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Where are your ethics now!? The bears are comin!!
Personal SinR
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Our ethics are usually cut and dry. The golden rule tends to be the golden standard by which most of us live our lives. The blame of this falls squarely on our empathy. However I got to thinking... what if things were different?
I had a whole sci-fi type scenario set up, but I think I might lose some people on the parallels so how about this
for a scenario.
All the complex animals on the planet suddenly evolve over night and are now capable of speech and have human level or slightly lower brains. They are aware of life and also their impending deaths as we are. Abstract thought is now something everything is capable of. What does this mean?
Our food can now talk! Our pets may now express their attitudes towards their imprisonment! ..and for some reason, beastiality has gotten quite a bit more popular o_O
Where do we go from here!? Now what!? Do we continue in our ways? Draft a new bill of animal rights? All become...*gasp* vegetarians!? Not to mention how we will ever survive if the bears ally against us! They will know how to use guns now!
Anyway, how do some of you apply your "ethics" to this situation. Empathy towards animals will become much easier now that they can communicate towards us. For those of you who think this is too radical a situation, remember in the past, the human race has enslaved members of itself because of color! They were also looked at as sub-human. I'm curious to see any opinions some of you may have given this scenario.
...or at least some good anti-bear weaponry ideas, because god knows we'll need them.
I had a whole sci-fi type scenario set up, but I think I might lose some people on the parallels so how about this
for a scenario.
All the complex animals on the planet suddenly evolve over night and are now capable of speech and have human level or slightly lower brains. They are aware of life and also their impending deaths as we are. Abstract thought is now something everything is capable of. What does this mean?
Our food can now talk! Our pets may now express their attitudes towards their imprisonment! ..and for some reason, beastiality has gotten quite a bit more popular o_O
Where do we go from here!? Now what!? Do we continue in our ways? Draft a new bill of animal rights? All become...*gasp* vegetarians!? Not to mention how we will ever survive if the bears ally against us! They will know how to use guns now!
Anyway, how do some of you apply your "ethics" to this situation. Empathy towards animals will become much easier now that they can communicate towards us. For those of you who think this is too radical a situation, remember in the past, the human race has enslaved members of itself because of color! They were also looked at as sub-human. I'm curious to see any opinions some of you may have given this scenario.
...or at least some good anti-bear weaponry ideas, because god knows we'll need them.
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For those who determine how to treat other organisms based on their intelligence level, then yeah, if animals were as intelligent as humans then a lot more people would probably become vegetarians; but existing vegetarians wouldn't care.
I do think this is a pretty meaningless "what if" scenario, though. Intelligence isn't a magical mutant power that an organism can spontaneously "evolve" like in X-Men. Intelligence is intimately tied into the hard-wiring of brains, the evolution of which are in turn intimately tied to a whole bunch of other factors, including body structure and instinctive behavior.
There's probably a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy joke in all this.
I used to not think so, but then I watched the Bee Movie. Bees are actually totally awesome.
Now I'd have to see how much my cat really hates me, though. And if he does I guess I'd have to let him go or whatever he wanted.
See, this is where the HGttG fun comes in: we aren't aware that dolphins are actually a lot smarter than us, they just don't care about talking to us, as long as we give them fish they'll gladly to a double backwards helix, but don't expect a fair warning when they hear about an intergalactic highway being planned.
Also, even if the bears know HOW to use guns, they lack the manual dexterity to do so, or to make more than the most rudimentary tools. I'm not too worried about them using advanced weaponry on us... advanced strategies are another story.
But he is too fluffy to be an outdoor cat!
Sentience is largely a sci-fi concept that has little or no meaning in the real world.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Are they smart enough not to fuck around and get pregnant and spit out litters everywhere, too?
What kind of lifestyle will they demand? Because if we have an overnight explosion of sapient beings desiring human-like living, I'm not sure the planet could handle having several trillion more of us. In that case, we gotta institute some pretty major population control, so I say: eat the fuckers.
But if the cows just want to stand around all day eating grass, then fine. I'll eat the meat already in the supermarkets and in my freezer, but I won't buy any more. We'll just have to stop forcefully breeding them, too.
This is kind of a silly thought exercise though. Are you a furry? I think you're a furry.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Somebody somewhere will try to marry his box turtle and then Senator John Cornyn will go on the Daily Show and be all, "I told you so!"
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Humans aren't where we are now because we have "intelligence" and animals don't. We're here because of culture—the vast collection of learned behaviors that we've taught to each other and written down and built into shit and codified into human language. Intelligence is necessary for culture—and many intelligent animals have rudiments of culture. But culture takes time to evolve. You can't just put a bunch of intelligent people together on a grassy plain and expect to see guns and spaceships and sci-fi writing ten years later.
Assuming animals all the sudden got major intelligence boosts, where would they be on the scale of cultural evolution? Stone age?
Some animals are more intelligent than others, but plenty of animals show intelligence close to, equal to, or possibly exceeding humans. I'm pretty sure my cat is smarter than some of the people I went to college with.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
And stop eating cows.
Oh lordy, can you imagine the Chicken Pro-Life movement? Stop eating our bwqak stem cells!
