On Topic Discussion A serious talk about the value of human life...

[peeonme]

How? Curious minds...

Nature can let us die off if it is meant to be, a new plague can come along or perhaps a meteor... the dinosaurs didn't plan on checking out, but they are no longer around.
The specter of Soylent Green being used to justify fetal termination is a fear tactic.

 

[peeonme]

I don't agree. We as a society value human lives just as much today as before. The difference is nowadays we have 24hr coverage on every single thing out there and the internet for information to spread like wild fire.

Let's look at it this way. How many tens of thousands died in Vietnam? How many millions died in WW2? Was there coverage for each soldier that died in those cases?

Now look back at Iraq. Every single US soldier's death was covered and repeated non-stop.

So, I would argue that the value of human life is the same now as before. We just see more death and destruction now because of improvement in information flow.

You are comparing war with civilian living. Of course people die in war, it's expected. People should not die in the work place or school
by violence.
When it began it was dubbed as "going postal", as a postal worker shot up his co-workers in Royal Oak Mi. https://patch.com/michigan/royaloak/a-look-back-at-the-royal-oak-postal-shootings

Somewhere along the line the idea that if you didn't get your way, were used, abused, tormented or pissed off you were entitled to kill people infected our society.
It has nothing to do with war, it has something to do with how one sees his fellow man.

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

Nature can let us die off if it is meant to be, a new plague can come along or perhaps a meteor... the dinosaurs didn't plan on checking out, but they are no longer around.
The specter of Soylent Green being used to justify fetal termination is a fear tactic.

There is no such thing as "meant to be," it's completely antithetical to nature which knows not for destiny or greater purpose, whatever you want to call it. Do you honestly believe nature is a sentient entity that keeps track of the population and says "Whoops, they're reproducing like rabbits lemme cook up this viral infection to wipe a few of em out."? That sounds soooo cartoony.

 

[luckynumbah7]

This may have escaped people's attention but the individuals who look wistfully to "Nature!" in these circumstances don't usually go 'round decrying the advancements in other types of medicine (advancements used which most definitively do not allow nature to 'take her course').*

https://www.alternet.org/personal-health/orca-whales-caribou-abortion-and-you

*Barring some religious sects. And a few of the mentally unbalanced.

 

[peeonme]

There is no such thing as "meant to be," it's completely antithetical to nature which knows not for destiny or greater purpose, whatever you want to call it. Do you honestly believe nature is a sentient entity that keeps track of the population and says "Whoops, they're reproducing like rabbits lemme cook up this viral infection to wipe a few of em out."? That sounds soooo cartoony.

No, I believe that there are natural laws, such as gravity, you break this law and you die. So nature does not cull the herd, the herd culls it's self when it ignores natural laws.
Perhaps it's should be is akin to natural selection. We are self destructive. WE push the envelope with drinking, obesity , drugs and then scramble for a magic pill to cure ourselves. If we overpopulate and over heat the earth we do it to ourselves, does this justify ending a pregnancy? It surely doesn't justify us killing one another.
I think the day of reckoning will come and we will bring it on ourselves.

 

[peeonme]

It has been a pleasure to discuss this tonight, I now shuffle off to dream land and thank all for their input!

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

This may have escaped people's attention but the individuals who look wistfully to "Nature!" in these circumstances don't usually go 'round decrying the advancements in other types of medicine (advancements used which most definitively do not allow nature to 'take her course').*

https://www.alternet.org/personal-health/orca-whales-caribou-abortion-and-you

*Barring some religious sects. And a few of the mentally unbalanced.

I couldn't even find the words to articulate that (I had the same discussion with my friend about how science is always evil to the religious... until a family members needs a medical procedure done )

I was so stuck on "Well nature will just work itself out." The most intellectually dishonest thing I've read here in, well, at least twenty minutes.

 

[zoltanspawn]

A man I once new back in the '60's took a trip to a 3rd world nation. In a letter he wrote that "life is pretty cheap around here".

Has life become cheap in the United States?

We allow capital punishment. A few other nations do this, I am not proud to be a member of that club.

