I find it a rather disgustingly self centered ideology. To presume that one (or ones species) is the most important thing in the world (or universe) is basically the definition of narcissism
Humans are the most important things in the world. Why? Because I am a human. My family are humans. To me, and likely most people, humans are most important.
If I were an Otter and capable of self reflection I would likely think Otters were the most important things in the world.
Now this absolutely does not mean I don't value Otters. In fact I do. Otters are awesome! Just because I feel humans are the most important thing doesn't preclude me from having compassion to help other creatures. It's simply an order in which you find things important.
You've essentially manufactured a belief here (parent believes humans are most important therefore all others are in the way), projected it onto the parent and then became outraged by it.
besides that gp didnt say 'i prefer humans above other animals' dont change what they said to suit your needs; they said:
>the whole point of existence is human flourishing and happiness.
Thats a significantly stronger statement than you allude to
So you brought up a point that is unrelated to parent's about what people who belong to a religion believe in? I...should that even be in this thread? I don't get it unless you're actually replying to the parent above you.
> Thats a significantly stronger statement than you allude to
It's not though. They didn't say to bulldoze all the things. Why wouldn't humans flourishing and having happiness be a goal to hit? I can't think of a single thing that we do, when we interact with nature, that doesn't affect the environment in at least some fashion. It's all about balances. If you can add a dam, reducing carbon emissions from other power sources, but it displaces animals within X square miles that needs to be understood. It may be very worth it. It may not it.
What I got from your comment was that the parent poster was bad and that you think most people are bad because they find themselves most important.
> Why wouldn't humans flourishing and having happiness be a goal to hit?
you are /immediately/ softening the language - how do you not see yourself doing this?
now its gone from 'the whole point of existence' to 'should be a goal to hit' I'm not even going to read the rest, because youre flat out being dishonest here.
I really don't enjoy the passive aggressive insults here. I provided criticism to your comment because, to me, it sounded wildly off base. If you want to ignore that then that's fine but don't say it makes "perfect sense" when obviously it didn't if we're not on the same page.
> now its gone from 'the whole point of existence' to 'should be a goal to hit' I'm not even going to read the rest, because youre flat out being dishonest here.
The initial language wasn't "hard" in the first place as I already explained. I told you it wasn't as huge as you made it out to be and your response is I'm making it soft...then I guess? In the context of your understanding of it I am but I still think you're making a giant crater out of a little ant hill here.
Right, literally claiming to know the meaning of existence - totally an interpretable statement.
My qualm was never that someone would put humans needs before animals, but that that should be the only consideration made is extreme - that its the very nature of existence to do so is beyond extreme.
Have a good one!
He/she's trying to have a discussion and you're trying to win an argument.
>My qualm was never that someone would put humans needs before animals, but that that should be the only consideration made is extreme - that its the very nature of existence to do so is beyond extreme.
If your initial comment had been solely about 'that religion that thinks the world is solely for us and us alone', that would make some kind of sense, but given the following statement(from the same comment) I didn't interpret it that way.
>To presume that one (or ones species) is the most important thing in the world (or universe) is basically the definition of narcissism
^this is the sentence that people were responding to.^
On this point I also agree with other commenters; narcissism is excessive interest in oneself, not in one's species. I don't think it's narcissistic to say your species is more important than any other, especially given the dearth of evidence to back that assertion up(in this case).
I think it's definitely interesting that we as a species have been so successful that members of this species are quite literally advocating for it's demise.
We all have to build up our own framework of morality. If your framework says to save the animals at the expense of humanities advancement that's fine, but you won't have much company and from my perspective you're not a 'better person' for having done so. (I also don't think the people espousing this "humans are evil" narrative would _actually_ save more animals)
Would you kill two otters to save a human? Yes. Absolutely.
Would you kill two bacteria to save a human? Yes. Absolutely. I would kill a million bacteria to save a human. In fact, we do it all the time.
It's about the lack of consciousness in bacteria, as I would never kill even one mentally deficient adult, even to save the life of a genius.
Absolutely.
Actually, we did that a few years back with Smallpox.
