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On legality of Infanticide

Ivy

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Here comes Ivy with the petty logistics, but that's pretty unrealistic, BW. A child may be capable of speaking but too shy to speak to the test-giver, or simply uncooperative. Toddlers aren't known for their willingness to comply on demand.
 

SolitaryWalker

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Thanks for the input Hexis.

Early in the post you mention that a mentally ill child should be disposed with because he will never have the potential to function in a sound manner.

Yet a healthy child should not be disposed with because he does have the potential to function in a sound fashion.

I do believe there is some merit to this claim. However, from the legal standpoint, only things that exist can be considered, potential means by definition what could be, and not what is.

In summary, from the standpoint of the law, a healthy child and a retarded are on the same level because both lack the ability to function intellectually. This will change later of course when the healthy child acquires the ability to do so and the retarded does not.

Another interesting claim you make...


But at the same time he should NEVER be considerd property, and NO ONE other than me or his mother WILL have the right to decide these things for him, ever!:.

My point was exactly this. The child is private property of the mother and father. Only they can decide if he can be killed before a certain age. In relation to my previous comments, we should note that it would be prudent of a parent to refrain from killing a healthy child and killing a 'vegetable' child for the reasons you mentioned. Yet the bottom line is, the parents should have the right to kill the healthy child as it is property, yet it is certainly unwise of them to do so because much benign potential is neglected as a result.

But after they are born they are most definitely human, there is no logical arguement against that, there human end of discussion. !:.

I do not see a reason to regard them as human. After they are born they have the potential to become human, or human in the regard as having the intellect to cognitively function at a level above brutes. Yet not until then.

Ok BW on another side note your are going to have to take into account that a "majority" of people (so far everyone but you) will base some decisions on emotions if not the whole of their lives. And that no matter how logical your arguements are and no matter how much sense they make, how that would no matter what be the overall best decision for everyone, your going to have to realize that we as humans are not built on logic but rather emotion and that it will never work. You might say that this is not an arguement for NFs or Feeling has no place here but then I say if it doesnt then this arguement should not even have been brought up. Cause if there is only room for cold hearted (not an insult), calculateing, logical thinkers then your arguement is already dead cause if your arguement cant grow from the input from feelers as well then whats the point. This world will always partially be ran souly by emotions and something robotic like this, no matter how logically correct, will never fly. Just like how i respect your outstanding logic and your ability to set aside your emotions for such a topic, I also demand your respect of my emotions as well as the emotions of others who are trying to have a decent debate with you. And if you fail to recognise human emotion (not only in this debate but all others) as a valid stand point for the backing of an arguement then the only thing I can say is, in the most respectful manner, fuck you BlueWing.

Overall good thread, :nice:.

I do believe that emotion is to be regarded as a fact of human nature, or in other words it should be considered. Yet if we want to make the most rational decisions about how to deal with the world, or to know the truth for any reason, emotion is not a reliable guide. This is so because it tends to lack discipline of thought as well as rigor thereof. It is a mere reflection of our biological and psychological dispositions or instincts. I do not believe that emotion needs to be disregarded completely, but instead we should analyze emotions as carefully as possible and see what role they ought to play in our worldview and interaction with the world.

One may ask, is it justified to make decisions based on emotion? For instance, what if we just cannot help but feel the certain way, it may be unhealthy to deny this. It is not true that we cannot change how we feel about things. Quite the contrary, reason may guide emotion by giving us the proper stimulus to react to. Emotion is a psychological response to what we perceive the external world to be. When we are not thinking carefully we have an emotional response to false notions about the world. Careful, rational thinking will highlight what really exists and what is an illusion. This way our emotions will be in accord with the most rational decisions possible.

For example, I may initially feel that a man who wanders around my car at night when its parked on a driveway is a thief, based on my past experience with such situations. Yet later I learn he is just my next door neighbor passing through, after I have acquired such an intellectual realization, I should likely cease to feel the resentment and suspicion towards him that I did before I have analyzed the situation. This approach honors emotion rather than supresses it, as rational thinking allows for us to devise a way to maximize our happiness because it allows for us to interact with the world in a fashion least harmful to ourselves. As for example, it allows us to solve problems in the least tiresome and most efficient manner and as an entailment of this purges many unnecessary fears and anxieties that otherwise would be haunting us.


