PRO LIFE ALERT-- the overlooked sacrifice

[cantdog]

Or what the fuck

Anybody can ring in, here; it doesn't have to be amicus. It's a yes or no thing, so far, and not a trap for anyone but a Randist or a social Darwinist.

I mean, when they teach you the endocrine functions and they get to the part about adrenaline (no "e" for the brits) they explain that it triggers lower-brain reactions, part of the animal life we lead. You have to decide fight or flee if you're just a rabbit, but a human can tell his lower brain to quieten down and can take a considered action.

Morality can certainly help, as amicus suggests, in determining what action to take.

You meet a fellow creature and you have to decide what group he or she belongs in. In an instinctual frame of reference, you first figure out if this is an enemy-- fight it or fuck it? Nature's questions to an animal are generally in simple terms. Men can ignore the question and choose more subtle paths. Morality can help here, too.

I say, co-operation, as a principle, leads to fewer murders than does competition as a principle. I like its style, if you follow me.

 

[Pure]

amiculus said,

We need something more. Some means by which we can decide right and wrong, moral and immoral,

That why you were put on this earth, ami, and brought to the lit forums. Many many of us lack that innate and unerring sense.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

What? Secular moralism? What about it? It generally revolves around the same principles as every religion, the concentration on the improving of one's own soul or moral character (not neccesarily for a reward but because it's the good thing to do), suffering for the world instead of making the world suffer for what you want it to be or what's most beneficial to you, resisting the most socially damaging of the selfish gene's impulses, and that whole 'love thy neighbor' run.

Overall, nothing much to it.

If anyone is having difficulties, I'd reccomend doing what I did and building an entire moral philosophy from scratch through long hours of deep introspection. One hint I'd give is that the main issue is to always concentrate on improving your own moral character instead of that of others. If their is eternal justice, I'd say it's a safe bet that those who tried their damndest to be the best people themselves will be more likely to get rewarded and those who tried their damndest to make others "moral" are more likely to be punished.

Just saying...

 

[amicus]

Cantdog...I don't think I like you...not as a personal thing...as I have no clue and have not looked at your bio page...but...

You laid this on me...without responding to anything I posted...which tells me you have an agenda to proseltize and that is fine..but not at my expense....

you said...

"I think most characteristics of our lives here make more sense, amicus, when human life is considered in its mammalian context, in its primate context, and so forth..."

First of all...what the fuck does that mean? I have a few degrees from acceptable universities and a more than passing acquaintance with the english language, american style and I have not a clue as to what the fuck you said. Does anyone? really? in reading that paragraph? What the fuck is he saying? Nothing...absolutely nothing....


In another part of your reply..you said..in part:

"Competiton does indeed result in murder, and in wars and what-have-you...."

What the fuck are you saying here? You didn't make it in competition for the prettiest girl in highschool and you are forever in mourning? Fuck...grow up...if you failed to stand the heat in the kitchen...admit it . for once in your life and accept that maybe you are a pointy headed intellectual with a kantian mentality that belongs in the 16th century and you just can't make it in the modern world....don't vomit your pain on the world about you in your misery..go hide in a corner and masturbate your way to glory and do so without anyone giving a shit that you do or do not....


Waybac machine

Registered: Apr 2004
Location: Maine
Posts: 2112
Since we're human, Mr. Leek
I think most characteristics of our lives here make more sense, amicus, when human life is considered in its mammalian context, in its primate context, and so forth. It would be inhuman indeed not to feel the house ape social drives which cause us both to cherish human life and to wish to destroy it.

Since we have these conflicting drives, and since we are human and thus capable of placing our instinctual heritage on interrupt, let us by all means discuss the development of a morality.

Humans need not give in to many of their impulses. Competition can be fierce; it is the law of the jungle, as we were told. This does not ennoble it, in my mind. I prefer to associate with people who have arisen from the jungle and can abrogate its law. Rand I find objectionable for that reason, among others. For if competiton is the law of the jungle, surely co-operation is the law of civilization.

Competiton does indeed result in murder, and in wars and what-have-you. Civilizing influences are characterized by the way they deplore that kind of unbridled competition. Are you with me so far, without, as you see, committing to any specifics? I do hope so, else our own competition of ideas here may otherwise seem to license you to find my house and slit my throat in furtherance of the noble principle of Competiton.

cantdog


__________________


Yeah, amicus took the gloves off...it is bare knuckled and no holds barred from here on in....and I know the guys on this forum ain't got the ball for it...although I suspect a few of the twats may make a run...you lose...fuck you...tits up ladies...I'll have you for lunch with guacamole...on the spicy side...

