The Internet

[Uchiha Barles]

lol, I read it, and it makes sense, if you accept his definitions and premises, which I do not.

[Assertn]

Controversial thinking time!

Modest proposition time!

Babes: future generation of humanity, or delectable source of protein?

[Buffalobiian]

lol, I read it, and it makes sense, if you accept his definitions and premises, which I do not.

It hinges on his definitions, yeah.

A short version of his line of thought is this:

"If a newborn and those up to a certain age are classed as being closer to an unborn child than a 'real person', then abortion laws should be more applicable to them than laws that apply to 'real persons'."

He then makes the argument as to why newborns are closer to unborn foetuses.

Assertn's proposition says much the same thing in a different flavour. Difference is, the use of the label "protein" suggests that the babies are comparable to substances, while the debate compares them to something more like animals. They're living, no doubt about that - but they don't deserve the same moral considerations as a person.

Note that I used person as opposed to human. It's debatable over what else (if anything) is required for something to be considered a person besides being a member of our species.

[Animeniax]

Unless I'm mistaken, and I'm rarely mistaken, this guy is making his argument as a pretext to dispute abortion laws. Likening the newborn to the unborn fetuses is his way of humanizing the unborn and providing them with rights that have been denied since they are not classified as human beings at that point in their development. I think his ruse will backfire as it is absurd to think a newborn is the same as a fetus.

[Kraco]

No, I don't think so, Ani. This is at least trying to be a scientific article, not a typical article in some (popular) political or religious paper, so it wouldn't employ such a roundabout way to express things. It must say directly what it intends to say. That's how scientific articles are supposed to be, and also are when they aren't hoaxes.

A fetus is a parasite whereas a newborn is already an individual organism. There's no getting rid of that essential difference. If you throw ethics and the feelings of the parents into the trash can, there would be unquestionable benefits from murdering newborn under special circumstances, but without ethics, our societies would look quite different all in all.

[Buffalobiian]

If you throw ethics and the feelings of the parents into the trash can, there would be unquestionable benefits from murdering newborn under special circumstances, but without ethics, our societies would look quite different all in all.

Ethics is the very thing the guy's talking about Kraco.

As for the "feelings of the parent", we're not really talking about Drs strangling little children in their sleep. The article emphasises that there are currently laws that allow abortions for reasons other than for the health of the mother or the baby. The "feelings of the parent" may class as one such reason.

In other words, in parts of the world where a parent can abort an unborn because "they feel like it", then they should also be allowed to "abort" a born child (as the article argues that at certain ages we have the same moral obligations towards them as we do towards unborn foetuses) because "they feel like it".

As for "parasites", if a foetus can be argued to be a nutritional parasite, then a child can also be a financial parasite. And for newborns being an individual organism, that goes back to my previous post about what counts as a "person".

Is THIS a person?

Two of my classmates thought it was an academic troll (one of them even mentioned /b/, interesting enough).. but such a thing doesn't really fit in with how scientific discussions are played out, as Kraco described.

[Animeniax]

No, I don't think so, Ani. This is at least trying to be a scientific article, not a typical article in some (popular) political or religious paper, so it wouldn't employ such a roundabout way to express things. It must say directly what it intends to say. That's how scientific articles are supposed to be, and also are when they aren't hoaxes.

A fetus is a parasite whereas a newborn is already an individual organism. There's no getting rid of that essential difference. If you throw ethics and the feelings of the parents into the trash can, there would be unquestionable benefits from murdering newborn under special circumstances, but without ethics, our societies would look quite different all in all.

I think the Chinese already practice these ethics-free methods of population control. They are a very pragmatic people indeed.

I think a fetus could be considered a symbiotic parasite at the least. They have positive effects for their host (which will only be realized once it's born).

Plus, what Buffalobiian said.

[Psyke]

A pretty though provoking video, along the lines of GITS and I, Robot.

[darkshadow]

Saw it on your facebook, very cool indeed.

[Animeniax]

Hopefully they make it into a game. Quantic Dream has made some pretty intense and amazing games.

I wish they could perfect long flowing hair on their character models. Tired of the short-haired or otherwise tightly-coiffed look on females.

[Xelbair]

If there will be any advanced AI capable of real thinking, not just running predetermined subroutines, i would treat it same as a living being - and i think that human rights should apply to such robots in future.

[David75]

If there will be any advanced AI capable of real thinking, not just running predetermined subroutines, i would treat it same as a living being - and i think that human rights should apply to such robots in future.

There were many attempts at dealing with those concepts.
They all finally try to answer the question of what is life and then what are the minimum characteristics involved to treat a system as a living thing.

[Xelbair]

I think that everyone should find their own answer to that concept -for me it is same case as racism/ultra-nationalism - treating such AIs as a lower beings is just wrong. There is no equality, each one is different, not equal -there is no higher, nor lower being.

[Animeniax]

We have a hard enough time deciding if fetuses are considered alive and human... robots definitely will not get the benefit of our compassion when deciding between their life and death, especially if they are guilty of a crime.

[Kraco]

You guys are totally forgetting half of the matter: Once AIs have reached the point to make the discussion relevant, they are also at the point where they will need to decide for themselves whether to demand equal rights or not. Humans haven't met a single high intelligence apart from our own, so we can't really imagine what they'd be like. This might be especially true for AIs because I can still see at this point they will have vastly superior computing and networking speed compared to humans, followed by all the consequences. They might turn out to be disinterested in being given "human" rights.

[Animeniax]

That's like Planet of the Apes but with robots.

[Animeniax]

Check out these cool sheep sculptures made out of telephones and telephone cords:

http://www.crookedbrains.net/2010/07...culptures.html

Here's a sample:

5.jpg

[Animeniax]

Guile's theme goes with everything! This clip makes me hungry.

[darkshadow]

Awesome that it's now that you've apparantly finally seen that ancient video.

[KrayZ33]

hurr durr i know every video on the internet