Topical Discussion - Please try to get overly angry/upset

[Lieva]

you dont

thing is you cant use the fact the human might do more for mankind than the rabbit will to experiment on it.
From watching the news i wouldnt be so sure

[OohhoO]

you dont

thing is you cant use the fact the human might do more for mankind than the rabbit will to experiment on it.
From watching the news i wouldnt be so sure

OK the rabbit probably gets my vote.

[Lairiodd]

It's all very difficult, because it raises so many delicate moral/ethical issues:-

1) Is it ethically/morally acceptable to use the law of "might is right" to inflict suffering on so-called "lesser-species" to "advance" the cause of our own species?

It is not might is right (though we are clearly more powerful than them), it is that they are not intelligent enough to understand rights.

2) Does someone who signed a 16-page get-out-contract have a legal right to compensation outside that contract? That the unfortunate victims have a moral right to compensation should be obvious, but shouldn't the extent of that compensation be thoroughly documented within said contract rather than being drawn through years of largely destructive legal processes which really only serve to enrich the vultures of the legal profession?

They don't have any right other than what the contact says. Having said that, they probably will get something. Also, perhaps the contact covers it.

I was watching an interview with the guy who was the "control" for the experiment. He was just given a placebo. I bet he is pretty happy.

3) Is the general direction of medical scientific investigation to extend the QUANTITY of human life rather that its QUALITY (Danger! - Generalisation) really the morally or ethically right direction? Should we be aiming for 80-100 years of life in dubious health or 40-50 years of perpetual youth & then lights out?

Question 3 raises yet more delicate moral/ethical issues regarding scientific investigation of our basic genetic structure and the tissues which would be needed (placentas, aborted phoetae) for that investigation.

That is irrelevant to the discussion. If drugs are focused for quality or quantity of years, they still need to be tested. Clearly, if you mean that we shouldn't try to extend life at all then that is a bad idea.

Personally I'd go for 40-50 years of perpetual youth without abuse of other species & then byebye (although most other quatrogenerians would probably have a different viewpoint), but that standpoint is very probably extremely hypocritical in itself.

Erm, you don't get perpetual youth atm anyway. In any case, probably in no more than 100 years, we will have life extension tech that will give entended life that no only extends life but prevents aging.

Killing animals to entend life seems like a good thing to me. Look at the number of people who die of old age every year. If we could half the aging rate, we could cut that in 2.

In western countries, the problem Today is not overpopulation, but underpopulation. There would be much less friction with immigration if the native populations were also expanding.

Wouldn't it be horrible if you died 10 years before they managed to half the rate of aging. Probably once they manage that, 10 years later they would half it again and so on.

Here the short version for people who don't like long sentences:-

1) I'm a moderate supporter of animal rights.
2) I don't like lawyers.
3) I'd rather fuck like a rabbit till I'm 50 than shit my pants till I'm 100.

TYVM&BBFN

But 4 is better " ... fuck like a rabbit till .... I'm 100 .... "

Well of course if you personally know the human or the rabbit then personal bias comes into it, and

That's a good point. Maybe my question should be:

Which would you choose:

Button A: -- A human somewhere dies
Button B: -- X mice somewhere die

And at what X would you switch from B to A ?

[OohhoO]

In western countries, the problem Today is not overpopulation, but underpopulation. There would be much less friction with immigration if the native populations were also expanding.

I might have agreed with this if I hadn't moved to Switzerland years ago. In Switzerland 95% of the population grows up in very small flats with an extremely restricted amount of personal space, due to relatively high population within an extremely restricted realistically habitable space. This leads to people growing up being extremely defensive of their personal space & basically not being socially capable of letting anyone else into it. A population of jealously defensive individualists with little or no sense of sociality. I can imagine similar situations in Hong Kong, Singapore, or many other densely populated cities or countries. If this is the envisioned future of a human race with unrestricted QUANTITY then it's really not something which I could think of as being in any way desirable.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not slagging any specific place off, but I think it should be apparent to everyone that density of population aggravates social problems. Look at New York, Paris, London ... & density of population is a problem of QUANTITY of human life to the detriment of QUALITY of human life.

[Xest]

In western countries, the problem Today is not overpopulation, but underpopulation. There would be much less friction with immigration if the native populations were also expanding.

It all depends on how you define overpopulation, sure there's billions of acres of land spare but how much of it is ideal to live in? Northern Canada/Russia are too cold, Africa is too hot and suffers droughts/starvation. We have the rainforests but they're an important oxygen supply. We need to do some serious terraforming to make large parts of the earth inhabitable, Africa is doable if we could get decent water supplies in on a large scale rather than just a few random wells - likewise for central australia.

