While this is a nice idea, it's completely ass backwards.

I approve of the sentiment, but most of what's said here is fundamentally untrue.

First up, your body is not just "your body", it's "you". There isn't "you" and "your body". YOU are your body. No more, no less. At least until we find a way to digitise consciousness, you (as in the thoughts, memories, attitudes, personality) are inextricably linked to the body you inhabit, and even if you could remove your consciousness from your body somehow, would that even be "you"? Or just a reasonable copy?

Second, part of who you are is your background. Not race, that's bullshit, but your culture. The environment you grow up helps define your values. That's not to say you a prisoner of those values, but it's naive in the extreme to believe that they aren't a massive part of who you are (even if it's a part you might not like or agree with).

Finally, sadly, yes... babies are racist. They will inherently show a bias towards others who look similar to them.

We are not "all the same, but divided by societal labels". It's the other way round. Left alone, humans will naturally tend towards conflict, fear of the other, prejudice and heaps of other horrible traits that actually turned out to be useful (if morally wrong) in an evolutionary sense.

It is society that brings us together.

Terry Pratchett said it best:
"Individuals aren’t naturally paid-up members of the human race, except biologically. They need to be bounced around by the Brownian motion of society, which is a mechanism by which human beings constantly remind one another that they are . . . well . . . human beings."

Actually, I'd say looking like a creme puff is probably not the best evolutionary adaptation...

So people ought to keep cows, evolutionary monuments to human carnivory and lacto-parasitism, in a state of captivity and dependence, purely for their amusement?

Vegans are astonishing.

Some other evolutionary whodunits from the new world:

Why did pronghorn antelopes become the second fastest running animals in the world?

Why do honey locust trees have thorns all over their trunks?

Your video, Cryptotora thamicola:Cavefish with evolutionary implications, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

It's not inhumane ('humane' being another oxymoron, because it's meaning, and acting like a normal human, are opposites) because 1)they have a life at all, which they would not if not given the opportunity by my family 2) they have a place to live that life, which they would not if not given the use of the land and 3) nature also creates barriers to movement, so it's not unnatural for an animal to live it's entire lifespan in one place...perhaps for cattle, but not the rest. Farm animals are not humans, and those that have an aversion to being stationary have no place on a farm. You could say that not being nomadic is 'inhumane', as our natural state is not sedentary, but few would argue it's 'cruel'.
'Animals' are not humans, so are not slaves. That idea makes you sound ridiculous. See the South Park episode for a good example.
Stopping suffering is not within our scope.
There are many reasons why stopping meat eating is not reasonable, but the one you should be the most interested in is, if humans didn't eat cattle, they might be extinct. The same goes for many animals we eat, and if we didn't eat things like pork, the ecological disaster feral pigs create would be almost as bad as what humans do.
It would be easier and cheaper to change the conditions in the slums of India and elsewhere than it would be to eradicate the meat production (edit:and consumption) of the entire planet. What do the people do now that no longer have jobs? What do you do with all the animals that no longer have a 'use' and don't own property to move onto? How do you control their numbers so they don't destroy what's left of the planet?
Technically, yes, all humans are animals. Mentally handicapped humans are not TREATED 'like animals', by which you MEAN treated poorly and without thought for their comfort and well being, which in fact is NOT how most animals are treated in our first world society, no matter how much you think so. Factory farms are a different matter.
When dolphins take control, they can treat mentally handicapped dolphins better than average humans. It's not arbitrary to treat your own species as the most important, it's an evolutionary trait almost all species likely possess.
No, I can't eat an entire vegan diet. I've tried many vegan foods, and found them ALL inedible, some made me sick.

You made blanket statements about how ALL animals are treated, and how ALL meat is produced and then defended that blanket statement. I'm glad you now admit your mistake, I hope you can see it through and stop blanket blaming ALL meat eaters.

What other people eat is farther outside your influence than how they treat their children.

Without the calorie dense food that is 'meat', we would still be nomadic gatherers, if we could exist at all. Eating meat is one of the things that gave us the energy to evolve those 'higher brains' that can choose our actions and determine what's 'rational'.
You will never see a vegan Olympic athlete. (Edit: well, maybe in Olympic curling...)

