Fight Fire with Fire

[loinburger]

At what age (if any) should it be illegal to kill a child who is the product of rape?

[giblets]

Neither is the life of the fetus; unfortunately, we're presented with a dilemma.

No, the pregnant woman is.

[regexcellent]

No, the pregnant woman is.

If the child has rights, then the mother does not get to make unilateral decisions about whether he lives or dies. Government exists to protect people from harming each other. This is exactly the sort of thing that falls under any reasonable notion of governmental responsibility, if you believe the fetus is a person.

[giblets]

If the child has rights, then the mother does not get to make unilateral decisions about whether he lives or dies. Government exists to protect people from harming each other. This is exactly the sort of thing that falls under any reasonable notion of governmental responsibility, if you believe the fetus is a person.

You're equating withholding aid with harm. Does the government exist to force you to help others?

[Aeson]

Except, it's got nothing to do with the mental state of the user. Users can log in regardless of their mental state. That's what makes it useful for authentication that the user can log in using a specific key that does not change.

Um ... memory has nothing to do with the mental state of a person? WTF?

Except for the fact that brain scans are very time consuming, they are useless as a key because you'd have to replicate the exact same state again, and it's impossible to identify the user through it. We have better and cheaper standards that already exist. Why use something that's slower, more expensive and worse?

You're using current technology to make claims about future technology. Pretty absurd.

And I really, really doubt, that we'll ever see such a thing used for authentication purposes. It just doesn't make sense. If you've got the power required to do the scan, why would you do that over DNA? Just because you don't like DNA doesn't mean that others will share that antipathy.

As I said, we already use mental state for authentication, we just use an inborn and easily trained method of translating it to a computer readable form. So you're already wrong, and technological progress is surely going to make you even more wrong in the future.

DNA has fundamental problems. It is extremely easy to lose control of (eg. if I have your hair clippings, I have your DNA) and even ignoring that is not a valid delimiter between people (biological twins).

Keys work because they stay the same when other things change. Brain scans do not. Using brain scans as authentication will never happen. Ever.

All keys are corruptible. A remembered password is forgettable.

You don't seem to understand what memory is.

Yes, I can do that quite easily, fwiw. As I've said about 10 different times, I have no issues with distinguishing between your hair and you. Simply because I can dispose of the hair without getting rid of you.

No. You are applying circular logic to define me, which isn't backed by DNA. Both the hair and I have DNA. Which is me? Well you're using something other than DNA to determine, because DNA is a horrible way to determine what is me and what is not.

Sentience on the other hand is the best possible way to determine what is me, and what is not. Because I am not simply a bunch of atoms or even cells. I am the output of software running on that organic platform. The discarded hair is just part of that platform that has little to no impact on the operation of the software.

Your 'superior' standard excludes a significant period of human development.

It's good you can admit there is a time in human development when the fertilized egg is not sentient or feeling.

DNA is far superior as it correctly includes a significant period of human development which your standard can't do. Ergo, DNA is the better standard.

No, it's far worse because it incorrectly determines that reg and HC are the same person, it determines that some people are multiple people, and it can't differentiate between a pile of hair or the person that it was cut off of.

Exactly what lie are you accusing me of telling?

Most everything you say is dishonest. You may believe your own lies on some level, but I don't believe you are so lacking in intelligence that you can't understand t hat HC and reg are not the same person. You just choose to ignore the fact that identical twins share the same DNA to decide that the issue of personhood should be solely in the court of "what has DNA".

Then you aren't honest enough to admit (or even acknowledge the argument) that the reason why the pile of my hair (which has DNA) and I (which have the same DNA) are not morally equivalent is because of the sentient capacity of me (my brain) and the lack thereof of my hair.

[Aeson]

As a thought-experiment ... which portion of your physical body would you least like to be replaced with a functionally similar (not exact) organ?

(This is directed at BK, so the obvious dick jokes need not apply.)

[Aeson]

Aeson, I ask a question. If you only know me through apolyton and I've been prolife 100 percent of the time on Apolyton, how would you know anything as to how I came about to become prolife in the first place? Logically, accusing me of lying makes no sense whatsoever because you've not known me from this period.

I didn't say you were lying about being prolife. You are being dishonest about how you address specific factual matters. Why you do that I really don't care, but it's obvious you are doing it.

[Aeson]

edit: this is why the one and only legitimate argument for abortion is that it's not killing. If you think it is killing then your moral foundations have to be severely ****ed up to think this is okay.

Even the most devout Buddhist monk is killing millions of bacteria via their immune system. Killing is not the delineation. What is being killed is.

[C0ckney]

really, an abortion thread. the debate is over in most western countries and hopefully the others will follow suit in the not too distant future.

[loinburger]

I think it's an interesting topic in that it's only a matter of time before somebody transfers their brain to a hard drive and the Ben Kenobis of the world say that it's okay to kill him because he doesn't have human DNA or because he left his soul behind in his pineal gland or whatever.

[C0ckney]

i grant you that it will be amusing to hear them talk about what biblical verses govern such situations.

[loinburger]

The problem is that I can't very well start a thread on what constitutes sentience (where "sentience" = "moral intelligence" for lack of a better definition, i.e. what entities have the inherent right to life for lack of a less libertarian way of putting it), because the answers would either be religious in nature (and as I'm not religious this wouldn't be very helpful), or else they'd be really stupid ("sentience = human, or my dog who is really smart"), or else the thread would be avoided by those who knew that it would be deluged with religious and/or stupid responses. I could try posing the question on a more "intellectual" forum like the Straightdope message boards, but self-styled intellectuals are usually asshats.

[loinburger]

**** it, let's see what happens

[Ben Kenobi]

I think it's an interesting topic in that it's only a matter of time before somebody transfers their brain to a hard drive and the Ben Kenobis of the world say that it's okay to kill him because he doesn't have human DNA or because he left his soul behind in his pineal gland or whatever.

If it's ok to dismember children because their mother doesn't want them, what would possibly be wrong with this? If you can't recognize the humanity of certain human persons because it's inconvenient, why would we expect restraint here?

[Ben Kenobi]

But getting rid of abortions alone doesn't solve anything.

Just like banning lynching doesn't solve the root problem? Dr. MLK had a quick answer to this - "the laws cannot force the white man to love me, but it can stop him from lynching me." Same here. We cannot preserve the life of the unborn child unless we actually have laws on the books banning abortion and saying that the unborn child is a person, with the same right to life as any of us.

And the root of the problem is this: as a society, we no longer want sex and reproduction to be definitively linked.

So you're suggesting that because people want to own slaves that we should permit them to do so? Or should we restrain this through the use of the laws banning slavery? See, this is the point. You're very much willing to use laws to change peoples behavior when it suits you but unwilling to accept that the same can be done to things that you like.

The reality is quite simple - you were once in your mother's womb. Everyone of us had to pass through this stage of life. If we are persons now than we were persons then and killing us now is just as wrong as it was to kill us then.

So it's pretty clear what the solution is: we should genetically engineer humans to be born sterile, and fetuses should be cultivated in artificial wombs. Boom. Problem solved.

So you don't believe that autonomy includes the ability to choose for yourself whether you can or cannot have children? Wow.

Do you also favor sterilizing the unfit against their will?