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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted July 21, 2013 08:15 PM |
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Edited by artu at 20:16, 21 Jul 2013.
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Don't get stuck with the word beauty. Yes, neat, organized, cozy etc etc... These can be a matter of aesthetics. But caring for the world is not an aesthetic concern, it's rather ethical. It's about positioning yourself as a part of it rather than the ruler of it because of moral preferences. And I'm very well aware you know they exist and think they are wrong. Your reasons to find them wrong are shallow, that's what I've been objecting to from the start.
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The distinction between perceived and actual self-interest exists because people don't always know what's good for them.
Can't you really see this is saying nothing at all. Who'll tell them, you?! And I already told you basic stuff like not being beaten or tortured is not the case here, so please stop giving such caricaturized examples.
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 21, 2013 08:47 PM |
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I agree that some people care about the world for ethical reasons. The reason I brought up aesthetics is because you said that children think elephants are cool, which is undeniably an aesthetic preference and not a matter of ethics.Quote:
Can't you really see this is saying nothing at all.
You've already seen an example where this is indeed saying something. Another example: suppose I value my health, and also like the taste of pizza. It's plausible that I'd eat pizza in quantities that would be bad for my health - but I like pizza, so it's in my perceived self-interest. Upon reflection, though, I'd realize that because I value my health, eating so much pizza isn't in my actual self-interest. "Perceived self-interest" is what you think is good for you at the moment. "Actual self-interest" is what you'd think is good for you after reflecting on your preferences and desires, thinking about them carefully, testing them if they bring you the pleasure you expect (if necessary), etc.
I don't know every preference everybody has, so I can't always tell people what they should do. But I do know things about people in general, and I also know certain preferences specific individuals have, and can sometimes tell when they're not acting in their actual self-interest. If someone tells me that they value their health, then eat six cheeseburgers (this isn't a hypothetical, I've seen this happen in real life), there are only three possibilities - they don't value their health very much, they really like cheeseburgers a lot, or the preferences by which they're acting aren't at a reflective equilibrium. From talking to them, I know that the first two options are unlikely, so it wasn't hard to tell that they weren't acting in their actual self-interest.
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Eccentric Opinion
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted July 21, 2013 09:03 PM |
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NO. I said look at children, we LOVE elephants because they are elephants. That is, we have an emotional bond with the world that surrounds us. And when such abstractions are in place, your "examples" of pizza and cheeseburger unfortunately fall short. You cannot atomize a context, than take the line you reduced into a blunt logical statement and replace its components with something so caricaturesque and so unrelated to the aforementioned concepts and still consider it a valid example or counter-example. This superficial loophole hunting definitely does not help your arguments.
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted July 21, 2013 09:19 PM |
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@mvassilev
Ivory, of course, has only a strictly aesthetic value. It holds no other benefit, other than that some people will pay a lot of money for it. In that sense, I'm not sure how killing elephants for ivory benefits humanity - since you've been treating it as a monolith - in any meaningful way.
Beyond that - obviously I don't agree with your worldview, mvassilev, because I think it's based on artificially constructed ideals. That said, I'm curious why you choose the species boundary - itself an artificial category - as the basis of your "us vs. them" approach to what actions are acceptable and what actions aren't. You speak a lot of benefits to humans broadly. Ignoring the obvious problem with speaking of "benefits" in any objective way, why draw the line at humans. But why lump them in all together, as though all our interests are the same?
As an example - you say:
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But if elephants weren't useful for humans in any way, and eliminating them wouldn't have negative effects on ecosystems (that is, negative for humans), they shouldn't have protection.
Here it's elephants vs. humans. But suppose I changed it up to this:
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But if black weren't useful for whites in any way, and eliminating them wouldn't have negative effects on ecosystems (that is, negative for whites), they shouldn't have protection.
What is the difference?
Aside from that, I wonder if you realize that it's not always apparent what is in our best interest. People used to think destroying rainforests was in their best interests, because it yielded more arable land for agriculture. We now understand that rainforests provide a lot of benefits for humans, not the least of which is oxygen and natural biomolecules that may be therapeutic for emerging diseases. There's always a conflict between immediate benefits and long-term ones. Your philosophy doesn't seem to offer guidance for how to determine which are more important, particularly if the latter are not known.
