What are your views on animal testing?

[starsailor9774]

It was the gist i got from DV's post.... you may read it different that's your issue.

I don't get manipulated or swallow any headline i read.... most papers are full of shit anyway..... i've never read one copy of the Daily Mail either which may surprise Mrs Snowychap... oops i mean Chindie.

Heh, doesn't surprise me at all.

Ha ha ha did he wake you up to tell you..........

[Brumerican]

I was thinking. In a war/conflict such as Iraq or Afghanistan, civilian casualties (collateral damage) are tolerated by us "good guys". If we as a society are willing to abide by our forces killing innocent non-combatants for the greater good, then I find it strange that we would be unwilling to use convicted murderers and rapists to clear landmines or to be subjected to medical testing. It seems like a double standard.

[snowychap]

The moment someone sees himself as able to treat another as less than human (for whatever reason) then he himself loses some of his humanity.

Just a difference of opinion then snowy. Your opinion is the above, mine is that you don't really deserve civilsed human rights unless you can act like a civilised human yourself. Murdering somebody is far from a human thing to do.

Not at all 'just a difference of opinion'.

Your opinion is that you are imbued with some bizarre moral guidance which enables you to decide upon the worth of other people.

Mine is that this 'attitude' is Mengeleish (at the very least), if not the trait of countless murderers, rapists or other psychopaths or sociopaths.

[starsailor9774]

The moment someone sees himself as able to treat another as less than human (for whatever reason) then he himself loses some of his humanity.

Just a difference of opinion then snowy. Your opinion is the above, mine is that you don't really deserve civilsed human rights unless you can act like a civilised human yourself. Murdering somebody is far from a human thing to do.

Not at all 'just a difference of opinion'.

Your opinion is that you are imbued with some bizarre moral guidance which enables you to decide upon the worth of other people.

Mine is that this 'attitude' is Mengeleish (at the very least), if not the trait of countless murderers, rapists or other psychopaths or sociopaths.

Many might find your attitude that everyone deserves the same rights even if they have murdered and raped equally bizarre.

[Chindie]

Ha ha ha did he wake you up to tell you..........

This couldn't get more childish if we had a ball pit installed, Barney in the background and covered the whole exchange in melted chocolate. Grow up.

And an ellipsis is three periods, you need to take your finger off the key after that time. Or just use one.

[snowychap]

Touched a nerve eh?

How?

Oh, by adding homophobia to your already lengthy list of hatred?

If you'd bothered to read other threads, you'd see that I wasn't gay but that I take a deep dislike towards homophobia (mainly to do with having gay family members who have had to deal with the same kind of prejudice as that upon which you thrive).

It is interesting that you have chosen to ignore a question posed to you (and the other experimentalists) about how far you would take your 'treat in any way we want' ideology and instead focussed on attempting to wind other people up by calling them such insulting things as being 'liberal' or 'gay'.

Your posts are those of a truly enlightened individual and I hope that when your cat returns home, you, too, are hoist by your own petard and burnt at the stake.

[kurtsimonw]

The moment someone sees himself as able to treat another as less than human (for whatever reason) then he himself loses some of his humanity.

Just a difference of opinion then snowy. Your opinion is the above, mine is that you don't really deserve civilsed human rights unless you can act like a civilised human yourself. Murdering somebody is far from a human thing to do.

Not at all 'just a difference of opinion'.

Your opinion is that you are imbued with some bizarre moral guidance which enables you to decide upon the worth of other people.

Mine is that this 'attitude' is Mengeleish (at the very least), if not the trait of countless murderers, rapists or other psychopaths or sociopaths.

Yes, just a difference of opinion, exactly that. You see, what I posted earlier was my opinion, you disagreed with it - which is your opinion. Making this a difference of opinion. :?

Being serious for a minute, I'm not saying that is how much other people are worth, that is my opinion. I don't know if you have kids, but I'm sure you feel their life is far more valuable than that of a murderer and that is all I am saying. It's just my opinion of how much I value that persons life. If a bomb was to go off and I could chose one person to save, a kid or a murderer, I wouldn't even have to think twice about who to save. Anybody that says they value everybodys life the same is very bizarre in my view, and a liar.