Daesh has brought about change...a change that THEY see as positive. That's not a good argument.

Yes, you are a monster for supporting such unabashed, unproductive carnivores ;-)...and I would hazard a guess that you don't feed them only free range, gmo free turkey carcasses, so you sound worse than me, the unashamed meat eater that pays the extra money for proper animal treatment....not just for them but because it's healthier meat too.

I did my part for the animals and the planet by not having children. ;-) Too bad I'm such a minority that it won't make a whit of difference.

you do realize humans have had so much evolutionary success because of our social nature. To band together and help each other out is what makes us survive. So to dismiss 'socialism' as a dirty word is pretty ignorant. Yes someone always pays... do you buy car insurance? Or is that too socialist for you?

Terrorist attacks are more multifaceted.

First, they are an opportunity to generate work for the defense industry.

Second, they are usually for a reason. Often some angst over our own actions in foreign countries. For example, the news says AQ is a bunch of crazies that hate freedom, however AQs demands prior to 9/11 were to get our military out of the holyland. While that's not an offense that deserves blowing up buildings, it is definitely not the same as some banal excuse like hating freedom.

Thirdly, they are often perpetrated by some persons/groups that we had a hand in creating. We install the mujahedin in Afghanistan, knowing full well what they'll do to women, and then use their treatment of women as one excuse to later invade. Saddam worked for us, was egged on to fight Iran, was egged on to suppress insurgents (the 'own people he gassed'), and we later used his actions as one excuse to invade.

At the time, the mujaheddin was useful for fighting Russia as a proxy. At the time, Saddam was useful for perpetuating a war where we sold arms to both sides. Afterwards, they were useful for scaremongering so we could perpetuate war when otherwise things got too quiet and folks would ask about why we're spending big $$$ on defense.. (In the mean time hand-waving the much more direct 9/11 Saudi connection).

... Plus if on the off chance things do 'settle down' in areas we invade, that creates new markets for US companies to peddle their wares. You can reopen the Khyber pass for western land trade with Asia, you can build an oil pipeline, and you can prevent a euro based oil exchange from opening in the middle east. All things that benefit our industry.

So in practice, as far as big industry is concerned, there's a utility in 'fighting terrorism' (and perpetuating terrorism) that just doesn't exist with internal shootings. As such, unless another 'evil empire' shows up, the terrorism cow is gonna get milked for the foreseeable future.

Sure, there's a rhetoric about preventing terrorism, but our actions do nothing to that effect. It's just a statement that's useful in manufacturing consent.

There's a particular irony, though. That is, that while such behavior is 'not very nice' (to put it mildly), it does however provide for our security by keeping our armed forces exercised, prepared, and up to date - such that if a real threat were to emerge, our military would be ready at that time. While that seems unlikely, when you look back in history at previous major conflicts, most were precipitated rather quickly, on the order of months (it takes many years to design and build equipment for a military, and the first ~half a year of any major war has been fought with what was on hand). So in a round-about, rather evolutionary way, perpetuating threats actually does make us safer as a whole.

To clarify the word 'evolutionary' : Take 10 microbes. All 10 have no militant nature. None are made for combat. It only takes 1 to mutate and become belligerent in order to erase all the others from existence. If some others also mutate to be combative, they will survive. The non combative are lost, their reproductive lines cut off. As there's always a chance to mutate to anything at any time, eventually, there is a combative mutation. So, all life on earth has a militant nature at some layer of abstraction - those that exist are those that successfully resisted some force (or parried the force to its benefit. Like plants that use a plant eater's dung to fertilize the seeds of the eaten fruit).

The relationship holds true at a biological level, interpersonal, societal, national, and international level. Societies that allow the kind of educational and military development that leads to victory, are those that have dominated the planet socially and economically. For example, Europe's centuries of infighting made it resistant to invasions from the Mongols, Caliphates, etc, and ultimately led to the age of colonialism. For the strengths built with infighting, are later leveraged for expansion. As such, the use of "terrorism" to perpetuate conflict, is ultimately an exercise in developing strength that can later be leveraged.