So, the bottom line is, I do understand the need to acknowledge that emotions are a fact of human nature, yet people who insist on making decisions on emotions without conducting logical analysis of them are in error for the reasons stated above.








Consider a child who's been classically conditioned not to speak. Like, say a parent beats their child every time they say anything. Are these children going to pass your test? No. Are they human? Yes..

Thats quite the rare case, few of which will definitely beat my system. Can't count on that one too often. So, will let it slide.

Sorry man, but you're way off base here, and you're talking about killing babies. You gotta come up with a better argument than that. ..


:) Hahaha

Plus, your test is so concrete and "cognitive ability" is such a complex matter --

It really is not complex because the minds of babies are simple. Consider the difference in complexity between the mind of Einstein and that of a typical philistine. It is very easy to understand the behaviors and motivations of the latter, yet not the former.

The gulf between a 2 year old baby and a typical adult human mind is much greater than that between Einstein and a philistine.

If you want to convince people, make a more full argument and the way this view would be implemented.

I am not trying to convince anyone. For optimal intellectual growth, ideas are to be pursued for their own sake.

It really is not complex because the minds of babies are simple.

Here comes Ivy with the petty logistics, but that's pretty unrealistic, BW. A child may be capable of speaking but too shy to speak to the test-giver, or simply uncooperative. Toddlers aren't known for their willingness to comply on demand.

We can make people do things they do not consciously will to by evoking their unconscious tendencies. Children tend to be very simple minded and it should be easy for a psychologist to trick them into doing something they may feel uncomfortable doing at the moment. Even the necessity for this shall be rare, as by and large small children tend to be very self-expressive.
 

redacted

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Well, even though I believe you've been defeated here (as does everyone else), and you keep switching your argument, I can still take the route that it would be less economically feasible to implement your system and pay for testing babies than to just make it illegal to kill babies. Someone has to pay for testing.

And you totally underestimate the babies that have non-normal behaviors in regards to talking. It's also a pretty horrible measure of cognitive ability. I would estimate an error rate of at least 5% (I mean babies that can talk that still fail the test, not to mention babies that have high cognitive ability and can't talk, which would make the error rate even higher), which, when looking at 10 million babies is 500,000. Even if the error rate was .1%, it would be 10,000. Not acceptable, man. You are talking about KILLING BABIES. I know you pretend to have no F, but Jesus -- you aren't factoring in the cost of everyone else's F responses. I'm not saying this idea isn't worth exploring, I'm just saying it's completely infeasible to implement.

You keep saying "the minds of babies are simple". Well, fine, why do you draw the line at the moment they talk? What does talking mean? First word? Full sentences? Why would you even draw the line there? Why not draw it at 6 when a child can potentially fend for themselves? It's completely arbitrary. Make a better argument.
 

kyuuei

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Right, Right, I know I bailed out yesterday but...

My point was exactly this. The child is private property of the mother and father. Only they can decide if he can be killed before a certain age. In relation to my previous comments, we should note that it would be prudent of a parent to refrain from killing a healthy child and killing a 'vegetable' child for the reasons you mentioned. Yet the bottom line is, the parents should have the right to kill the healthy child as it is property, yet it is certainly unwise of them to do so because much benign potential is neglected as a result.

Your idea, in theory, standing alone and by itself, works. Presumably, there would be nothing wrong with it, because the parents would tend to love their children and keep them alive regardless of what the law allows them to do. Just because they have the capability, does not mean they have to follow through with it. You're simply allowing the parents to say "This child is never going to have a proper life, and I don't know if I want this child to struggle and just barely pass under the radar as a normal citizen." Or in the case of the custody of care of adults under comas and vegetable/mentally ill states the same opportunities.

