SecondJon @SecondJon@qoto.org

@freemo @MOTT @Surasanji @AtlasFreeman

I'd like to understand your take on this. Though I don't agree, I'm not trying to be antagonistic, but to understand. I don't think human is just something we made up. Cockroaches have brains, but we only can them not humans because of something we made up? No, it's because of more than that. Like science. DNA is different between humans and other creatures. So being human is objective and scientific and not really (any longer?) philosophical from what I can tell.

We've moved from will to live and lack of suffering to having a brain - or is it both...like...

If( havenobrain || (wantodie && wontsuffer))
{itsOkayToKillYou}?

From what we know at this point, the human brain is under development from the 3rd gestational week throughout one's life. Intense development until about 3 years after birth, prefrontal cortex developing until around 30, and with what we've learned about brain plasticity, continues through one's life. At what stage of brain development do you no longer get to stop a human life? If one's brain isn't functioning correctly, is that a factor?

I do appreciate that this brain - presence approach is creative and a shot at objectivity. So many take what ends to being a very subjective approach. This is that it's not life itself that's valuable, only brains, puts abortion as ok for only the first few weeks of pregnancy (as I understand it) steering clear if the magical birth canal argument that new York seems to now be relying on.

https://youtu.be/CNgwsT295G8

@Surasanji @MOTT @freemo @AtlasFreeman I think you and I are just larger bundles of cells, I don't think that is a particularly useful phrase. We are bundles of cells that if left to normal circumstances will continue to grow and learn and develop. That's true of all human life at any stage.

What makes us humans isn't arbitrary or philosophical, but scientific. Humans have human DNA. Different humans have different human DNA.

It seems very straightforward to me as this level. A unique human life is fairly easily defined by science.

Deciding that killing humans is okay or not is not a scientific argument, because science doesn't teach morality. But I think the definitive of human life is pretty easily settled.

It's true that we can come up with interesting hypotheticals, like whose life and rights are more important, baby or mother, Jew or Gentile, man or woman, black or white. I tend to want to see this objectively and they're all objectively human, so I think we would be better off not trying to decide who is not human than whom, which human life is worth preserving, and instead value human life, and also life in general.

@freemo @AtlasFreeman I think the weakness of the standard is that the closest we can actually get is:

If WE THINK /DECIDE THAT someone wants to die and they wouldn't suffer by doing so, then we would be ok killing them.

The human mind is so complex, a person often doesn't really know what that person really wants. To assume that I can truly understand what someone else wants may be impossible. That's fine when it's a choice of what's for dinner. It's not as fine if I'm going to kill them.

A lot of us have thought at some point or other, "I'd rather die" - my seven year old said that to me the other day...would rather die than wear the only pants available that day because he doesn't live denim. I don't think I would have been okay to painlessly kill him because he wanted to die. I'm glad that all of us who have thought this way even as adults weren't killed because that's what we thought we wanted at the time.

It's further complicated because we can't always communicate even even what we think we want. Someone asleep, in a coma, preverbal, or with any number of medical or psychological conditions will have a hard time declaring that they don't want to be killed. I don't think that babies 5 minutes before or 5 minutes after birth are communicating that they'd like to be killed - I think we agree on that one.

I think you may have an argument for legalizing suicide - I don't find it a convincing argument for taking the life of another.

The other argument, that human brains are worth saving, is probably worth a different toot...but it'll have to wait, about to start a conference call.

@Surasanji @freemo @AtlasFreeman

I don't think being able to survive on one's own is a good measure of whether one life should be protected. Babies, kids, anyone with any kind of medical issue, etc., would not survive on their own. That risks making the standard of protection of life on whether you can protect yourself. It would mean we only help those who aren't helpless.

Objectivity is helpful for me. I value life, not personhood. I think of I argue that life is disposable but personhood is not, then I (out anyone else) get to arbitrarily pick the criteria on who lives and dies. Any subjective standard seems problematic to me.

Medically necessary isn't a thing, I think. The consideration would be health of the mother (subjective and problematic) or life of the mother VS life of the child. In that case, by what I'm positing, there's a question to answer about whether you preserve the life half lived who can defend itself or the life with a whole life ahead that can't. But these incredibly rare situations don't have a clear answer, I think.

@freemo @AtlasFreeman I don't think we outlaw most because it causes human suffering. There's plenty of ways to kill people without causing them to experience suffering.

I don't think I've referenced and religious belief here at all, so we can move past that.

I said all human life is ought to be protected, which is scientifically defined by DNA. I think you're saying only life that we decide on their behalf wants to live and will also experience suffering is worth protecting, which is a standard, but I think a more subjective and less scientific one.

