Man, I miss the "As a libertarian" guy on reddit. Dude would start every comment like that before saying something insane.
drcobaltjedi 107 points 13 days ago
tacosanonymous 43 points 13 days ago
Hilariously redundant.
Simon_Shitewood 36 points 13 days ago
Praximis_Prime_ARG iirc, the best part was that they'd include a link to a libertarian actually saying that exact thing.
drcobaltjedi 22 points 13 days ago
Yeah!!! That's the guy. He's used multiple accounts over the years. Dude was funny as hell.
lagoon8622 6 points 12 days ago
Omg you guys are taking me back. Fucking loved this guy. Best bit ever
SatansMaggotyCumFart 8 points 12 days ago
If they want it enough they'll get a good enough job to afford it so that's redundant.
Quetzalcutlass 18 points 13 days ago
As a 19th century physician I can only agree, and suggest pairing it with a spoonful of soothing cocaine syrup for maximum efficacy.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA 7 points 12 days ago
Liar, you're not a 19th century quack. Mine prescribed tincture of laudanum
Quetzalcutlass 3 points 12 days ago
Nonsense! Can you look at how that kid's bouncing off the walls and honestly tell me that cocaine isn't a healthy and energizing remedy?
(Yeah, I was trying to think of morphine but wrote cocaine because brain = dumb)
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA 3 points 11 days ago
I mean they're two lines away from each other (with cannabis in the middle) for doc duckerson's miracle cough expressant, it's an easy mistake to make
Entertainmeonly 15 points 13 days ago
path: 0 24186640 24187130, hotness: undefined, score: 15, children: 1
prettybunnys 11 points 13 days ago
Don’t waste my fucking time, baby beer.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA 3 points 12 days ago
should also have access to rehab if they want it. can afford it.
Ftfy what kind of libertarian did you say you were
mattyroses 2 points 7 days ago
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread
mattyroses 2 points 7 days ago
I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”
It didn’t seem like they did.
“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”
Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.
“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.
Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.
“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.
I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”
I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.
“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”
He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me.
NocturnalMorning 2 points 12 days ago
Don't be ridiculous. Babies can't consent to treatment!
mattyroses 2 points 7 days ago
I mean, expecting libertarians to follow age of consent laws in any area is kind of foolish . . .
RagingRobot 2 points 12 days ago
It's got what babies crave
FinjaminPoach 84 points 13 days ago
Objection! They believe that life starts at conception, but not that aging starts at conception! This is why people are not considered 9 months old at birth!
Conceptually, people can also be frozen at any age, which "pauses" or slows their aging (see: Captain America, Han Solo, Dave Lister)
pyre 46 points 12 days ago
that's a good steelman. but this is why I think the better argument is Hasan's usual hypothetical about this: there's a fire in a hospital and you can only get into one of the rooms in time to save some people. do you go into NICU where you could save a couple babies or to the IVF section where you can save thousands of embryos?
pyre 35 points 12 days ago
it's not about them being alive; embryos are alive, that's not even disputed. it's about whether the life is a person. if you think the babies are more important you're already conceding the embryos don't have personhood, or at least not to the degree that babies do.
either case they shouldn't have the same rights as actual people. if you think an embryo is a person then you can't choose the couple babies over so many people. or if you do it's still going to be fun hearing you try to justify it without conceding.
FinjaminPoach -9 points 12 days ago
In a fertility crisis with aging population (e.g as bad as upside down population pyramid) people might save the hundreds of embryos
Edit: I didn't notice that you said babies the first time i read that tbh. Lol.
Yes even a eugenicist would say the babies are more valuable than embryos because you can see that they're healthy, whereas with an embryo it's unproven.
Many would also prioritise them because they have reached consciousness so there is "suffering cost" at play.
Doesn't prove that embryos aren't life though, as another commenter said.
applebusch 28 points 12 days ago
theres no fertility crisis, its an economic crisis. greedy rich people are ruining the world and making existing unaffordable so no one can afford to have babies.
EvacuateSoul 10 points 12 days ago
Like I tell a friend of mine who was premature: Do you want to celebrate your birthday today or in a couple months when you should have been born?
