HIGH FIVE EVERYONE !

No one got raped !

- This is so staged. Where do I sign up for the women studies class? down the hall to the right ?

They totally high-fived and blew each other afterward.

Sadly, if she were a boy she'd be destined for eight-figure salaries in the NFL, but as a girl, all this career can get her is a high five figures salary in the Lingerie Football League.

>> ^direpickle:

>> ^criticalthud:
The mormons are wrong. jesus prefers a high five, not a secret handshake.

I'd rather give Jesus a fistbump.


good idea! wouldn't irritate the stigmatas as much.

>> ^criticalthud:

The mormons are wrong. jesus prefers a high five, not a secret handshake.


I'd rather give Jesus a fistbump.

The mormons are wrong. jesus prefers a high five, not a secret handshake.

@hpqp
I am not at all ashamed of my verbose, self-indulgent dross, so here we go!

Something has to be extra-physical, as least based on our current model. I can fully accept that a brain by itself can receive sensory input, process it against memory, and thus act in a completely human way indistinguishable from a conscious human, but on its own can literally be no more "conscious" than a river flowing down a mountain. Our current view of the physical universe does not tolerate any rational physical explanation of consciousness. Any given moment of human experience - the unified sensory experience and stream of consciousness - does not exist in a single place at a single instant. To suggest that the atoms\molecules\proteins\cells of the brain experience themselves in a unified manner based on their proximity to or electrochemical interaction with each other is magical thinking. Atoms don't do that, and that's all that's there, physically.
I disagree that consciousness is subordinate to cognition in terms of value. Cognition is what makes us who we are and behave as we do, but consciousness is what makes us different from the rest of the jiggling matter in the universe.

A couple of posts back, you challenged my statement about abstinence education as demonstrating a lack of pragmatism. I didn't really address it in my reply, but I'd prefaced it with the understanding that it's not a magical incantation. I know people are still going to have sex, but I suggested that has to be a part of education. People have to know that you can still get pregnant even if you're using the contraceptives that are available. They have to at least know the possibility exists. It's one more thing for them to consider. People are still going to drive recklessly even if you tell them they can crash and kill themselves despite their airbags, seatbelts, and crumple zones, but that doesn't mean it's not worth it to educate them about the possibility. I fail to see how that's not pragmatic.

I didn't reply to your comment about adoption vs abortion because I'm not sure there's anything else to add on either side. As I've said, my beliefs on this are such that even a grossly flawed adoption\orphan care system is preferable to the alternative, even if it means that approximately 10 times the number of children would enter the system than have traditionally been adopted each year. (1.4M abortions annually in the US, ~140K adoptions, but there are several assumptions in that math that wouldn't hold up to scrutiny.) Many right and just things have unpleasant consequences that must be managed. (The typical counter here is that Pro-Lifers tend to also be fiscal\social conservatives and won't fund social services to care for these new individuals they've "protected" into existence. That's just another issue of taking responsibility for the consequences of choices. If they get what they want, they need to be held to account, but it's a separate issue. A related issue, but a separate issue.)

Criminalizing\prohibiting almost any activity results in some degree of risky\dangerous\destructive behavior. Acts must be criminalized because there are individuals who would desire to perform those acts which have been determined to be an unnecessary imposition on the rights of another. Criminalization does not eliminate the desire, but it adds a new factor to consideration. Some will decide the criminalization\prohibition of the act is not sufficient deterrent, but in proceeding, are likely to do so in a different manner than otherwise. The broad consideration is whether the benefits of criminalization\prohibition outweigh the risks posed to\by the percentage who will proceed anyway. Prohibition of alcohol failed the test, I expect the prohibition of certain drugs will be shown to have failed the test..eventually. Incest is illegal, and the "unintended" consequence is freaks locking their families in sheds and basements in horrific conditions, but I think most of us would agree the benefits outweigh the detriment there.

Is putting all would-have-been-aborteds up for adoption abhorrent or absurd? The hump we'll never get over is asking "is it more abhorrent than aborting all of them", because we have different viewpoints on the relative values in play. But is it even a valid question? They won't all be put up for adoption. Some percentage (possibly 5-10 percent) will spontaneously miscarry\abort anyway and some percentage would be raised by a birth parent or by the extended family after all. An initially unwanted pregnancy does not necessarily equate to an unwanted child, for a number of reasons. I do not have statistics on what proportion could be expected to be put up for adoption. Would you happen to? It seems like that would be difficult to extrapolate.

The "'potential' shtick" carries weight in my view because of the uniqueness of the situation. There is no consensus on the "best" way to define when elective abortion is "acceptable". Sagan puts weight on cognition as indicative of personhood. As he states, the Supreme Court set its date based on independent "viability". (More specifically, I feel it should be noted, "potential" viability.) These milestones coincide only by coincidence.
Why is it so easy for us, as you say, to retroproject? And why is this any different from assigning personhood to each of a million individual sperm? For me, it's because of those statistics on miscarriage linked above. The retroprojected "potential" is represented by "percentages". At 3-6 weeks, without deliberate intervention 90% of those masses of cells will go on to become a human being. At 6-12 it's 95%. This is more than strictly "potential", it's nearly guaranteed.

