The Glade 4.0

Lydiaa,

I continually find it surprising that I have more in common intellectually, philosophically and politically with a young asian woman from Australia than I do with a white male my own age that grew up ~100 miles from where I grew up.

Montegue, your analogy fails in that reproduction is one of the primary purposes of intercourse; being shot is not one of the primary purposes of going to the gun range; being in an accident is not one of the primary purposes of driving an automobile. Try again.

_________________
"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Says the person who feels this right is superior.

Wow, what a bastion of logic.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Vindi - the primary purpose for intercourse is up to the person having intercourse, not you.

_________________


It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

That right *is* superior. The fetus in question has no rights. It's not a citizen. Either way, the *State* certainly does not have the right to force a woman to bring a pregnancy to term.

_________________


It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

Sadly, I'm not the one who made up the biological rules, and neither did you or the one who wants to kill their unborn child because they view a baby as an inconvenient side effect of getting off.

_________________
"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Intercourse is not now, nor has it ever been (at least since we have been recording our history and coming up with laws), strictly about reproduction. Just like there are many reasons to go to a shooting range (to shoot, to look at guns, to watch others shoot), there are many reasons to have sex.

A fetus is not an unborn child at every stage of development, and your appeal to emotion here sort of ruins your argument.

_________________


It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

Next time you should read what I wrote. Here, I'll quote it for you so you can comment about what I actually wrote, rather than what you would like me to have written:

_________________
"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Actually, if rights are statutory instead of inherent, the *state* certainly can have that right if it gives it to itself.



1) Then eugenics is permissible, by extending this logic.
2) Euthanasia also falls under the heading of healthcare.
3) Control of euthanasia should therefore also fall into control of healthcare.


Congrats on advocating logic that permits eugenics and euthanasia. Goebbels would be a fan.

_________________
“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Vindi - Getting pregnant is *not* one of the primary purposes for any intercourse *I* have had. You are missing *my* point - that the reason to have intercourse is not objective. People have intercourse for a variety of reasons, just like people get into a car and drive for a variety of reasons.

_________________


It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

Again because this is how I see things, the here and now rather than what it could become (in terms of living organisms mostly). This is necessary on my training for what I do, it is also an acquired preferred method when dealing with the body. (e.g. I don’t believe in waiting 3 weeks to see how a spot on my body turns out, or refusing to experiment cells cause if given the right condition it’ll grow.) This accounts for me seeing an egg under 9 weeks as it is, rather than the child that you see.

Remember also that I’m not talking about a foetus. I’m talking about up to and until 9 weeks when it is still in the zygote stage (mostly). And while it is a viable zygote, it is by no means alive or have the functions necessary to survive on its own, if removed from the mother.

Anyways with out going into it, let me answer your question.

1) If you go down into the most simple building blocks of our body, nothing that’s on us are alive. We’re made of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen… I could go on. This is why life is a miracle and why reproduction is a miracle. You mentioned previously that if we track back far enough, eventually we’d all have the same ancestor. I’d ask you to go a couple of steps further and spare a thought in that if we track far back far enough, we’re all just atoms. Kinda spins me out thinking about it.. but I’m digressing.
2) Most? cells in the body (depending on which ones you look at) only carry some of the things mentioned. I’m struggling to think of a cell which may carry all the traits and I’m coming up pretty blank atm. I think reproduce and growth is where its getting me. Most cells grow, split and replicate and can not be counted to reproduce. Other cells are made within systems and usually released whole, thus lacking the growth.
Leave this one with me and I’ll have a good think on the matter and get back to you. (I really should do some work hehe)

Oh before I forget, I gave you the science def for Viable. Keep in mind that science hardly ever talk in black and white, with most things at a 95% confidence interval. So even though we usually say something was Viable, it doesn’t mean it’ll always replicate and start doing things like a good little cell. It simply means that it is capable of doing so. The body’s complicated and frigidy like that… makes my computer seem like a saint sometimes.

