[LV-GUCCI-PRADA-FLEX]

Those resources are not doing anybody any good if they are being left to rot. If you believe yourself to be a parasite, then you should take that as a challenge. Improve the quality of life for all the beings on earth, to justify your consumption.

Humans are the parasite, I am not particularly exceptional in that respect. The broader point I was trying to make by saying that is that it's not worth it to quibble about an individual abortion because humans tend to be a net negative to the world. We shoukd be encouraging abortions, not discouraging them.

[Mercenary]

I do not consider the earth to be a living organism, so I do not accept that the act of living is parasitic. However, I do believe ones presence on earth can be parasitic to other humans and animals.

Could you describe how humans are a net negative? It seems as though the purpose of earth is to nurture life.

[Potemkin]

Humans are the parasite,

Parasitic on what? As Mercenary has pointed out, the Earth as a whole is not a living organism and therefore cannot be parasitised. And all animals could be described as parasites on the plant kingdom, so we're not even exceptional in that regard.

The broader point I was trying to make by saying that is that it's not worth it to quibble about an individual abortion because humans tend to be a net negative to the world. We shoukd be encouraging abortions, not discouraging them.

To assert that humans are a net negative to the world is a meaningless statement. By whose system of accounting? Nature has wiped out almost all living organisms on the Earth at least five times, and will doubtless do so again even if humans don't do it. Humans can only be a net negative or positive to other humans, and so to assert that the existence of the human race is a net negative is literally meaningless - without any humans, there would be no system of accounting for whether our absence was a positive or a negative thing. Nature isn't keeping a tally of the net positive or negative contributions of the human race to the Earth - we do that. In fact, if you really want to anthropomorphise Nature, it could be argued that Nature is constantly encouraging us to increase our numbers by giving us the urge to reproduce ourselves. Clearly, it is your cult of death which is against the wishes of Nature.

[Hong Wu]

I don't understand why LV is arguing "objectively" in the first place if he believes in subjective values. It's almost like he will argue from whatever position he thinks will give him the win, even if it means calling himself a parasite and so-on. I think this is the sign of someone who hasn't internalized the "big picture". And technically you look more credible in the long run if you don't presume you need to win every argument since most of us have been on this forum for a long time and no one is right 100% of the time.

[Potemkin]

no one is right 100% of the time. Except Potemkin, of course.

Fixed it for you, Hong Wu.

[LV-GUCCI-PRADA-FLEX]

I do not consider the earth to be a living organism, so I do not accept that the act of living is parasitic. However, I do believe ones presence on earth can be parasitic to other humans and animals.

Well we must disagree on that. The totality of the ecosystems on the Earth act exactly as an organism would.

Could you describe how humans are a net negative? It seems as though the purpose of earth is to nurture life.

Humans, via the processes of anthropogenic global warming and material pollution, are destroying the habitability of the planet. They are also consuming finite and renewable resources at such a rate so as to make the earth unsuitable for anything but basic forms of life. Humans must be stopped at all costs.

Parasitic on what? As Mercenary has pointed out, the Earth as a whole is not a living organism and therefore cannot be parasitised. And all animals could be described as parasites on the plant kingdom, so we're not even exceptional in that regard.

The rest of the animal kingdom does not consume nearly as many resources as we do in proportion to their populations. Many cases where they are overpopulated are the results of humans. Even granting that the world is not an organism, we are still destroying its habitability.

To assert that humans are a net negative to the world is a meaningless statement. By whose system of accounting? Nature has wiped out almost all living organisms on the Earth at least five times, and will doubtless do so again even if humans don't do it. Humans can only be a net negative or positive to other humans, and so to assert that the existence of the human race is a net negative is literally meaningless - without any humans, there would be no system of accounting for whether our absence was a positive or a negative thing. Nature isn't keeping a tally of the net positive or negative contributions of the human race to the Earth - we do that. In fact, if you really want to anthropomorphise Nature, it could be argued that Nature is constantly encouraging us to increase our numbers by giving us the urge to reproduce ourselves. Clearly, it is your cult of death which is against the wishes of Nature.