This is just a hypothetical, obviously, but at the moment we can think of no reasons why elephants can benefit humanity, and let's say scientists acknowledge that killing the few that are remaining is unlikely to impact the ecosystem. Therefore they get no protection. However 200 years from now we find that elephants produce some bioactive substance that is found to cure cancer. Maybe it would have been a good idea to protect them?
The problem with your philosophy is that it doesn't offer practical solutions or a functional acknowledgment of unknowns. You speak of "damage to ecosystems" as though that were an easy question for science to answer in a predictive way. Unfortunately, ecosystems are complicated, and it is usually impossible to understand the ramifications to an ecosystem of a disturbance until after the disturbance has happened. Therefore I submit it is in humanity's best interest to protect ecosystems to the extent possible, even if the benefits of doing so aren't immediately obvious. And especially if the benefits of doing the opposite are localized or short-term. I.e., human actions should be guided by a proper and scientific risk/benefit analysis, not the assumption that whatever benefits are immediately apparent are the only ones that matter. And while I'm not a loud endorser of the ubiquitous application of the precautionary principle, I believe it does have an important role in guiding human action that shouldn't be completely abandoned.
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I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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xerox
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 21, 2013 09:57 PM |
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Edited by xerox at 22:00, 21 Jul 2013.
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I don't get why there needs to be a thing such as objectively true self-interest. The only absolute and universal truth here is that as with most things, self-interest is relative and subjective. Now that doesn't mean that there's not broadly accepted agreements on self-interest. For example, most people agree with the notion that generally murder and theft are not in one's self-interest. However it gets messy when you try to make everything fit into a perceived universal truth which is in itself nothing but subjective.
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Over himself, over his own
body and
mind, the individual is
sovereign.
- John Stuart Mill
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 21, 2013 10:02 PM |
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artu:
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I said look at children, we LOVE elephants because they are elephants. That is, we have an emotional bond with the world that surrounds us.
That just sounds like another way to say "aesthetic value".
Corribus:
Ivory has industrial uses too, though apparently its non-aesthetic use is declining.Quote:
You speak a lot of benefits to humans broadly. Ignoring the obvious problem with speaking of "benefits" in any objective way, why draw the line at humans. But why lump them in all together, as though all our interests are the same?
Good question. First, not all the interests of humans are the same, though due to human nature, people have common interests. That is, however, not the main point. The moral distinction between humans and non-humans isn't really based on species membership, but on features that humans have that animals don't. Currently, humans are the only known beings in the universe that possess these features, but they're not features that are necessarily restricted to humans. If there were an alien species that had the same morally relevant features as humans, it would be deserving of the same considerations as humans. What are these morally relevant features? Since we're talking about protection, the question is, why should we restrict ourselves in our dealings with any beings? I partially answered this question earlier in this thread, but I should elaborate on it more explicitly. Cases similar to agreements not to burgle can be made for agreeing not to murder, the use and production of common resources, etc. However, in order to make such an agreement, both parties have to possess three features: they have to be able to act otherwise (that is, to act differently from how the agreement prescribes), they have to understand the agreement (so they know what it entails), and they have to be capable of abiding by it. If any of these traits are absent, there is no reason to attempt to make such an agreement, because either it won't be understood or you would've restricted yourself for no reason. Currently, the only beings who possess these three traits are humans. Because blacks are the same as whites as far as possession of these traits is concerned, it is incorrect to treat them as having different (or no) rights.
As for the precautionary principle, I understand the issue, and you're quite correct, but the same argument applies to the other side as well. On one hand, there's the potential benefit from keeping the ecosystem stable, but on the other hand, there's the benefit from development. To take an extreme case, if humanity had never developed tools, we would've never disrupted any ecosystem very much, but it's hard to say we'd have been better off like that. To a lesser degree, the same is true for more moderate cases: maybe this species will be the key to saving thousands of lives, or maybe whatever activity that is leading this species to extinction will lead to something that will be the key to saving thousands of lives.
Xerox:
What do you mean by "objectively true self-interest"? I suspect that we may agree about this issue, just approaching it with a different vocabulary.
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Eccentric Opinion
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xerox
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 21, 2013 10:23 PM |
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Edited by xerox at 22:24, 21 Jul 2013.