Just cause you're not reading the instruction manual doesn’t mean you can change it’s intended purpose. A car’s intended purpose is to move from point A and B. Just cause you set up house inside a car, doesn’t mean you can claim that all cars are houses.

You’re free to chose what you do with intercourse, but please don’t change the what it is… >.<

A car's purpose is what I want it to be. If I buy a show car, for example, it's purpose could be to look pretty in my drive way. If I buy a race car, it's purpose could be to race, or it could be to pick up chicks.

The *function* of intercourse might be to reproduce, but that is not it's purpose. It's purpose is what I make of it. Again, I have never once had intercourse with the purpose of reproducing. It has never been a primary purpose behind the sex that I have had.

_________________


It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

Interesting you should mention those. Eugenics is permissible and already included in most health care. This is why we scan for problems with the baby before it's born and induce late term abortions if there's something wrong with it.

It is also interesting to note that one of the territories over here did a short 3 month trial on legalising Euthanasia (at the patient’s own cost of course) and was hugely successful. The control of these procedures were listed under voluntary healthcare and was controlled by our healthcare department. However all the “think of the children” people shot it down >.<

That's not eugenics.

Eugenics is:


Emphasis mine. The type of scans you're talking about in healthcare, with which I'm familiar, are not for the improvement of the species, they're for the health, convenience, and quality of life of the baby and family.



I'm not saying I have a problem with euthanasia, that's its own topic. My point is that Monty's logic leads to centralized regulation of euthanasia.

_________________
“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

While I'm sure we'd love to all take your standard as the main one, unfortunately until you take over the world it just isnt so.

The intended purpose is usually stated by the maker of the product. If it's a house it's to live in, if it's a medicine thats to be taken orally please listen, if it's a car it's to drive (Note you said a SHOW car, thus the intended purpose is for show), and reproduction as far as we can tell (unfortunately there were no instruction manuals) is to umm.. reproduce.

Just cause it's lots of fun and you can play around with the method of usage doesnt mean that it's intended purpose changes. All you can do is to up the chance that the intended purpose doesnt happen. You can't change the actual meaning of the intended purpose no matter how much or how badly you want it to. Unfortunately science isnt' there to please what you want, but about facts.

Actually, that's just the point. The purpose belongs to the person acting, not the "machine" involved. We are individual people with free well, and are in possession of our own bodies. You want to make the function into everyone's purpose. This denies free will. The purpose is what I make of it.

I get into a car for whatever reason I want. It may not be to go from A to B. It might be to go from A to A. It might be to have sex in the parking lot with the person I picked up in a bar. I mitigate the risks of my choice by wearing a seatbelt. However, if I get into an accident, if a consequence that I did not want happens, then my health care covers the injury.

Pregnancy is no different. I *might* get into my partner in order to procreate, but that's not what I want. So, I put on a condom, we have sex. If procreation happens, it's no different than a car accident - an unintended consequence.




Again, you are mistaking function for purpose. Look, I can choose to have sex with a woman, a man, or a hole in a wall. The *function* is the same. The results may vary. Either way, the *purpose* is not objective.



What is the "purpose" of a hammer? It might be designed to hammer a nail. However, I can use it for all kinds of things. There is no *purpose* to a hammer. There is a function. Purpose is up to the person holding the hammer.

"The hammer is my penis"

-Cpt. Hammer

_________________


It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

So you're justifying your position through the idea that it is a compartmentalizing of the issue to avoid your ego dealing with it. Thats what I understand you saying. This is not a rational response.[/quote]



How does a zygote not fullfill all the criteria for life that you issued above? You'll note nowhere in your own criteria for life is survivability outside a given environment. We don't assume polar bears are not alive because they cannot live in the Sahara for example.
It grows.
It metabolises.
It reproduces.
It responds to stimuli.





This doesn't answer my question in fact it all the more confirms that logically you must conclude that neither you nor I is alive. Also while theory exists that we came from chemicals there is no direct observation and no experiments confirming this is possible.




Which is exactly why I put the definition of viable as not defining a state but defining a state in reference to an environment. We are not discussing anything but a state which is why the term viable is out of scope for this discussion.

