Geneaux486

Nice! I still need to survive the waves and sneak past the guards to get back to 100% achievments.

The right to life is a moral right, and in most cases it’s also a legal and ethical one. If it’s already begun the development process towards birth, then yes, it is a living thing that died. If it didn’t implant and was evacuated, then it failed due to natural causes. The risk of dying from natural causes, obviously, does not go away when we are born. Not by law. And if it didn’t implant, it didn’t start its development process. The sperm and the egg are a potential person, not a developing person. Contraception is not the same as killing a developing fetus. Then look harder.

To the Earth was an NES game that utilized that light gun toy, basically just a view of outer space and you'd point and shoot at the aliens and whatnot. I was hooked on it for a few days and had a blast playing it when I was a kid.

No one. So you believe the concept of morality doesn't exist outside of a person's interpretation of it. That is where you and I disagree, but I've talked at great length about where moral rights come from, so I won't repeat myself right now.

Yeah, you said that already. It's still wrong. Those are all stages of a living human being, the difference being what moral rights a person has at each of those stages. I argue that a person's basic right to live exists from the moment the person itself does. Your child = adult response and your adult = corpse response don't contradict that idea at all.

No, they already have them. As I said, you can't believe in morality without believing in moral rights. Sperm and eggs are potential, a fetus is an already existing, developing human being, not potential. lol no. Calling a fetus a developing human being =/= legalizing pedophilia. Easily the most amusing strawman argument in this thread yet.

This is different from usual how? Rights are legal, ethical, or moral entitlements. To say they only extend to human beings goes beyond the most basic definition of rights. Your definition of rights is based on your own interpretation, not fact. And humans need, in order to survive, the ability to grow in develop in the womb. Following your logic, it is a violation of rights through force to remove that developing human being from the womb and let it die, or kill it in the womb. I’m not implying anything, or talking in hypotheticals. Rights already do violate other rights. And no, it is not statism. Okay seriously, you have to be aware that force is always going to be initiated on other human beings in damn near every type of society aside from total anarchy. It is morally wrong to pay someone less than they’re worth. It is morally wrong to extinguish a human life without there being a discernable difference between that life and any other human life. You’re the one who keeps bringing it back to statism. My views are not statism, as I’ve proven time and again. You keep trying to make it sound like statism, but you have not succeeded. Then we have no right to kill it. Your argument contradicts itself. Yes I can, because not every situation involves the woman dying. My argument, on the other hand, does not contradict itself. Illogical comparison. You do not have the right to kick your child out onto the street because you simply don’t feel like using resources on him or her. Furthermore, you keep saying we don’t have the right to initiate force, but this argument is only relevant if we can factually say that a developing human being has no right to live. This is not factual. There is literally no basis for this statement. Like, you just have to ignore biology in general for this to work. Like I said, when you say “by definition” you are not, in fact, using an actual, official definition, you are using your own interpretation, which is highly debatable, and then when I point this fact out, you call me a statist, or a moral relativist, etc. Yes it’s a strawman argument, no my view is not identical, or even highly similar. It’s more that we simply can’t treat other living things in certain ways if there is no discernable difference between us and them. For instance, needlessly inflicting pain on other living things that can feel and understand pain is morally wrong, we do not have the right to do it, just as no one has the right to do it to us. It is not wrong, however, to forbid a dog from voting because dogs are not capable of reasoning on that level. It’s the capacity of a living thing that determines what we should or should not do to it from a moral standpoint. This is completely untrue. My views that rights are dependent on the capacity of a living thing can not lead to anti-human ideals because humans have the capacity to do many things other living beings cannot. That does not mean that all non-human living beings have no rights whatsoever, nor does it mean humans are dead even with other living things in terms of rights. There is no foundation upon which you can say that anti-human ideals follow logically from that. Oversimplification. This is one reason, but not the only one. Then the responding entity has the right to defend itself. Let’s say the homeless person broke into your house. The above conditions were true, and you kicked him out. At that point you’re defending your property. If you want to compare this issue to pregnancy though, we have to include one key element of this hypothetical situation, and at that point your comparison defeats your own argument, not mine. If you were the one who brought the homeless person into your house, then kicked him out knowing full well that he would die immediately thereafter, and in fact did die, that is murder, not self-defense. It sounds like one because it is one. Yeah, I know what your point was, and it’s still a strawman in the context you used it. If someone busts their butt to produce something for you, and you don’t compensate them fairly (fairly being their work relative to what you’ll charge for the product), then you are wronging that person, and violating their rights. Legal wages being arbitrary could not be less relevant here. They work at that wage because they have no other option, and the company in question takes advantage of that and pays them less than their work is worth relative to what it is being marketed for. Yes, the worker is being screwed over. You can say “No one is being screwed over” three times next go around if you want, it still won’t be any less false. What, because I said your reasoning was cold? It damn sure is. That’s not an appeal to pity, that’s just calling it like it is. Better than you do, it seems. Then your interpretation of rights and morality is simply insufficient and incomplete. You cannot morally justify someone taking advantage of someone else’s desperate situation to get cheap labor out of them. But the nature of its existence does come with rights, because it’s a developing human being, exactly like us, and we have rights, and we had them in every stage of our existence. You are doing the exact thing you say I don’t have the right to do. You’ve said over and over again that the fetus has no right to live as a parasite. That is setting a condition for the existence of another human being. And again, you’ve set conditions for whether or not it can continue to exist. The core of your argument in this thread cannot support itself. Not if the woman isn’t actually going to die from the pregnancy it’s not. And I’ve advocated no such thing. Again I say, you say “by definition” repeatedly in your arguments, but then throw around phrases like “sacrificing a life” in situations where a life is not going to end. That is a double standard. This is utterly illogical. A living being cannot be compared to a dead one. Rights can be legal, ethical, and/or moral. Rights given by a majority would be legal or ethical, never moral. No one can assign a living thing moral rights, all living things have them. To say otherwise is to say morality itself does not exist, which some people do, but that’s a much deeper debate for another thread. Rights and morality go hand-in-hand. But your labeling of “potential life” is incorrect, which is the problem with your line of reasoning. A sperm and egg are a potential life/potential baby. The fetus is not a potential anything, it already exists, it’s already growing and developing. It is a developing life, not a potential one. But animals and fetuses do have rights, as they are living things. They will not have the same rights as a full grown adult, but they will have rights. Really, the basis of our disagreement is what has moral rights and what doesn’t. I see little logical justification and no moral justification for your view that only fully formed humans have any rights at all.