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Mvass, with "objectively true self-interest" I am refering to "actual self-interest". I disagree with the notion that there is actual self-interest and perceived self-interest. I believe all our actions are guided by self-interest and that self-interest in itself is always perceived / subjective. This does not mean that all humans have individual views on what's in a person's self-interest. Most people probably agree that getting punched is not in one's self-interest. But that a large number of people agree upon a perception of self-interest doesn't make it "actual" self-interest.
____________
Over himself, over his own
body and
mind, the individual is
sovereign.
- John Stuart Mill
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 21, 2013 10:45 PM |
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I believe all our actions are guided by self-interest and that self-interest in itself is always perceived / subjective.
If that's true, what about soldiers who jump on grenades to save their comrades, killing themselves - are they acting in their self-interest? Or what about people who want humanity to go extinct so that the Earth doesn't suffer? What about a guy who gets his flowers for his girlfriend, not because it'll make her happy and he cares about her happiness, but because he considers it his duty as her boyfriend? I think it's clear that none of them are acting in their self-interest.
Those are all cases in which it isn't even perceived self-interest - they're not cases of self-interest at all. There are also situations in which perceived self-interest and actual self-interest are at odds. (By "actual self-interest" I mean what a person would consider their self-interest to be if their preferences and beliefs were at a reflective equilibrium.) If you value your health more highly than you value six cheeseburgers, but you eat six cheeseburgers anyway, because you do like cheeseburgers and aren't thinking properly about the consequences for your health, you are acting in your perceived self-interest but not in your actual self-interest.
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Eccentric Opinion
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted July 21, 2013 10:53 PM |
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Edited by artu at 22:57, 21 Jul 2013.
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Quote:
That just sounds like another way to say "aesthetic value"
No, it definitely does not and the distinction is quite clear. The situation is not to love nature just because you enjoy looking at it. Actually, that's a very secondary aspect of it. The question here is, how you position yourself in it. Which is beyond any doubt a matter of ethics. You put us in a very centric position and the two reasons you can give are:
a)We are capable of social contract.
So, what? What forces us to destroy things that are not capable of social contract? (And how about autistics then?) We fight with what is directly harmful to us anyway, so self-preservation is not the case in here. What you practically seem to defend is the greed to be able to wipe out anything just for the sole reason of saying "we had the right to do so" And why? Because they are unable to make a social contract. Peh...
Is anybody objecting to wiping out a virus that is a threat? Why, again, take it to the extreme just to make an artificial point of principle? And exactly what kind of content actually makes this principle so universal and indisputable? If, say, people with IQ's above 190, decide to sign in a social contract that gives some rights only to them and our capacity is not enough to conceptualize and abide that contract, is it okay for them to wipe us out?
b)We are ourselves humans.
Yes, and unlike any other animal, we don't adopt to the environment but transform the environment to adopt to us with our intelligence. Which is a blade that cuts both ways. It brings an enormous advantage at surviving, yet it also brings the danger of exploiting that advantage to the point of alienating ourselves from this world. Nevermind precaution, we need caution, as of now. Because how you position yourself in the world is not only a logical stance, it's also a self-manifest of what you CHOOSE TO BE. It affects your mentality on other things in life.
And who is this "we" that you speak of anyway, in practice who will decide if the whales are going to go extinct or not? The United Nations? Each country or in your case, state by itself among it's territory? Nature don't work with borders, when your neighbor ***** up the air, it also affects you. Who's benefit are we talking about here? The only ones that can benefit from things of such scale are the corporations that you seem to despise and scorn all the time.
So, why insist on the absolute again when there isn't even a justified theory for you to do so, put aside the practice.
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 21, 2013 11:16 PM |
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artu:
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What forces us to destroy things that are not capable of social contract?
Nothing forces us, which is why I'm not advocating going outside and shooting animals willy-nilly. There's no reason to do that. But there are reasons to do things that cause harm to animals or public property, such as eating tasty meat, making something cheaper, etc. "We had the right to do so" isn't a justification for an action, but it does mean that no one who recognizes this right can legitimately do anything against us for it.Quote:
If, say, people with IQ's above 190, decide to sign in a social contract that gives some rights only to them and our capacity is not enough to conceptualize and abide that contract, is it okay for them to wipe us out?
Note that I'm not talking about just any contract, but a non-aggression contract, which we are capable of conceptualizing. 190+ IQ or not, they can still die if we "stupid people" shoot them, strangle them in their sleep, etc. We have the capability to make it so it would be in their interest to live at peace with us.