So is that how you rationalize humans destroying the planet? By saying everything is subjective so who cares anyway? This is exactly why I will never call myself an atheist again, because without God to create an objective system of morality, we have people like you who will stick their fingers in their ear and pretend that the world isn't falling apart around us. No matter how much logic you want to apply to the issue, the point is that if we don't do something drastic, including reducing population, there will be no habitable Earth on which to pontificate whether or not humans are a net negative. I'm sure it will be a comfort to future non-existent or struggling generations that you have shown that without humans, there can be no net negative impact. Yeah, while we're burning ourselves to death, at least we can document the burning.

Anyway, I believe in God, so my system of accounting is objective. You're going to be responsible to Her, not me.

I don't understand why LV is arguing "objectively" in the first place if he believes in subjective values.

I have made it clear many times that I do not believe in a system of subjective values. I believe in God, and I believe that God has created a set of immutable morals, not the least of which is stewardship of the planet.

It's almost like he will argue from whatever position he thinks will give him the win, even if it means calling himself a parasite and so-on. I think this is the sign of someone who hasn't internalized the "big picture". And technically you look more credible in the long run if you don't presume you need to win every argument since most of us have been on this forum for a long time and no one is right 100% of the time.

When you don't have an argument, attack the person who put forth the argument, right? Get off my helmet, Hong Wu. I'm arguing the position I believe, not the one that I believe will give me the win. Not that I have to defend myself from someone who has a thread called "the Deep Thinks of Hong Wu". Yeah, you're so deep you can't even defend your position without attacking someone's personal character.

[Potemkin]

Well we must disagree on that. The totality of the ecosystems on the Earth act exactly as an organism would.

I presume you are referring to the Gaia Hypothesis of James Lovelock. In fact, Lovelock was merely pointing out that the Earth's ecosystem, considered as a whole, is in a state of equilibrium over the short- to medium-term. Over the long-term, of course, it is obviously not in equilibrium, and in fact has suffered a whole series of mass extinctions and has undergone massive irreversible changes over geological time scales. In fact, there is even a rival hypothesis, called the Medea Hypothesis, which asserts, with just as much plausibility, that the Earth's purpose is not to nurture multicellular life but to obliterate it.

Humans, via the processes of anthropogenic global warming and material pollution, are destroying the habitability of the planet. They are also consuming finite and renewable resources at such a rate so as to make the earth unsuitable for anything but basic forms of life. Humans must be stopped at all costs.

If the Medea Hypothesis is correct (and there is just as much evidence for it as there is for the Gaia Hypothesis) then humans are merely enacting the will of Mother Nature, however unwittingly.

The rest of the animal kingdom does not consume nearly as many resources as we do in proportion to their populations. Many cases where they are overpopulated are the results of humans. Even granting that the world is not an organism, we are still destroying its habitability.

Its habitability for whom? For ourselves, ultimately. For most of Earth's existence, only single-celled life existed on it. Mother Nature obviously regrets creating multicellular life, and created humans to eradicate it. Every time we drive another species of amphibian into extinction, we are doing the work of the Goddess.

So is that how you rationalize humans destroying the planet? By saying everything is subjective so who cares anyway? This is exactly why I will never call myself an atheist again, because without God to create an objective system of morality, we have people like you who will stick their fingers in their ear and pretend that the world isn't falling apart around us. No matter how much logic you want to apply to the issue, the point is that if we don't do something drastic, including reducing population, there will be no habitable Earth on which to pontificate whether or not humans are a net negative.

You are essentially a man of faith rather than a man of reason, LV. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but it means that your arguments are essentially religious in nature rather than rational.

I'm sure it will be a comfort to future non-existent or struggling generations that you have shown that without humans, there can be no net negative impact. Yeah, while we're burning ourselves to death, at least we can document the burning.

Oh, so you do care about the fate of the human race? I thought you said you wanted us to be exterminated. Oh wait, you did say that. So why should you care about the fate of future human generations then? According to you, they shouldn't even exist.

Anyway, I believe in God, so my system of accounting is objective. You're going to be responsible to Her, not me.

Oh wait... you're serious.

I have made it clear many times that I do not believe in a system of subjective values. I believe in God, and I believe that God has created a set of immutable morals, not the least of which is stewardship of the planet.

