserve human rights?
Good point, however you can have as much subject depth as you like, and still not know shit about a subject. My sister, who got top marks in her computer course and came first in the class, is testament to this as she didn't know a THING about what she was doing.
So the question is what is better: in-depth papers that don't make sure the person knows what they're talking about despite the fact the work is all their own or a demonstration on the concept that is more superficial but much more likely to prove an understanding of the knowledge given all of the work is their own.
It always seemed wrong to me that you could blatently discriminate customers on the basis of their nationality. Nice try, but its discrimination based on your location. An American in California will get a different price then an American in the Germany (or an American with an American credit card will get a different price then an American with a German credit card).
I wonder if the WTO could also go after them for charging different prices to US and non-US customers. Considering that's not the case, probably not.
As someone who is currently doing a course for a second time and almost had a similar opportunity (teacher changed the assignment instead), that is completely fucked up.
By the way, based on the teacher's marking criteria I'm almost guaranteed (as in, I'd be very surprised if I don't get one) a distinction and I've spent 5-7 hours on it. An extra 2 hours and I may get a high distinction (more then that I have no idea what I could possibly do on this assignment). Which is ridiculous, but because I've already learnt this work, I can do it so easily that there has been no benefit in me doing this assignment. Therefore, I (and other people in my situation) should be able to hand in prior assignments we've done the work on.
Besides, if universities don't want students handing in work they've already done, they should change the assignment (as mine was in this case).
People do not think it's okay to infringe copyright.
Many people seem to think its alright for them to do it. And their friends. And lots of other people. I think the distinction you're making is fairly unimportant.
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Of course some common sense has to follow. I obviously wasn't referring to people in a coma.
Wow, I love that logic. Let's keep oppressing the blackie who has grown up in another society. Let us not educate them or give them any education. Instead let us keep the blackie locked up in cages for our amusement and medical benefit. But hey, the second the blackie learns how to file a tax return, we'll let him out of his cage.
Oh! So that's where we went wrong. We shouldn't have called it human rights, we should have called it Caucasian rights. If only our ancestors had of had that foresight, I could have my black slaves working for me still. Damn our ancestors and their lack of foresight!
So wait, we should continue to torture beings that are quite possibly sentient and intelligent and could be a productive member of society just because there's a human who doesn't have enough food to eat? Wow. Just, wow.
I don't know if Chimps should have human rights. I think what we need to do is research that does work to gauge how well chimps could cope in human society when raised in that society and how intelligent they can then become.
Then compare that with the lowest human being and work your way up through the human being scale (if the chimp is better then the lowest human beings we have) until we find a type of human (most likely suffering some form of mental retardation) that is comparable with your average chimp. Then assign chimps the same rights as that human being has.
Unfortunately until now most research has been far too biased or faulty one way or another, and as such we don't know if chimps are equal to some humans. As such, how are we suppose to know if they deserve human rights?
Good point, however you can have as much subject depth as you like, and still not know shit about a subject. My sister, who got top marks in her computer course and came first in the class, is testament to this as she didn't know a THING about what she was doing.
So the question is what is better: in-depth papers that don't make sure the person knows what they're talking about despite the fact the work is all their own or a demonstration on the concept that is more superficial but much more likely to prove an understanding of the knowledge given all of the work is their own.
More like "We want everyone's steak knives that happen to know you."
Come on. Come ooooooon.
How about them red socks?
Come on. Come oooooon
April Fool's Day!
Actually, according to Google this is authentic news
Come on. Come oooooon.
It must be hard trying to work out what nationality I am. If only I had it in my name or something.
Mod me insightful for no particular reason.
How come a CNN story is perpetuating the April Fool bullshit with an article from the 30th?
Mod this comment Interesting, again for no particular reason.
Thus making it a raging success with teenagers and Americans.
If I told my parents "Jim Gray died" they'd say "so?" If I went on to explain what he did they'd go "oh, okay."
Not everyone cares about some random person dying. Because I've got news for you, Antonio died today. Do you care? I doubt it.
You either had shit teachers or you're trolling. Because I remember in 1992 being taught about global warming.
As someone who is currently doing a course for a second time and almost had a similar opportunity (teacher changed the assignment instead), that is completely fucked up.
By the way, based on the teacher's marking criteria I'm almost guaranteed (as in, I'd be very surprised if I don't get one) a distinction and I've spent 5-7 hours on it. An extra 2 hours and I may get a high distinction (more then that I have no idea what I could possibly do on this assignment). Which is ridiculous, but because I've already learnt this work, I can do it so easily that there has been no benefit in me doing this assignment. Therefore, I (and other people in my situation) should be able to hand in prior assignments we've done the work on.
Besides, if universities don't want students handing in work they've already done, they should change the assignment (as mine was in this case).
Many people seem to think its alright for them to do it. And their friends. And lots of other people. I think the distinction you're making is fairly unimportant.