As for "who will decide", the same question might as well be asked of you. Who will decide that whales will be protected?
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Eccentric Opinion
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted July 21, 2013 11:38 PM |
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Edited by artu at 23:39, 21 Jul 2013.
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Quote:
Note that I'm not talking about just any contract, but a non-aggression contract, which we are capable of conceptualizing. 190+ IQ or not, they can still die if we "stupid people" shoot them, strangle them in their sleep, etc. We have the capability to make it so it would be in their interest to live at peace with us.
But you are not talking about self-preservation, you are talking about benefit to an extent that it should have no limits:
mvass said:
But if I, say, destroy an anthill, the ants don't and can't have any recourse, so if it benefits me to destroy them, I should.
Corribus said:
So it's safe to say you support the right of people to hunt elephants to extinction for ivory?
mvass said:
if elephants weren't useful for humans in any way, and eliminating them wouldn't have negative effects on ecosystems (that is, negative for humans), they shouldn't have protection.
Quote:
As for "who will decide", the same question might as well be asked of you. Who will decide that whales will be protected?
The consensus on protecting things is much easier, when self-preservation (which also includes feeding) is put aside. It's limits are pretty obvious to everyone. There are extreme cases like Japanese fishermen and whales but basically, it quite feasible. Benefit (read: Profit) on the other hand is endless, especially in our age of capitalism which even creates customers and convinces them to buy stuff they don't really need just to expand the business.
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted July 22, 2013 12:24 AM |
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mvassilev said:
Ivory has industrial uses too, though apparently its non-aesthetic use is declining.
I would say that ivory had non-aesthetic uses. Humans are quite capable of making synthetic materials that surpass ivory's properties in every way. There are some who claim that ivory piano keys sound somehow better than those made of synthetic materials, but this is just an emotional judgment, brought about by the belief that "natural" materials are somehow better. I mean, we can create synthetic diamonds easily, and cubic zirconium sparkles just as nicely. We can also make colored minerals with no sweat, and in fact we can make them in colors and styles that nature doesn't. So why do we pay orders of magnitude more for natural diamonds?
But this is neither here nor there, I suppose.
Quote:
Since we're talking about protection, the question is, why should we restrict ourselves in our dealings with any beings? I partially answered this question in this post, but I should elaborate on it more explicitly. Cases similar to agreements not to burgle can be made for agreeing not to murder, the use and production of common resources, etc. However, in order to make such an agreement, both parties have to possess three features: they have to be able to act otherwise (that is, to act differently from how the agreement prescribes), they have to understand the agreement (so they know what it entails), and they have to be capable of abiding by it. If any of these traits are absent, there is no reason to attempt to make such an agreement, because either it won't be understood or you would've restricted yourself for no reason. Currently, the only beings who possess these three traits are humans. Because blacks are the same as whites as far as possession of these traits is concerned, it is incorrect to treat them as having different (or no) rights,
Ok, I took from your earlier argument that you believe that laws exist as a form of mutual protection against aggression. In fact, I'll quote what you originally wrote:
Quote:
For example, you don't want me to break into your house while you're gone and take all your stuff, and I don't want you to break into mine. There are two ways of accomplishing our desired ends, then. We can both sit in our houses with our guns in our laps, waiting to shoot the other if he tries to enter. It works, but it's suboptimal - I don't want to sit at home and guard my house against burglars all day, and neither do you. We can instead choose the other way of accomplishing our goals - we can mutually agree not to burglarize each other's houses, and that if one of us violates the agreement, some third party will punish the violator. This shows why we should restrict ourselves in our dealings with other humans, but the same reasoning doesn't apply to animals or "the planet" in general. Why should we restrict ourselves in dealing with it?
Sounds sensible. However it's not sufficient to describe human actions. After all, it only works when the other guy has the power to harm us. In the event that two people have vastly different levels of technology, the scales are no longer balanced. Let's suppose my neighbor and I both have houses with valuables inside. We could both sit there with our guns in our laps, as you suggest, in which case I agree there is a mutual benefit to having a non-aggression agreement (laws) in place. However if I have the technology to build an automatic machine gun turret with motion sensor, I can defend my house from any aggression from my neighbor and at the same time go out and do whatever I need to do. It's not in my interest to make any agreement at all. My stuff is safe whether I make the agreement or not. In fact, it benefits me NOT to make an agreement, since if my neighbor has to stand guard all day, he's not out using resources elsewhere that I can claim for myself. Not to mention, if I've got that kind of technology, I might as well just go into his house, kill him, and take everything he's got.