Also interested if you replied to Chindie's post on the first page of this thread calling starsailor 'scum', seeing as you're so desperate for people to follow rules.

I was thinking. In a war/conflict such as Iraq or Afghanistan, civilian casualties (collateral damage) are tolerated by us "good guys". If we as a society are willing to abide by our forces killing innocent non-combatants for the greater good, then I find it strange that we would be unwilling to use convicted murderers and rapists to clear landmines or to be subjected to medical testing. It seems like a double standard.

I'm surprised some people even agree in the armed forces to be honest. I'm not the best informed when it comes to conflicts or war, but I'm pretty certain that some countries aren't as fortunate as us to have a full army and need to recruit civilians into their forces. Surely by forcing people to join the army for x amount of time, this is potentially going to kill them and they have no choice. Are these countries all 'nazi like' for sending innocent people to possibly die?

[snowychap]

Many might find your attitude that everyone deserves the same rights even if they have murdered and raped equally bizarre.

Except that isn't what I said.

I'm talking about the fundamentals of the rights of people and I'm talking about how society chooses to deal with its constituent parts.

If you want to have a serious discussion on that subject (on which there is ample room for it and I certainly don't think that my opinion is the only acceptable one) then I suggest you stop acting like a twelve year old and start commenting on the subject at hand.

[starsailor9774]

Touched a nerve eh?

How?

Oh, by adding homophobia to your already lengthy list of hatred?

If you'd bothered to read other threads, you'd see that I wasn't gay but that I take a deep dislike towards homophobia (mainly to do with having gay family members who have had to deal with the same kind of prejudice as that upon which you thrive).

It is interesting that you have chosen to ignore a question posed to you (and the other experimentalists) about how far you would take your 'treat in any way we want' ideology and instead focussed on attempting to wind other people up by calling them such insulting things as being 'liberal' or 'gay'.

Your posts are those of a truly enlightened individual and I hope that when your cat returns home, you, too, are hoist by your own petard and burnt at the stake.

Homophobia? By jokingly suggesting you and Chindie were a couple? Not sure how you work that out.

The part of your post in bold show's who the homophobe is on here..... why else would you refer to it as an "insulting thing"

[Chindie]

Yes, just a difference of opinion, exactly that. You see, what I posted earlier was my opinion, you disagreed with it - which is your opinion. Making this a difference of opinion. :?

Being serious for a minute, I'm not saying that is how much other people are worth, that is my opinion. I don't know if you have kids, but I'm sure you feel their life is far more valuable than that of a murderer and that is all I am saying. It's just my opinion of how much I value that persons life. If a bomb was to go off and I could chose one person to save, a kid or a murderer, I wouldn't even have to think twice about who to save. Anybody that says they value everybodys life the same is very bizarre in my view, and a liar.

Also interested if you replied to Chindie's post on the first page of this thread calling starsailor 'scum', seeing as you're so desperate for people to follow rules.

I value everybody's life the same. I'm neither very bizarre, nor am I liar. I may have disdain for some people, I may hate them, but their life is worth no more or less than anyone elses. No person, in my view, has more inherent value than another, and thus we are all equals. Equals that face very different challenges, but equal non the less.

And Snowy did speak to me about that exchange and encouraged me to have a rethink.

I'm surprised some people even agree in the armed forces to be honest. I'm not the best informed when it comes to conflicts or war, but I'm pretty certain that some countries aren't as fortunate as us to have a full army and need to recruit civilians into their forces. Surely by forcing people to join the army for x amount of time, this is potentially going to kill them and they have no choice. Are these countrieds all 'nazi like' for sending innocent people to possibly die?

I don't agree with conscription but countries need to be able to defend themselves and their interests, if that requires conscription then so be it. The world will always have conflict, and people will always die in them, it's regretable but to wax lyrical on the idea war is going to go away is largely pointless.