Bite me!

amicus...


(who is he really, marge?)

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Hey amicus, want to know what cantdog was talking about?

WHY DON'T YOU READ A FUCKING BIOLOGY TEXTBOOK YOU ASSHOLIC WASTE OF OXYGEN, YOU MORALESS PILE OF SHIT.

You don't give a damn about any form of human-centric form of morality and you sure as hell don't have the balls to support the truly equal view of the sanctity of life you began the discussion with. I'm tired of this shit, of this posturing, this tough guy talk. You aren't tough, just because you aren't a fag. You aren't tough, because you can diss a liberal. You aren't tough just because you like competition. You're just a pathetic bastard who has proved time and time again that whenever he loses a competition, he blubbers and pntificates and eventually flees for a new topic. You are not worth the effort.

Sure, beat up on cantdog. You do it, because he lives secular morality. He is the ideal of secular morality that you're twisted soul has no hope of ever even being comparable with him. You are the dog shit on the walkway of life and perhaps tough talk might comfort your pathetic soul, but it doesn't fool anyone.

Fucker.


(This incoherent rant was brought to you from the Foundation of Demons who've just had enough of assholes filling the pathetic void in their lives acting like the high school bullies they were and never grew out of)

 

[amicus]

Fuck you Lucifer Carroll...pond scum that you are...you wouldn't make a pimple on a real scientists ass...and you klnow it as you are driven by ideology and not science....it shows...and is evident to all from all the at you post...


Beat up on Cantdog...I never fight with drunks...or those with less than a 90 IQ..but you, my friend are less than both...you are dishonest and you know it....

With the mimimum of understanding that you have, you know that each ethical argument I have presented has been logical and supportable in terms of reason and rationaliy...I have lost not a single debate and only withdrawn from the shrill outcries of the females who purport to have a higher moral understanding of how they can sacrifice the rights of those who possess life and liberty to those who feed off the masses...

Ever bitch here is either being paid by the state..a government of some sort...or is on welfare or existing off of child support...you know it and so do I ...so ..don't bullshit me...

And talking tough...take me on...at any level you wish...I will clean your fucking clock and set the time right to the second....


fuck with the bull and you get both horns...

piss ant...

amicus...

yeah..I know...shut up John...these peasants don't have a clue...ur wasting your time....(me mentor told me that...long...long ago...)

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Right and you are so wise to the ways of science that you ignore on a regular basis. The amount of straight-up scientific theories you ignore in every one of your mindless and hateful posts only reveals how sadly you were destroyed by your choice of a pathetic humanities major in college.

I am already a scientist, I'm just getting my street cred at this point. My knowledge in my field you don't know shit about, but when was that surprising. Please do fuck me, why not. I'll gladly sacrifice it for the knowledge of your homophobic brain popping at the moral quandaries it unlocks.

You know what...fuck it. This is pathetic even for you. I'm refusing to have any more involvement in this flame war. We can talk tough as long as we want, fence our dicks against each other, so that one will be left standing to hoot and holler over their muscle mass. But the truth is I know I can kick your ass. I know I'm smarter than you. I know that I'm more moral than you. I know I make more sense than you and everyone else on this thread gets that. Everyone here mocks and belittles you because you really are that ignorant, but like Don Quixote you come back again and again to have your ego squashed and trampled. Fulfill your pathetic homoerotic sub quotient on the BDSM room. I'm done.

 

[amicus]

Lucifer....


No way you could kick my ass....my 163 is higher than yours...I bet...I wouldn't fuck you with somebody elses dick...and your secular humanism dictates that you have no morals at all...

so...slink off and hide with your other fagotty friends..this is the NFL the Bigs...and you don't qualify...go play with your microscope, ( that was supplied by the market place and that capitalism discovered and created for you) while you live off the tax dollars....

I just wanted you fucking liberal assholes to know that one can stoop to your level...although most of my broadcast career was limited by the FCC and the obscenities you use in your discussion and your pathetic stories are beneath civil discourse...

gee I'm glad I found this site...I really understand the Clintons much better...trailer trash with the Kerry's as next door neighbors, Carter just down the street and LBJ walkin the dog...christ...FDR had a little class...not much..but a little...

