Where are your 'facts' besides your opinions that we as sentient Mammals, are built for 'survival'?

I'm not saying all humans must be treated equally, but everything on this world.. Kinda like the Native Americans believe.

"You are no better than the grass you step on."

This is exactly what I'm talking about. There are so many factors that apply to the situation that on a large scale it's nearly impossible to know 100% what you are dealing with. In the case of 10 people, who conveniently have a doctor with them, they can probably just sort it out though.

Can you define precisely what this impact is? For example, I wouldn't call Hitler's impact nuclear technology. I would call that the impact of men like Einstein and the others who worked on the Manhattan project. Now, could you say that that situation wouldn't have arisen without Hitler? Certainly. However, if we are to say that, then the consequence becomes that every man's actions are soley based on the actions and consequences of those who have gone before him, so sum impact of the entire world boils down to the first action taken by the first man. Which really doesn't make any sense. Perhaps if you clarify this (rather ambiguous) "impact" we can continue though.

We're not playing God, and we're under no illusion that we are playing God. We're playing "survival." Sometimes life throws at us situations that are difficult to overcome, whether they come from God, or whether there is no God, and we have to do the best we can with what we have to get past them. Now, most of this discussion is hypothetical of course, and I seriously doubt any of us is going to be deciding to kill off 10 thousand people any time in the near future. But say we lived back in the days of the black plague. What should be done? Should we allow those infected people to live and eventually kill off the millions that died, or should we kill them off so that more may live? This can be a real-life dilemma.

You are not claiming that these are the only two forces governing our personal decisions and/or lives though, are you? Just that we've retained them from the animals that we are?

Under 'no illusion'?

Speaking of death and life and hypothetical situations thereof, are illusions of trying to play 'God' or believing that you have the comprehension/knowledge/understanding of what to do in a situation such as that. Sounds like illusions to me.

What should be done? Exile them. That's the problem with people in power; they abuse it.

Impact -- any action that is a direct or indirect consequence of someone's or something's actions. Hitler did impact those things, wether you think it is direct or indirect. And how does this not make sense at all? If it does boil down to the first seconds of time, then how does that not make sense?

Ex. Say I suddenly decide to go to school with a gun to prove this point (thus making me impacted by you, IP, Moose, Kellimus and everyone at SEN) and start shooting the school up to see what impact I have. We'd notice that people around the world would be influenced by my actions even if they are indirectly related.

Now, you can argue that some actions have no impact. But do they really? Doesn't an action you perform influence yourself as stated by psychology? Does this influence on yourself not influence future actions which will ultimately influence everyone in the world directly or indirectly? And what if your life is predetermined from the very beginning of time itself? Is that really a problem?

Animals are built for survival. We are animals.

However, the point that we are made for survival is not that important in my post. I wrote that just to express my opinion on the subject.
Psychology says those are the two most important forces of our nature. Anything we do or think in the long run is a derivative of those in one shape or another, and is meant to sattisfy them. Just sitting in a bus waiting for your stop is not what I'm talking about; sitting in a bus on your way to your girlfriend is what you must consider. Most people spend their lives trying to sattisfy those two forces (they are often called 'libido' and 'mortido'). If a person fails to sattisfy those forces, he most likely goes insane.

*cough* Only according to Freud.

Not exactly. Freud's model was not that good for all cases. I am mostly referring to Bern, who created a much more effective model. Last time I spoke with my psychoanalyst, she said his work is being referenced to currently, so I'm quite confident that I'm using the up-to-date stuff.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Mar 9 2009, 12:30 am by JaFF.

I know I'm not some all powerful deity, hence I am not illuded that I am one.

If you don't have the comprehension/knowledge/understanding of it, or are illuded as to such, then you shouldn't be posting in this forum and I ask that you discontinue.

That's certainly a valid option, and I hope no one has implied accidentally from what I've said so far that this is not an option. I apologize if I have made it seem like it isn't.

Well, it does make sense, but it isn't useful. If my actions are really nothing but the consequences of the impact of the first man's actions, then can you really blame me if I go out and murder hundreds of people? No, because I am merely a domino, pushed by the billions of those behind me. However, if we place reasonable limits on the extent of the impact, such as limiting them to the direct (and possibly secondary) consequences of the actions, and perhaps the direct (and possibly secondary) actions that influenced it, (as you have suggested), then it becomes a useful tool and what you are talking about makes much more sense.
However, I think you will find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to prove that everyone has equal impact. If impact is truly dependant on actions, and I think you'll agree that everyone's actions are not equal, then I cannot see how everyone's impact is going to come out equal.