BarrelAgedBoredom 9 points 13 days ago
Didn't give them any ideas lol
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA 3 points 12 days ago
Your age is defined by your birth Thus your age before birth is negative. And an estimate. Quod erat ipsum dolor et maximus.
luciferofastora 2 points 12 days ago
I struggle to parse the Latin. My first reading would be "That's why it was pain and the greatest..."
What does the maximus refer to? Is it an attribute to dolor, and if so, what does the et refer to?
Or am I supposed to read it as an implied duplication or retroactive emphasis? "pain, the greatest (pain) even."
Or is there something I'm missing between morning brain and rusted skills?
Or is it not actually sound Latin and I'm trying way harder than I should?
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA 3 points 12 days ago
Let me help you a bit since you got morning brain
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Morbi ac ultricies ipsum, nec fermentum quam. Ut gravida nisl purus, et interdum risus porttitor a. Aenean euismod tellus ante, viverra fermentum tortor commodo a. Praesent lacus mauris, efficitur eget odio a, mollis fringilla eros. Orci varius natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Duis bibendum euismod mi id maximus. Vestibulum lacinia tincidunt sapien vel lobortis. Curabitur consectetur iaculis iaculis. Mauris tincidunt elit ac quam finibus, id dapibus leo sodales.
luciferofastora 3 points 12 days ago
I suspected that, but couldn't find the specific bit in the Lorem Ipsum text, nor in the original its fragments were lifted from, so I assumed it was a genuine quote or self-constructed sentence.
I'll file it under "went way too hard on a throwaway blurb" then, thanks.
ElBarto -1 points 12 days ago
Is Dave Lister an actual real life person? Or is it a fictional character like the others? Otherwise, they can't be taken as examples. That's like saying that oh yeah, a toddler can totally lift a car no problem.... see Superman.
NigelFrobisher 6 points 12 days ago
He’s an absolute smeghead.
FinjaminPoach 1 point 12 days ago
Bro don't get mad it's just fun.
Pretty sure cryogenic freezing will exist one day - scientists seem very bullish on it.
electric_nan 56 points 13 days ago
If there was a fire and you only had time to save one of these, which would you save: a one-month old baby, or a flask containing 100 frozen human embryos.
Buddahriffic 23 points 12 days ago
Is the fire making me uncomfortable? I might just sit there saying "This is fine" until it's too late to save either.
Or scout outside to make sure it is really safer than inside before discovering it's too late to save either.
Or maybe flip the lever between the front wheels and back wheels going over the switch for some multi-track drifting--ah nm, that doesn't work for this version of the trolly problem.
electric_nan 23 points 12 days ago
I respect your rejection of the premise.
UnderpantsWeevil 17 points 12 days ago
electric_nan 6 points 12 days ago
For real though, I'd save a baby (or adult) seal before the 100 human embryos.
antlion 4 points 12 days ago
Who leaves their infant in an IVF clinic? If I walk out with the flask they’ll suspect me of arson. If I walk out with the baby, who knows. Call 911 and let the fire fighters save the rest of the buildings occupants.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA 4 points 12 days ago
I don't have kids and do you have any idea what one of those smoothies costs. I choose 100 horse sized human embryos
Aneb 3 points 12 days ago
If one one-month old baby and 100 embryos spontaneously combusted I'd assume the world was ending in flames. In that case, where humanity is on the line, I would save the embryos because we need to repopulate the earth after the fires extinguished. I'd probably trip though with the case and break all the embryos.
luciferofastora 1 point 12 days ago
If we were to actually treat this as a moral dilemma, without external factors or trying to challenge the premise:
One of these is sentient. The other hundred are not. Much as my heart might bleed for the potential humans that will never be realised, my priority would be the living, feeling, crying one.
Actually, the crying might be an issue. I tend to be sensitive to some sounds, and particularly in a stressful situation, a wailing baby might be a detriment...
Still, I'm susceptible to emotional bias. I don't like babies or small children, but I won't pretend to be immune to the kind of protective reflex they tend to evoke in (sane) adults. So on top of the above reasoning, I would most likely save the baby, headache be damned.
And then I'd go and find whoever set up this cruel choice in the first place. Why would I be in such a clinic in the first place? Why would it catch on fire? Why does God hate us?
captcha_incorrect 2 points 12 days ago
Why would I be in such a clinic in the first place?