In the UK we have 60 million acres of land and 60 million people. If you then remove all the uninhabitable areas that are covered by roads, beaches, cliffs, water and so on that drops drastically, more so if you start taking into account all the areas that are taken up by unusable parts of buildings (such as the walls), certainly in England we are drastically overpopulated. Here's a satellite image of Europe at night:



I think that demonstrates it quite nicely

[Lairiodd]

. If this is the envisioned future of a human race with unrestricted QUANTITY then it's really not something which I could think of as being in any way desirable.

I think human life is worth something. This means that the more people the better.

The more people there are, the less resources (as a percentage) that needs to be diverted for once off expenses. For example, a cure to a disease is twice as valuable if there is twice as many people. Likewise, technology only needs to be developed once and can be used by everyone. It takes the same effort to invent a mobile phone in a world with 6 billion people as one with 1 billion. However, the value of the invention is less as there as less customers. This means science develops slower.

I remember reading somewhere that there is something like 1 major world changing breakthrough roughly every 100 billion person years (can't remember the exact number). This means that if there is a population of 10 billion, there will be a major breakthrough every 10 years. However, in 5000-10000BC, the population was only around 10 million. This means that there would only be 1 major breakthrough in 10000 years or so (probably the agricultural revolution).

Don't get me wrong. I'm not slagging any specific place off, but I think it should be apparent to everyone that density of population aggravates social problems. Look at New York, Paris, London ... & density of population is a problem of QUANTITY of human life to the detriment of QUALITY of human life.

Do you think people who live in those cities should commit suicide (or at least some of them) ? If not, why not ? If the answer is no, then maybe you agree that human life is worth something, even in high density places like those. Also, as I said, there are people immigrating into those places, so that means that there is not enough people for all the jobs etc.

More people might lead to more wars, but if you believe that on balance human life is a good thing, then the more people the better.

Also, my point with regard to underpopulation was that in alot of western countries the natives are actually declining in population. There aren't enough children. This is causing issues with pensions etc. A country which doesn't need immigration is a good thing as immigrants are not as likely to be seen as "taking over". You wouldn't have people complaining that the first thing immigrants seem to do on arrival is have lots of children.

[Lairiodd]

It all depends on how you define overpopulation,

I was thinking more of growth rates, esp in the western world. In any case, the planet can easily support 10-20 billion people and in the longer run, technology can help. Large scale space technology has the potential to completely solve it.

sure there's billions of acres of land spare but how much of it is ideal to live in? Northern Canada/Russia are too cold, Africa is too hot and suffers droughts/starvation.

Most of Africa's problems are social. If the embraced capitalism (or even just a moderately free market + democracy), they would be alot better off. Capitalist countries don't have famines.

We have the rainforests but they're an important oxygen supply. We need to do some serious terraforming to make large parts of the earth inhabitable, Africa is doable if we could get decent water supplies in on a large scale rather than just a few random wells - likewise for central australia.

In the UK we have 60 million acres of land and 60 million people. If you then remove all the uninhabitable areas that are covered by roads, beaches, cliffs, water and so on that drops drastically, more so if you start taking into account all the areas that are taken up by unusable parts of buildings (such as the walls), certainly in England we are drastically overpopulated. Here's a satellite image of Europe at night:



I think that demonstrates it quite nicely

Yeah, look at all the black spots , if it was overpopulated, there would be only light. Also, some overpopulated regions are probably darker.

In any case, the picture is a pretty impressive indication of people can do.

Also, remember that cities are crowded for economic reasons. It is not due to lack of space that the crowding occurs. If everyone spread out evenly, then it would be 1 acre per person.

If all the hype about the internet really came true, you could spread the population out over the entire country and people would use the internet to work. Another possibility would be something like super cheap helicopters (or even the generic flying car). This would allow people to live further from where they work, as there would be no traffic jams and also no cost to build/maintain roads. I think in that case, people would still crowd up ... why spend 10 mins flying to work when you can spend 2 mins .

[OohhoO]

Do you think people who live in those cities should commit suicide (or at least some of them) ? If not, why not ?

I think you will find that the suicide rate actually does get higher the more densely populated an area is. Human beings need space to develop healthily. Same argument as battery hens really.

[Lieva]

moved some off topic posts to spam central where its been locked.

kindly quit with the dumb answers please.

:glare:

[Satyn]

I think you will find that the suicide rate actually does get higher the more densely populated an area is. Human beings need space to develop healthily. Same argument as battery hens really.

suicide rate has to do with a lot more than population of areas. But I do agree that it must be a big part of it. More ppl, more stress ... a lot of anything is bad. Unless then money ... but if you dont know how to handle money then it can be a bad thing aswell.