mdurak
2yr ago
Do you think it’s an unreasonable approximation to make when it appears that most Palestinians support Hamas and/or the 7/10 attacks?
mdurak
2yr ago
That’s a good point, and I agree.
I suppose the only thing I have to say is that this is a rather realpolitik answer, no? It fails to be an argument against genocide if the Nazis ever gain such overwhelming power that they no longer fear a revolt from the “subhumans.” (Or if you find that scenario as unlikely as I do, if the AIs gain such overwhelming power that they no longer need to care about human desires.)
mdurak
2yr ago
I flagged the premise as being smuggled in here and lodged my disagreement.
Ah gotcha, thanks for the clarification.
If I needed to ground out that human life is sacred I would say that I and all my loved ones are humans and I have a vested interest in their lives not being forfeit.
Fair enough! But surely the Nazi will also ground out their values in a similar manner: “Aryan lives are sacred because I and all my loved ones are Aryans. Non-Aryan lives though are not morally fungible with Aryan lives: not one, not ten, not infinity.”
What can you say to the Nazi that invalidates their argument, without also arguing on behalf of veganism?
mdurak
2yr ago
- There is a moral difference between hurting humans and hurting animals
- There is a moral equivalence between hurting humans and hurting animals
I don’t see how one side is inherently more of a “positive” claim than the other. Regardless, if you take the position of moral difference by default, how do you respond to the Nazi who says “There is a moral difference between gassing Aryans and gassing Jews”?
mdurak
2yr ago
Well if someone made the 'racist' argument I would tell them good luck with the law, which cares not about your bizarre dietary principles.
Sure, but we’re not debating the law as it is, only theoretical morality. Veganism is not the law in most (or all?) places on earth, but that doesn’t stop some people from arguing for that.
I won't eat anything that can argue for its life
This sounds like a more refined version of “it’s okay to eat sufficiently unintelligent things.” Does this extend to human infants, non-verbal highly autistic adults, or anyone else whose intelligence falls below the threshold of arguing for their own existence?
mdurak
2yr ago
I mean, I agree with you on the potential implications of speciesism. But what arguments do you actually have against its validity as a moral concept? What convinces you to draw the line at human vs non-human, versus any other arbitrary boundary?
mdurak
2yr ago
the argument is that humans are not morally fungible with animals. Not one chicken, not ten chickens, not infinity chickens.
And we’re back to the starting point, aren’t we?
What arguments do you present for drawing such a moral line between humans and animals?
mdurak
2yr ago
Please correct me if I’ve misunderstood you, but it sounds like you only care about reciprocity if the entity you’re interacting with can and does behave with honor towards you, and you believe animals are incapable of honor.
Doesn’t this just push the delineation down to where you draw the line with “honor”? How do you define honor in such a way as to exclude animals from being capable of it, while including all humans in the mix? Is it fine to kill a human infant (or any human with sufficiently low agency) because they are incapable of honoring you any more than a dog can?
mdurak
2yr ago
I would actually like to debate you on vegan/vegetarianism, because I have been unable to rigorously justify the ethics of eating meat to myself. I do it anyways, because I’m not a saint and morals are arbitrary anyways.
I’ll copy paste another comment I made in the thread:
Isn’t animals not having moral equivalence just another axiomatic assumption you can make? How would you prove that someone is in the wrong for assigning moral equivalence to chickens?
And supposing you value humans more due to our intelligence, does that mean it is more ethical to make unintelligent humans suffer than intelligent ones? You can substitute any other attribute other than intelligence here.
If instead you go the route of saying “I am arbitrarily drawing the line at humans because I am speciesist, but all other animals are fair game,” can’t someone else arbitrarily tighten that circle further and say “I am arbitrarily drawing the line at whites because I am racist, but all other humans and animals are fair game”?
Is there an argument that both allows you to ethically kill or factory farm animals for food, without also allowing someone else to ethically kill or factory farm animals for food? (Disregard how inefficient and pointless factory farming humans for meat would be, this is just a question about the ethics of it.)
Isn’t animals not having moral equivalence just another axiomatic assumption you can make? How would you prove that someone is in the wrong for assigning moral equivalence to chickens?
And supposing you value humans more due to our intelligence, does that mean it is more ethical to make unintelligent humans suffer than intelligent ones? You can substitute any other attribute other than intelligence here.
If instead you go the route of saying “I am arbitrarily drawing the line at humans because I am speciesist, but all other animals are fair game,” can’t someone else arbitrarily tighten that circle further and say “I am arbitrarily drawing the line at whites because I am racist, but all other humans and animals are fair game”?