You are visiting your partner at the their place of work, which happens to be a lab, with your newborn baby and an accident happens and a fire breaks out. ^/s^
I believe I would save the baby simply because I can emotionally relate to it and not a flask with some frozen content.
luciferofastora 2 points 11 days ago
their place of work
Home?
which happens to be a lab
I mean, it does house all my code experiments, so I guess it's a lab. The sort filled with abominations begging to be relieved. "Delete me!" I can sometimes hear them cry if I open ~/Projects and linger a little too long.
with your newborn baby and an accident happens
If she carries a baby to term, there have been at least two accidents already, what's one more?
Though I'd probably be saving her instead. Odds are the baby could crawl faster than her after pregnancy is done with her.
Shame about my PC though. I've got all the important stuff backed up, but there's a few code projects I've been meaning to get back to some time...
I believe I would save the baby simply because I can emotionally relate to it and not a flask with some frozen content.
Yeah, I think that's on the mark. I can't in all honesty say I'd stand there rationally weighing the ethics of the situation and morality of the choices. The baby feels "more human" than the jar. It also probably has better chances of surviving the lack of refrigeration.
captcha_incorrect 1 point 10 days ago
Though I’d probably be saving her instead. Odds are the baby could crawl faster than her after pregnancy is done with her.
Pregnancy sure does a number on the body!
Shame about my PC though. I’ve got all the important stuff backed up
You don't happen to have a good off site backup solution to share?
UnderpantsWeevil 37 points 12 days ago
Will I sell booze to this baby? Absolutely.
Will I extend this baby booze on credit? Not in this economy.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA 2 points 12 days ago
I dunno, how big a baby?
DarrinBrunner 2 points 12 days ago
Elon Musk sized.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA 2 points 11 days ago
I'll fight the ducks please. That's one brobdignagian baby.
blockheadjt 33 points 12 days ago
puts on devil's advocate hat
No, because liquor laws don't care about when life began. They care about date of birth. Life beginning at conception does not erase date of birth as a valid type of data.
removes hat because I'm not pro-life
We should not rely on "pro-lifers are too stupid to understand how to refute this" when deciding our views.
Impractical_Island 2 points 12 days ago
Can I have your hat? I eat them, they're an acquired taste. Yours seems interdasting to my entrenchables
RamenJunkie 2 points 12 days ago
If you get a pro lifer giving this excuse comment about how "When life starts and age start are different.". Then flip it into a gender vs sex being different and see where they go.
BigDiction 15 points 12 days ago
I assumed the first one before reading your comment, probably because I am too feeble to imagine an abortion tornado on my own.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA 3 points 12 days ago
That's okay I can help you imagine.
It's very gooey.
PolarKraken 9 points 12 days ago
Like I always say, abortionado, abortionado 🤷♂️
AngryRobot 4 points 12 days ago
Well, for starters, I don't think DOS would handle the amount of memory modern PCs use...
Grabthar 24 points 13 days ago
How is this confusing anyone? We count age from date of birth. Anything that happens before that has nothing to do with your legal age any more than whether you were carried for more or less than 9 months. This would only become interesting if someone froze a toddler for 30 years or something.
Buddahriffic 10 points 12 days ago
Yeah, seems like this might be a bad faith argument intended to cause more division. It's a flimsy argument that people who like the point it's trying to make might ignore that big thing that makes it fall apart while those against it won't ignore that and will see the other side ignoring it as dishonest.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA 4 points 12 days ago
Don't tell me what to let my baby do. Now excuse me but I'm taking little Babythan to the dog fights.
ThePantser 17 points 13 days ago
He can buy it, but maybe he should wait to drink it.
My rule is, if you are dead when brain dead with a beating heart then you are not alive until you are brain alive with a beating heart. Life starts with brain activity, around 16 weeks.
Viking_Hippie 7 points 13 days ago
bizarroland 17 points 13 days ago
I go by the Jewish rule.
In the Old Testament, God breathed life into Adam, and thus he became a living soul.
So until the infant takes its first breath, it's not an actual soul. It is a lump of tissue with potential.
I hope that there are as few abortions as are absolutely necessary, but I will not begrudge a single person their choice to have an abortion regardless of the stage of the pregnancy at which it happens.
