Politics & Stuff

[Spike 12,049]

3 hours ago, CHOULO19 said:

That's just false. Or rather scientifically meaningless. A sperm could be defined to be alive as well or an unfertilized egg. 

Incorrect. It takes two to tango and a puzzle is incomplete without the other half. A sperm is nothing and an egg is nothing but when the two are combined they create a human life, a sperm life is not a human life, an egg life is not a human life, when the two have been conceived it is a human life. You wouldn't say I wasted beer if I poured some water on the ground and burnt some hops, would you? No they are just two pieces that create something. 

It is not scientifically meaningless and Princeton has provided a useful list: https://www.princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/embryoquotes2.html

"Human development begins after the union of male and female gametes or germ cells during a process known as fertilization (conception).
"Fertilization is a sequence of events that begins with the contact of a sperm (spermatozoon) with a secondary oocyte (ovum) and ends with the fusion of their pronuclei (the haploid nuclei of the sperm and ovum) and the mingling of their chromosomes to form a new cell. This fertilized ovum, known as a zygote, is a large diploid cell that is the beginning, or primordium, of a human being."
[Moore, Keith L. Essentials of Human Embryology. Toronto: B.C. Decker Inc, 1988, p.2]

[Spike 12,049]

3 hours ago, CHOULO19 said:

Of course police will always side with fascists. That's almost always  true everywhere. A week before the protests at Berkley, a Milo fan shot an anti-fascist protester at one of his events and police just let him go. Obviously that didn't make headlines as much as the riots. 

But that shouldn't mean that people should stop resisting in whatever manner they see fit. 

It was also an Asian dude. Interesting, but of course it does go both ways and honest reporting what have us know that both sets of people have their morons. Of course that isn't compelling to sell.

http://www.dailywire.com/news/12708/protester-shot-outside-milo-event-shooter-thought-james-barrett

Anyway, where are the actual Fascists they are protesting? 

[Spike 12,049]

3 hours ago, CHOULO19 said:

**[citation needed] 

What does that even mean? What is 'human life'? Why in the world makes it more important than other things? 

Philosophically, and hence in theoretical ethics as well, there is absolutely nothing significant about 'human life', it's not even something that can be defined. The best arguments that can be made are about human consciousness. A fertilized egg does not have consciousness. A fertilized egg is also no different than an unfertilized one or a sperm. They're just cells that could turn into a human with consciousness. Does that mean that contraception is murder as well?

Again a moral discussion about abortion is completely pointless, it's about practicality. 

An unconscious person doesn't have consciousness, do you kill them? If a person is in a comatose state do you kill them? What if you know they'll wake up in nine months? You are arguing the philosophical state of being, I'm arguing the biological state of being. It is literally a scientific fact that a human begins at contraception, whether conscious or not.
"The development of a human being begins with fertilization, a process by which two highly specialized cells, the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female, unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote."
[Langman, Jan. Medical Embryology. 3rd edition. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1975, p. 3]

[kmk108 1,186]

14 minutes ago, Spike said:

Incorrect. It takes two to tango and a puzzle is incomplete without the other half. A sperm is nothing and an egg is nothing but when the two are combined they create a human life, a sperm life is not a human life, an egg life is not a human life, when the two have been conceived it is a human life. You wouldn't say I wasted beer if I poured some water on the ground and burnt some hops, would you? No they are just two pieces that create something. 

It is not scientifically meaningless and Princeton has provided a useful list: https://www.princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/embryoquotes2.html

"Human development begins after the union of male and female gametes or germ cells during a process known as fertilization (conception).
"Fertilization is a sequence of events that begins with the contact of a sperm (spermatozoon) with a secondary oocyte (ovum) and ends with the fusion of their pronuclei (the haploid nuclei of the sperm and ovum) and the mingling of their chromosomes to form a new cell. This fertilized ovum, known as a zygote, is a large diploid cell that is the beginning, or primordium, of a human being."
[Moore, Keith L. Essentials of Human Embryology. Toronto: B.C. Decker Inc, 1988, p.2]

Going back to the beer analogy, if you poured mash (the combination of all the ingredients in a beer) on the ground, it's not wasting beer, because it hasn't fermented yet. It's not actually beer because the fermentation (incubation inside a woman) hasn't taken place yet. 

[Spike 12,049]

40 minutes ago, kmk108 said:

Going back to the beer analogy, if you poured mash (the combination of all the ingredients in a beer) on the ground, it's not wasting beer, because it hasn't fermented yet. It's not actually beer because the fermentation (incubation inside a woman) hasn't taken place yet. 

Just because the liquid in the huge tank isn't drinkable yet doesn't mean it isn't beer. Destroying ingredients and destroying something that has been created by human hands are two very different things. Humans don't just pop up out of the ground and neither does mash, it takes human interaction to create.

Sperm, eggs, hops and water exist without human interaction. Sex and fertilisation creates a human, as does adding water, hops and yeast into a vat creates beer.