True, there's a debate if viruses are alive, but I have no doubt we'd do the same if it was a bacteria (and possible to obliterate).
While human life should be preserved whenever possible, there are situations where you must realize that human life is, from the perspective of our role as planetary stewards, cheap and disposable.
Sacrificing some lab animals, even thousands, to cure some obscure but crippling disease that affects a handful of people could be justified.
Wiping out an entire species to save a single person is atrocious, and completely insane.
If you're prepared to wipe out, say, otters to save one person then what's next? Elephants for another? What if it takes two or three species to save someone else. At what point do you stop?
Like would it be acceptable to kill all non-human life to save a single life? There must be some kind of line.
The "no consequence to humans" part is hugely subjective, but a case could be made that we're worse off than our ancestors because of how many species we've obliterated.
What I'm trying to say is (like the parents I believe) that the only thing affecting my judgement is humans qnd what the action does to them.
Shit happens, sometimes people die, and while it's unfortunate, it doesn't give us the license to turn one potential death into the extinction of an entire form of life.
Let's turn this around: What if some powerful alien life form had one of their citizens dying but they realized they could cure that individual by harvesting one planet worth of organisms. Given there's billions and billions of planets with life on them, what's the harm in killing Earth to save one of their own, right?
The Green Party's original manifesto rejected this view; their position has some logical consistency, but I don't think that the continued existence of smallpox and rinderpest, or Guinea worms, or mosquitoes (http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html), or Dutch elm disease (which doesn't really harm humans, but elm trees certainly suffer), is worth the suffering and premature death they cause.
So, I guess I could reduce my position to saying that if a species can only exist by causing harm or premature death to something more biologically complex than itself, it shouldn't exist. Do you think that this is reasonable?
I'd add two corollaries: that predation is natural enough that we shouldn't kill all predators; and that a species should only be wiped out if it has to cause this sort of harm in order to live -- if it's parasitic or infectious, or possibly (as with mosquitoes) if it's an extremely serious disease-carrier. And I'm not at all interested in driving mostly-harmless species to extinction for purely economic benefits...
This is the definition of a "straw man".
# I find it a rather disgustingly self centered ideology.
Sweeping generalizations can go both ways and are rarely helpful.
I'm also not sure that In fact we've found nothing remotely similar to Earth in all the thousands of samples we've taken. is reasonable.
Take Proxima b. It orbits the Sun's closest neighbor, is in the habitable zone (doesn't mean it is habitable, necessary but not sufficient) and is roughly earth sized. Sure, we don't know a whole lot more about it, so it is quite likely to not be a nice destination for humans, but it seems to be at least remotely Earth like.
What if Proxima B has chlorine in its atmosphere? Uninhabitable.
Proxima B is a tidal-locked eyeball planet - what if the equatorial stable zone still shifts enough to not provide a stable environment for life? Uninhabitable.
What if Proxima B encounters too much ionizing radiation? Uninhabitable.
Use your imagination.
You've also apparently not payed much attention to Sure, we don't know a whole lot more about it, so it is quite likely to not be a nice destination for humans, but it seems to be at least remotely Earth like. that I said above (surely my making that statement implies some use of my imagination prior to your suggesting it).
How do you know the planet isnt a gift to them, instead of us?
Other than, 'some other group of humans told me this' what evidence do you have that the earth should be the birthright of humans more than that of any other thing on earth?
A book I read earlier this year really bent my brain when it included characters working against humanity and for an invading alien intelligence. Seeing it in print was enough to convince me that it would totally happen, but I hadn't considered the possibility before.
So we might as well look after this planet.
What humans do to this world in the immediate now will have profound implications to what humans will be able to do anywhere, in any possible future.
What's the point of even having a world if there are no humans in it? (Any conscious being, not just humans.)
Animals don't care if they exist, they just do what they were born to do, they don't ponder existence. Neither do plants or rocks.
Humans are the only ones (on this world at least) who actually care, and notice.
Not "one" nor the species, but exclusively for the "believers". Non-believers, heretics & infidels be damned.