With Kennedy fucking Monroe on the side...you guys have really been backing losers for nigh on 45 years....oh..my...thats what they are saying on the cable news channels....omg....

 

[Guest]

It's getting hot in here... Gonna take off all my clothes...

Oh, and on topic...

I'm with him:

Jesus fucking christ people, you'll want to stop us wanking next: "Oooh the waste of potential life!!!!"

For fucks sake, personal choice.

You have yours, let others have theirs!

Yep, most definitely, what he said.


Carry on, this is quite entertaining.

Lou

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Flame Wars-->Rise in Enthalpy in an enclosed Thread-->Triggered Sweat Glands on Participants-->Cotton threads becoming "stuffy" and "uncomfortable" over tolerance of cotton "breathing"-->Removal of said Clothes-->Naked Tatelou

Damn, this may be the first equation that's found Flame Wars beneficial.

 

[cloudy]

Carry on, this is quite entertaining.

Lou

Isn't it, though?

Indeed.

 

[Guest]

Flame Wars-->Rise in Enthalpy in an enclosed Thread-->Triggered Sweat Glands on Participants-->Cotton threads becoming "stuffy" and "uncomfortable" over tolerance of cotton "breathing"-->Removal of said Clothes-->Naked Tatelou

Damn, this may be the first equation that's found Flame Wars beneficial.

Do ya know, if you weren't so damn shouty and scary and all, I'd probably bow before your wit and obvious superior intelligence. As it is, I'd probably get my arse flame grilled.

Ahhhh, I feel all nostalgic. There hasn't been a thread like this in quite some time.

Lou

 

[oggbashan]

Abortion is a subject on which minds are not going to change. If you have strong views you are either on one side or the other.

Og

Quoting myself. Is that incestuous?

Og

 

[mismused]

Here, however, I must follow neon and cant; it simply doesn't seem to be nature's plan for every egg to become a life; a woman is born with (iirc) a few thousand, and only 'issues' a few hundred. yet even the most active woman is not going to produce more than 20-30 children. (how many conceptions does that represent, in 'nature'--50? 100?)

=========================

Pure,

Not sure what you mean by only "issues," but here's something on what a woman has as eggs from "Woman, An Intimate Geography," by Natalie Angier (p. 2):

"At twenty weeks' gestation, the peak of a female's oogonial load, the fetus holds 6 to 7 million eggs. In the next twenty weeks of wombing, 4 million of those eggs will die, and by puberty, all but 400,000 will have taken wing, without a squabble, without a peep.

"The attrition continues, though at a more sedate pace, throughout a woman's youth and early middle age. At most, 450 of her eggs will be solicited for ovulation, and far fewer othan that is she spends a lot of time being pregnant and thus not ovulating. Yet by menopause, few if any eggs remain in the ovaries. The rest have vanished. The body has reclaimed them.

"This is the basic principle of living organisms. Life is profligate; life is a spendthrift; life can persist only by living beyond its means. You make things in extravagant abundance, and then you shave back, throw away, kill off the excess. . .

"The millions of eggs that we women begin with are cleanly destroyed through an innate cell program called apoptosis. The eggs do not simply die -- they commit suicide."

I have no first hand evidence of what she says being so, however, she is a respected writer, highly praised by medics, etc., and the winner of a pulitzer prize for one of her works (the which I do not know). The book is, otherwise, highly instructive, and very often well cited.

mismused

 

[cantdog]

Amicus, I'd like to point out that among your rambling were three more-or-less statements, although I notice you don't go in for full sentences much. These are quoted now.

Mr. Leek:...I read that '...human life is no different than any other life...' neither more nor less than squirrels or pond scum....I wonder if you really believe that....

If perchance homo sapiens...humanity...is to be unique in this galaxy...and is, by mutual agreement the only 'sentient life' on this planet...then perhaps we might, philosophically, view it in a special way...

I have tried to say...many times and in many different ways, that 'human life' is the fundamental value, and the only basis upon which to create an ethical and moral philosophy to guide our actions...

Now, actually, I know you are skipping them, but I ask you to breathe and unclamp your jaw and just read them.

In them is, as I interpret them , tentatively, necessarily, since they aren't sentences, the following:

First, the part in red, which is just silly. Let's skip it.