Point being, there's got to be more to human non-aggression agreements than whatever benefits one side the most. And you don't have to come up with fake hypotheticals to understand why. Why, we might ask, did Europeans butcher the native Americans instead of making an agreement with them back in the Colonial days? When Europeans landed in the new world, they were vastly technologically superior to the native Americans. The native Americans had resources the Europeans wanted. The Europeans went in and took the resources, took the land, and killed most of the native Americans. I think we can agree that this benefited the Europeans, and the European "race", much to the detriment of the native Americans. Would you say this action by the Europeans was justified? Through the morals of the day, sure. Today, most people would probably say no.
Before you answer that question yourself, ask yourself also - presuming a means presented itself for all the Western Nations to get together and agree to exterminate all of Africans and Middle-Easterners, and then divide the land and resources evenly among the aggressors, would this be justified? After all, with the combined might of the Western Nations, there's no much the Africans could do about it. And it could be argued that it would greatly benefit the Westerners down the road.
I guess what I'm asking is this:
Given a large enough difference in the state of technology between two human societies, the inferior society is functionally no better than an non-sentient species, at least as far as having ability to cause the superior society any harm. The inferior society is just an anthill, really, so if it benefits the superior society to destroy the anthill, why not? If you agree, fine. At least I understand your point of view. If you disagree, well, then clearly "immediate benefits" and even "long term benefits" isn't the only variable in the equation. So what is the rest of the equation?
Quote:
As for the precautionary principle, I understand the issue, and you're quite correct, but the same argument applies to the other side as well. On one hand, there's the potential benefit from keeping the ecosystem stable, but on the other hand, there's the benefit from development. To take an extreme case, if humanity had never developed tools, we would've never disrupted any ecosystem very much, but it's hard to say we'd have been better off like that. To a lesser degree, the same is true for more moderate cases: maybe this species will be the key to saving thousands of lives, or maybe whatever activity that is leading this species to extinction will lead to something that will be the key to saving thousands of lives.
No argument from me here, but I'm not sure how it supports your point of view. If anything, it shows that evaluating future benefits is practically impossible, even if everyone's priorities are the same, so decisions of right or wrong are more complex and more subjective than "Killing this is beneficial to us, so kill it." I still believe your point of view is far too idealistic to be useful.
____________
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted July 22, 2013 12:38 AM |
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Corribus said:
There are some who claim that ivory piano keys sound somehow better than those made of synthetic materials,
A bit of infos on this: it does not matter.
As you see, when you push the key, a hammer is actioned, and this hammer is clotted with a felt. The sound depends on the felt characteristics and usury, combined with the resonance created by the bronze around (not sure how those terms are translated in english, a piano has a bronze specific part which mixes the harmonics). This bronze purpose is equivalent to the wood cavities used in making violins.
Ivory keys are better only to the touch, more responsive, and less likely to stick to one’s fingers because of perspiration that may accumulate while one is playing a particularly difficult piece. Ivory absorbs sweat, which provides for a better feel of the instrument in general. There are advantages and disadvantages when using plastic instead of ivory, but today the technology is able to imitate ivory very well, with reproduction veins on the surface, and similar luster and feel. Which shows progress is a good thing, Jumbo is safe. 
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 22, 2013 12:42 AM |
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artu:
Quote:
But you are not talking about self-preservation, you are talking about benefit to an extent that it should have no limits
Don't take what I said out of context. Your quote of me was in response to your question about whether people with 190+ IQs could wipe us out. But to respond to this - if we can make a mutually beneficial mutually beneficial agreement with a being, it is deserving of rights, but if not, we can do whatever we want to it.Quote:
The consensus on protecting things is much easier, when self-preservation (which also includes feeding) is put aside.
That's such a hand-wavy explanation.
Corribus:
I acknowledge your post and will respond to it later.
____________
Eccentric Opinion
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted July 22, 2013 12:55 AM |
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Edited by artu at 00:57, 22 Jul 2013.
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I'm not taking it out of context, on the contrary, I am evaluating the things you post on the subject as a whole (which is what you never do), assuming there is a contextual embodiment. Or shouldn't I assume that?