We recognize a woman's "right to choose" while ignoring a baby's right to live. If the "fetus"
didn't take a breath, it was not "alive". Just toss it out.

We have a broken system for caring for children without parents or from dysfunctional homes. Foster care is a roll of the dice when it comes to care.

We have hungry children that go without proper medical care.

We have people living on the streets. As a boy I heard of a place called "skid row". It has grown, now we just look through the homeless as though they are invisible. It is not a problem to be fixed, it's just a part of life... a cheap life, without value.

We have a high incarceration rate, right up there with N.Korea.

A highly disproportionate number of minorities are incarcerated.

We have a band aid health care system, a health insurance policy that has a out of pocket
maximum of $5-7 thousand dollars is a national disgrace.

Do I need to speak of public education? There are great schools in the "rich" suburbs, as you head to Detroit the quality and the classroom size changes. I guess cheap kids really don't need expensive public education.

There is more to gun deaths and mass shootings than just guns. Assault rifles and 100 round clips make it convenient for one to express their frustrations with life, it doesn't take an IQ above room temperature to realize that we need to make it more difficult to kill people.

Another JUBer mentioned in a thread that the problem in the UK was knives, he had seen a lot of knife attacks. If they had assault rifles, I am sure they would use them.

Some frustrated disenfranchised (so they see themselves) use cars or trucks to get even with a world that sees them as trash (speaking from their perspective).

We as a nation need to take a look in the mirror, stop executions, stop seeing pregnancy as a "mistake", stop seeing "rich kids" as more important than the child in the city. Stop letting race equal jail space.

And, maybe start using manners again, a please and thank you can make a huge difference.
Quit cutting people off in traffic and quit flipping off who do. A nation that values life begins with us and how we treat others. Maybe it will work it's way up.

I think it’s funny that you’ve listed so many woes that people suffer, yet still seem to suggest people should be born to endure them.

In your post, justice, health care, education, violence, prejudice and hunger are recognized as real problems, and yet you counsel we ought to still inflict those real problems onto people not yet existent?

*

It’s a classic notion that the rarity of a thing increases its value. Humans ain’t rare, and thus ARE cheap. I accept that economy, I think, so I’d be happy if a [STRIKE]few[/STRIKE] [STRIKE]several [/STRIKE] many billions ceased to exist.

 

[zoltanspawn]

Most pregnancies are not planned, I would venture to say that most sex isn't, even in a marriage. My parents had sex for his or her own pleasure. I was the result.
My dad was 49 when I was born, my mother was a mentally ill person. I have been told by relatives that my parents should not have had children, my reply was "I'm kind of glad that they did". Life has not always been kind, but I am damned glad that I have had a run at it.

Would you have regretted not existing, had you never existed?

I’m a happy, kindly chap, but I would definitely have elected to not be born, given the choice. Of course, no choice is ever given…

 

[zoltanspawn]

I don't want to go "religious" on this, be it by design or by evolution it is obvious to me that a zygote, embryo or fetus is kind of a lottery situation, about 250 million sperm cells and one ovum. If one of the swimmers had beat the one who got to the egg when I was conceived, I wouldn't be here today. So, if God is to be included in the equation Hid factor can only be seen as the "clock winder"

Most who "should not have children" for the reasons mentioned will do it anyway, mant will seek to end a pregnancy because "they aren't ready".

I don’t understand. What is a “clock winder”? Why would God need to be in this equation?

 

[zoltanspawn]

The "glob of cells" has a heart beat after 4-5 weeks.

Salamanders have heartbeats. Is it wrong to kill them?

 

[zoltanspawn]

So your saying that if we "terminate" this glob of cells we are being humanitarian? We should not let "it" have a chance? Well, "it" even coming from the best home might be incarcerated, shot and killed, molested, develop cancer or some other horrible disease. Why expose any glob of cells to such a messed up world?
Abortion is aimed at minorities as a means to cull the herd. It is time we call it as it is, murder.

It’s a good choice to terminate every glob of cells. Such a termination doesn’t represent the closure of a
“chance” but a reprieve from a non-consensual fate. Indeed, why expose ANY glob of cells to such a messed up world?

