141–150 of 201 posts
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A fox eats a rabbit out of necessity. In our modern economy, people don't need to eat animals; it's usually a matter of convenience, taste, and tradition. But in all reality, we can get by quite comfortably without doing so.
There is no moral obligation to abstain from meat, whatsoever.
So a guy tickles a rat and the rat makes sounds. This apparently amounts to "laughing" and somehow should make us feel the rat more closely resembles a human. What a load of bunk.
AFAIK, there is no single trait that is qualitatively human. We distinguish ourselves quantitatively (our fine motor skills, the size of our working memory and culture).
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Studying AI has given me a lot of perspective of human intelligence. It's pretty incredible the way that a system that was designed as a basic input/output sensory/reflex system has gotten so complex that we still cannot model it with supercomputers. The numbers of connections and configurations of neurons is staggering, and still well beyond the neat matrix-array-based of modern AI. ...but at the core, I've come to…
Until it's there it's 100% sci-fi. We've been through a few AI hype cycles already and the most advanced AI is still dumb as fuck compared to a 3yo kid. We might be on a completely wrong path with our current approach too, difference of degree vs difference of kind, we don't know much about the brain and so far our binary way of computing isn't really promising, especially not in term of mimicking or surpassing the h…
Or even a squirrel, take robotics for example or hell even an AI simulated animal, the AI don't even come close in it's ability to problem solve and react to novel situations. A squirrel powered by a few acorns is able to achieve things that even our most powerful supercomputers consuming 8.2 megawatts could never do.
Problem is we are currently limited by our computer architecture, brains operate in a wildly different way, for one it's continuous/non discrete collection of neurons that in themselves are quite complex.
IMO true AI will need to closer to a network of analog computing parts.
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There’s one major distinction between humans and animals: language. Not like “me want banana” language like in apes but like fully “ideas within ideas within ideas” language, with recursion and case and noun classes and all that. It’s incredible. It’s astonishing. We are like gods compared to other animals. And ever since we have had language (not even that long — ~50k years or so) we have been using it to tell stori…
There's nothing immoral with eating things. Why would there be? The other posters' rabbit-fox example is a great point. I also strongly reject the idea that we need 'our specialness' to 'justify eating things and how we treat them'. I don't need justification beyond: 'That thing is made of meat. I can eat meat. I'm going to kill it and eat it'. There is no moral crisis. Things die. Things get eaten. Just 2 days ago,…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A fox eats a rabbit out of necessity. In our modern economy, people don't need to eat animals; it's usually a matter of convenience, taste, and tradition. But in all reality, we can get by quite comfortably without doing so.
There is no moral obligation to abstain from meat, whatsoever.
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When playing dogs will indeed bark, growl and whines, but also produce a forced exhalation: that's their laugh. Other sounds can be produced in other contexts indeed, whereas this dog laughter is exclusive to play.
Do you mean the "sorta sneeze" they do? I think mine do that when they think/want that we are going on a walk or into the garden to run about. It's a signal of "let's go adventuring". There's also the high pitched excited yip and then the tongue out wiggling walk thing as well both of which might be laughter I think.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s one major distinction between humans and animals: language. Not like “me want banana” language like in apes but like fully “ideas within ideas within ideas” language, with recursion and case and noun classes and all that. It’s incredible. It’s astonishing. We are like gods compared to other animals. And ever since we have had language (not even that long — ~50k years or so) we have been using it to tell stori…
There's nothing immoral with eating things. Why would there be? The other posters' rabbit-fox example is a great point. I also strongly reject the idea that we need 'our specialness' to 'justify eating things and how we treat them'. I don't need justification beyond: 'That thing is made of meat. I can eat meat. I'm going to kill it and eat it'. There is no moral crisis. Things die. Things get eaten. Just 2 days ago,…
I am made of meat -- hopefully we don't cross paths!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A fox eats a rabbit out of necessity. In our modern economy, people don't need to eat animals; it's usually a matter of convenience, taste, and tradition. But in all reality, we can get by quite comfortably without doing so.
There is no moral obligation to abstain from meat, whatsoever.
The amount of convincing arguments for needlessly causing suffering in beings that clearly experience it are vanishingly small.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's nothing immoral with eating things. Why would there be? The other posters' rabbit-fox example is a great point. I also strongly reject the idea that we need 'our specialness' to 'justify eating things and how we treat them'. I don't need justification beyond: 'That thing is made of meat. I can eat meat. I'm going to kill it and eat it'. There is no moral crisis. Things die. Things get eaten. Just 2 days ago,…
This is a fascinating twist to me. Human exceptionalism is what lets us justify not eating other animals- if we're not special then there is no reason we should be held to a different standard. I have encountered many conversations with the opposite premise and it never occurred to me that it should be reversed. Thanks for the new perspective.
Total aside, I think it's funny that many 'classic herbivores' like deer, horses, moose, etc, will absolutely eat other animals if the opportuntiy presents it. Vegetarians and vegans have chosen a dietary extreme that even the animals they strive to protect/save/whatever don't display.