That post of mine also refers to this btw, forgot to put it as a quote:
Quote:
Nothing forces us, which is why I'm not advocating going outside and shooting animals willy-nilly. There's no reason to do that. But there are reasons to do things that cause harm to animals or public property, such as eating tasty meat, making something cheaper, etc. "We had the right to do so" isn't a justification for an action, but it does mean that no one who recognizes this right can legitimately do anything against us for it.
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted July 22, 2013 02:19 AM |
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@Sal
Having played on both authentic ivory keys for many years, as well as synthetics, I can say that I can't really tell the difference between the materials. The other mechanical components make a far bigger difference to my mind. This is where you can really tell the quality of a piano.
So, no benefit to ivory that I can tell.
____________
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted July 22, 2013 02:36 AM |
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Yes, this is what I was saying. Today none of the modern piano factories use anymore ivory, but plastic (kinda).
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted July 22, 2013 09:08 AM |
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Edited by Zenofex at 09:10, 22 Jul 2013.
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Quote:
But to respond to this - if we can make a mutually beneficial mutually beneficial agreement with a being, it is deserving of rights, but if not, we can do whatever we want to it.
How can you make an "agreement" with something which has no notion of "agreement" or any notions for that matter? This is an obvious dead end. The humans have the capability to wipe out all other species on the planet, that's as true as it gets, but by doing that, we will only do the things for ourselves worse in many ways.
Or in other words - animals have exactly as much rights as we give them because the concept of "rights" is 100% human one and does not exist beyond the human world. Rights have a practical purpose and are given with the consent of (at least) the majority of the people. If one specie is given the right to exist, this means that the acts of certain individuals are threatening that existence but that the humanity as a whole does not approve of destroying that specie so any individual who purposefully works against the regulations that result from the given rights also works against the people who are in their favour. Starting from the opposite direction, this also means that if an individual does something which is unacceptable in general (violates a "right", simply put), he represents only his own approach to the situation, not the humanity's. So generalizations like what "we" can do in such a case are a recipe for failure - a poacher does not represent the views of a person who's in favour of preserving the wild life and does not act on his behalf, etc.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted July 22, 2013 09:58 AM |
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Quote:
Starting from the opposite direction, this also means that if an individual does something which is unacceptable in general (violates a "right", simply put), he represents only his own approach to the situation, not the humanity's.
Well, I think what he talks about is his personal opinion on what the law should be anyway, IF it was up to him... Fortunately, it isn't.
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 22, 2013 04:11 PM |
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Corribus:
Humans usually have the power to harm each other. In the example of the turret, the guy without the turret can still leave his house and shoot you. Regarding the example of the Indians, talking about benefiting one race at the expense of another is irrelevant, because rights are about what individuals can do. Even if I were a colonial European, an Indian would still be able to kill me. Then, it is in my interest to agree to not kill Indians in exchange for not being killed. Given that groups are no more than aggregations of individuals, gathering into a group doesn't give its members the ability to legitimately do anything more than they would have been able to do by themselves. Social contracts are contracts between individuals, and form societies - they aren't contracts between societies.
To answer your broader question about technological differences - the technological gap would have to be much larger between that of an Indian and a colonial, or a guy with a turret and a guy without one. Even a hypothetical immortal human being could be so inconvenienced by a currently existing human that he'd find it in his interest to make a non-aggression agreement. However, if there were a human who was so technologically advanced that the armies of the world meant nothing to him, he would indeed have no reason to make a non-aggression agreement. If it would benefit him to destroy or enslave the rest of humanity, it would be legitimate for him to do it (just as it would be legitimate for us to resist).Quote:
If anything, it shows that evaluating future benefits is practically impossible
We can make reasonable predictions about the future. If I'm eating a piece of cheese, it's not like any reasonable person could say anything like, "That particular piece of cheese may be sacred to God! You should exercise the precautionary principle and not eat it." In a less extreme case, it needn't be an endangered species that may be valuable in the future, but a mutation within an individual in a non-endangered species - but no one would reasonably say, "Don't eat that cow, it could have a valuable mutation." We can make reasonable predictions about future value, even if we're wrong at times.
Zeno:
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Rights have a practical purpose and are given with the consent of (at least) the majority of the people.
That's tyranny of the majority.
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Eccentric Opinion
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