Humans aren't smart enough to do that now.
I was actually thinking exactly that when I wrote my post.
At least humans usually only have 1, maybe 2 babies at a time. Not like a cat having 8.
...
Oh.
oh shits
What would happen if the Quiverfull movement started recruiting cats?
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
WRONG! Culture is inherent in all animals. There are tons of examples out there with any pack like group of animals. Wolves show culture. Primates show culture. Insect colonies show culture. And it does not develop based on time. Advancement comes with technology. Without technology we would still be living in caves. And technology is only possible with advanced intelligence. Chimps, who's brain mass is actually very close to ours can use tools! They use little twigs to fish ants out of ant holes. There are many species of animals that have been around just as long as us and we don't see dogs walking around with PDAs. Culture is just a byproduct of the actions of a community. It is intelligence that is the basis for the advancement. In any situation it is the force with the greater technology that wins.
Culture is a collection of learned behaviors. It is not clear if insects are actually capable of learning behaviors or if their behaviors are genetically preprogrammed.
Regardless of whether or not social insects have culture, animals like sponges and corals obviously do not have culture, anymore than plants or protozoa have culture.
What?
You go on to correctly point out tool-use in animals, which I believe shows the rudiments of culture. Technology is a part of culture and, like culture, technology develops over time. A piece of technology is basically a solidified learned behavior. A stick is a stick, until you bite off the end and it becomes a spear. Then your friends can look at the spear, remember you biting off the end, and make some more spears themselves. With language—and language is the most obvious example of a type of cultural entity changing over time—the process is even easier.
This is a strange conversation, because we are citing and agreeing on all the same facts but for some reason you're coming to very strange conclusions from them.
Politicians would do nothing but pander to the all important Ant and Termite voting blocs.
I don't know what definition of "culture" you're using, but I think by culture Qingu meant the collective learned behaviors of a community, from which technology is born. I fail to see how anyone could think that advanced technology somehow emerges independently of culture. But you're right, culture does happen in animals, although you're wrong about it not developing with time.
Killer whales can teach each other to intentionally beach and grab a sea lion from dry land. If I remember correctly, there are seven individual whales who have mastered this skill so far. Among chimpanzees, the use of rocks as tools is restricted to a certain, advanced "culture" of chimps; they also use high quality rocks as a kind of currency. Certain dolphins use sea sponges to protect their noses when diving among sharp corals; parent dolphins teach this technology to their offspring. Culture.
Perhaps we are just minsunderstanding each other, but to clarify, culture only occurs from groups. So yes, I agree when you say sponges and other soiitary animals have no culture. The insects may just be programmed in a basic way since their brain systems are so small, so that may not have been a good example. However, i will argue that a brain must be developed to a certain point, biologically, in order to manipulate our environment to create technology.
I stand my my assertion that technology is what puts any group on top. Culture is merely a by product and sometimes can be harmful to a species in some aspects. Religions which become ingrained in most of our cultures can be very harmful sometimes. They vary from extremes in which people are taking killer kool-aid to hitchhike on a rocket or to a lesser degree like impeding stem cell research. While we may use culture to convey ideas, it takes actual intelligence to create those technologies and ideas.
"Culture" is a set of learned behaviors and beliefs passed on between individuals in a community and across generations.
Technology is a part of culture. Fashioning and using a tool - whether that tool is a pointed stick or a computer - is a learned behavior that's passed on between individuals and across generations.
You can't say that culture is a by-product of technology, because it's the other way around.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Ape_Project
I didn't say that. I said culture was a byproduct of a community. That community may have technology that
is ingrained in their culture, but the culture did not produce the technology directly. It may influence it, but it is the intelligence and creativity of the individual that creates it. A single man may live out in the woods by himself. He may have certain habits but I would not say he has a culture... would you? This man may also be smart enough to manipulate his environment and create tools. Organisms with brains that are too small can not do this, or at least, not as well. You can see how a single person can advance and become dominant over his competition.
If you can convince me that a single person has a "culture" I may be able to change my perspective on the matter. I look forward to learning something out of this if possible.
I think in a modern capitalist society this is much less true. I mean, look at the internet. It's become a massive part of our culture in a way that nobody anticipated, fullfilling a role that was never really needed.
YES! something like this is what I was trying to provoke out of some of you. Not so much that it is right or not, but the idea of it. Carl Sagan made some really thought provoking arguments in his book, "Dragons of Eden," about the intelligence level of certain species of primates.
I think the bottom line, though, is really laid out in that wikipedia article.
I really want to make "pandemic virus" a link to the article on HIV.
The ones who convert will be saved and allowed to coexist with us peacefully, and those that don't will be slaughtered and eaten to provide fuel for our bodies. It's the only way.
This is also the policy we should adopt as we spread through the cosmos, to build solidarity across all species we encounter.
So whether they can talk or not might be immaterial. Charades would only work with the primates.
Then they will be eaten.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Also I don`t believe I would switch to vegatarism, i`d probably just make the chicken reenacted the sienfield episode about sponges or something while I got the grill hot.