EPTand no you were in the right thread.
US Politics Mega-thread - Page 7398
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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please. In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. | ||
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Karis Vas Ryaar
United States4396 Posts
and no you were in the right thread. | ||
Liquid`Drone
Norway28675 Posts
On April 25 2017 11:38 ShoCkeyy wrote: My gf went through a miscarriage recently, and we were pretty sad about it, we were sad because of the idea that we were about to raise a human. But after thinking about it, she did not even notice when the baby left her body. So how do you give the status of a "person", to something so small that you don't really notice it's there. Mind you I'm not pro abortion, or pro life, I don't care what your choice is, because it should be up to the person that is actually carrying the baby. Few people are 'pro abortion', they are 'pro choice'. Which seems to be your position as well.  | ||
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Biff The Understudy
France7890 Posts
On April 25 2017 13:32 ChristianS wrote: How many people here are familiar with that philosophy paper about the violinist? Because it seems like we're kinda talking around thst argument without quite acknowledging it. Kwark's position seems largely based on it, for instance I am but I don't find it very compelling to be honest. Those discussions about abortion and moral philosophy in general are the weakest on that thread. We really should move on. | ||
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IgnE
United States7681 Posts
On April 25 2017 14:29 Slaughter wrote: I never said science has a view toward an objective morality. I said using a scientific consensus on what developmental milestone a fetus can be considered human isn't a moral argument. yes it is a moral argument. "when can a fetus be considered human?" at conception. what is "human"? having human dna? being made of human stuff? your imprecision with language here is reflective of your generally careless thinking on this topic. | ||
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Doodsmack
United States7224 Posts
Bob Murray, one of the coal industry’s loudest voices, spent $300,000 on President Trump’s inauguration and got a lot more than good seats. ... After Mr. Trump’s inauguration Mr. Murray, his son Ryan and Kevin Hughes, Murray Energy’s general manager, stood beaming in the White House as Mr. Trump signed a law killing a rule banning coal mining waste from waterways. ... The inaugural committee says any money not spent will be given to charity — but Mr. Trump’s record of lying about his philanthropy puts that in doubt. ... Mr. Trump, as a real estate mogul campaigning for president, often bragged about buying political influence. In office he has dutifully done the bidding of donors who have been brazen in demands for regulatory favors, while failing to make any progress on the health insurance, jobs and middle-class tax cuts he promised to his working-class base. AT&T gave more than $2 million in cash, plus in-kind donations; Verizon and Comcast pitched in smaller amounts. They’ve been rewarded with efforts by the Federal Communications Commission to scuttle net neutrality and other rules they don’t like. The pharmaceutical companies Amgen and Pfizer kicked in a total of $1.5 million. After Mr. Trump’s White House meeting with Big Pharma, he backed off his campaign promise that government would negotiate lower drug prices for Americans. Mr. Murray’s contribution was puny compared with the $1 million apiece from other coal industry giants, including J. Clifford Forrest, who owned Freedom Industries, the company charged with leaking a coal-processing chemical into a river in Charleston, W.Va., poisoning the water supply for thousands of residents. ... Dow Chemical, whose chief executive, Andrew Liveris, is chairman of the president’s panel on manufacturing jobs, gave $1 million. One of Mr. Pruitt’s first moves at E.P.A. was to reject its scientists’ findings that chlorpyrifos, sold by Dow and banned from homes because of its dangers to the brains of children, should be banned from use on farms. NYT Editorial | ||
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Doodsmack
United States7224 Posts
US officials told CNN last week that the Justice Department has prepared charges to seek the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said at a news conference on Thursday that Assange's arrest is a "priority" of the administration. But no Trump administration official went further in condemning the group than CIA Director Mike Pompeo, who, in a speech two weeks ago, called WikiLeaks a "hostile intelligence service." ... In an appearance on Fox Business during the Democratic National Convention in July, Pompeo dismissed the Clinton campaign's concerns at the time that Russia was behind WikiLeaks release of the hacked emails. "Well, it's classic Clinton, right? When you find out you got a problem, you deflect, you deny," Pompeo said. "You create a contretemp where there really is none. Frankly, it's pretty clear who invited the Russians to do damage to America, and it was Hillary Clinton. She put classified information on a private server, inviting the Chinese, the Iranians, the Russians, all have access to it. ... That same week, Pompeo told the Washington Examiner that the emails released by WikiLeaks showed that President Obama and Clinton colluded against Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders. "We can now see the fix was in for President Obama and Secretary Clinton to make sure that Bernie Sanders would never be elected. That's embarrassing to many Democrats, so they're flailing about trying to find separate storyline to deflect from the true substance of what was in those emails," he said. When WikiLeaks released Clinton campaign chair John Podesta's emails in October of 2016, Pompeo sent five tweets citing the revelations from the emails to attack Clinton and also mentioned the emails in media appearances. www.cnn.com | ||