Religion may make those people keep the babies/ill/dependent alive regardless of the law still. Values and beliefs will still come into play under this theory and mass genocide of those below 'average' human standards would not happen because regardless of what law states people are allowed to keep those relatives or those in their custody alive with this law. I understand it entirely, by itself it is not a bad thing you're stating. You're simply opening a door of possibility, a window to look into for those who feel suffocated with the responsibility of caring for those individuals and whom can no longer handle the responsibility.

... Communism is also a wonderful theory. Taking the ideals by itself, and what the normal human might and possibly would comply to and think about in a logical sense, it can be considered absolutely perfect.

Nothing remains perfect though. In the end, because of the fact that humans, only on an individual scale, could be considered logical or even partly rational. Humans on a massive scale are ridiculous. The abuse of the power you would grant with that law would cause chaos, and lose the very order that law strives to achieve. If the rights of those unable to speak for themselves didn't need protecting in the first place, there would be no laws established for them. The variables of humanity are so expansive, from how to rate the consciousness of humans themselves to what every human considers right or wrong, that this theory would end up corrupted and damaging to our society.

I could 'what if' all day, but I think I might take Jennifer's advise and put a cease to saying those sort of statements.. albeit they run in my head all the time.. but it would be very likely that scenarios would show up: where the mother would want the child alive, and the father would want it dead for it's lack of abilities, and who is to make the decision then? More complex scenarios than that I just mentioned and those mentioned before: children starting off seemingly unable but end up fine (this was the case of my sister, she was born unable to hear properly and thus spoke gibberish making us think she had a handicap of some sort... modern medicine had to advance a bit before they could determine her problem, and it was rightly fixed and she turned out fine. I would hate to think that anyone would make a decision to end a life of a child like that because of a problem that could have been fixed with time and patience.) and such and such. The problems would continue endlessly from humans.

We're incapable of deciding a hard line on what we, as a whole, think of humans being humans and on all the other decisions necessary to make this work. Hell, we can't even decide if abortion is right or not. Taking it a step further is ludacris, because we aren't capable of taking the baby steps in that direction yet.

Law heavily relies on compromise. The current laws of ending a child's life are strict, but enough to allow both parties to be satisfied, if not happy at all in the decision to start with. No one will ever be happy with any law created entirely, because someone will always disagree, feel differently, etc.

... But in the case of what you proposed, I cannot see positive things coming from it. I believe people cannot be trusted with that much power, nor do they have the ability to make a decision on that scale. I see corruption and negativity coming from it, not because the theory is bad, but because when applied to humans it cannot come through as good.

I'm not good at saying what I want to say, but this is my best attempt at it. Let me know what you think, BW.
 
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If the OP is supposed to be Jonathan Swift-style satire, it's not very good because socially accepted infanticide has occurred in various countries for thousands of years. It's not exaggeration if it's real.
 

SolitaryWalker

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Well, even though I believe you've been defeated here (as does everyone else), and you keep switching your argument, I can still take the route that it would be less economically feasible to implement your system and pay for testing babies than to just make it illegal to kill babies. Someone has to pay for testing.

And you totally underestimate the babies that have non-normal behaviors in regards to talking. It's also a pretty horrible measure of cognitive ability. I would estimate an error rate of at least 5% (I mean babies that can talk that still fail the test, not to mention babies that have high cognitive ability and can't talk, which would make the error rate even higher), which, when looking at 10 million babies is 500,000. Even if the error rate was .1%, it would be 10,000. Not acceptable, man. You are talking about KILLING BABIES. I know you pretend to have no F, but Jesus -- you aren't factoring in the cost of everyone else's F responses. I'm not saying this idea isn't worth exploring, I'm just saying it's completely infeasible to implement.

You keep saying "the minds of babies are simple". Well, fine, why do you draw the line at the moment they talk? What does talking mean? First word? Full sentences? Why would you even draw the line there? Why not draw it at 6 when a child can potentially fend for themselves? It's completely arbitrary. Make a better argument.

I never switched argument, its merely your wild Ni conjuring things that are not there and Fe convincing you whatever you want to believe.