FinjaminPoach 4 points 13 days ago
Is this one reason why Jewish doctors were historically the only ones okay with performing abortions?
BarrelAgedBoredom 8 points 13 days ago
Internal (diffusion of gases from the bloodstream into the tissues of the body) respiration =/=external respiration (diffusion of atmospheric gases through the alveolus into the bloodstream)
And respiration is only half of breathing, the other half being ventilation.
Don't use science to put someone down when you don't even understand what you're talking about
bizarroland -6 points 13 days ago path: 0 24185925 24186686 24187904 24188302, hotness: undefined, score: -6, children: 6
edible_funk 1 point 12 days ago
It would seem turning the other cheek isn't part of your religion.
edible_funk 2 points 12 days ago
Bible says life begins at first breath.
PumaStoleMyBluff 13 points 12 days ago
The baby's 30 so it's not that early /s
Coleslaw4145 12 points 12 days ago
Isnt it called birth day for a reason?
lumettaria 1 point 12 days ago
whoosh, huh
Impractical_Island 2 points 12 days ago
But it's also like year 12,000 or something in China, so they're all much older in general and why they only have one babby now, because there country is so old.
Coleslaw4145 0 points 12 days ago
That still wont make the baby in the post 30 years old because embryos arent frozen in the womb.
Impractical_Island 2 points 12 days ago
No, how can the sun set on the land of the rising sun, China?
plutopos 11 points 12 days ago
I am pro-choice & think that life begins at birth, but this argument is fallacious. Even if you believed that life begins at conception, you could coherently claim that this baby is physically still a baby and cannot safely take alcohol
QuincyPeck 14 points 12 days ago
Safely? No.
Legally though?
PolarKraken 15 points 12 days ago
And what about hilariously? When did we start leaving that one out?
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA 5 points 12 days ago
Did you go to little Bobby Two Pints's birthday party? The little shit falls asleep after two pints of whiskey. Wimp.
prime_number_314159 3 points 12 days ago
Age for legal purposes generally begins counting at birth, even for people whose cells have been active, and whose organs and such have been growing and maturing for longer than that.
If you could put a baby into suspended animation of some form, and return it to usual biological function 25 years later, there might be a real legal issue. As it stands, I don't see it.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA 1 point 12 days ago
When someone asks me my age and I feel like being a smartass, I tell them I'm "younger than my tongue, older than teeth". Sometimes I sub "asshole" for "tongue" depending on my mood
pinball_wizard 10 points 12 days ago
In this thread: people who are going to lose our liquor sales licenses when we're caught in a sting operation by an undecover cop baby.
Impractical_Island 4 points 12 days ago
But you can sell the kid for liquor, therefore if you have kids you always have booze!
WorldsDumbestMan 7 points 12 days ago
How fucked up is it to be of legal age, and have no benefits, as a Baby, because your life was literally put on hold while frozen.
The baby can legit be told to get a job, diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorders, prescribed adult drugs.
Or am I reading this wrong?
UnderpantsWeevil 14 points 12 days ago
What's the benefit of sending babies to Mars? That's just a very expensive recipe for dead babies.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA 2 points 12 days ago
It's in the Mattel Chocobot galaxy, not the Milky Way galaxy
ButteredBread 1 point 12 days ago
Give them a manual they can't read or something idk.
gandalf_der_12te 2 points 12 days ago
well, there's also questions about whether you could have a species that is entirely made of robots, that could do spaceflight, and kinda incubate humans in a lab when it arrives.
my personal guess is that it's not possible to have a species entirely made of robots because they cannot reproduce reliably. so it would go extinct after a while. but that's just my guess; some people believe that robots can indeed build more of themselves, i.e. completely reproduce.
prole 3 points 12 days ago
You are absolutely correct, we were supposed to go to Alpha Centauri! I have course corrected, and have confirmed that we are now on the correct trajectory.
The new estimated time of arrival is: 1.1E+4932 years. 🚀👨🚀
Jokes aside, would they need to reproduce? Or just not break for a long time
WokeMammal420 5 points 12 days ago
He seems like he'll be a chill drinking buddy lol🤣
Impractical_Island 3 points 12 days ago
You shouldn't drink babies, regardless how well you chill and salt the glass
Grimy 5 points 13 days ago
This one is silly and a good way to mock the church (big fan of mocking them).