I also don't think the comparision between civilian casualties in conflict and using the convicted for medical experiments and mine clearing is a valid one. Civilian casualties are an inevitable result of conflict, we endeavour to preserve life by stopping them happening as much as possible. The exact opposite would be true of the criminals in this case, we would be neglecting life and wellbeing.

[starsailor9774]

Yes, just a difference of opinion, exactly that. You see, what I posted earlier was my opinion, you disagreed with it - which is your opinion. Making this a difference of opinion. :?

Being serious for a minute, I'm not saying that is how much other people are worth, that is my opinion. I don't know if you have kids, but I'm sure you feel their life is far more valuable than that of a murderer and that is all I am saying. It's just my opinion of how much I value that persons life. If a bomb was to go off and I could chose one person to save, a kid or a murderer, I wouldn't even have to think twice about who to save. Anybody that says they value everybodys life the same is very bizarre in my view, and a liar.

Also interested if you replied to Chindie's post on the first page of this thread calling starsailor 'scum', seeing as you're so desperate for people to follow rules.

I value everybody's life the same. I'm neither very bizarre, nor am I liar. I may have disdain for some people, I may hate them, but their life is worth no more or less than anyone elses. No person, in my view, has more inherent value than another, and thus we are all equals. Equals that face very different challenges, but equal non the less.

And Snowy did speak to me about that exchange and encouraged me to have a rethink.

I'm surprised some people even agree in the armed forces to be honest. I'm not the best informed when it comes to conflicts or war, but I'm pretty certain that some countries aren't as fortunate as us to have a full army and need to recruit civilians into their forces. Surely by forcing people to join the army for x amount of time, this is potentially going to kill them and they have no choice. Are these countrieds all 'nazi like' for sending innocent people to possibly die?

I don't agree with conscription but countries need to be able to defend themselves and their interests, if that requires conscription then so be it. The world will always have conflict, and people will always die in them, it's regretable but to wax lyrical on the idea war is going to go away is largely pointless.

I also don't think the comparision between civilian casualties in conflict and using the convicted for medical experiments and mine clearing is a valid one. Civilian casualties are an inevitable result of conflict, we endeavour to preserve life by stopping them happening as much as possible. The exact opposite would be true of the criminals in this case, we would be neglecting life and wellbeing.

he now thinks i'm homophobic scum

[Vojskovoda]

Chindie; so....................................... just you don't agree with someone that makes them scum? You sound cool.

Anyways, I do agree with snowy saying (I think snowster said it?) that it'd be reacting in an animal-type-like-way if we were to test (by force) on another human-being whatever the circumstances. Yeah you can look at every angle and alternative but politcially an animal's life is always going to be put on the line before another human's doesn't matter what sort of crime is committed by the human in question. Snowy; what do you make of the death penalty - an eye for an eye? Killing a human compared to testing a human - which is more fitting and moral?

[Brumerican]

Not quite on topic but still relevant I feel. Sam Harris " In defence of torture.

Most readers will undoubtedly feel at this point that torture is evil and that we are wise not to practice it. Even if we can’t quite muster a retort to the ticking bomb case, most of us take refuge in the fact that the paradigmatic case will almost never arise. It seems, however, that this position is impossible to square with our willingness to wage modern war in the first place.

In modern warfare, “collateral damage”—the maiming and killing innocent noncombatants—is unavoidable. And it will remain unavoidable for the foreseeable future. Collateral damage would be a problem even if our bombs were far “smarter” than they are now. It would also be a problem even if we resolved to fight only defensive wars. There is no escaping the fact that whenever we drop bombs, we drop them with the knowledge that some number of children will be blinded, disemboweled, paralyzed, orphaned, and killed by them.

The only way to rule out collateral damage would be to refuse to fight wars under any circumstances. As a foreign policy, this would leave us with something like the absolute pacifism of Gandhi. While pacifism in this form can constitute a direct confrontation with injustice (and requires considerable bravery), it is only applicable to a limited range of human conflicts. Where it is not applicable, it is seems flagrantly immoral. We would do well to reflect on Gandhi’s remedy for the Holocaust: he believed that the Jews should have committed mass suicide, because this “would have aroused the world and the people of Germany to Hitler’s violence.” We might wonder what a world full of pacifists would have done once it had grown “aroused”—commit suicide as well? There seems no question that if all the good people in the world adopted Gandhi’s ethics, the thugs would inherit the earth.

