i like him because he pretends to have down syndrome, the disabled are hilarious....

Oh, you want some too!?!?!? [pulls @charliem into the downvote corner].

*smack*smack*smack*>> ^charliem:

4 downvotes on a comment that forgot the sarcasm tag Tough crowd.

>> ^gorillaman:

>> ^KnivesOut:
Taken at face value, you sound like a pretty awful person.
Care to elaborate? Forgot sarcasm checkbox?
Humanity is intellect.^{[Citation Needed]}
This is a video of essentially stillborn babies leading sham-lives with the help of delusional puppeteers, at a real cost to society.^{[Citation Needed]}
This is the voice of compassion. We're ill-enough-equipped to deal with the existing problems of living, intellectually active humans without supporting the anthropomorphizational fantasies of grieving parents. ^{[Citation Needed]}
As gwiz will be pleased to hear, ~90% of downs foetuses are aborted in civilised countries.^{[Citation Needed]} We need to improve that towards 100%, while implementing other controls on low-value births. Eugenics is not the enemy; it's a necessary step in the advancement of our species.^{[Citation Needed]} This ad, emotionally satisfying as it may be, pulls us in exactly the wrong direction.

LOL... you're a good troll. Here's a game for you: please precisely define the distinction between sensory processes and cognitive processes, and how exactly DS sufferers lack the latter. Or were you just some armchair bullshitter?

Fair warning, if you really want to have this debate, I'm probably out of your league.

>> ^gorillaman:

>> ^dag:
I believe sentience is a gray scale that extends well into the animal kingdom.
You can judge the character of a person by how they treat those that are weaker and less capable.

I think there's an argument to be made for one or more 'sentience thresholds' where the sum of an advanced intellect's understanding of the world, sense of itself, and capacity for abstract thought places it in a very different sphere of mentality to even slightly less able minds.
It's obvious that there's a distinction between non-thinking objects and any thinking creature at all, which would be the first threshold; I claim that humanity, or perhaps only the best of humanity, has cracked another.
It's a fact that compared to humans, animal brains are disproportionately devoted to sensory processing, etc. rather than cognition; which places us orders of magnitude ahead of them in our particular province, even with brains of apparently similar complexity. So there's a real gap there, rather than a smooth progression.
We have animal brains with a little extra cognitive grey matter stapled on top. That little bit seems to make all the difference. It's exciting to think where we'll be when we're able to create a lot more cognition, either biologically or electronically.
Now all of this may not have direct implications for damaged human brains, but it informs our understanding of intelligence generally.
I feel that the error being made by say, vegetarians who claim that 'an animal has just as much right to exist as a person', and similarly sincere but misguided retard-guardians is that they fail to account for these extremely important distinctions.

>> ^dag:

Do you claim that there is a quantitative value of sentience? Are 100 chickens worth the life of a single human? Your rational argument breaks down into absurdity when followed to its ends. Better to err on the side of compassion and kindness towards living creatures where possible.
This is very much your position. In a sentience-spectrum model like your own some number of chickens must equal one human; whereas I claim there's a qualitative difference between chickens and humans, or retards and humans, that makes the comparison meaningless.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Do you claim that there is a quantitative value of sentience? Are 100 chickens worth the life of a single human? Your rational argument breaks down into absurdity when followed to its ends. Better to err on the side of compassion and kindness towards living creatures where possible.
>> ^gorillaman:

>> ^dag:
I believe sentience is a gray scale that extends well into the animal kingdom.
You can judge the character of a person by how they treat those that are weaker and less capable.

I think there's an argument to be made for one or more 'sentience thresholds' where the sum of an advanced intellect's understanding of the world, sense of itself, and capacity for abstract thought places it in a very different sphere of mentality to even slightly less able minds.
It's obvious that there's a distinction between non-thinking objects and any thinking creature at all, which would be the first threshold; I claim that humanity, or perhaps only the best of humanity, has cracked another.
It's a fact that compared to humans, animal brains are disproportionately devoted to sensory processing, etc. rather than cognition; which places us orders of magnitude ahead of them in our particular province, even with brains of apparently similar complexity. So there's a real gap there, rather than a smooth progression.
We have animal brains with a little extra cognitive grey matter stapled on top. That little bit seems to make all the difference. It's exciting to think where we'll be when we're able to create a lot more cognition, either biologically or electronically.
Now all of this may not have direct implications for damaged human brains, but it informs our understanding of intelligence generally.
I feel that the error being made by say, vegetarians who claim that 'an animal has just as much right to exist as a person', and similarly sincere but misguided retard-guardians is that they fail to account for these extremely important distinctions.

>> ^dag:

I believe sentience is a gray scale that extends well into the animal kingdom.
You can judge the character of a person by how they treat those that are weaker and less capable.


I think there's an argument to be made for one or more 'sentience thresholds' where the sum of an advanced intellect's understanding of the world, sense of itself, and capacity for abstract thought places it in a very different sphere of mentality to even slightly less able minds.

It's obvious that there's a distinction between non-thinking objects and any thinking creature at all, which would be the first threshold; I claim that humanity, or perhaps only the best of humanity, has cracked another.