That being said, what if a 5 year old falls into a coma for 16 years? I figure the mental age is still 5, although I think the chances of this happening are very low since a coma doesn't work like they show it in Hollywood.
BarneyPiccolo 3 points 13 days ago
I'd sell liquor to ANY baby. Drunk babies and toddlers are hilarious.
Neural_drift 3 points 12 days ago
I’m very confused and too buzzed to scroll the comments.
JadenSmith 2 points 12 days ago
I'm buzzed enough to just imagine what went on, and in my possibly professional opinion it's aliens.
SarcasticCephalopod 2 points 11 days ago
Wake, pray, transfer, I think. The day they transfer the "embryo" into the uterus is a big, hopeful day.
SarcasticCephalopod 1 point 9 days ago
Probably Etsy.
Tessellecta 2 points 11 days ago
No not really. The problem with human cryogenic freezing is our size. You can freeze animals up to around the size of a hamster, as you can freeze and thaw them fast enough. Anything bigger than that, you run into issues.
Pacattack57 -2 points 12 days ago
On a separate note I think people like abortianado are just as bad as prolife tards because they think they are educated but they’re not.
Anyone who is “pro-abortion” falls in that category. Nobody wants an abortion. They simply want access to medical care. Like most things it boils down to education. If we actually took sex ed seriously in the US and provided adequate access to birth control for all sexes we’d have less abortions.
DarrinBrunner -6 points 12 days ago
But... conception is when the swimmer breaks into the egg, which happened after the egg was thawed out.
If the unfertilized egg is the start of life, then this whole argument just got a lot more stupid.
SkunkWorkz 5 points 12 days ago
Well it says embryo not egg
Impractical_Island 2 points 12 days ago
Life started billions of years ago, dude. Conception is way older than you think. Just ask Dr. G. Carlin, he did a good talk about this a long time ago.
RickyRigatoni -25 points 13 days ago path: 0 24186162, hotness: undefined, score: -25, children: 12
RickyRigatoni -23 points 13 days ago path: 0 24186162 24186241 24186284, hotness: undefined, score: -23, children: 8
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA 2 points 12 days ago
Omelet?
ParlimentOfDoom 16 points 13 days ago
That's what embryo means.
A fertilized egg.
halcyoncmdr 9 points 13 days ago
You're almost there dude... Just keep working through each step and you'll catch up eventually.
EggInDisguise 7 points 13 days ago
It doesn't count as long as someone's argument relies on it not counting.
Which is basically how it always is.
majster -39 points 12 days ago
No. But life beginning at conception is the only logical line to draw. Every other is arbitrary. And having arbitrary set lines for who is human and who isn't is not something we should want. But banning abortion also doesn't work and is cruel. Life is complicated.
Uruanna 27 points 12 days ago
No. But life beginning at conception is the only logical line to draw.
No it's not, conception is just as arbitrary. Just because it's the logic you adopted doesn't mean it's the only logical choice.
buddascrayon 16 points 12 days ago
At the point of conception all you are is a small group of cells that are forming something. There is no brain, there is no heart, there is no anything that would be described as human other than the DNA. At some point during the endless splitting of those cells a heart is created to push blood around the body that has developed, a body I might add looks entirely the same no matter what species you're looking at at this stage. And then, sometime long after that, a brain emerges but it's nothing like what we have when we're born. The human brain of a baby takes a long time to form. The question of "At what point does Life Begin?", is not "At what point is something alive?", it's "At what point can it be considered human and not just a small group of cells working toward being a human one day?"
Anti-abortion groups are not pro-life as they like to claim. For one, more than a few of them are pro death penalty. And for two, they don't actually care about children who are born because more than half of them actively work towards taking assistance away from single mothers and children and adoption services and Foster Care programs. Even if all they do is vote for the wrong party, they are guilty of this.
squaresinger 11 points 12 days ago
Tbh, "At what point does life begin?" is a pointless question and a false equivalence.
A removed appendix or a removed cancer are clearly human life too. They clearly live, and still there is no moral panic about "killing" someone's appendix or cancer.