Well, I am glad there is an alternative , even if it is going crazy. I think this is reasonable, as long as it takes into account that it is not the absolute, but as long as this doesn't conflict with the general "pursuit of happiness" idea, then it makes sense. Just note the importance of the "not absolute" part that I mentioned, as I'm sure there are exceptions.

Of course, your reference to that model follows the assumption that humans are driven by purely animal tendencies, since you pointedly ignore those characteristics that we attribute to the inherent consciousness in human nature. Saying that all a human does is work towards persisting its own existence and propagating itself is rather insulting to humanity as a race, considering that in order to make people consider those things as a priority, you need to deny them. What I mean by this is that when denied these basic needs, people will obviously work to fill them, but that once these needs are met, we are not immediately rendered satisfied and complacent. By that regard, conclusions drawn from the assumption that people are only driven by the aforementioned things should be true in cases where those things are in short supply, but untrue in cases where they are plentiful. As such, making examples about primitive societies, or at least ones with severely restricted resources, will give unwarranted and false insights in to human nature. In short, treating people like animals can only take you so far on a philosophical level. Essentially, you confuse the requirements for life with the meaning of life.

Anyways, concerning the topic of the OP, I can't really say more than that as rational beings, we understand that there is some inherent value in life, and that it need not be infinite or equal between all beings. Some times, a person will have a negative impact on others to the extent that they fail to justify their own existence, but in my opinion this cannot occur until they become a noticeable burden, while supplying little or nothing. Making a case to kill someone who under-produces is a difficult one, but making a case to remove a rapist from society is not. It's in the magnitude of harm, and in terms of genocide, it is best to avoid using a utilitarian mindset.

Please elaborate what you mean by 'consciousness'. It is such a vague term and everything closely related to it is so unexplored. To include consciousness into our discussion, please first define it in the way you were thinking of when you made your post. Did you mean self-awareness? Or perhaps a set of emotions and complex behavior patterns we have? Or any of the terms associated with that word; or any combination of those. Until then, I will not answer to this particular statement to avoid any confusion.

I did not say or imply that in any of my posts. To be more specific:
I will elaborate on this to avoid any misunderstanding. This does not mean that all we do is directly needed to survive, heavens forbid. Nor does that mean that the two most important forces of our nature - libido and mortido - are all about having sex and killing enemies/threats. I did, however, say that everything we do in the long run is based on those two forces and sattisfying the urges that are based on those forces. Using special soap to treat acne is an expression of libido, just like everything we do to make ourselves more comfortable. People that don't take care of themselves like that just don't have that positive energy channeled towards themselves in such a way.

All this is based on you misunderstanding my posts, so I'll leave it without a response for now.

By consciousness, I meant the common understanding of what exactly separates humans from animals, to clarify.

That being said, if you assert that everything we do in the long run is purely for the purposes of eliminating threats and reproducing, then there's still the issue of the many people who choose to pursue higher means of self fulfillment than these. Sitting on forums talking philosophically isn't going to get any of us laid, nor is it going to help us live better. That being said, the act of exercizing mental capability, purely for its own sake, is something that isn't explained by libido and mortido, and happens to be very similar to all of the activities in which humans partake after their sexual and safety oriented needs have been satisfied.

Essentially, if you attribute every human action to the ultimate pursuit of sex and safety, you have no means of explaining what we deem to be self-actualization, emotional intimacy, and the pursuit of art for its own sake. If you're looking for references, it might be good to take a peek at Mazlow's heirarchy of needs, and Nietzche's conclusion that in order to avoid Nihilism, the meaning of life is supposedly related to art. The essential idea is that humanity stems from those things that we have that animals don't have, yet we find that we can't pursue those things without meeting the more animalistic requirements. By classifying the general goal of all human activity as being libido and mortido, you forget that those are only two lower tiers of the heirarchy, which I would argue can be satisfied, leaving room for other motivations.

Animals have a concious too. They aren't driven by pure subcouncousness... which makes all the rest of your post invalid.