I still cannot understand how you can utterly evade this logic.

A zygote is not alive
Nothing not alive becomes alive.
I was once a zygote.
Therefore:

Z=~L
if (~L and (T or ~T)) then ~L
I = (~L+T)

Where Z = Zygote L = Life T= forward passage of time I= The individual reading the statement.

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

It could be considered as improvements as you're removing the otherwise defunct genes that would have gotten into the gene pool.

Keep in mind that that the studying of hereditary diseases as diabetes and their removal from IVF could also be considered under this rule.

Just because we’re not selecting eye colour or height, doesn’t mean we’re not doing it for “the improvement of the species”.

That's a lovely equation, or logical proof, but it's missing something essential. Rights do not belong to all living things. They belong to "persons". A zygote is not a person. It's a zygote.

Person is a legal definition, based on both science and philosophy. You want to give an objective definition to something significantly more murky than that.

To me, a person is pretty clear to the observer. Brain activity beyond autonomic, major organ function, arms, legs, head, torso, etc. There's more to it than a simplified "living" and "not living".

Your definition of rights includes an inherent flip side to the coin - responsibility. There is no way you can reasonably say that a zygote can take responsibility for it's actions.

In fact, you claim that the inherent rights of a child are somehow automatically transfered to a parent at the childs birth. Huh? How can that follow? A fetus has it's own rights, and then suddenly (and without it's consent) once it's born gives those rights to another individual?

It just doesn't make sense.

_________________


It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

A monte is not person it is a monte.

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I've never heard of a couple saying: "Yes, we want to abort our fetus that is 85% likely to have Downs for the good of the species.



That's an excellent counterexample (though I disagree slightly, it's still a good counter). I think IVF is it's own discussion as well, though.

However, I'll say again though that the logic being advocated promotes central control and regulation of this process.

_________________
“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

A monte is not person it is a monte.[/quote]

That doesn't make any sense.

I am a Person, according to the legal, scientific, and philisophical definition.

_________________


It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

That doesn't make any sense.

I am a Person, according to the legal, scientific, and philisophical definition.[/quote]

A zygote is a person according to all of them as well.

However you are summarily judging someone not to be a person in your view. You simply dehumanize them. I do it to you. I don't recognize you as a person. Perhaps some close approximation of that can respond with simple responses to stimuli but nothing more than a regurgitatin automaton.

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

You can stick your fingers in your ears and refuse to acknowledge the facts, or you can be reasonable. The choice is always up to you.

_________________
"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

I know you’re male but seriously, do you not listen at all! From the very start I told you I believe the difference could arise from different thought process’… Just cause your thought process is different doesn’t make mine wrong, that’s the wonderful thing about thought but this is more philosophical than factual. You prefer to think of what things could become, and I prefer to look at what it currently is. Has nothing to do with ego.




Sure I did, you just ignored it =P I wrote “metabolism, growth, reproduction, and response to stimuli or adaptation to the environment originating from within the organism”. Changing of environment is included in the adaptation clause.

That’s kinda unfair as nothing could survive in the Sahara. Bring them to say… Australia (not that we need another dangerous animal) but they will adapt by trying to hunt other stuff. A zygote mean while can not survive in artificial environments produced exactly like the womb. Of course if science changes and we’re able to keep it alive I’d be willing to review my views.

As to your zygote, it does not reproduce. If you want to instead look at the cells within the zygote it replicates, but not reproduce.



Lol… no it is as I wrote. When you break down a body to its most primary building blocks we’re in-animate, we’re carbon based compounds, we’re not alive. This can be proven over and over and over again. Give me a drop of blood or a strand of hair and I can use it’s compound make up to determine your DNA. This is done because we’re already knowledgeable in regards to these compounds. Now exactly how these compounds work to produce, that’s what we’re still missing. That’s where religion comes in.




I hate mathes.. and you owe me alcohol for trying to understand that >.<

Here’s a question. Prior to the meeting of sperm with egg, if you were alive, where were you?