KwarK
United States42837 Posts
On April 25 2017 11:12 Falling wrote: Parasite does not make sense as a universal, objective descriptor of our offspring. I could only see it used metaphorically for whom the reason they give to abort is "that having a child would interfere with a woman's education, work or ability to care for dependents (74%)" Guttmacher Institute 2005. This follows as 80-90% of women who have abortions in pretty much any age bracket are unmarried (CDC, 2013). I suppose these women, who've had the misfortune of becoming involved with a bang and run man, would view the baby as a parasite metaphorically. First I would note that a women's offspring being both 'contents of their body' and a 'parasite' is mutually exclusive though neither need be true. Now granted it is different people giving different defences, but the defence is incoherent except in its bedrock agreement that the offspring is anything, anything at all other than a baby. However, as you define parasite as being a) complete dependence upon the mother and b) no benefits. While a) is true barring significant medical improvement (and remains true outside of the womb except for modern innovation), b) is false and an absurd claim at that. The second requirement to define life is that the thing has the potential to reproduce at some time. How can the very thing that is required for the survival of our species be considered 'no benefit'. One of the very stages of our life cycle is parasitic and of no benefit? To be consistent, we would have to apply this loose definition to every embryonic animal, calling the essential earliest stage of a living being's life cycle parasitic and 'of no benefit.' Such a definition renders the entire concept of parasite meaningless, dissolving the categories. But beyond the biological necessity of the embryonic stage, then there's the actual desire to have children that seems to kick in at a certain point. I don't know about you, but I know a decent number of women that express a sort of baby fever, particularly if they are in their late 20's to early 30's, most especially if they are still unmarried. Apparently, it's not just an anecdotal observation either- Brase from Kansas Univerisity observed the effect in both men and women. As I understand it, one of the contributors to the supposed pay gap, at least in Law is that they cannot actually pay their rising star lawyers enough to stay- the women hit their early 30's and really want to start a family and so drop out regardless of the financial incentives. In what sense can something that people generally want at some point in their life be universally and objectively be a "parasite". If people get a sort of craving enough to scale back their career to have it, how can it be of 'no benefit'. No economic benefit, certainly. No career benefit, granted. But if as people so consistently desire and it is required to create the next generation (also nearly universally desired). Beneficial seems the more accurate descriptor than its opposite. Therefore, offspring cannot universally and objectively be considered 'parasite'. Biologically speaking it renders the idea of parasite incoherent. But it isn't an intrinsic property and so inaccurate. So then we are left with those unmarried women, abandoned by men unwilling to support them for whom birth would constitute a major and undesired interrupt to their lives. Subjectively, then and in their view, I suppose their offspring could be considered a parasite. Do you contend that it is a subjective metaphor for the few. Or do you contend that it is an accurate, universal descriptor for all offspring? Are offspring parasitical by very nature? Look, I really don't know how I was to concede. To make your argument you tried using 'it is murder' as a premise, and I appreciate the attempt to assume another premise. But the conclusion doesn't follow once you use that presupposition. You seem to be coming from a fairly gendered perspective, the problematic patriarchy perhaps? But if you assume murder, the gender perspective falls by the wayside in all other instances of murder and would here as well. Else it then becomes "well the men are murdering lots and for equality sake, we need to allow women to match and surpass male murders. Doesn't that sound absurd? The proper conclusion from that premise should instead go after the other side: men kill too much, let's drop that rate rather than have women match and raise. For your 'men control everything, so just give women this one power' argument to work it has to assume that it isn't murder. Falling, Parasite does make sense because the existence is parasitic. It cannot