Look, why not just go the whole hog and become a born-again Christian? You'll probably feel a lot happier and you'll certainly make a lot more sense. You seem to be one of those people who swallows a camel and then strains at a gnat, as Jesus so colourfully put it. You refuse to believe in the Christian God, yet happily worship an equally fictitious Gaia-like 'Great Goddess'.

[Mercenary]

Well we must disagree on that. The totality of the ecosystems on the Earth act exactly as an organism would.


Humans, via the processes of anthropogenic global warming and material pollution, are destroying the habitability of the planet. They are also consuming finite and renewable resources at such a rate so as to make the earth unsuitable for anything but basic forms of life. Humans must be stopped at all costs.

Apparently you do not understand the definition of a living organism. Nothing about the planet earth represents the characteristics of a life form.

Humans must be stopped for what? For the sake of the rock that we reside on?

[LV-GUCCI-PRADA-FLEX]

I presume you are referring to the Gaia Hypothesis of James Lovelock. In fact, Lovelock was merely pointing out that the Earth's ecosystem, considered as a whole, is in a state of equilibrium over the short- to medium-term. Over the long-term, of course, it is obviously not in equilibrium, and in fact has suffered a whole series of mass extinctions and has undergone massive irreversible changes over geological time scales. In fact, there is even a rival hypothesis, called the Medea Hypothesis, which asserts, with just as much plausibility, that the Earth's purpose is not to nurture multicellular life but to obliterate it.

No, I'm referring to my own experiences and observations, though I will admit to awareness of the Gaia Hypothesis. The Medea Hypothesis sounds similar to George Carlin's idea, that we are here to produce plastics.

If Earth's purpose is to obliterate multicellular life, why would multicellular life be so resistant to obliteration? Really the only thing that has majorly threatened such life is the current human-caused extinction event. You can argue that other extinction events have been more drastic, but only because you have the benefit of looking back at it on a geological timescale, and we still have not been through the head of the bottleneck yet, we are merely looking through it and speculating what it might be like. Sure, there have been worse extinction events, but we are not sure if the one we are on the path of won't be much worse than any other before it.

If the Medea Hypothesis is correct (and there is just as much evidence for it as there is for the Gaia Hypothesis) then humans are merely enacting the will of Mother Nature, however unwittingly.

Arguing for something you don't believe in to win an argument is a bad faith way to argue. Seems like trolling to me. Make fun of me for being a man of faith, but at least what I believe isn't the result of nihilistic pretentiousness.

Its habitability for whom? For ourselves, ultimately. For most of Earth's existence, only single-celled life existed on it. Mother Nature obviously regrets creating multicellular life, and created humans to eradicate it. Every time we drive another species of amphibian into extinction, we are doing the work of the Goddess.

For ourselves and the rest of the animals, yes.

You are essentially a man of faith rather than a man of reason, LV. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but it means that your arguments are essentially religious in nature rather than rational.

Yeah, I'm not arguing against that. I am appealing to people's sense of faith and spiritual connection with the Earth and God.

Oh, so you do care about the fate of the human race? I thought you said you wanted us to be exterminated. Oh wait, you did say that. So why should you care about the fate of future human generations then? According to you, they shouldn't even exist.

Well, at all costs goes a little too far. I have belief in humans such that I don't think extermination is either necessary or desirable. Furthermore, I think you're reading into what I'm saying what you want it to say. I said abortions are a net positive, I think we should be reducing our population, I think we consume way too many resources, etc. I am arguing for a less resource intense, lower population, more aware society. I am not arguing for the extermination of humans, because I do believe at the end of the day that we are valuable.

Oh wait... you're serious

Absolutely, and your derision towards me doesn't weaken my faith.

Look, why not just go the whole hog and become a born-again Christian? You'll probably feel a lot happier and you'll certainly make a lot more sense. You seem to be one of those people who swallows a camel and then strains at a gnat, as Jesus so colourfully put it. You refuse to believe in the Christian God, yet happily worship an equally fictitious Gaia-like 'Great Goddess'.

