Cindy Claveau

Of course, if such a thing were to happen, we would see the rise of the rights organization, "People for Equal Neanderthals In Society"

Also called "P.E.N.I.S."

__________________
Sometimes, "I hit it with my axe" is the best solution.

Beau Perkins

Sure Mero.

But if it was not as sophisticated as a human being and operated on the level of a lesser intellegent species would you want it living on its own driving a car around.

Neither of us know how intellegent this human like creature would be. We dont even have a reliable science to clone such a thing yet. We have no clue how healthy of a life it can lead.

There are so many questions. To say we can only do this if we grant it the rights of any human is unrealistic. In time you may prove to be right. It would take years of observing and studying behavior though.

__________________

Darkley

i believe they bred with homosapiens

oh, and just to put % in contest, we share 35% of our dna with daffodils

__________________
Si hoc signum legere potes, operis boni in rebus Latinis alacribus et fructuosis potiri potes

My Flickr stream.....http://www.flickr.com/photos/darkley/

Beau Perkins

Good enough for me. Let the Daffodil vote and have an apartment in Los Angles now.

Aimee Weber

Which is an excellent example as to why genetic similarity to humans should be discarded outright as a determining factor for societal rights. Instead, I think rights should be bestowed based on a creature's understanding of, and willingness to apply themselves to the social contract.

__________________
"I asked the Ouija Board about the ideomotor effect, but it just told me to f*ck off."

Lucifer Baphomet

By that criteria, a sizeable proportion of humanity don't merit human rights

__________________

Briana Dawson

You should start a thread and better qualify that statement.

Beebo Brink

If intelligence is the determining factor, where do the mentally retarded fit into this scheme?

__________________

Aimee Weber

Exactly. People who reject the social contract by, say, hitting others with a lead pipe, will have their right to freedom denied them. If a newly created Neanderthal is found to be possessed with an unquenchable urge to bite people, they likely will never be able to enjoy the same rights as humans.

On the other hand, if they have a desire to work, pay their rent, and live a life respectful towards others, their genetic make-up should not bar them from doing so, no matter how different from humans.

Lucifer Baphomet

i'll qualify it here.,.

"Willingness to apply themselves smacks of the concept of manifest destiny".

I'd say confer the rights, on the basis of sentience alone.

Charlemagne Allen

Humans rights are an imperialist scheme used to force states to conform to the American-led Cold War order! I mean, Western states killed millions of people in Africa and China and South America to create imperalist-capitalist states, and then when these unholy beings collapsed after the Second World War, the unholy alliance of the GATT, the WTO, the World Bank, and the veto-power states of the UN come to dictate how they should act. As if they have any moral legitimacy! This is obviously a blatant attempt to ressert their power over the free states of the third world, and we will not stand for the Neo-Imperialist, Friedmen-esque unholy alliance of US-funded torture cells and corporate takeover!

/me goes back to smoking a joint and reading dog-earred copy of Franz Fanon

__________________
Charlemagne Allen: YOU'RE A RACIST!
Charlemagne Allen: I HAVE CHATLOGS!
smokergirl Lowenhar: HOMOPHOBE
smokergirl Lowenhar: CONTENT THIEF
Charlemagne Allen: RELIGION SUCKS DONKEY BALLS!
smokergirl Lowenhar: KISS MY ASS YOU CLOSE MINDED HYPOCRIT
Charlemagne Allen: YOU WERE AN ESCORT FOR BARN ANIMALS!
Charlemagne Allen: ZOMG BIG SIG!

Pretty things:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/charlemagneallen/

Briana Dawson

And you almost made a post without a typo. This could have been a typo free day for you!

Lucifer Baphomet

Granted, Aimee, but the social contracts of "superior" cultures have long been used to abrogate the rights of other peoples.

Tribes in the rain forests of Brazil have no interest in paying rent, are they less than human?

And jesus I've known a fuckton of squatters.. again, are they less than human in some way?