Nice. Will this be your first time doing LotSB?

Ditto.

I can’t prove my view is true, not on this matter. Neither can you. To believe otherwise at this point is simply delusional. The third part of your quote does not apply to me. I believe that when a view has not yet been proven true or false, it just means we need to keep researching and/or debating it. Wasn’t an arbitrary statement, it was a simple observation. And you can’t argue that outlawing abortion is statism without believing that the fetus does not have the right to live. If one does believe the fetus has a right to live, then it’s the same as wanting murder of any other sort to be illegal. Irrelevant to what I said. First of all, rights by definition are not inalienable. Most of the time they are considered such, but that’s really just splitting hairs. We have no moral power to take another life, this is true, but in a sense you’re supporting my argument against taking the life of the developing human being. You hold terms to definition when it supports your argument but throw around phrases like “taking life” in situations where no one is, in fact, going to die. And most of the time when you say “by definition” you aren’t even right about that. You don’t know what you’re talking about here. I’m just gonna stop you right there and point out that I’m not Peter Singer, and from what I read of the rest of your strawman argument here I could not disagree more with his views. My statement is similar to the crux of his argument? So what? My statement standing by itself does not say any of what you followed that with. I can think of many humans that don’t do those things. Furthermore, animals in their basic instincts, in many instances, do in fact respect each other’s territories, and can establish beneficial relationships with other species of animals in their ecosystems. You are dead wrong about rights having no meaning to beings besides humans. They don’t have the same meaning as they do to humans, but they do have some meaning. If you remove a homeless person from your house and kill him in the process, then that is murder. Unless he’s trying to kill you, in which case it’s self-defense. Another strawman argument. There’s really nothing more I need say about it. There’s nothing irrational about a company having a moral, ethical, and in many cases legal obligation to pay workers what they are worth. Besides, my point was that it was harmful for corporations to do these things. Which it is. That’s cold. Pretense aside, it’s because they know they can get away with screwing over these people to cut costs and maximize profit. Which is one reason why corporations having a lot of control is a bad thing. This coming from the guy who tries to justify corporations underpaying child laborers to minimize cost. Wrong. It is a perfectly reasonable viewpoint to say that we do not have the right to terminate the fetus when it already exists, and will grow into an adult human being if we do not interfere. And just because the fetus must live as a parasite does not mean that we have the right to decide that it can’t live anymore.

This one is aware of the what the other is thinking. Did this one eject five thermal clips or six? This one wonders if the other considers himself fortunate.

Might you be insinuating snidely or asserting disingenuously? Of course not, doctor/patient confidentiality a sacred trust! Would never dream of mockery.