Is there an argument that both allows you to ethically kill or factory farm animals for food, without also allowing someone else to ethically kill or factory farm animals for food? (Disregard how inefficient and pointless factory farming humans for meat would be, this is just a question about the ethics of it.)
mdurak
2yr ago
Could you explain how Australia’s geography and economy has such an impact on its politics?
mdurak
2yr ago
Data beats theory. Unless you’ve observed otherwise yourself, @token_progressive is the only one providing (anec)data here
mdurak
2yr ago
That may well be the case, but is there a strong correlation between people who complain and people who work to improve their circumstances? Certainly some amount of people scrimp and save more, or work a second job, in order to adjust to changing economic circumstances, all the while complaining that this is now necessary for them to survive.
mdurak
2yr ago
A smartphone with internet access is table stakes for societal/economic participation these days, and doesn’t even cost that much, especially if you buy it used. Have you been to a third world country lately? Even poor tuk tuk drivers got smartphones.
Which is not to say the people you describe don’t exist. Just that having a smartphone isn’t a great identifier for them.
But I have zero sympathy to give whatsoever for the ones that don't even try.
Regardless of how hard you’re trying, it’s legitimate to complain that the economy is worse now by giving you less in return for the same amount of effort as you’ve put in before.
mdurak
2yr ago
I've repeatedly asked and desperately searched for any suggestions for how Israel should conduct its war differently
I mean, as you’ve said yourself,
The IDF may claim to care about minimizing civilian casualties, but if 3 Israeli hostages waving white flags can get mistakenly killed by the IDF, we have plenty of reasons to question that commitment's veracity.
Changing the internal policy or training that led to actively killing those trying to surrender to you (whether Jews or Hamas) would be a good start. Investigating potential war crimes and court martialing the soldiers that commit them or commanders that order them would send a strong signal that Israel actually does care about prosecuting the war in as humanitarian a way as possible.
mdurak
2yr ago
I was the same, until I got involved in some political activism groups. The people who see things this way may be a small minority of the overall population, but are dramatically overrepresented in certain places.
mdurak
2yr ago
Many people won't even believe that male and female humans have different physical performance in sports for any reason but different socialization.
While I find this plausible, I haven’t seen this myself. Could you link me to any actual instances of this argument being made non-ironically?
mdurak
2yr ago
What do you mean by eugenics and their support for it? I’m not familiar with Bay Area progressives.
Okay, so we’re mostly in agreement then.
Targeting how? Am I bombing a football stadium during gametime with a MOAB? Sure. Give that Colonel or Major the death penalty after the war.
Do you agree that there should be laws on the books (aka war crimes) that criminalize killing civilians in cases like this when there is clearly no reason to believe military assets will be affected, so that said colonel or major can actually be tried and given the death penalty after the war?
If I am "supporting" the military with a vote, I also am not a civilian, because the purpose of voting is to avoid internal civil wars. But that is not a good standard for the other side to try and figure out. So just lay off women and children that are in basements where there are no other men at all.
And if those women voted for the enemy military force? Or if those women work in factories producing munitions during the day, but are now cowering before you in a basement, is it therefore justified to shoot them as a non-civilian?
And if an unarmed man is hiding with the rest of his family in that basement, is it justified to take him specifically out and shoot him? Why only the man but not the women?
mdurak
2yr ago
I’m with you on that. Hot girl looking to shag? I’ll do it anywhere she pleases. Doing it in a forbidden place is also hot and the kind of crazy story you’ll be able to score points with your peers on later (depending on your peers of course).
mdurak
2yr ago
Now that’s interesting! Do you believe that there’s much of a point at all then, to making targeting civilians a war crime? Do you see the Oct 7 attack on Israeli civilians as a justified part of war-making?
If a legitimate non-hypocritical reason exists, then perhaps we can just debug the AI enough until it can properly reason through and realize for itself why we deserve our privileged position in reality. If no such rationale exists, then I suppose we’ll have to resort to cruder approaches for AI alignment.
I’m just spitballing there. I’m not actually looking for ways to align AI, but rather to see if I can morally justify non-hypocritically to myself why I can eat animals. On a personal level, I feel better about AI taking over and screwing us over if I know that it’s just us finally losing the same realpolitik game that we’ve inflicted onto “lesser” beings for eons, than if it’s the AI making a monumental moral misjudgment.
Thanks for the fruitful discussion.
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