I expect your response will be uncomfortable for both of us, but I wish you would expound on why my "It Gets Better" comparison struck you as inappropriate. Crude, certainly - I'll admit to phrasing it indelicately, even insensitively. I do not think it poorly considered, however. The point of "It Gets Better" is to let LGBT youth know that life does not remain oppressive, negative, and confusing, and that happiness and fulfillment lie ahead if they will only persevere.
It's necessary because as humans, we aren't very good at imagining we'll ever be happy again when surrounded by uncertainty and despair, or especially recognizing the good already around us. We can only see torment, and may not see the point in perpetuating a seemingly-unending chain of suffering when release is so close at hand, though violence against self (or others).
This directly parallels the "quality of life" arguments posed from the pro-choice perspective. They take an isolated slice of life from a theoretical unplanned child and their mother and suggest that this is their lot and that we've increased suffering in the universe, as if no abused child will ever know a greater love, or no poor child will ever laugh and play, and that no mother of an unwanted pregnancy will ever enjoy life again, burdened and poverty-stricken as she is.
As you said, we're expecting a woman to reflect "on what would her and the eventual child’s quality of life be like", but we're so bad at that.
And all that quality-of-life discussion is assuming we've even nailed the demographic on who is seeking abortions in the U.S.
Getting statistics from the Guttmacher Institute, we find that 77% were at or above the federal poverty level and 60% already had at least one child.

On a moral level, absolutely, eugenics is very different debate.
On a practical level, the eugenics angle is relevant because it's indistinguishable from any other elective abortion. Someone who is terminating a pregnancy because their child would be a girl, or gay, or developmentally disabled can very easily say "I'm just not ready for motherhood." And who's to say that's not the mother's prerogative as much as any other elective abortion, if she's considering the future quality of life for herself and the child? "It sucks for girls\gays\downs in today's society and I don't think I can personally handle putting them through that," or more likely "My family and I could never love a child like that, so they would be unloved and I would be miserable for it. This is better for both of us."
Can we write that off as hopefully being yet another edge case? (Keep in mind possibly 65% of individuals seeking abortion declare as Protestant or Catholic, though other statistics show how unreliable "reported religious affiliation" is with regard to actual belief and practice.)

_{"Argumentation"? I have learned a new word today, thanks to hpqp. High five!}

@ReverendTed
I will try to be brief, because I can’t wait for the “we solved abortion” party, and because @kymbos has made me self-conscious '. There is much to be said on the subject of your tangent, but I will keep it at this:

a) nothing is “extra-physical” (or meta-physical, or supernatural, etc.)
b) consciousness is subordinate to cognition and the treatment of sensory input, as even your illustration of consciousness testifies (see also: how blind-from-birth people dream)

A brain which has never received/treated sensory input is nothing more than a muscle-regulator. I am very grateful to @Tojja for linking the Sagan piece, because I now have a great mind backing my own intuitions.


Now back to the problem of regulating/prohibiting abortion. I take your lack of response to my rebuttal of the adoption “solution” as your agreeing with me (tell me if I’m wrong), in which case it illustrates what I argued concerning the lack of pragmatism on the pro-life side. Because let’s face it, the following are constants:

a) people will have sex, sometimes leading to unwanted pregnancy
b) people will want/need abortions, whether legal or not
c) criminalising abortion (be it on the doctor’s or the woman’s side) results in risky practices, especially by the most at risk (poor/uneducated)
d) putting all would-have-been-aborteds up for adoption is abhorrent and absurd

So what to do about it?

I notice that your argumentation goes back to the whole “potential” shtick, including the emotionally manipulative retroprojection of human individuality on a ball of cells in the example of how pro-lifers think. Sagan argues against the whole “potential” thing better than I do, so I’ll leave it at that, but I do take issue with the “good comes from bad” argument. Yes, undesired kids can grow to have great lives, just as the contrary can happen. But in a case opposing an individual who is and one who might be (but is not yet), it is the former’s choice that takes precedence (yes, we’re pro-choice, not pro-abortion or abortion-tolerant). Don’t forget, many unexpected pregnancies end in chosen births, not abortions. The important thing is not whether it is unexpected, but whether or not it is undesired. It is the choice of the woman, usually based on reflexion on what would her and the eventual child’s quality of life be like, to let what is at that stage only potential become an actual human individual.

Do you ever miss what you were like before you existed? That nothingness before life and after death is all an aborted foetus ever gets, because it never reaches the stage of cognition that allows for consciousness and thus for identity. As an aside, I must admit I found your comparison between the pro-life stance and the It Gets Better campaign rather crude, insensitive and not well-thought-through at all. I’ll let you figure out why. As for eugenics, that is another debate entirely, whose crux is not “can a woman chose to pursue/terminate a pregnancy” but instead “can (a) parent(s) chose to pursue/terminate a pregnancy based on discriminatory criteria”. The difference should be easy to spot.

_{We seem to agree on humanitarian aid, so high-fives all round}

Barney Stinson isn't funny. But I do love his high fives.

I was drinking my tea and unready for the nation wide high-five. I missed out!

http://videosift.com/video/Barney-Stinsons-Most-Legendary-High-Fives

not that funny, but upvote for "high five on the face"...

I was stunned also.

I reiterate my feelings from one of the videos of the event here...

MOTHERLOVING SKY CRANE ON ANOTHER MOTHERLOVING PLANET!

That's insane.

We sent a craft that lowered itself, autonomously, down onto another planet under power... I've always got the whole 'drop out of the sky, use a parachute and air bags' approaches, they all seem doable to my little brain. But for a craft to land like in a sci fi movie, by itself... that's just amazing to me.

Huge high fives to all involved. It was awesome watching it live here at work, and awesome to see the elation in those JPL people when it reported back it was fine.