So we can now ask, if we are willing to act in a way that guarantees the misery and death of some considerable number of innocent children, why spare the rod with known terrorists? I find it genuinely bizarre that while the torture of Osama bin Laden himself could be expected to provoke convulsions of conscience among our leaders, the perfectly foreseeable (and therefore accepted) slaughter of children does not. What is the difference between pursuing a course of action where we run the risk of inadvertently subjecting some innocent men to torture, and pursuing one in which we will inadvertently kill far greater numbers of innocent men, women, and children? Rather, it seems obvious that the misapplication of torture should be far less troubling to us than collateral damage: there are, after all, no infants interned at Guantanamo Bay. Torture need not even impose a significant risk of death or permanent injury on its victims; while the collaterally damaged are, almost by definition, crippled or killed. The ethical divide that seems to be opening up here suggests that those who are willing to drop bombs might want to abduct the nearest and dearest of suspected terrorists—their wives, mothers, and daughters—and torture them as well, assuming anything profitable to our side might come of it. Admittedly, this would be a ghastly result to have reached by logical argument, and we will want to find some way of escaping it. But there seems no question that accidentally torturing an innocent man is better than accidentally blowing him and his children to bits.

In this context, we should note that many variables influence our feelings about an act of physical violence. The philosopher Jonathan Glover points out that “in modern war, what is most shocking is a poor guide to what is most harmful.” To learn that one’s grandfather flew a bombing mission over Dresden in the Second World War is one thing; to hear that he killed five little girls and their mother with a shovel is another. We can be sure that he would have killed many more women and girls by dropping bombs from pristine heights, and they are likely to have died equally horrible deaths, but his culpability would not appear the same. There is much to be said about the disparity here, but the relevance to the ethics of torture should be obvious. If you think that the equivalence between torture and collateral damage does not hold, because torture is up close and personal while stray bombs aren’t, you stand convicted of a failure of imagination on at least two counts: first, a moment’s reflection on the horrors that must have been visited upon innocent Afghanis and Iraqis by our bombs will reveal that they are on par with those of any dungeon. If our intuition about the wrongness of torture is born of an aversion to how people generally behave while being tortured, we should note that this particular infelicity could be circumvented pharmacologically, because paralytic drugs make it unnecessary for screaming ever to be heard or writhing seen. We could easily devise methods of torture that would render a torturer as blind to the plight of his victims as a bomber pilot is at thirty thousand feet. Consequently, our natural aversion to the sights and sounds of the dungeon provide no foothold for those who would argue against the use of torture.

[kurtsimonw]

I value everybody's life the same. I'm neither very bizarre, nor am I liar. I may have disdain for some people, I may hate them, but their life is worth no more or less than anyone elses. No person, in my view, has more inherent value than another, and thus we are all equals. Equals that face very different challenges, but equal non the less.

And Snowy did speak to me about that exchange and encouraged me to have a rethink.

We'll have to disagree on this one Chindie.

When you commit such an act that you (should) be imprisoned for your entire life, you're no longer truly living as a human, your life is very different from the norm. I just feel that this makes your life worth less than others. If you're putting a price tag on life, I'm sure that of a free man would be higher than one imprisoned for life.

I will add that I'm not literally putting a price value on each person, that was just an example, before anybody picks up on that.

Ah, I see. Then well done to snowy, he did the right thing. (It was no shot at you, I know and understand why you said it).

I don't agree with conscription but countries need to be able to defend themselves and their interests, if that requires conscription then so be it. The world will always have conflict, and people will always die in them, it's regretable but to wax lyrical on the idea war is going to go away is largely pointless.

I also don't think the comparision between civilian casualties in conflict and using the convicted for medical experiments and mine clearing is a valid one. Civilian casualties are an inevitable result of conflict, we endeavour to preserve life by stopping them happening as much as possible. The exact opposite would be true of the criminals in this case, we would be neglecting life and wellbeing.