Indeed. I would definitely call it a sport of sorts. A speed run definetely requires a high level of dexterity and a good sense of timing to do well.

Disease doesn't appear to be intelligent, at least. Unless it's higly intelligent, and toying with you. Hmm, tests.

Wasn't it Die Hard 3? With Samuel L. Jackson? EDIT: Yep, he was in Die Hard 3. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000460/

Was Firepower the one with the Geth Shotgun, the pistol with the laser-point, and the automatic sniper rifle? I don't remember which gear comes in which expansion, but I did get them all, yeah. The arc projector is damn near the only heavy weapon I use, mostly because I don't like aiming. It's a good way to deal with the stuff I can't just charge in and beat down. Gotta love the Kestrel armor set, to. Sentinels can make good use of the stat boosts on it, right?

A lot of these characters were modelled after real people, weren't they? I think Gman was modelled after Michael Shapiro? Alyx definetely came from a real face.

The praetorians were so damn frustrating. At least you only fight two of them. Fighting them on insanity was about the only point where playing a Vanguard seemed like a terrible idea.

I never wasn’t. And again, to say that this is the only determinate as to what one living thing should or should not morally do to another is untrue. But this is not factual. This would be like saying legal rights define law, which is not the case. To not force a developing human life to die when it otherwise would not* And again, this is merely your opinion, not fact. It is a conclusion one can draw from observing reality, but it is not the only conclusion. Rights are relevant to all living things, extending to them in different capacities. A baby that has the capacity to grow into a full adult and is doing so has the right to live as much as anyone else. Not saying I advocate it, just that that’s how it is. But it’s sacrificing an entity that is dead because its rights were violated. Untrue, both going by the definition of rights, and the way the world actually works. And if you seriously think they can’t and don’t, then I say the same to you. No, it doesn’t. I didn’t say certainty was impossible, I said you were wrong. Those are two completely different discussions. Not even close. It is wrong to treat someone differently in any given way if there is no discernable difference between us and them. For instance, a dog can feel pain, and it is capable of realizing that it is in pain. Our basic sense of pain is the same. We would want to be protected from experiencing undue pain, so it follows that a dog has the same right to be protected of it as well. Say we go by your logic, that rights are determined by reason. We can use that reason to determine that there is no difference between our basic sense of pain and that of a dog. Therefore, it would be logically unsound to say that the dog does not deserve what we deserve in regards to pain. Is it morally wrong to cause a dog undue pain? Yes. Is it right for a government to establish laws against animal cruelty? Yes. A dog would not, however, have the right to vote, or drive a car, because its mental capabilities make it unable to do these things. A fetus has the capacity to develop into a fully functioning human being, and will do so if not interfered with by others. There is no discernable difference between its capacity to develop and ours, which is why I believe we have no right to terminate it. I believe either of us could be wrong. That does not mean certainty is impossible. And the conclusion you draw based on that observation is not factual. Some things are certain, yes. We can reason, this is undeniable. This does mean that we have rights that other forms of life do not have. That this makes the concept of rights exclusive to us is incorrect. But the hobo can survive physically leaving your house, and you’re still forbidden by law from killing him. Your comparison defeats itself here. Agreed. There is no basis for such a claim. If a corporation provides the only source of employment for a community and pays them ten cents to make a shirt when those wages aren’t enough to cover expenses then sells the shirt for fifteen dollars, then yes, the workers are being underpaid and yes, it is morally wrong to do so. Not in the situations I’m describing. The fact that the corporations who do this target those areas because they know they won’t have to negotiate with employees is precisely the problem.