I assume you are not a Christian, as you are a Marxist? It's probably for the same reason you won't believe in the Christian God yourself: it's just not true. It's the relic of a different time and place. It's a patriarchal religion with a backwards moral code. I'm not going to subject myself to a church whose God I don't agree with. Maybe you're the one that needs Jesus, calling for violent revolution, cheering on the destruction of the planet, and whatever psychotic nonsense you believe.

---------

Apparently you do not understand the definition of a living organism. Nothing about the planet earth represents the characteristics of a life form.

I did not say the planet Earth. I said the earth and the totality of its ecosystems. That includes living and non-living material. Maybe I should have included the spirit of the Earth as well in that definition.

Humans must be stopped for what? For the sake of the rock that we reside on?

Well, no. The rock isn't going to care. The other animals should be preserved, however. Earth has a natural beauty that we are destroying. Also, we must be stopped for our own sake.

[Scheherazade]

Difference: not getting a vaccination is a net negative on society, and a huge negative to the child.

Depends on the circumstances, such a blunt generalization is fallacious.

Getting an abortion is a net positive on society

Nope, murder isn't.

and almost always a net positive for the woman.

Not at all, engaging in immoral behavior which harms the spirit is worse than that which harms the body.

A person would be better off being virtuous and living in a prison cell, than immoral and living in a mansion.

So if anything, states should invest far more of an effort in encouraging morality, and discouraging immorality, than just trying to alleviate mere physical pains and sufferings.

Even a virtuous child who is starving in Africa of a good spirit has fewer genuine worries than an immoral middle class American.

Another difference: a child cannot make an affirmative choice to not get a vaccine, he/she has to rely on the decision of the parent, which is always a bad decision in the case of not getting a vaccine.

No evidence of this of course.

A woman can, however, make decisions about her own body.

Not if the state decides otherwise, and with Republicans in control all branches of government and a conservative Supreme Court, now's a better time than ever to get rid of elective abortion.

[Potemkin]

No, I'm referring to my own experiences and observations, though I will admit to awareness of the Gaia Hypothesis. The Medea Hypothesis sounds similar to George Carlin's idea, that we are here to produce plastics.

What do you mean by "experiences and observations"? If you are referring to personal spiritual experiences or religious visions, then these are not amenable to rational analysis or argumentation. I'm not saying they are necessarily wrong or meaningless, merely than we cannot fruitfully discuss them in any sort of objective manner.

If Earth's purpose is to obliterate multicellular life, why would multicellular life be so resistant to obliteration? Really the only thing that has majorly threatened such life is the current human-caused extinction event.

This is just not true. The end-Permian extinction event was far greater than anything we have ever done or, I would submit, ever could do. See below for further details.

You can argue that other extinction events have been more drastic, but only because you have the benefit of looking back at it on a geological timescale, and we still have not been through the head of the bottleneck yet, we are merely looking through it and speculating what it might be like. Sure, there have been worse extinction events, but we are not sure if the one we are on the path of won't be much worse than any other before it.

I seriously doubt this, for the following reason: the Holocene extinction event (which is real, I grant you) will be fundamentally self-limiting in a way that none of the other extinction events have been, because it is being caused by the activities of one of the living organisms themselves rather than by natural geological events or by an asteroid. This means that the causative agent of the extinction event will itself be subject to that extinction event. Things will get to a certain stage and then drive the human race itself to extinction, at which point the causative agent of the extinction event will no longer exist. This will be, for the first time ever, an extinction event which will quickly make itself extinct. In other words, the Holocene extinction event will be a damp squib, a flash in the pan, a mere blip on the radar screen of geological time. Tough shit for us, of course, because we'll be gone, but Mother Nature ain't gonna care one way or the other.

Arguing for something you don't believe in to win an argument is a bad faith way to argue. Seems like trolling to me. Make fun of me for being a man of faith, but at least what I believe isn't the result of nihilistic pretentiousness.

In fact, temporarily adopting the opposite viewpoint in order to argue against it is a recognised debating tactic, so long as it is done in good faith.

Yeah, I'm not arguing against that. I am appealing to people's sense of faith and spiritual connection with the Earth and God.

Fine, but this is not a rational argument. There's nothing to debate here.