My argument from the beginning was that it is rather easy to see the level of a small child's cognitive development, mistakes are rare.

My second point is, mistakes are fine. Even if they were not rare. A child who barely passes for a human being is not much of a human being anyways. Such an act is nowhere near as reproachable as an act of killing a fully developed adult.

So far you've had nothing but your instinctual Fe value judgments to support the claim that it is a grave evil to kill 2 year olds who barely pass the test, but were mistakenly believed to have failed.

It would be a mistake to do so, but very insignificant one.

My argument is the same again here, point one it is easy to see if the child is well developed enough. In most cases we will get it right. All the obviously well developed children will pass. Some of those who are on the borderline, we may make mistakes with. But that is okay for two reasons, such mistakes are few, and such mistakes in their nature are far from egregious.

Let your Ni play with this some more. Try envisaging more views of the situation where I've changed my position. Use this as an exercise for imagination, for instance, try imagining all the possible ways to read what I wrote rather than just one way it is written and make sure you Fe up a lot too, you will need to do so in order that you can successfully befool yourself to accept your vision for reality.
 

redacted

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Nice dude. Hope you come down from your manic episode soon. Maybe consider taking some medication? You've posted probably 60 pages worth of ideas in the last few days. Obviously those ideas are going to be lacking... You can't see it because you don't want to. When's the last time you've realized you were wrong? Never. You can't believe it.

The point of this thread was to post something you knew people would respond negatively to, and then laugh when they didn't argue rationally back. You're validated; you can write everyone else off as an idiot. I saw this immediately -- basically no one had anything viable to say; you basically got flamed for 17 pages. And you love it.

How about your Fe? You really think it's less at play than mine here? This entire thing is about validation.

I've said it before; your logic is valid. It always is. I do see the points you're trying to portray here; it's no mystery to me what you mean. It's just that your premises are ridiculous. I've listed my reasoning in a very T way until I realized you weren't using your Ne to understand me, you were just using it to rationalize your points. The only person you've responded to positively in this thread is the one person who agreed with you. You talk about intellectual exploration... yet you never question yourself. I followed the rules of debate; question the premises or question the deduction. Your deduction is fine, obviously, but your premises aren't.

Why don't you use your Ne and Fe to see what I'm saying, instead of coming up with wacky ways in which you think you've still won this argument.

You're out of control right now. Look inward.

No one is always right. Admitting you were wrong is more rational than backing up ridiculous claims with more ridiculous ones.

Because an infant is not a human, he ought not to be granted the right to life and is therefore the property of the state or his biological parents. It is up to one of the two to decide whether the infant should live or die.

All killing of children ought to be authorized by the state. Unauthorized killing shall be regarded as murder.

This is blatantly changing your argument.


My argument is the same again here, point one it is easy to see if the child is well developed enough. In most cases we will get it right. All the obviously well developed children will pass. Some of those who are on the borderline, we may make mistakes with. But that is okay for two reasons, such mistakes are few, and such mistakes in their nature are far from egregious.

How about just making it illegal to kill babies? No mistakes possible. No money spent on testing. No extra court cases. How is your way more efficient again???

I have an interesting question for you: What if a parent intentionally injured their kid to the point where they couldn't talk for a day. Once they couldn't talk, they could kill the kid according to your logic. But they'd never be charged with murder, they would only be charged with the first act of violence. Right? Isn't that a problem too?

Also, what about deaf or mute kids?
 

SolitaryWalker

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Nice dude. Hope you come down from your manic episode soon. Maybe consider taking some medication? You've posted probably 60 pages worth of ideas in the last few days. Obviously those ideas are going to be lacking... You can't see it because you don't want to. When's the last time you've realized you were wrong? Never. You can't believe it.

The point of this thread was to post something you knew people would respond negatively to, and then laugh when they didn't argue rationally back. You're validated; you can write everyone else off as an idiot. I saw this immediately -- basically no one had anything viable to say; you basically got flamed for 17 pages. And you love it.?

I hardly notice those things.



