9 Comments

Our level of consideration for others' well-being obviously doesn't come from an objective consideration of either their 'intelligence' or 'love'. Imagine how a life form like that would behave. If it somehow could evolve, it would immediately go extinct. There are multiple considerations involved, but the most important is our assessment of their value as friends (or danger as enemies). That's why we care a lot more about people we know personally than about random strangers. They can more easily help or hurt us, so better be nice. This is the reason for the difference in our treatment of humans and animals,

not some Platonic nonsense about their 'soul value'. If you want to live in a society of humans, you have to treat human interests particularly carefully. Animal interests, not so much. Alternately, you could say that that the phrase just refers to the intuitive perception, leading to a tendency to act this way, with which evolution, a providential if unmerciful god, has outfitted us. If AI ever develops the ability to significantly affect the material world, it wouldn't surprise me if humans suddenly develop the same overriding interest in their welfare. And if not, the ones who don't will just go extinct as well. So it goes.

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If you reject Plato, what is your metaphysics based on?

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Are you a Platonist?

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Yeah, can you answer my question? Or do you only engage in critique and agnostically avoid stating your own beliefs?

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I'm a materialist. I believe that nothing is real except matter and energy and their reactions in space.

By the way, I'm perfectly willing to state my opinion, obviously. The parent comment has enough of that.

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My soul is simply too decrepit to truly care about animals. But there is a good argument I have seen to treat animals with dignity that works even for me: AI will learn to how think and behave from us, if it sees we continue to enslave or kill « inferior » animals then AI will kill or enslave us as we definitely would become inferior to it at some point. If we treat those inferior animals with dignity, then the AI might also decide to treat us well , especially since we would be closer to being the « good guys » in this case.

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If you actually think wolf hunters should be aggressively prosecuted then you are simply retarded

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You don't believe that immoral people can be intelligent?

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Dec 12
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I see no evidence that lab grown meat results in cancer. I will not eat lab-grown meat on superstitious grounds, but I support others having the right to eat it.

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