I don’t contest this. I contest that this is a deciding factor in rights as a whole. Because it’s not. And your answer is just “me”. Logic dictates that rights extend to all living things according to their capacities. To believe otherwise is selfishness. Though if you’re an egoist then that explains it. But it has no choice in the matter, therefore it does not mean that the fetus has no rights. Lawmakers, is what it boils down to. But from a moral standpoint, we cannot say that we have the right to harvest our own for science. Oh but it does. Rights will always infringe on other rights in a world of limited resources. Carbon dioxide is harmful to the ozone layer, but we cannot help but do it to survive, because our purpose is to live. To that point we agree. There’s nothing objective about this line of thought. A fetus is just another stage of a human being’s life. No. Your view is not factual, it is highly debateable, therefore it is nothing more than a belief. In my opinion, an incorrect one at that. Like I said, call it what you want, I don’t really care. Refer to my earlier explanation as to why I believe rights apply to the things they do. Furthermore, burden of proof would be just as much on you as it would me. I agree that we can’t both be right. We also can’t know for sure which of us is right. Your view is just that, a view, not an observation. And the human being in question isn’t violating one’s right to life, it is fulfilling a biological imperative in its development. If we go along with your line of reasoning, we would have to abort all fetuses. The government also has the power to pass laws that restrict our behavior as well. What point are you trying to make here? That’s my bad, I misunderstood you. We disagree about how limited the government should be. The corporation should pay their workers what their work was worth. Many are not doing that. And no, it does not follow from there that the workers would have to give proportionally to the corporation’s loss. The workers should be correctly compensated for their work, bottom line. And there have been cases where they will pull out of an area if they find another, cheaper source of labor. You’re avoiding the point here, that the corporation is still wronging a worker who they do not compensate fairly for their work. If they’re the only employer in that area, that makes it even worse. You’re oversimplifying. But I’m not talking about being paid relative to the going price of what the worker has made. I’m talking about situations in which they are underpaid relative to what the product is being sold for, because the company knows it can get away with it.

As you wish, consider it dropped.

You haven’t observed reason=life, you simply think this is the case, and the conclusion you’ve drawn is insufficient and does not take into account all life and what morally should and should not be done to it. No, that is observation. And this biological necessity does not invalidate its right to live. And the cost of obtaining embryonic stem cells is too great. Again, what we can do vs. what we ought to do. Fetus, baby, developing human, whatever you wish to call it doesn’t change what it is. What gives us the right to exhale carbon dioxide into the atmosphere? We cannot avoid doing these things, therefore the fact that we must do them does not invalidate our rights. Is that what you believe? Or are you trying to suggest that’s what I believe? Substitute “realize” with “believe” and you’re right, though your incorrect wording also indicates said impasse. This is the point where I think you’re wrong. Things that reason have rights that extend to the capacity of that reasoning. Things that cannot reason, or reason in a lesser capacity, get rights that extend to them. Only if one excepts your view of rights, which has been proven to be highly debateable. And you cannot argue this without saying it’s okay to take the life of another human being. The fact remains, one alternative results in two lives, the other results in one life and one death. You can’t call the taxpayer a financial slave to the government without calling the government a slave to the people. Not when the government is doing what it’s supposed to do with tax money, anyway. In the US, the police, judicial system, and military are all federally funded and controlled by the government, therefore “mixed-economy” does not imply anything of the sort. And I say the same of you, or any lawmaker. Nor can government officials. If they’re caught, they would be. They aren’t always caught, and the fear of being caught is rarely enough to deter a person, much less a corporation. But that’s just it. When I say they are underpaid, I mean they are underpaid for the product they make relative to what it is sold for shortly after it has been made. As was I. And when there is no better option? It’s still immoral to take advantage of them when you’re the only game in town and you know you don’t have to pay them what they’re worth. To keep them coming back for more. As in, they get paid something as opposed to nothing. They have the moral right to work at fair wages, yes. And it is morally wrong to underpay them, especially when one knows they are still the best option for the underpaid and do so for that reason.

Yes, and if he loses something because you obtain it, someone has done something wrong. Then they aren't fit to handle the distribution of the basic things we need to survive. Likewise. No, it does not imply that. What I said I said in response to your assertion that your perception of rights is, well, right. I think it's wrong. Can you say your perception is factually right? No, you cannot. That is not the same as saying there are many different valid perceptions of rights. I didn't say you said I did. I said they don't so as to differentiate them from subjectivism.

I ain’t a subjectivist. You deserve the basic necessities to survive no more or less than I do. Whoever is in charge of distributing them is responsible for seeing that they are distributed without prejudice. And drawing incorrect conclusions from it, like you say I have done. Again: It’s not subjectivism if what I’m doing isn’t in line with it. I don’t consider myself a subjectivist, and from what you’ve said, I don’t even act like a subjectivist. My views of rights do not literally justify anything, in fact it’s quite the opposite.