I've said it before; your logic is valid. It always is. I do see the points you're trying to portray here; it's no mystery to me what you mean. It's just that your premises are ridiculous. I've listed my reasoning in a very T way until I realized you weren't using your Ne to understand me, you were just using it to rationalize your points. The only person you've responded to positively in this thread is the one person who agreed with you. You talk about intellectual exploration... yet you never question yourself. .?

Of course I do when a reasonable proposition comes up, not just a splash of feelings.


I followed the rules of debate; question the premises or question the deduction. Your deduction is fine, obviously, but your premises aren't..?

You have not shown how. Your argument was that we might make mistakes when conducting tests. Yet you have not clearly explained why.

I responded to you that we are unlikely to make many mistakes because children tend to easily express what is going on inside of them.




Why don't you use your Ne and Fe to see what I'm saying, instead of coming up with wacky ways in which you think you've still won this argument...?

I dont believe in winning/losing an argument, maybe you're here for validation (Fe), and hence need to feel like you won an argument to get the validation, but this is not what I am in here for.










This is blatantly changing your argument....?

I do not see how. The first proposition is that children who fit a certain description are a property, in the second proposition I claim we need to administer tests to see which children are property and which are human beings. Where is the alteration?




How about just making it illegal to kill babies? No mistakes possible. No money spent on testing. No extra court cases. How is your way more efficient again???....?

The mistakes are few and very minor when they occur. Too little by way of negative consequences to eschew this. As for the money spent on testing, it is all up to the convenience of the parent. They ought to look at it as any other medical expense.

It is more efficient because parents are allowed an opportunity to better organize their lives as a result of infanticide becoming an option.

I have an interesting question for you: What if a parent intentionally injured their kid to the point where they couldn't talk for a day.???....?

There are many ways of discovering whether a small child is a human or not.



Also, what about deaf or mute kids?

Again, many ways to explore their psyche too. For example, think about how your therapist may hold a picture of patterns in front of your eyes and the way you respond (without necessarily making any explicit verbal statements) will allow for him to infer a lot about your internal mindset.


All in all, you're coming up with rare cases where the chances of mistakes will be increased. Though mistakes are far from inevitable at that point. And even when they do happen, we will be killing someone who is not far off from being legally killed anyways.
 

redacted

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I hardly notice those things.

Duh.

Of course I do when a reasonable proposition comes up, not just a splash of feelings.

I don't see where my Fe came into play except in my last post when I responded to a flame by flaming you back. I brought up examples of cases that your theory isn't applicable.

You have not shown how. Your argument was that we might make mistakes when conducting tests. Yet you have not clearly explained why.

Yes, I have clearly explained why. Your tests are overly simple and we're measuring something complex like cognitive ability. There are bound to be mistakes. How can I be more clear than that?

You've already conceded to my point anyway, you just don't remember it as conceding to my point. You'd rather dismiss me as "one of those idiot feelers". Look at your last few pages of posts. You've been talking about different things because I've shown parts of your original argument to be flawed.

I responded to you that we are unlikely to make many mistakes because children tend to easily express what is going on inside of them.

Yes, that is how your responded. But now you're admitting that your theory doesn't work in all cases. I agree, making it illegal to kill babies is an ethical approximation. But so is your solution.

I dont believe in winning/losing an argument, maybe you're here for validation (Fe), and hence need to feel like you won an argument to get the validation, but this is not what I am in here for.

Oh really? You've admitted yourself that you have an underdeveloped Fe. Much of its role is unconscious.

It's quite clear from your last post (the one in which you flamed me), that you were using Fe -- looking to validate yourself by putting me down. In that post, you did not respond to my points, you merely attacked my character. This is what you seek to rise above, but alas, you are human like everyone else.

I do not see how. The first proposition is that children who fit a certain description are a property, in the second proposition I claim we need to administer tests to see which children are property and which are human beings. Where is the alteration?

Hmm, well if you actually read those words, the first quote says that the parents get to choose whether or not to kill their children. The second quote says that the state gets to choose. So is it the parents or the state? Surely you can see the inconsistency.