 

[zoltanspawn]

And there in lies the rub, we see humans as worth less than ally cats. We are a virus upon the planet according to some. We only cause problems. Why then should we care if a man kills 58 in Vegas? or a young man kills 17 in Florida? Should Sandy Hook matter?
Why, after all, they were just humans that cause global warming and the death of innocent animals.

Two nice things about alley cats is that they don’t seem to go on shooting rampages and they haven’t yet been implicated in the cause of global warming.

Though perhaps you have some serious moral criticism to level against them?

Of course, that’s unlikely.

I happen to care about humans AND other species. I don’t want people to die in mass shootings OR elephants either.

I absolutely despise propositions like this that deliberately confuse the two.

 

[zoltanspawn]

The lion sees her self as more important than a water buffalo and will have one for dinner. Survival is hard wired into all species.

Please do a little research on the question of whether “what is right” is the same thing as “what is natural.”

- - - Updated - - -

I do.

It may not be politically correct for me to say this, but human lives are more important than other animal lives.

Gross. Someone here recently introduced me to the term “specieist.” What a selfish, dumb and malicious idea.

 

[zoltanspawn]

If we overpopulate nature will solve that problem.

Through cold, hunger, pain, dumb-ness, violence, filth and sickness.

Are these your policies?

(P.s., I just Kulindahr'ed the fuck out of this thread. Sorry.)

 

[NotHardUp1]

Gross. Someone here recently introduced me to the term “specieist.” What a selfish, dumb and malicious idea.

You'll want to inform the person that it would be "speciesist," unless he is talking about taking a stand for the coin of the realm.



Oh, and "go, humans."

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

You'll want to inform the person that it would be "speciesist," unless he is talking about taking a stand for the coin of the realm.



Oh, and "go, humans."

Jada can you remind us again what "specie" is? Because you haven't mentioned that like 647 times.

Oh, and don't get your hopes up about "go humans." They'll self-destruct before ever truly understanding where they came from and where they could've gone.

 

[MakeDigitalLove]

The lion sees her self as more important than a water buffalo and will have one for dinner. Survival is hard wired into all species.

There is a difference between an animal in the Wild getting its dinner and how humans generally exploit animals, it isn’t just simply a natural food cycle. We wreck eco-systems, destroy environments (even unintentionally), the way the meat industry goes about murder, raping and torturing animals is just awful to say the least.

All this shit we do to animals we use as food would be considered animal abuse to animals we generally have as pets, we arbitrarily draw a line.

We are not equal to a Lion eating a Water Buffalo, it’s not seeming itself more important, it’s eating. We as human deem ourselves more important, which is why me mass produce them, rape them and pump them full of chemicals. Though of course none of this means humans should suffer and die in retaliation, but we should value all life rather than just our own.

I don’t know where we as humans we get to decide our lives are more important than other species and justify doing what we do.

I value human life, but by an individual basis on how said individual values all life, not just humans.

 

[MakeDigitalLove]

Two nice things about alley cats is that they don’t seem to go on shooting rampages and they haven’t yet been implicated in the cause of global warming.

Though perhaps you have some serious moral criticism to level against them?

Of course, that’s unlikely.

I happen to care about humans AND other species. I don’t want people to die in mass shootings OR elephants either.

I absolutely despise propositions like this that deliberately confuse the two.

I love this idea from people that apparently one can’t fathom the idea of someone valuing animal and human life at the same time. This sentiment is not restricted to this subject but people seem to have a problem understanding that people can care about more than one thing at a time and it’s not more/less.

 

[peeonme]

In an ironic fashion many replies have explained to me why we see the violence against human life that we do. It is self inflicted, we don't see animals from the wild roaming our schools and eating children.

We kill ourselves, we have been infected with the thought that man, our fellow man, our children and parents are inherently evil. I would have expected this to come from religious zealots of some type, but rather I see it coming from a group that is largely secular and perhaps humanist.

Terms such as "glob of cells" or "(no) better than a salamander") tell a story of a self loathing, a contempt and hatred for humans from humans.

What a sad existence.