A slightly rephrased reference to my screed pointing out that in matters pertaining to its reproduction, people are best discussed as mammals. I equally said that people kill all forms of life, deliberately, accidentally, foolishly, and just en passant. All creatures seem to do the same. I observed, therefore, than in natural systems and in ours, if you like to think of us as unnatural, no sacredness of life appears.

I saw your "neither more nor less than squirrels, etc" as a reference to that.

It leaves out the part about reproducing as a mammal, not as some special unique creature, but as a plain mammal. I see that as important.

Thirdly, sapience and viewing it a special way. And then, we need a morality. I address this one in the post before this.

You said it had no relation to anything you posted, but you missed something. "Since we're human, I said, and we can interrupt our instincts, you are correct to say we have to have a morality."

That's not agreeing entirely with your original post. I think. It's not a clear post, and sentences are sparse in it.

But I deny that it had no relation to anything you posted. And my post is capable of being interpreted, since it is formed of sentences. When I have said something, you can at least point to something there which has been said.

----

So much for your initial claim that my post was not a response to yours.

I didn't respond to all of yours because the lifetimes of suns isn't what we're discussing in the thread, dude. Pay attention. I singled out the portions of your mushy post which I speculated might have been on topic.

-------

Then I wrote the post before this, which you may as well read, now that you have the Cliff's Notes.

Answer at leisure. I ain't goin anywhere.

 

[cantdog]

Another thing: if we need credentials to post to a porn site, which I very much doubt, then you should know that I am not a scientist. I'm a retired fireman who works in a church. You can ignore me on that account if you prefer to, but I warn you I will see it as a victory for me.

Because I don't think you can write in sentences, and I will imagine the prospect of having to do that scared you off. That will bring me to the conclusion below:

amicus cannot write a complete thought.
no scientist can function without sentences.
therefore, amicus cannot actually be a scientist.

I will regard this as the reason for your ducking me for lack of credentials, and I will speak of the syllogism above to everyone here as though it were demonstrated fact.

That's my threat. Put up or shut up.

edited to add: Kant was 18th century.

 

[Pure]

Thanks, mismused. That stuff sounds accurate to me. I got one figure right, at least ("issue"--ovulations per lifetime).

The part about egg destruction is very relevant to this topic, for, suppose it could be slowed down, or were not so extensive. Would that be 'pro life.'?

 

[cantdog]

Actually, Pure, it is these figures which provide the ethical wiggle room for the idea of cloning to have a spare matching heart and a spare matching liver should you need one. The system so obviously overproduces that you can derive a lowered valuation for the genetic material and cut the labs some ethical slack.

I don't think the position is a pro-life one in the usual sense of that term.

 

[Quiet_Cool]

Nice to see everyone calm and getting along (and I was worried that we wouldn't be kind to each other after the election ).

Everyone needs to breath deep, jerk off, and fuckin' relax.

The only point that actually means anything on this thread (on the entire topic of abortion) was made by Og:

"Abortion is a subject on which minds are not going to change. If you have strong views you are either on one side or the other."

After reading this, can any of us disagree with him?

My viewpoint: Abortion hasn't been seen for the topic it is (by anyone) for years. When people are ready to discuss it, they'll find out they still don't agree. And they don't have to. *shrugs*

What of it?

Q_C

 

[cantdog]

I rather think the discussion is wider on this thread; I doubt it ever was abortion in the first place.

 

[Quiet_Cool]

I rather think the discussion is wider on this thread; I doubt it ever was abortion in the first place.

That's kinda' what I meant, except for the "wider" part. Problem is, when you try to widen a topic, you just get too much involved for anyone to see anyone else's point.

Ignore me, I'm rambling again. No disrespect intended.

Later,

Q_C

 

[cantdog]

See ya. thread's dead anyhow.

 

[amicus]

Tatelou & Cloudy


nice to have you on the sidelines...whoever you cheer for.

regards...amicus...

 

[Guest]

amiculus said,

We need something more. Some means by which we can decide right and wrong, moral and immoral,

That why you were put on this earth, ami, and brought to the lit forums. Many many of us lack that innate and unerring sense.

Now THIS is the funniest damn post on the entire thread.

Pure, I must say I have very much enjoyed your dry wit as of late.

 

[cantdog]

Pure's in good form.

I hope he doesn't have two other identities, like everyone else.