The mistakes are few and very minor when they occur. Too little by way of negative consequences to eschew this. As for the money spent on testing, it is all up to the convenience of the parent. They ought to look at it as any other medical expense.

Who cares if it's up to the parent? Do you not understand economics? If someone pays, it means they're not paying for something else, which mean they're not stimulating the economy in other ways.

Money spent, regardless of who spends it, is a spent resource. Unless you can show that there is an externality that makes up for this spending, it is a waste.

The mistakes are few and minor with your theory, and they're few and minor with making it illegal to kill babies. They are both flawed. You have not shown yours to be better or more efficient. From my understanding, it looks like a much worse option, just from an economic standpoint.

It is more efficient because parents are allowed an opportunity to better organize their lives as a result of infanticide becoming an option.

Right, but how can you show that this outweighs the mistakes your theory makes? At this point, it just sounds like an opinion.

There are many ways of discovering whether a small child is a human or not.

You just chopped off the last half of my quote, and responded as if I didn't finish that thought. Please respond to my full thought.

Again, many ways to explore their psyche too. For example, think about how your therapist may hold a picture of patterns in front of your eyes and the way you respond (without necessarily making any explicit verbal statements) will allow for him to infer a lot about your internal mindset.

All in all, you're coming up with rare cases where the chances of mistakes will be increased. Though mistakes are far from inevitable at that point.

Mistakes are certainly inevitable; your theory applies to ALL children. Do you know how many millions that is? Are you saying that your error rate is as small as one in a million or so?

And even when they do happen, we will be killing someone who is not far off from being legally killed anyways.

Ah. See, that's the assumption of your whole argument. You're just claiming that it's a grey area when we consider a child a human. I agree with that assumption. But what follows from that assumption is that EVERY solution is going to be an approximation to some extent. Including your own. It's not any better man, it's just another approximation.

Unless there was a magical machine that could measure ability and not behavior, and we could have a working definition of what the threshold for ability was, your argument isn't any better.
 

Nocapszy

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Kill the baby.
Don't kill the baby.

It's a fucking protoplasm.

What stuff is a moral made of anyway?
Chemistry doesn't seem to care.
 

Nocapszy

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My opinion is that all humans should be terminated upon birth.
The ant colony to which I defer shall elaborate further. But you won't be able to hear them, so I'll recite their teachings.

In my many bouts with my brain I've discovered it's much more fun to watch the ants.
They live for some time, all the while carrying food to be digested by the queen.

If time were a spatial metric, an any colony would have as many units as a person.
Hurray for circulation, expansion and reproduction.
These three are still the same.

An ant colony is a Human is a Deck of Cards.
Which game will you play? I know everything from fifty-two pickup and magnifying glass melting.

Or what about drugs?
Perhaps instead we ought to let the infant kill itself.



If you know what I'm talking about raise your hand.
 

SolitaryWalker

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Duh.







Yes, I have clearly explained why. Your tests are overly simple and we're measuring something complex like cognitive ability. There are bound to be mistakes. How can I be more clear than that?.

They need not be complex because the mind of an infant is very simple.

You've already conceded to my point anyway, you just don't remember it as conceding to my point. You'd rather dismiss me as "one of those idiot feelers". Look at your last few pages of posts. You've been talking about different things because I've shown parts of your original argument to be flawed?.
???:huh:



Yes, that is how your responded. But now you're admitting that your theory doesn't work in all cases. I agree, making it illegal to kill babies is an ethical approximation. But so is your solution.?.


There may be some mistakes here and there, but that is okay, as no plan is perfect.








Hmm, well if you actually read those words, the first quote says that the parents get to choose whether or not to kill their children. The second quote says that the state gets to choose. So is it the parents or the state? Surely you can see the inconsistency.?.

At first I have maintained that because the children are property, they belong to someone. They could either be private property or state property, as is the case with all property.

Then I have argued that for the sake of maintaining democratic regimes and the regimes of the open society in general, it is better that they be private property. I did not maintain that they should be the property of the state.