survive independently, it can only survive through taking nutrients and energy from the host at the expense of the host. That is what parasitic means. The relationship between any two organisms can be unrelated, parasitic or symbiotic. If it is symbiotic both derives benefits from it, such as our relationship with our gut bacteria. We supply them with a constant stream of food and they help us break it down. If it is parasitic then only one party derives benefits and those benefits are at the expense of the other. A pregnancy is a classic example of the second. You're pretending I made the argument that the fetus is a part of the mother, even when I specifically described it as a parasite, and then pretending that there is a conflict between the argument you're saying I made and the argument I actually made. Not really sure how to respond to this except "no" and "stop". When a woman says "my body, my choice" they're not referring to the fetus, they're referring to their uterus. It's their choice whether or not their uterus has to stage a remake of the film Alien. Abortion is the withdrawal of support. It is absurd to describe the continuation of the genetic lineage of a specific individual as a benefit to that individual. It could potentially be a benefit to the species if the fetus in question had genetic mutations that were beneficial but even then you're pushing it. And while you seem to be attempting to argue that some reproduction is necessary for the species there is no way to conclude from that that this specific attempt at reproduction is beneficial. You can't go "if X never happened then it would be bad, Y is broadly similar to X, therefore every Y is good". I mean you can try to make that argument, in fact you did try to make that argument, but you shouldn't. I'll try one. If it never rained that would be bad. This flood was caused by excess rain. Therefore this flood is good. The problem is you tried to do a switch halfway through when you stopped talking about benefits to the mother and started talking about benefits to the species, I guess hoping nobody would notice. If a woman actually wants to have a baby then I'm all for it. I'm not saying that they can't have babies. I'm not in the business of legislating what they can do with their bodies, I'll leave that to you. But that doesn't change the equation of whether the fetus exists in a parasitic relationship with the mother. No more than if a woman decided she wanted to get a tapeworm. At this point you're trying to deliberately fail to understand what the word parasite means in some kind of attempt to make me also forget what the word means. The parasite part defines the relationship between the two. This whole "well what if she wants a baby, what then? how can it be a parasite if she wants it?" thing just doesn't work, it can be a parasite even if she wants it because wanting it doesn't somehow mean that the fetus hunts its own food or uses its own lungs. I'll try to explain this as simply as possible. If a guy steals half my food then I have less food, the food he eats comes at my expense. If I share my food with that guy willingly then I still have less food and the food he eats still comes at my expense, I'm just fine with it. The reality of what is happening has not changed, all that has changed is how I feel about it. The first stage in the mammal life cycle is parasitic. The fetus lives and grows inside the mother, prioritizing its own needs for nutrients over hers, hijacking her organs for waste processing etc, breathing with her lungs and very often (although not so much these days) killing her. It's one of those big "fuck you"s that evolution creates, like how we never bothered evolving any defence mechanism against things that only become issues after we're infertile. Evolution selects for maximum propagation of the genes, not for individual benefit. From an evolutionary perspective raping a lesbian would be to her benefit but I doubt you'll find many people saying you did her a favour. This is the same. The benefit of the fetus you're describing here is no different to the benefit of the rape of the lesbian. If you want a fetus, great, go get pregnant. And if the lesbian decides she wants some dick then by all means she can go get some dick. But if the individual doesn't want it then you can't just bring up the benefit of genetic propagation and say it's all good. | ||
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KwarK
United States42837 Posts
On April 25 2017 12:07 Acrofales wrote: No. Kwark's view is quite clearly that it can be aborted at any time the mother desires, because of bodily autonomy. But what happens to the fetus after the pregnancy is aborted, would probably change if the fetus was viable. Other than that, your answer seems to clarify a point he was making and falling was misinterpreting. As for falling's wall of text: the desire to have children is clearly not applicable to women who want to abort their pregnancy. Even if at some other point in their lives they will desire children, at the pregnancy in question, they desire no such thing. So it seems irrelevant? Once it's viable outside of the womb an abortion would simply be a c-section. No need to cut its throat once you've got it out. If abortion doctors were cutting the throats of living babies then personally speaking that would be something I would be against. | ||
