do humans have value?

chadwick

catefrances wrote:

HeidiJam wrote:

... Has any animal other than us protected other animals from extinction? I would say we are much better.

i find this interesting. why does this make people better??? i dont see saving species from extinction as being an inherently good thing. humans destroy environments and then go about 'rescuing' species they have forced to the brink of extinction. why do they do this? why do they even feel the need to do this???

hi cate.
:wave:

_

dpmay wrote:

Cosmo wrote:

...
This example is taken from fairly recent history:
What is the value of a man who was a member of Germany's Nazi party and a commissioned officer in the SS? The program under his authority was to design build and deploy V-2 rockets. He used prisoners from concentration camps as slave labor... more people died building the V-2s, than the V-2 killed in attacks.
What value does that man have?

yeah, this is a related issue. do all humans have equal value?

personally i would have to believe yes, even monsters like the person you are describing...

I used to have a friend who was mentally retarded. He died due to hospital negligence. His mother sued. The defendants argued that, because he was mentally retarded, his life was less valuable than the life of normal adults. :(

yosi

polaris_x wrote:

Jeanwah wrote:

How about what I originally wrote, emotions? Yes, some species have few emotions...

I've been thinking...how about the value of our thumbs? They're definitely a Value to our existence. And communication in combination with emotions (and our thumbs)? I think we're pretty much set far apart than any species with that also.

I refuse to see that our existence is completely and only self-serving. We are meant to be social and compassionate beings, not to be alone and declare that money trumps all. That goes against our very nature, even though that state of mind is taking over the world. But that state of mind is what may just kill our existence. Love won't, it brings us together.

i see emotions in many species as well ...

thumbs are definitely great ... but cuttlefish can change their colour to match their environment ... that is frickin' awesome ... hahaha ... and birds can fly! ...

i agree with your sentiment however, my point is simply that when we look at humanity's contribution to the planet - it is hard to say we've contributed anything positive ... if we took all other living things ... about the only thing that seems to have thrived in conjunction with humans are cancer cells ... although the majority of the world is made of kind, caring and compassionate people - we are complicit in the devastation we have inflicted on this planet ...

Corn has thrived with humans.

dpmay

FiveB247x wrote:

i dont know if better is the proper term.. but they have a system which lives in harmony and is cyclical and it doesnt veer in discrimination and similar. If you look at practically every serious problem that humans have, they all boil down to self-created problems as a result of selfishness, greed and some form of bias towards others. Racism, economic imbalances, poverty, hunger, sickness, war, environment, religion and many others.

i agree, animals are not really capable of the greatest of human shortcomings. but, i believe, neither are animals capable of the greatest human accomplishments.

dpmay

scb wrote:

dpmay wrote:

Cosmo wrote:

...
This example is taken from fairly recent history:
What is the value of a man who was a member of Germany's Nazi party and a commissioned officer in the SS? The program under his authority was to design build and deploy V-2 rockets. He used prisoners from concentration camps as slave labor... more people died building the V-2s, than the V-2 killed in attacks.
What value does that man have?

yeah, this is a related issue. do all humans have equal value?

personally i would have to believe yes, even monsters like the person you are describing...

I used to have a friend who was mentally retarded. He died due to hospital negligence. His mother sued. The defendants argued that, because he was mentally retarded, his life was less valuable than the life of normal adults. :(

that's totally fucked up. i am sorry to hear that story.

usually when people argue someone has less value than others, it's because of something the person has done. like as if the person can forfeit their own value...

Blockhead

FiveB247x wrote:

That's not true though. Animals not only have instincts and emotions but awareness of the surroundings, species and system around them. And yes animals understand death just as they do birth it's part of their life cycle, not sure why you would say otherwise - unless you're referring to spiritualism or religion? And extinction is about evolution, not one species saving another. And even if you did want to make that point, humans not only watch things like genocide, we basically lay the foundations and paths for all humanities extinction... so how are we so much better again? ]

Instincts, emotions and awaraness of surroundings - Yes that is how they survive (survival of the fittest) Butt to say they understand death is not true, just because its part of their life cycle does not mean they understand what death is. One species saving another shows that we value life, as opposed to the comment you made about animals being more than humanity. Humans are doing nothing different than animals are, we are just doing it on a larger technological scale.

polaris_x

yosi wrote:

Corn has thrived with humans.

of all the things you could have picked to highlight some triumph of humanity - you pick corn? ... which could be nominated as one of humanity's greatest failure? ...