The actual question here is "At what point is a human a legally protected being?" or "At what point does it make sense that legal protections cover a human being?"
Claiming that the question is "At what point does life begin?" is a purposely wrong question that is used to shift the discussion from the actual question. Because life begins as sperm and egg cells, but legally protecting these would be completely crazy. But if we are talking about "At what point does life begin?" instead of about "At what point is the embryo human enough to warrant human-level protections?" the story rapidly changes.
captcha_incorrect 3 points 12 days ago
I always thought of the question as "at what point is it a human being". I think we could both agree that a cut of arm is living tissue and not a human being. From this point of view, the original question stand in my opinion (and could somewhat be equated to yours).
squaresinger 2 points 12 days ago
“at what point is it a human being”
That is a much more valid question than "at what point does life begin", and that's pretty much the same point as "at what point is it a being covered by the legal protections of human rights?"
majster -6 points 12 days ago
I really liked your first paragraph. I can't argue with you regarding the second because I'm not USAian and thus live in completley different socio-political landscape.
At what point can it be considered human and not just a small group of cells working toward being a human one day?
This is intelectually stimulating position. But this same line of thought can be traced further into extremes such as eugenics and scientific racism. Because of these historical aberrations that stem from this same principle, I reject this position and thus adopt position that life begins at conception. And trying to discriminate who/what is human is dangerous and should not be done.
captcha_incorrect 5 points 12 days ago
Instead of trying to define a point where something is a human based on how much it has developed, because of the associated risks and historical failings, your standpoint is that life begins at conception.
Did I understand correctly?
buddascrayon 3 points 12 days ago
trying to discriminate who/what is human is dangerous and should not be done.
People who eat meat and eggs already make this distinction. You want to get rough and stupid? Then let's get rough and stupid.
magnetosphere 0 points 12 days ago
I’m not particularly interested in debate. However, I am down for getting rough and stupid with the right person.
Olhonestjim 4 points 12 days ago
The question of "when does life begin?" is deceptive. Life does not begin at conception with each life. Life began some 3.5 billion years ago and has never stopped. Each life continues unbroken from other lives. If the complaint is that any point we choose is arbitrary, well this is what nature gave us. The only logical point to begin from is when the new life separates from the old.
And frankly, nature eats way more babies than adults.
RichardNixos 3 points 12 days ago
life beginning at conception is the only logical line to draw
What if the question of life or non-life is irrelevant?
squaresinger 3 points 12 days ago
Ok, let's take "life begins at conception". And let's say that means "life that should be legally and ethically be protected like a human being begins at conception", because if we don't add that, it doesn't actually mean anything.
At conception, we have a single cell, nothing more or less. If we logically extend that, that would mean every single cell is a protected human. If you get your appendix removed, it's a protected human that was removed and thus killed. If you remove cancer, that's a protected human.
What about the HeLa cell line? That's a line of cells derived from the cancer of Henrietta Lacks in the early 50s. These are human cells that have mutated so that they can multiply and live as single-celled organisms. Each of them are protected humans. In fact, there are more HeLa humans (by that definition) than there are actual humans.
So does this definition make any sense?
squaresinger 1 point 11 days ago
Yeah, because the discussion is about legal consequences and ommitting them in favour of some nebuous "when life begins" is just a misdirection, nothing else.
Life begins when the sperm and egg are created. Or actually life begins as the parents, or as their ancestors, millions of generations ago, when they weren't even multi-cell organisms.
None of that matters at all to the discussion.
The only point relevant to the discussion is "When does this cross from being a 'thing' to being a 'human' worthy of legal protections?"
Sperm and egg cells don't have legal protection, they are firmly in the 'thing' category. A baby that survived birth is firmly in the 'human' category. The question is not "when does life begin", because that's an absurd thing to ask.
WokeMammal420 1 point 12 days ago path: 0 24201793 24202874, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
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@lemmy.today
245
46
4286
Showcasing the brazen and nouveau in English communication.
- Be cool to each other.
- Post title must be the sentence, or relevant portion of the sentence if it's very long.
- Link for context if possible.
- Tag NSFW where applicable.
I'm looking for another mod, someone chill. DM me if you're interested.
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As a libertarian I would advocate selling liquor to all babies who want it.
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