It's a fact that compared to humans, animal brains are disproportionately devoted to sensory processing, etc. rather than cognition; which places us orders of magnitude ahead of them in our particular province, even with brains of apparently similar complexity. So there's a real gap there, rather than a smooth progression.

We have animal brains with a little extra cognitive grey matter stapled on top. That little bit seems to make all the difference. It's exciting to think where we'll be when we're able to create a lot more cognition, either biologically or electronically.

Now all of this may not have direct implications for damaged human brains, but it informs our understanding of intelligence generally.

I feel that the error being made by say, vegetarians who claim that 'an animal has just as much right to exist as a person', and similarly sincere but misguided retard-guardians is that they fail to account for these extremely important distinctions.

In reply to this comment by UsesProzac:
I wanted it up there, too. It's a lovely commercial and the nastiness on it I think should be seen, too.
In reply to this comment by pumkinandstorm:
In reply to this comment by UsesProzac:
*doublepromote

Thank you so much for the doublepromote Laura! I really wanted this one to be seen! :


I agree!! The nastiness of that person's comments makes the video's message all that much more important.

LOL....look like someone needs some attention!

"Hey everyone....look at me..I'm gonna say something!!"

LOL!!

Seriously dude...take your shit and leave.

Nobody wants you here.

Just go....

>> ^gorillaman:

These are not human beings in anything but the broadest and least meaningful sense. Their consciousness will never rise above the animal; few enough normal births achieve that. Treating retards like real people is nothing but sentimentality and self-delusion; and in an over-populated, impoverished world, it's harmful and criminal.

In reply to this comment by UsesProzac:
*doublepromote

Thank you so much for the doublepromote Laura! I really wanted this one to be seen!

>> ^dag:

What about people up the autism scale - unable to experience empathy? If so - it's the end of Gorillaman.
I believe we have a responsibility to view these issues dispassionately and make rational choices rather than allowing ourselves to be ruled by our primitive emotions.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

What about people up the autism scale - unable to experience empathy? If so - it's the end of Gorillaman.>> ^gorillaman:

>> ^bmacs27:
I say we kill all the old people first. Anyone with dementia, or forget it, let's just save on social security. Once you can't work, you can fertilize the fields. I mean, really, old people, or human primate hybrids (man-gorillas if you will) they're all subhuman.
Like you said, wounded animals... the lot of them. I mean hell, if I couldn't get it up anymore, it would be common decency for you to put me out of my misery.
Then we should move on to the puppies. I mean, they're subhuman too right?

Yes, anyone with (advanced) dementia and yes, puppies. Pet ownership is a cause of colossal environmental damage and human poverty.
This all seems obvious to me; is recognising the unique quality of intelligence as being essential to our conception of personhood really such an obscure revelation?
Any creature without human intelligence is literally not a human being.

>> ^bmacs27:
I say we kill all the old people first. Anyone with dementia, or forget it, let's just save on social security. Once you can't work, you can fertilize the fields. I mean, really, old people, or human primate hybrids (man-gorillas if you will) they're all subhuman.
Like you said, wounded animals... the lot of them. I mean hell, if I couldn't get it up anymore, it would be common decency for you to put me out of my misery.
Then we should move on to the puppies. I mean, they're subhuman too right?


Yes, anyone with (advanced) dementia and yes, puppies. Pet ownership is a cause of colossal environmental damage and human poverty.

This all seems obvious to me; is recognising the unique quality of intelligence as being essential to our conception of personhood really such an obscure revelation?

Any creature without human intelligence is literally not a human being.

>> ^gorillaman:

@KnivesOut
You couldn't be more wrong. We are poor and overpopulated, and we desperately need to correct that. Now is not the time to be keeping luxuries like pet underpeople.


I say we kill all the old people first. Anyone with dementia, or forget it, let's just save on social security. Once you can't work, you can fertilize the fields. I mean, really, old people, or human primate hybrids (man-gorillas if you will) they're all subhuman.

Like you said, wounded animals... the lot of them. I mean hell, if I couldn't get it up anymore, it would be common decency for you to put me out of my misery.

Then we should move on to the puppies. I mean, they're subhuman too right?

Well, I think we should weed out things like Down's Syndrome before birth, but once they are here, we must take care of them. We should have some common decency towards otherwise helpless, or lower functioning people, like the sick, disabled, retarded, jobless, poor etc. but try to avoid making new ones.

>> ^gorillaman:

>> ^KnivesOut:
Taken at face value, you sound like a pretty awful person.
Care to elaborate? Forgot sarcasm checkbox?
Humanity is intellect.
This is a video of essentially stillborn babies leading sham-lives with the help of delusional puppeteers, at a real cost to society.
This is the voice of compassion. We're ill-enough-equipped to deal with the existing problems of living, intellectually active humans without supporting the anthropomorphizational fantasies of grieving parents.
As gwiz will be pleased to hear, ~90% of downs foetuses are aborted in civilised countries. We need to improve that towards 100%, while implementing other controls on low-value births. Eugenics is not the enemy; it's a necessary step in the advancement of our species. This ad, emotionally satisfying as it may be, pulls us in exactly the wrong direction.