A small reminder that this topic is about genocide, killing minorities for the benefit of majorities. Human value is an argument for or against killing people, due to a specific trait. For example, A black doctor versus a white murderer, who has more value, regardless of trait.

However, this not a debate on what makes a human, human. Nor is it about superiority over animals or psychology.

Make your own topic to debate about what makes a human, human. Or, get on topic.

It is on topic. >.> Now time to delete both our posts.

That is still too vague to be of any value for the discussion.

Why do you continiue to make a similar argument to your first one without considering what I said in my post? I clearly said that libido and mortido are the basis of everything, not the exact representations (in most cases... well, you understand what are the exceptions) of desire to have sex and safety. You give examples of mental development as something that cannot be explained by libido/mortido, yet I do not see that you understood what I meant at all. Still, I will answer the question: mental development is an expression of libido - getting better and caring about yourself in one way or another are all derivatives of libido. And also, there are things like scenarios/games that dictate long-term, important behavior; there are constructive and destructive games/scenarios, therefore they still can be described by libido/mortido impulses. Not everything in psychology is so obvious.

Refer to the above - you again failed to understand my point. Libido and mortido are energies made to do 'good' and 'bad' (as society labels them), we just inherited them from animals that had them as the basic desire to reproduce and be safe; these energies have many derivatives that are not as obvious as having sex or running away from danger. I've simplified this as much as I could, please double-check that you understand the concept that I'm trying to depict here before replying, because you just reiterated what you've said in your first post basically, forcing me to explain this again.

Again, it may not be obvious from first sight how many of the highest tier needs correspond to libido and mortido, but I believe it is the case. I will use the wikipedia article and briefly go over all tier 5 needs:

Morality. Comes from super-ego, the thing that makes (some) children think twice before crossing the road in the wrong place. In this context, I see the purpose of morality as an advanced mechansm of integration between individual and society. It is a desire to live in a society where you can trust others, possibly strangers, thus making it more safe. I would rather live in a city where if I forget my keys somewhere, almost everyone who finds them returns them to me as opposed to robbing my house.

Creativity. A desire to create something new. This quite obviously connects with libido.

Spontaneity. You may find this under several names, the most common one is probably 'it', which is a force of subliminal desires that is very spontaneous and impulsive in nature; it is the most basic way of expressing libido or mortido in itself. Children, before developing sophisticated behavior patterns, have a stronger 'it', which is why they are so spontaneous: a child may break something without thinking. *I remember a very interesting chapter in one of Bern's books where he discusses how sucking the mothers nipple is the only real way to express libido and mortido during the first vew months of our lives; biting and being rough with it is obviously the mortido part *

Lack of prejudice, acceptance of facts and problem solving. These ones seem to be directly connected to intellect; I would generalize them as the ability and desire to process information effectively. Not sure whether there is a sonnection to libido/mortido here, but my assumption is that more effective ways of dealing with information is the key to living better lives: it helps both in the financial department and helps please other tier 5 needs such as creativity and morality (where would those be without intellect?!).

...

Anyway, this was quite a long post, and I think we're straying off-topic with this discussion. If you still want to talk about any of this, PM me. I really don't think we should use up so much of this topic on a tiny and barely related aspect of it.

And I re-reiterate: some things based on this libido/mortido principle are not as obvious as others. This does not make us 'primitive animals', this just makes us a different kind of animal. I do not find anything insulting in that.

Leaving the psychology to a PM, then, anyways...

As I said, I was talking about the philosophical term, and not the biological one. They're quite different, and it doesn't really invalidate anything to use a different term to describe the differences between humans and animals. Point being that animals don't create art, nor do they seek mental growth for its own sake. By that regard, the idea that humans can be treated by any model that works for animals is a bit absurd.

In reference to the actual topic, it means that the idea that genocide for the purposes of resource managment or contribution issues ignores the fact that people are defined by more than net production. A lame deer might be left behind, but a human who can't pull their own weight is still a human, and the difference is in human expression, and whatever value it has.

And therefore you, along with many other people in this discussion, should step down and quit posting on here if you're going to try to pull that on me. Not because its directed at me, but because the same applies to everyone else in this discussion.


But by discussing things such as this, you are implying that you have enough knowledge/comprehension to be able to talk about things such as these, creating an illusion that you have enough 'godly sense' to be able to pick and chose reasons as to why people would be chosen for 'divine cleansing'.