Who cares if it's up to the parent? Do you not understand economics? If someone pays, it means they're not paying for something else, which mean they're not stimulating the economy in other ways..?.

It will be much cheaper to kill the child than to support him for many years.



The mistakes are few and minor with your theory, and they're few and minor with making it illegal to kill babies. They are both flawed. You have not shown yours to be better or more efficient. From my understanding, it looks like a much worse option, just from an economic standpoint...?.

Its economically more efficient because its cheaper, the money will be devoted to more constructive purposes. Secondly, the higher satisfaction of the parents will boost morale in the society which likely will lead to positive consequences.




Right, but how can you show that this outweighs the mistakes your theory makes? At this point, it just sounds like an opinion....?.

I do not see the mistakes. You only said there were mistakes, but did not point out clearly what they were.






Mistakes are certainly inevitable; your theory applies to ALL children. Do you know how many millions that is? Are you saying that your error rate is as small as one in a million or so?....?.

In our methodology mistakes are not inevitable. If we execute it as planned, there should not be many errors. But of course, there is human error, therefore we will err some of the time at least. But that is okay, as the losses which will ensue as a result of this will be few.
 

redacted

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I do not see the mistakes. You only said there were mistakes, but did not point out clearly what they were.

I said there are potential ways the test wouldn't work. You agreed. And yet now you say there are no mistakes.

...

Are you serious?

I'm done.
 

SolitaryWalker

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I said there are potential ways the test wouldn't work. You agreed. And yet now you say there are no mistakes.

...

Are you serious?

I'm done.

Yes, there will be mistakes as a result of us using this method. Though this does not mean that using the method is in itself a mistake.

Just like you may make mistakes at work, yet hiring you may not be a mistake because the good things about having you around overshadow the impact of those mistakes you make.
 
D

Dali

Guest
BW, your intent here is to enlighten pro-choice folks about the insignificant difference between a birthed and a yet-unbirthed baby, no?

And thus everyone getting all upset at you should instead turn their emotions upon themselves and examine their personal abortion stance?

+1

Swift's A Modest Proposal popped into my head as I was halfway through the post.
 

G-Virus

Broud Balestinian
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Infanticide or killing recently born children is considered a crime because such an entity is regarded as a human being.

Abortion, however is not considered a crime because a fetus is not regarded as a human being.

What is a human being? Quite obviously the psychological sense of self or the capacity for an intellectual conception of the world is the essence of man. An infant does not have a mind of a human. He is in closer affinity with most animals than humans for this reason.

Because an infant is not a human, he ought not to be granted the right to life and is therefore the property of the state or his biological parents. It is up to one of the two to decide whether the infant should live or die.

The fact that he has potential to become a human being is irrelevant because law by definition deals with entities that are and not entities that could be.

A normal child may be dispensed with until he has reached the age of 2, or clear-cut psychological functioning. A child afflicted with mental retardation may be killed until he has reached the age of 5.

Thus in summary, one should not be awarded the basic human rights until one becomes human or acquires a psychological sense of self, until then he is to be regarded as property of those who do have such a sense of self.

Mr. Bluewing,

Before one even begins to argue your point, the debate over abortion must be resolved. These two ideas are not detached in and of themselves. The debate over whether abortion is morally justifiable, if such a thing exists, is still a hotly contested ethical topic and has yet to be determined. The idea that the murder of anything not inherently human can be justified is counter productive to the progression and advancement of human society in general. One can not merely discount the potential benefit of any unborn soul for we as a species do not boast the capacity of looking into the future. By removing possible potential, we are directly impairing our societal advancement in the future. Just because something is not realized at the moment, does not mean it will not be. To conclude, for your argument to even have the mere semblances of validity, you must argue beyond the shadow of a doubt that the destruction of potential life will garner us as species more benefit than harm. Since no rationale being can possibly prove this, one can not be in a position to justify there actions from a moral standpoint. They can only argue that there action was out of perceived benefit to themselves. Can perceived benefits alone be rationale enough to move ahead with such a monumentous action?
 
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