In what way are dogs smarter than (or equivalent to) babies?
What value is there in such a statement: This dog is at least as smart as this baby?
What does smart even mean?
What value is there in such a statement: This dog is at least as smart as this baby?
What does smart even mean?
One version of that sentence concisely articulates the core idea. The other, whilst more correct, hides the core idea under a large number of sub-clauses trying to deal with unusual corner cases.
To bring this back to the technical world, this debate is very similar to the way that programming language designers go to great lengths to try and help programmers right error handling code that doesn't get in the way of understanding the nominal case - it turns out that this is an exceptionally hard problem to solve though when dealing with computers because they are so precise. Thankfully human brains can be a lot more forgiving if we so desire (see the Principal of Charity mentioned previously in this thread).
It just seems a bit selfish to me.
Precisely. That's why it's better to stick with the principle of charity :).