Thus, creating the illusion. You don't have to think you're a powerful deity, to create the illusion of trying to 'think' like one.


Then what is the point of this discussion besides trying to create the illusion that we are 'omnipotent' enough to chose who is worthy or not, when it comes to life?

EDIT: Just so you know what aspect of 'illusion' i'm refering to:


The reality is we are not able to choose life or death respectably because we are not 'omnipotent' enough to have knowledge of such things; Therefore, discussion of the manor creates an illusion of the truth of the reality.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Mar 12 2009, 10:32 pm by Kellimus.

The difference is that I maintain that I do have the knowledge/comprehension to deal with these issues. You were the one who seemed to be implying that we don't, so I thought it natural that you should not take part in them. If you do, however, then by all means take part.

Godly sense? I would hardly call it godly. All it is, is reasonable human beings trying to deal with a situation as reasonably as they can. Though, I can see where you're coming from, because of the topic title, but as far as my argument extends, it has only to do with human beings making tough decisions and not a deity.

The point is that someday, this situation, or a situaion similar to it, may arise in real life, and unless some deity decides to stand in and deal with it for us, we will have to deal with it.

This is almost precisely what I have been arguing for, except I see no illusions. Just because we're discussing it doesn't mean we're playing god, or that we're illuded that we are playing god.

So you're telling me that as a human being, you have knowledge/comprehension enough to make 'omnipotent' decisions that deal with people's lives? Or are you taking it to the 'mortal plane of existence' and talking about situations that deal with 'divine' intervention on the mortal plane?

It doesn't matter which one you tel me, just read below.

As human beings, we cannot 'deal' with "divine cleansing" because the word divine expresses just that:


We are not gods. We usually cannot 'fathom' 'god'. Humans cannot comprehend what they do not know, its psychologically proven. We as humans have not 'proven' the existence of 'god' but merely have 'faith' in such an idea as a 'god' above us; Therefore, it is highly illogical do discuss situations that deal with 'divine' cleansing because if you look at most the definitions of 'divine', it includes an omnipotent being called 'god', and we have no substantial proof that there is a 'god'. We only have what you'd call 'faith', and faith in an 'omnipotent being' does not mean it exists in reality, but exists within the scope of reality of the one having faith.

So you can try to claim all that you want that you are not creating the illusion of being an 'omnipotent being' (this goes for everyone, including myself) but you are in fact creating the illusion because in reality outside of faith; There is no 'god' because there is no proof, and to discuss situations that deal with such a thing, is creating an illusion.


You know, anyone can say that including myself. If I really wanted to take the debate in a more 'personal' approach and get off-topic and call you out on that, I would. But its a waste of time because you, along with other mods/admin will claim that I'm flaming (even though I wont be) and will just get me suspended from SD again because of just simply taking things one has said, and pointing out how they're going against what they said earlier. You guys usually like to call it Ad Hominem.


Okay. Who says? I don't think there will be a situation that arises where one individual gets to choose, "at the end of days", who lives and who dies so what makes you think so? Are you simply just throwing that in to try to justify creating illusions by discussing things humanity cannot comprehend or do you truly believe that? If the latter, please indulge and explain to us, why you believe there will be one individual acting as a god, who will do some 'divine cleansing' for us. Throughout history within the scope of about 150 years, anyone whose tried to do that gets 'shut down'. I'm intrigued as to why you'd believe someone can bypass what history has shown, and actually has the knowledge/comprehension/logic to do some 'divine cleansing' for us


As I have stated above below the quote from dictionary.com with the Divine definition, you are creating a reality for discussing anything that deals with 'divine' thoughts, beings, processes.

None of this is a direct attack or anything aimed at anyone in particular, but everyone in this discussion including myself.

(Note the lack of religious content in the topic post)

From the beginning of the discussion, I just wanted to point out that "divine cleansing" was a terrible name for this topic. It imposes a religious context when this topic is clearly trying to be about more than just that. Kellimus is right that Vrael's posts are "off-topic" if we go by the topic name alone. However, I think that it would be better for all of us to look past the topic title and see this topic as a discussion of eugenics/genocide in general rather that a "divine cleansing" that forces a religious context which is obviously hindering discussion and evolution of the topic.

Post has been edited 4 time(s), last time on Mar 13 2009, 4:50 pm by Mini Moose 2707.