Well, at all costs goes a little too far. I have belief in humans such that I don't think extermination is either necessary or desirable. Furthermore, I think you're reading into what I'm saying what you want it to say. I said abortions are a net positive, I think we should be reducing our population, I think we consume way too many resources, etc. I am arguing for a less resource intense, lower population, more aware society. I am not arguing for the extermination of humans, because I do believe at the end of the day that we are valuable.

You seem to be furiously backpedalling on your positions here. Lol.

Absolutely, and your derision towards me doesn't weaken my faith.

Good for you!

I assume you are not a Christian, as you are a Marxist? It's probably for the same reason you won't believe in the Christian God yourself: it's just not true. It's the relic of a different time and place. It's a patriarchal religion with a backwards moral code. I'm not going to subject myself to a church whose God I don't agree with. Maybe you're the one that needs Jesus, calling for violent revolution, cheering on the destruction of the planet, and whatever psychotic nonsense you believe.

I merely accept that the on-going Holocene extinction event is a natural process, just like all the previous (and presumably subsequent) extinction events in the Earth's history. It's a serious matter for us (and for most of the other organisms who share this planet with us), but in the overall scheme of things it's just business as usual. We think we're hot shit, but in fact we're not.

[quetzalcoatl]

I never accepted the premise that a fetus is 'your' body. I believe that argument to be ridiculous.

Ridiculous in what sense? It is also ridiculous to argue to a conclusion based on a premise that assumes the truth of that conclusion (the personhood of a foetus, for example).

You raise an interesting point, though. How do you define the limits of your body? In the biological sense, a human being can be seen in a number of different complementary ways. I am a separate biological entity. I am also a composite hive entity housing a number of distinct species that number in the thousands (our biological human cells number around 10% of the total number of cells in our body). Of particularly critical importance are mitochondria which have a distinct DNA heritage. No human could survive without his symbiotic ecosystem.

[Scheherazade]

Humans are the parasite, I am not particularly exceptional in that respect. The broader point I was trying to make by saying that is that it's not worth it to quibble about an individual abortion because humans tend to be a net negative to the world. We shoukd be encouraging abortions, not discouraging them.

That's actually a better argument for regulating irresponsible sex and procreation than for abortion, since especially after the Baby Boomer generation people in America produced many more children than society's resources and parental figures are often equipped to properly raise and support.

If we banned porn and raunchy media entertainment to prevent children from becoming serialized at younger ages, and possibly even re-instituted criminal penalties for adultery, fornication, etc, we'd likely cut down on a lot of unplanned children and teenage pregnancies, especially in 'ghetto' populations.

That and ending welfare subsidizes to single mothers who make children despite having no income or husband to provide. So would you support any of this just to stay consistent?

Hell, maybe even making it legal for husbands and fathers to beat their wives or daughters if they act too slutty, would help, as well as instituting a national dress code requiring more modest dressing

(e.x. Banning bikinis, short skirts and shorts, breast implants, skintight jeans, stiletto heels, low-cut tops for women; requiring burkas might be a little extreme though.)

Say what you want, but Muslim countries where abortion is illegal don't have the problems with excess population, foster care, and 'welfare generations' that America does. So if you want to cut down on excess procreation, why not advocate what Islamic states do instead of advocating abortion when it obviously doesn't work?

[quetzalcoatl]

Say what you want, but Muslim countries where abortion is illegal don't have the problems with excess population, foster care, and 'welfare generations' that America does. So if you want to cut down on excess procreation, why not advocate what Islamic states do instead of advocating abortion when it obviously doesn't work?

While the world's population is projected to grow 35% in the coming decades, the number of Muslims is expected to increase by 73% – from 1.6 billion in 2010 to 2.8 billion in 2050. In 2010, Muslims made up 23.2% of the global population. Whatever cultural inhibitions are present doesn't seem to have affected procreation at all.

A major cause of the political instability some have called the "Arab Spring" are vast numbers of rootless adolescents and young men. These societies are far more unstable than their 'decadent' western cousins.

The problem is that open sexuality is personally threatening to conservatives in the same way as alt-right clowns screaming "heil" is threatening to liberals - their perception of the proper order of society is turned askew.

The argument for (or against abortion) has nothing to do with population control, and no serious advocate of abortion rights believes that it does.