Briana Dawson

Eirik

They adhere to the social contract of their own culture. As such I believe they should be left alone by the rest of us. Sadly, that doens't always happen in reality.

I heard that you can live in the Amazon without paying rent. Over here we have a different social contract though.

Not saying they are less human, but they are criminals and should be treated as such.

--

And for the record, I don't think we should raise the neanderthals back to life, unless we can give them a piece of land that is all theirs to do with as they want.

__________________

Aimee Weber

First, your implication that I am describing people as "less than human" is exactly opposite of what I have been saying in every single post. You couldn't have gotten my words more wrong if you simply reversed all the letters.

As for paying rent, I was going with Beau's example of an apartment in LA. If a Brazilian has no interest in paying rent in LA, they don't have a right to that prime piece of real estate. Western civilization invading and seizing Brazilian lands is a different story. That would certainly be wrong.

As for squatters ... I can only speak for my own land. If somebody were squatting on my land, and I didn't want them there, I would indeed ask them to leave.

Where you are getting the "less than human" stuff I have no idea.

Lucifer Baphomet

Agreed.... but this opens the question, what standards to we hold another sentient being to.

Ok, the neanderthals aren't a case in point here, because most likely theyd be raised in a controlled environment, and carefully enculturated.

Aimees hypothetical squidmans social contract could be entirely alien to our own. But I'd say he still deserves the right to be treated as hav ing "human" rights. (maybe we should say Sophont's rights )


In England and Wales, squatters have rigfhts, and aren't stricly speaking criminals in every circumstance.

They'd have no cultural frame of reference, assuming they were recreated.

They'd most likely imprint from, and identify with whatever culture they wewre recreated in.


OK Aimee, sorry for the less than human stuff.... hang over from lengthy debates with Beau on this outside the fora

But still, moving the idea of rights for thinking sentient beings....

I think the idea of using our own social contract on a wider basis, regarding sentient life, has sdinister undertones, and is grossly open to misuse.

Just look at the way we ( white people like you and I Aimee) treated the aboriginal peoples when we colonised other places.

The Native Americans, and Australian Aborigines didnt want involved in our social contracts.. so we ran roughshod over them, stole their land, decimated their numbers, and almost wiped out their cultures.

Briar Bing

HYPOTHETICAL?

__________________
The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.
~Mark Twain

io Kukulcan

Upon further reflection on this matter, I bet a Neanderthal woman would be really fun in bed.
I'm all for this.

Sooz Pascale

I think this is a can of worms left unopened. Think about this. One of the more common criticisms of LL's management of SL is their tendancy to get a brainstorm and just run with it, without first sitting back and imagining, pondering what unintended consequences may result.

I see this issue as frought with unintended consequences.

Like what you may ask? For one, exploitation of them. Someone, somewhere will figure out a way to exploit them. We have no idea how they would adapt to our modern world.

I may be alone here, but I think we should leave them be.

Sooz

__________________
Nothing sickens me more than the closed door of a library - Barbara Tuchman

Beau Perkins

I don't really want to get into that discussion but I do know that nobody really ever willingly will choose to bring a mentally retarded person into the world.

jauani

neanderthals are widely considered to be human, just not modern human. i have actually often read of them to be referred to as homo sapien neanderthalis as opposed to the modern human (us) as homo sapien sapien. that would qualify them as a separate human race. we could be genuinely racist against them. i think the return of neanderthals would help people properly channel their sense of "racial" superiority.

Lucifer Baphomet

see J-Wu knows where I'm coming from.

IsaDaft Trollop

Mr. K, sometimes you scare me.

__________________
Updated 2/15/09
I am giving you an 8.4 on the Official Trout Recreant Slutiness Measuring Device. Congratulations and shame on you!
(from a 7.3)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cocoanut Koala If I had weed, a movie, and hot sex waiting for me, too, y'all would be dust in my rear view mirror.

detrius

The squid-people are no match for octopod/human-hybrids!





Edit: Also... 1,000 posts! Woohoo!

__________________