Sorry in advance, QuietGrave. If I’m a subjectivist, then so are you. Are there different interpretations of rights? In the legal sense, of course there are, but that’s not what we’re really arguing, is it. At the core, we are arguing about moral rights, what one living thing should or should not do to another. No, I do not believe this is just up to everyone’s interpretation. You and I clearly disagree on what moral rights are, and who and what they apply to. However, I don’t think yours works for you and mine works for me, which is subjectivism in a nutshell, I think you’re wrong, just as you think the same of me. I cannot say “You are definitely wrong” because that would not be factual, just as you cannot say the same of me. Life in the metaphysical sense meaning the woman’s right to get an abortion, but not a developing human’s right to live. What kind of society do you want? One where killing our young is an acceptable choice? And by extension, using terminated fetuses in stem cell research, harvesting our dead young for our own sake? That is what sounds horrible. That is what sounds evil to me. Pregnancy is a difficult thing to go through, but it’s part of life, like many other things. There is a large difference between what we can do and what we should do. The baby already exists. It is already living, it is already growing, it is already on the path to becoming a full grown adult. What gives us the right to deprive it of the chance at life that we have all received? Nothing. This is flat out not true. I have seen firsthand that it is not true. Instincts are a powerful thing, and nine times out of ten they will kick in. Melodramatic and logically unsound. Unless the woman’s life is actually in danger, keeping the child alive is no such thing. You make it sound far bleaker than it truly is to have a child. Did I say this was the case with all Siamese twins? The answer is no, I did not. I specifically said “If the two share one or more vital organs and have to be separated”. Yes, that kind of situation does arise, and when it happens, someone has to make a life or death choice. My point here still holds, and it still explains my stance on a situation in which either the mother or child may die. Unless the mother actually physically dies, not it is not. That’s not even a perspective issue. Living =/= dying, plain and simple. You could say you see it as being close to death, and though I’d argue that point, at least I couldn’t honestly say it was flat out wrong. You could assign the instincts conversely as well. A woman who changes her mind about an abortion could be overriding her instinctive fear of what the future will hold, just as a woman giving her baby up for adoption could very well be acting in her protective instinct because she feels as though someone else will take better care of the child than herself. I think a lot about how we do things needs to change. I do not think abortion should be legal or federally funded, so I guess you do have an issue with me. I also don’t think that lawmakers just up and pulling the rug out from under doctors and women in these situations and sending them off to prison is good either. In most cases, there is a reason the woman feels as though abortion is the best choice. Whatever the cause of that is, and, there are numerous, those are the issues we should focus on first. Basically, doing our best not to leave anyone helpless. You said their motives don’t change the effects of their actions. You claim those effects are, in a sense, the destruction of life. I say, that view is not factual. I say they are not definitely doing any harm, or are going to do any harm, with their pro-life views. By extension, you assertion that them calling themselves pro-life is ironic, is not true. I’m basically repeating myself here. First of all, you’re not arguing with an archetype. Secondly, one’s actions are moral if they benefit someone else, yes, and immoral if they harm someone else unnecessarily i.e. killing something that isn’t trying to kill you. Label it however you want, it will not make a difference in this discussion, or to me. See my earlier post wherein I stated my reasoning as to what determines rights, who they extend to, and in what capacity. I would literally just be copying and pasting that. I didn’t deviate from my previous points at all. I explained my position quite clearly. In an instance where either the mother will die, or the baby will die, someone is going to have to make that choice. Either way, only one life will be spared, and in some cases both will die. You omitted the first part, where I said “The reason we care about this issue”, so it follows that when I say “we care about others” I mean “those of us who care about this issue”. That includes you to, though you seem hesitant to admit it. Taking money from people who choose to live in the country. Corporations having too much control would be a disaster, and the government controlling everything sort of would be to. Mixed is the best way to go, in my opinion, because some things need to be handled by an entity who’s goal is not to make a profit at any cost. Conversely, there are some things that I don’t believe the government could properly manage themselves. No it isn’t. You can end the parasitic existence, but that ends the developing life. And, people have done that without modern technology. The fact remains that for a human being to actually exist, the parasitic existence is unavoidable. Which, in most cases, goes hand in hand with corporations that are competitive and driven by an insatiable hunger for profit at all costs. And if a businessman gets away with something crooked, that’s not justice and the society continues to get screwed over by it. And if they found a way to make money without having to feed you, or could make the same amount feeding you substandard goods, ethics alone wouldn’t stop such a large entity from doing so. Yes, and corporations take advantage of that, compensating them for far less than their work is worth because they know they can get away with it. It’s easy for you to sit on your high horse and say “This system benefits me, those other people should be grateful for what little they’ve got.” I’ve seen interviews with workers in these third world countries, and when asked if what they make from these factories is actually enough to sustain them, they say “no”. The fact is that many are being taken advantage of. They will get just enough to keep them coming back for more while losing their childhood and everything else because the corporation sees the lack of protective laws for workers there as a means to cut cost by underpaying them. Does every corporation do this? Probably not. Many do. It may be better than some other alternatives, but that does not make it the best, not by far. There we are in agreement.