[kmk108 1,186]

8 minutes ago, Spike said:

Just because the liquid in the huge tank isn't drinkable yet doesn't mean it isn't beer. Destroying ingredients and destroying something that has been created by human hands are two very different things. Humans don't just pop up out of the ground and neither does mash, it takes human interaction to create.

It actually isn't beer though. It's called wort (used the wrong term earlier) until the sugar has fermented with the yeast (takes at least a few weeks). You can drink the wort, but it isn't, by definition, beer until the fermentation process has been completed. 

[Iggy Doonican 4,186]

9 minutes ago, kmk108 said:

It actually isn't beer though. It's called wort (used the wrong term earlier) until the sugar has fermented with the yeast (takes at least a few weeks). You can drink the wort, but it isn't, by definition, beer until the fermentation process has been completed. 

I'll take your wort for it hic 

[Spike 12,049]

22 minutes ago, kmk108 said:

It actually isn't beer though. It's called wort (used the wrong term earlier) until the sugar has fermented with the yeast (takes at least a few weeks). You can drink the wort, but it isn't, by definition, beer until the fermentation process has been completed. 

Well, we've smashed out the logistics of beer today, let's see if we can solve world hunger, abortion and racism next. 

[kmk108 1,186]

24 minutes ago, Spike said:

Well, we've smashed out the logistics of beer today, let's see if we can solve world hunger, abortion and racism next. 

World hunger: beer is like liquid bread isn't it?

racism: people of all races love beer!

Abortion: hmmm...I guess beer can't solve abortions. 

[CHOULO19 24,332]

8 hours ago, lucio said:

anti fascists seem very... fascist

 

constantly resorting to violence to push their politics, anti fascist indeed. they seem to strike when they outnumber their opponent too

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/759181/Far-left-gang-beat-woman-wearing-NATIONAL-FLAG-bracelet-Murcia-Spain

Yeah, because the main problem with fascists is that they use violence not that they want to take away the rights of entire groups of people. Stop with the false equivalency.

 

[lucio 5,418]

16 minutes ago, CHOULO19 said:

Yeah, because the main problem with fascists is that they use violence not that they want to take away the rights of entire groups of people. Stop with the false equivalency.

 

their idea of resisting fascism is beating a young woman 8 on 1. or this guy looks like a racist, lets attack him.

 

what about Azad Ali Vice-Chair of Unite Against Fascism :

Mr Ali has written on his blog of his “love” for Anwar al-Awlaki, the al-Qaeda cleric closely linked to many terrorist plots, including the September 11 attacks, and used to attend talks by Abu Qatada, the extremist cleric whom Britain is seeking to deport.

He has described al-Qaeda as a “myth” and denied that the Mumbai attacks were terrorism. On his blog, he also advocated the killing of British troops in Iraq. He sued a newspaper for reporting that he had said this, and lost.

Filmed by an undercover reporter for The Sunday Telegraph and Channel 4’s Dispatches, he said: “Democracy, if it means at the expense of not implementing the sharia, of course no one agrees with that.” Mr Bennett defended Mr Ali, saying: “He’s done valuable work for us. I’ve heard him speak on many occasions and he’s never said any of the things he’s been accused of.”

 

Anti Fa does fuckall against this "taking away of rights"< because they are cowards. Lets just target the man down the road who dosent like mass immigration.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

50 minutes ago, lucio said:

their idea of resisting fascism is beating a young woman 8 on 1. or this guy looks like a racist, lets attack him.

 

what about Azad Ali Vice-Chair of Unite Against Fascism :

Mr Ali has written on his blog of his “love” for Anwar al-Awlaki, the al-Qaeda cleric closely linked to many terrorist plots, including the September 11 attacks, and used to attend talks by Abu Qatada, the extremist cleric whom Britain is seeking to deport.

He has described al-Qaeda as a “myth” and denied that the Mumbai attacks were terrorism. On his blog, he also advocated the killing of British troops in Iraq. He sued a newspaper for reporting that he had said this, and lost.

Filmed by an undercover reporter for The Sunday Telegraph and Channel 4’s Dispatches, he said: “Democracy, if it means at the expense of not implementing the sharia, of course no one agrees with that.” Mr Bennett defended Mr Ali, saying: “He’s done valuable work for us. I’ve heard him speak on many occasions and he’s never said any of the things he’s been accused of.”

 

Anti Fa does fuckall against this "taking away of rights"< because they are cowards. Lets just target the man down the road who dosent like mass immigration.

I don't care about individual instances and I don't claim to support every action ever committed by anyone who calls themselves antifascist. 

You said antifascists are the same as fascists because they resort to violence. That is a false equivalency. Your main problem with fascists shouldn't  be that they use violence but that they advocate for superiority based on ethnicity, for taking away civil and human rights of people based on who they are...etc. 

We can have a discussion about whether or not violence can be used to oppose that (which we've been having in this thread), but we can't have a serious discussion about whether the two are identical because they clearly and demonstrably are not.