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KwarK
United States42837 Posts
On April 25 2017 12:27 biology]major wrote: As usual Kwark's bullshit abortion arguments based on the fallacy that babies appear inside a womb out of thin air and then parasitically feed off her. She played no part in that baby appearing there, nope, just straight appeared from random chance. Ofcourse in that insane hypothetical I could see how a woman should be allowed to abort, maybe even late. There is a certain amount of personal responsibility required first before getting to exercise that bodily autonomy. How it got there isn't in the least bit relevant. But no, I'm actually aware of where babies come from. You can't just declare that my argument rests on something completely irrelevant that neither of us would dispute (sex can lead to pregnancy), pretend that I do dispute it and then by demonstrating the validity of the the irrelevant fact you declared somehow insist that you've won. | ||
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KwarK
United States42837 Posts
On April 25 2017 13:12 biology]major wrote: I'm just gonna set up two extreme hypotheticals. 1) women are randomly chosen by god/mystical pasta fairy to get pregnant at random times. They have 0 choice or consideration, and when it happens, it is a regular 9 month journey with the fetus. 2) Woman pressess a button on a wall, and once she does, she gets a baby inside her. It is a regular 9 month journey with the fetus. Both of these situations are ridiculous, but theres only one thing separating them, choice. My only question is do you maintain your abortion views in both situations? If you shift your position from one hypothetical to the other then that means personal responsibility has some role in your morality. For me, in the first hypothetical woman has a right to abort at any time pre-viability. In the second, I would probably give her a week or 2 to change her mind. Now in real life, women don't know half the time that they are even pregnant for a few weeks, and the dad is also sharing in this responsibility. So that makes me give the mom some more leniency, but it wouldn't be unrestricted. I remember i polled here a while back about this topic, and most people voted "she should be able to abort at anytime for any reason". Yes, same in both. I'll give you a non hypothetical. A few years back I cured some dude of cancer using my stem cells. The timing of the procedure meant that they had to nuke his immune system completely before they gave him my stem cells to give him a new immune system. That created a window in which I could have killed him simply by withdrawing my consent to the procedure. They actually talked me through all of this ahead of time, they explained that they were going to nuke him and that he would definitely 100% die almost immediately if I changed my mind so they wanted to check that I had absolutely no doubts and that I was definitely not going to turn his year or so to live into days by letting them take his immune system and then not giving him mine. Anyway, they nuked his immune system and I showed up the next day and let them harvest my stem cells to turn into a new one for him. Did I have the right to withdraw that day? Yes. Would it have been a dick move? Also yes. If a woman pushes the button and then decides that she's changed her mind, dick move. But she does have the right. | ||
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maybenexttime
Poland5595 Posts
And in terms of biology, the benefits of a relationship between two organisms are primarily judged by how it affects the host's biological fitness. Offspring increases the host's fitness, so it's hard to call it a parasite simply because the mother doesn't want to have children at that point in life. Your line of reasoning is controversial, not some objective reality. | ||
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KwarK
United States42837 Posts
On April 26 2017 00:23 maybenexttime wrote: Sure, if the woman wants to exert her bodily autonomy, let her do that, as long as it doesn't infringe on the fetus's bodily autonomy. The mother (and the father) forced the fetus into this whole situation, not the other way round. She indirectly forced the fetus to become a "parasite", even if that wasn't her intention. And in terms of biology, the benefits of a relationship between two organisms are primarily judged by how it affects the host's biological fitness. Offspring increases the host's fitness, so it's hard to call it a parasite simply because the mother doesn't want to have children at that point in life. Your line of reasoning is controversial, not some objective reality. The fetus didn't exactly have anything better going on before the sperm and egg combined. It's not like it was at a spa before they dragged it into her uterus. Parents don't force a fetus to be a parasite anymore than they force their offspring to be carbon based. It's just what they are. Offspring do not increase the host's fitness. Childbirth is historically speaking the least healthy thing that can happen to a woman. Evolution doesn't give a shit about the mother, beyond the degree to which it impacts the child, but the propagation of the genetic legacy is not a specific benefit conferred to an individual. As for infringing upon the bodily autonomy of the fetus, the two are mutually incompatible because of the parasitic nature of the fetus. The fetus cannot exist without the body of the mother. There's no "don't infringe upon each other" here, the existence of one is built upon infringing upon the other. That's why a choice has to be made about which one of them has bodily autonomy. It cannot be both. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