Neither is inherently hypocritical though.

@freemo @AtlasFreeman gotcha. I think the parallel is that they're both definitively, scientifically, unique human lives.

I think humans are more than brains, so I've never thought about being able to take a life of a person who may not have a brain. But babies do have brains before birth, they don't pick them up in the birth canql on the way to be born....or all C Section kids would be in real trouble.

But the brain isn't fully developed. That's true. But it's not fully developed for decades.

The first 3 years of human life are huge in brain development, so your argument that the state of one's physical brain determines one's moral worth and whether killing that human is wrong would apply to small children as well.

Of course the prefrontal cortex isn't fully there until late 20s for females or about 30 for men, so it may apply to many more.

I suppose that seeing human life as valuable is very different than feeling that one gets to pick who lives and dies based on physical factors.

I've discussed a lot of people's ideas on what they'd pick as those factors, and they've always seemed logically and morally problematic. And primarily an attempt to get some argument behind their already existing opinions.

Others in the past have decided that human life wasn't worth preserving based on other physical or genetic factors, like being black, being Jewish, having downs, being female. Arguments that say "all human life is worth protecting except for this dehumanized category even if they've done nothing wrong" seem to strike me a certain unpleasant way.

@freemo @AtlasFreeman It may or may not be hypocritical.

Taking the life of an innocent and taking the life of the guilty aren't moral equivalents.

I think both have to be thought through. Obviously taking the life of a "criminal " as in the meme isn't right, there's lots of crimes and the meme's big fault, I think, is that it implies there's people out there saying all criminals should have their lives aborted. No one says that that I've heard.

When it comes to mass murderer or serial killer, there's other opinions,and if we value human life and human rights, should we treat the innocent differently than one who goes around repeatedly taking away people's rights and lives by murdering them. Those are the only death row considerations I'm aware of.

But if someone supports taking the life of only those guilty of the most serious crime, of repeatedly murdering others, yet they think we should protect the lives of the innocent, I don't see hypocrisy there.

Man, 34, wrecks home with ax after he thought wife, 46, damaged his action figures. ..then calls the police on himself.

https://www.nbc15.com/content/news/Man-46-wrecks-home-with-ax-after-he-thought-wife-damaged-his-action-figures-504661922.html

"Welcome to the 2020 presidential primary. Almost no policy is too liberal for Democrats fighting to win over their party’s base... few have outlined detailed proposals to fund their priorities"

https://apnews.com/4c89676b498d4ab1af09659b29c164f4

#uspol

@Surasanji @freemo I have friends of wildly different opinions and thoroughly enjoy discussing the polarizing issues in real life. I find that it's rarely fruitful online.

I'm convinced that at some level we can find agreement so we're not in direct opposition, and work from there,and that I don't need to base my opinions or confidence on today's snapshot of my views never being challenged.

If I really understand someone's different position, I'll likely see some reason in it, and that will inform my own views. Then I retain respect for the other person and grow myself as a person.

When we're so quick to attack the other as the embodiment of evil, then we're saying that any influence from them will stain ourselves, so it must be forbidden. And we don't grow out become better informed and opinioned people.

I've experienced a few reasonable conversations with others where we disagree here on #qoto and mastodon... Not daily, but more than I have since the advent of mega social media sites.

I didn't know the instance had been blocked, maybe I haven't paid close enough attention. Do they have a block against treating people with excellence, even if they're not in exact agreement on something? That's what seems to have a high point here.

@freemo @Surasanji Agreed. I thought your posts were quite reasonable and the reaction of "DOG WHISTLE!!11! BIGOT!1!!" Didn't make a bit of sense. They didn't fit at all. Here you were saying that you are not in fair of deportation and could support open borders meant the embodiment if evil.

I enjoyed the attempt to say that "illegal" did not describe what a person did by breaking the law, but "undocumented" did, as if the issue is resolved if we just document things. Would someone just write down that Jim crossed the border? Then he'd be a documented immigrant and all would be resolved. Hand the man a pencil and he'll do it himself.

I've heard a suggestion of Unauthorized Immigrant as a third option.

I'm convinced that we overlook the real issues of bigotry and racism when we find a dog whistle in everything and find all who disagree to be bigots or fascist or whatever.

@freemo @Surasanji I just saw the thread where the response to Freemo's thoughts on open borders of you're not a welfare state were met with name calling of bigotry and racism. That certainly makes it feel like reason and debate are dead. And if we've moved on from reason, have we left civilization behind?

I think online media makes a lot of people worse, less reasonable, and more likely to forget that they're dealing with real humans, not just pixelated avatars.