Our national policy is largely developed in think tanks, and those organizations are planning lifetimes ahead. So these kinds of considerations are very relevant.

TL/DR : Yes, agreed, the terrorism thing is B.S. on many levels.

-scheherazade

TBF, Hitchens argument wasn't that women can't be funny or even that individual women aren't funny.

He was saying that humour is viewed as an attractive trait in men, therefore there is an evolutionary pressure on men to be funny. Women don't have this pressure because men tend to select a mate based on looks more than humour. As a result of this, women don't have to be funny to procreate and the average woman is less likely to be funny

Where it falls down for me is in two factors:
1: being funny is not necessarily a genetic trait that can be passed on
2: even if it is a genetic trait, surely all these funny men would have funny offspring regardless of gender.

Two things, no, actually three:
1. To answer your question directly: because letting LGBT people have these rights has no negative effects for society and requires very little effort. There are no measurable downsides here.
What's supposed to happen? Tell me what the negative effects will be. God's gonna make a pouty face and floods the earth again?
Another thing is, how is it the government's business who you can marry? Why should they get to decide that you can't marry shinyblurry if you really want to? Are you that fond of government intrusion in your life?
2. Capitulate? Are you at war with the gays? Did they stick a flag in your ass and declared it their territoty? Is it really an us vs. them situation? Are you sure you are not actually the problem?
You can only capitulate to an adversary. How are the homosexuals harming you? Are they taking anything away? Are they threatening you? Fact is, you are the one who wants to deny right and limit other people's freedom to be left the fuck alone. You're the agressor here. If you would stop that behaviour, nobody would give a fuck about you.
Why should I, who doesn't care what unknown gay people do, and we, who want them to have their rights, capitulate to agressors like you, who insist on regulating nobody's and especially not their own business? Why can't you leave the homosexuals alone? What's your fixation here?
3. Stop it with that "evolutionary dead end" crap! Every marriage with someone who is unable or unwilling to have kids is according to your definition one. Are you really willing to argue that people who can't procreate shouldn't marry? Are you going to tell every woman over 50 they can't (re)marry? Are you willing to walk up to a soldier who got his nuts blown off in Iraq that he can never ever marry the woman who doesn't care about his lack off balls? I'd love to see that. And what his buddies will do to you. And his wife.

Fact is, you don't like homosexuals. I don't know why but I do know that more and more people don't care about them. We're past the tipping point. That's why you feel it's "capitulating", because you know you're the minority now and your hatred and abuse won't be tolerated for long anymore. That's what you loose, the right to treat other's like shit. You can't kick that dog no more because it found the courage to bite back and we took away your ability to go old yeller on his ass. Must make you mad, foaming at the mouth mad.

Fact is you are wrong.
long term gay relationships are the evolutionary dead-end.

Here's a fact to ruin your day, Bob: YOU'RE the evolutionary dead-end -- progress has a liberal agenda.

The very notion that a right can be granted by society is absurd. Either you have the right, or you don't. Society has nothing to do with it.

The reason sodomites insist on receiving extrinsic, public sympathy and support is because their lifestyle has no intrisic virtue. Every sodomite is by definition an evolutionary dead-end, and that community struggles with suicide and depression far more than the general populace - for a reason. Change is possible, but the world would have them believe they are "born that way and should never change". Horse hockey.

There's a big misunderstanding....let me try to explain.

The problem: flotsam has washed into a lagoon, causing damage to the reef inside.
The rule: no more than 2 pieces of flotsam can fit through the lagoon opening at once.
The 'genetic algorithm': waves wash the flotsam around, sometimes one piece may flow out, sometimes two may flow out, making the 'solution' better, sometimes 3 try to flow out and none leave, sometimes 4 try to flow out and none leave....
Solution: one or two at a time, waves will eventually wash the flotsam out.

No design, no intelligence, no set up, no hand in the process, no AI, yet this IS the process of 'genetic algorithm' in action (in a completely overly simplistic, barely evolutionary form).
Do you understand what I mean now? If not, forget it, you won't ever get it.