[lucio 5,418]

1 hour ago, CHOULO19 said:

I don't care about individual instances and I don't claim to support every action ever committed by anyone who calls themselves antifascist. 

You said antifascists are the same as fascists because they resort to violence. That is a false equivalency. Your main problem with fascists shouldn't  be that they use violence but that they advocate for superiority based on ethnicity, for taking away civil and human rights of people based on who they are...etc. 

We can have a discussion about whether or not violence can be used to oppose that (which we've been having in this thread), but we can't have a serious discussion about whether the two are identical because they clearly and demonstrably are not.

as long as the ethnic superiority dosen't transform into laws or government , which it isnt threatening to do afaik, I'm not bothered what some reclusive nazis want. Violence is a problem for us all though. and these anti fascist stickers are everywhere, in my city. and gangs of thugs in balaclavas looking to attack people who disagree with them is concerning., especially as the victims appear to be normal people

[CHOULO19 24,332]

7 hours ago, Spike said:

Incorrect. It takes two to tango and a puzzle is incomplete without the other half. A sperm is nothing and an egg is nothing but when the two are combined they create a human life, a sperm life is not a human life, an egg life is not a human life, when the two have been conceived it is a human life. You wouldn't say I wasted beer if I poured some water on the ground and burnt some hops, would you? No they are just two pieces that create something. 

It is not scientifically meaningless and Princeton has provided a useful list: https://www.princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/embryoquotes2.html

"Human development begins after the union of male and female gametes or germ cells during a process known as fertilization (conception).
"Fertilization is a sequence of events that begins with the contact of a sperm (spermatozoon) with a secondary oocyte (ovum) and ends with the fusion of their pronuclei (the haploid nuclei of the sperm and ovum) and the mingling of their chromosomes to form a new cell. This fertilized ovum, known as a zygote, is a large diploid cell that is the beginning, or primordium, of a human being."
[Moore, Keith L. Essentials of Human Embryology. Toronto: B.C. Decker Inc, 1988, p.2]

Sorry, I meant philosophically not scientifically. Let's start again and try to frame the debate properly.

Your argument is that it is immoral to do abortions. You then used a scientific definition of human development. The problem there is that morals are not a scientific concept. They are an abstract philosophical concept. Morals don't apply to any scientifically defined stage of human development. Morals apply to members of what philosophers call the 'Moral Community' which basically includes anyone or anything that you consider to be a person (which may or may not include fertilized eggs, fetuses, animals, and even fictional characters. That brings us to the main debating point of the moral argument about abortion: How do you define personhood?

Now, to group many different things under the same definition, they need to exclusively share at least a single quality that you can use to define the group by. Being part of human development, as you suggested, cannot be the definition because that's not an intrinsic quality of something but rather a random definition itself. 

So what does a fertilized human egg have in common with a full grown human? One theory of personhood that can group both in the same group is the genetic theory (which google tells me was formulated by John Noonan) which basically says that anything with human DNA is a person. That is very obviously flawed because it would include things that are clearly not a person like your fallen skin cells or your spit or even dead people who still have bones...etc.

On the other extreme you have the cognitive theory for personhood (which again google says is by Mary An Warren) that says that a person must have consciousness, reasoning and capacity to communicate among other things (see here for a fuller explanation). That's also flawed because it rules out infants and small babies and we're all pretty sure that we can't kill those!

A more popular theory is that which defines a person as something that can feel pain and pleasure. That I believe was proposed by Peter Singer (but he himself believes a person should not only have sentience but also self-awareness). That would include fetuses older than about 25 weeks. You can see why this definition would be popular. It includes animals with a central nervous system and discludes a single cell that most would not consider to be a person.

Another one is the gradient theory of personhood which basically says that a fetus is less of person than an infant who is in turn less of a person than an adult human. Basically it means that abortion can be morally accepted in some cases since the mother is more of a person than the fetus. But to me that just raises more complications than definitive answers.

Which brings me back to my first point that the moral debate around abortion is basically pointless, not because it's not important, but because we don't agree on the definitions. Of course the moral debate is a factor in the equation but there are more important factors in my opinion that are not, or should not be, contentious like the fact that banning abortions only bans safe abortions, the fact that a huge percentage of 'homemade' abortions where abortions are illegal harm and even kill the mother, and the fact that forcing a sixteen year old to have a child she never intended to have most means that both the mother and the baby are going to have terrible lives. To me, allowing women to have the choice when to have a child or not which raises the overall quality of life for both women and children is more important than whether or not a few cells constitute a person or not.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

46 minutes ago, lucio said:

as long as the ethnic superiority dosen't transform into laws or government , which it isnt threatening to do afaik, I'm not bothered what some reclusive nazis want. Violence is a problem for us all though. and these anti fascist stickers are everywhere, in my city. and gangs of thugs in balaclavas looking to attack people who disagree with them is concerning., especially as the victims appear to be normal people

Did the government make it legal for leftists to assault people they disagree with? Until then, my focus will be on people calling for ethnic cleansing gaining a lot of power...