I understand what your saying and my arguement wasn't really with the intent to be realistic. Quite clearly, as you say, it has to be done as countries need to defend themself. But it is humans who force war upon each other, so our actions really aren't always for the good of the species.

[Chindie]

Homophobia? By jokingly suggesting you and Chindie were a couple? Not sure how you work that out.

The part of your post in bold show's who the homophobe is on here..... why else would you refer to it as an "insulting thing"

Of course 'gay' can be an insult. It is often used with with negative intent. The implication of its use is that you view it as an negative. That's obvious. The term topped the school yard bullying words a couple of years ago.

[snowychap]

Yes, just a difference of opinion, exactly that. You see, what I posted earlier was my opinion, you disagreed with it - which is your opinion. Making this a difference of opinion. :?

And yet that is neither what you or I meant.

The 'difference of opinion' was not about symantics but more about degrees of importance.

Frankly, it is like saying that Nazis held the opinion that Jews were the ultimate problem and Jews held the opinion that they weren't.

Was that just a difference of opinion or something fundamental about morality?

Anybody that says they value everybodys life the same is very bizarre in my view, and a liar.

Which would suggest that you haven't bothered to read what people have said.

I can't be arsed to quote the several posts in which people have indicated that this isn't what they have said and I doubt it would matter as you've obviously chosen to ignore them thus far.

Also interested if you replied to Chindie's post on the first page of this thread calling starsailor 'scum', seeing as you're so desperate for people to follow rules.

Have I ever referred to anybody in such a way? I don't believe I have.

I don't believe I have ever used the term 'scum' to refer to any one and I hope that I will never do so (that is regardless of rules, etiquette or anything else) as it isn't my bag, baby.

I did send a PM to Chindie regarding the comment but as that is 'private' then it will remain private.

You seem intent on trying to besmirch me and what I say and that is your prerogative.

I must indicate to you that I don't like your approach and I find it pretty grim. Please do carry on if it gets you going but don't expect me to retort each time in the future.

Edit: Apologies for the last couple of paras. Recent PMs have cleared up that I have probably viewed Kurt's comments wrongly.

[Chindie]

Chindie; so....................................... just you don't agree with someone that makes them scum? You sound cool.

Far too simplimistic a take. I disagree with people all the time.

What made me use that term for the esteemed starsailor9774 is that his views are so vile, so unflinchingly disgusting to me, so indefensible, that I refuse to respect them nor waste pleasantries on them, and by implication the person that holds them. I stand by the use of the term.

That would not be the case for pretty much any other stadnpoint.

[Vojskovoda]

Chindie; so....................................... just you don't agree with someone that makes them scum? You sound cool.

Far too simplimistic a take. I disagree with people all the time.

What made me use that term for the esteemed starsailor9774 is that his views are so vile, so unflinchingly disgusting to me, so indefensible, that I refuse to respect them nor waste pleasantries on them, and by implication the person that holds them. I stand by the use of the term.

That would not be the case for pretty much any other stadnpoint.

Is that because he supports the BNP or saying he doesn't value some lives as equal? Quite harsh because one or two others have said testing on humans (horrible criminals committing evil crimes) should be an option like sailor has said.

[snowychap]

The part of your post in bold show's who the homophobe is on here..... why else would you refer to it as an "insulting thing"

Yes, surely you weren't trying to be derogatory towards two people for whom you have already expressed a dislike.

I imagine that your comments were supposed to be endearing. :shock:

I think it shows your utter lack of understanding of a situation in which you don't comprehend what you actually say.

As I mentioned before, I'm ashamed that I expected any better.

I have, after all, read your other posts.

[starsailor9774]

Homophobia? By jokingly suggesting you and Chindie were a couple? Not sure how you work that out.

The part of your post in bold show's who the homophobe is on here..... why else would you refer to it as an "insulting thing"

Of course 'gay' can be an insult. It is often used with with negative intent. The implication of its use is that you view it as an negative. That's obvious. The term topped the school yard bullying words a couple of years ago.

If you can show me where i used the term "Gay" as an insult i would love to see it..