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maybenexttime
Poland5595 Posts
On April 26 2017 00:32 KwarK wrote: The fetus didn't exactly have anything better going on before the sperm and egg combined. It's not like it was at a spa before they dragged it into her uterus. How is that relevant? Let the mother exert her bodily autonomy as long as it doesn't infringe on the fetus's bodily autonomy. Parents don't force a fetus to be a parasite anymore than they force their offspring to be carbon based. It's just what they are. Wrong. They force it into the whole situation. Without their agency the fetus would not be there to begin with. So while that is the only way for a fetus to exist, it wouldn't have existed if it weren't for the actions of its parents. Offspring do not increase the host's fitness. Childbirth is historically speaking the least healthy thing that can happen to a woman. Evolution doesn't give a shit about the mother, beyond the degree to which it impacts the child, but the propagation of the genetic legacy is not a specific benefit conferred to an individual. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitness_(biology) Having offspring is the definition of reproductive success. That's how biological fitness is ultimately judged. Nothing is more beneficial to biological fitness than offspring. As for infringing upon the bodily autonomy of the fetus, the two are mutually incompatible because of the parasitic nature of the fetus. The fetus cannot exist without the body of the mother. There's no "don't infringe upon each other" here, the existence of one is built upon infringing upon the other. That's why a choice has to be made about which one of them has bodily autonomy. It cannot be both. Indeed, but since the mother had agency in this ordeal and the fetus did not, the latter's bodily autonomy should supersede the former's bodily autonomy. She could've avoided this situation by having protected sex or abstaining. The fetus did not have any choice in this. If I locked you up in my basement and you were totally dependent on me in terms of food, would you be infringing on my autonomy or would I be infringing on yours? | ||
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IgnE
United States7681 Posts
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maybenexttime
Poland5595 Posts
On April 26 2017 00:51 IgnE wrote: i really think this abortion stuff is not that hard, and yet the last several pages have demonstrated how unclearly/inconsistently so many otherwise intelligent individuals think about this topic. i am led to conclude that disagreements are mainly about soul-stuff and its presence/absence in fetuses even if the aforementioned confused individuals would rather not admit it. It really is not. I am an atheist. | ||
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KwarK
United States42837 Posts
On April 26 2017 00:50 maybenexttime wrote: If I locked you up in my basement and you were totally dependent on me in terms of food, would you be infringing on my autonomy or would I be infringing on yours? The metaphor just doesn't work. I wouldn't be taking your food against your will, you would be choosing to feed me after imprisoning me. You could just let me go. An appropriate metaphor would need the following components. 1) Every time the captor tried to eat, the prisoner would restrain them and help themselves to the contents of the plate, leaving the captor only what remained. 2) The captor could be forced to have a prisoner against their will by a third party. 3) Every day the prisoner remains restrained there is a considerable chance that they will kill the captor and themselves. 4) The captor may have had no intention of taking a prisoner. 5) If the captor chooses to no longer keep the prisoner a prisoner then the prisoner dies. | ||
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KwarK
United States42837 Posts
On April 26 2017 00:51 IgnE wrote: i really think this abortion stuff is not that hard, and yet the last several pages have demonstrated how unclearly/inconsistently so many otherwise intelligent individuals think about this topic. i am led to conclude that disagreements are mainly about soul-stuff and its presence/absence in fetuses even if the aforementioned confused individuals would rather not admit it. If I thought they had souls it wouldn't change it for me. The bodily autonomy argument is sound regardless of the humanity of the dependent party. | ||
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IgnE
United States7681 Posts
oh you don't think atheists believe in soul-stuff? | ||
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Artisreal
Germany9235 Posts
Don't get the woman pregnant, no need for abortion. Get her pregnant by accident (condom broke or w/e), let the parents decide whether to keep it or not. Pregnancy is a medical danger for the mother, let her decide whether she wants to take on the risk. Bam, easy solution. | ||
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