Blockhead

catefrances wrote:

HeidiJam wrote:

... Has any animal other than us protected other animals from extinction? I would say we are much better.

i find this interesting. why does this make people better??? i dont see saving species from extinction as being an inherently good thing. humans destroy environments and then go about 'rescuing' species they have forced to the brink of extinction. why do they do this? why do they even feel the need to do this???

Your basically punishing Humans because they are smart and are able to survive without living the hunter / gathering life style. Saving species shows that we value life. We destroy enviroments to survive and to be able to live a life without fear not being able to survive. I am not saying thats a good thing but you seem to spout bad of humans while your living your coushy lifestyle (typing on the computer / internet service) Life isnt fair and i am disgusted with alot of decisions humans make but we evolved to a point where we don't have to worry about day to day survival, but this also comes at the cost of using alot of resources from the eath that have harmful effects on the ecosystem.

Blockhead

ed243421 wrote:

what do you understand about death?
you say animals do not live in harmony cause they eat their children
what if they eat their children to control the population
is that living in harmony with nature?
ever hear how alligators (or crocs, i forget) can control the sex of their children by the tempature they keep the nest?
is that being harmonic with nature enough for you?

I understand that my life will come to an end. Do you think animals understand that (other than serverly injured) - if so provide proof.
There is nothing harmonious about eating your own children, do you think animals have any concept of over population? They certinly don't know how large the earth is, and they migrate to where the food supply is, so i don't think they understand the concept overpopulation, let alone the solutin of eating their you. You are trying to relate human concepts to animals.
Thats great for alligators but do they do that because they want a certin gender or is that just something that human scientists are able to understand that, the temperature of the egg can effect the gender.
That has nothing to do with being harmonic with nature. You realize everything we do is part of nature, just because it is different than what animals do, does not make not a part of nature.

FiveB247x

And what specifically are the greatest human accomplishments?

dpmay wrote:

FiveB247x wrote:

i dont know if better is the proper term.. but they have a system which lives in harmony and is cyclical and it doesnt veer in discrimination and similar. If you look at practically every serious problem that humans have, they all boil down to self-created problems as a result of selfishness, greed and some form of bias towards others. Racism, economic imbalances, poverty, hunger, sickness, war, environment, religion and many others.

i agree, animals are not really capable of the greatest of human shortcomings. but, i believe, neither are animals capable of the greatest human accomplishments.

FiveB247x

Actually that's completely untrue. Animals do not kill others without specific and real purpose - survival. Humans find all sorts of ways to discriminate, kill, murder, torture, starve, impoverish and similar for their own benefit. If anything, humans do not recognize or ignore the "value of life" as we sacrifice (let suffer) many to save and prop up a few. No such thing exists in the cycle of nature. It hasn't been til we humans alter the food chain that any oddities have arisen in the wild. There's balance in nature when left alone... humans have no such thing and willing choose to live outside such methods for selfishness and greed.

And what do you mean they don't understand death? Could you please elaborate on that, but it's not quite clear what you mean.

HeidiJam wrote:

Instincts, emotions and awaraness of surroundings - Yes that is how they survive (survival of the fittest) Butt to say they understand death is not true, just because its part of their life cycle does not mean they understand what death is. One species saving another shows that we value life, as opposed to the comment you made about animals being more than humanity. Humans are doing nothing different than animals are, we are just doing it on a larger technological scale.

FiveB247x

Nature keeps itself in order.. whether it's one species keeping another in population check or similar. All the reasons you mention below why humans are "better" are merely ways we as humans deem good, basically to pat ourselves on the back. Technology or morals (even though both are nonsense and add very little). Humans do far worse to one another for far less than animals do. Animals eat young for population control, ability to grow and survive in the wild... human kill each other over greed and selfishness.. no such thing exists in the animal kingdom.

HeidiJam wrote:

I understand that my life will come to an end. Do you think animals understand that (other than serverly injured) - if so provide proof.
There is nothing harmonious about eating your own children, do you think animals have any concept of over population? They certinly don't know how large the earth is, and they migrate to where the food supply is, so i don't think they understand the concept overpopulation, let alone the solutin of eating their you. You are trying to relate human concepts to animals.
Thats great for alligators but do they do that because they want a certin gender or is that just something that human scientists are able to understand that, the temperature of the egg can effect the gender.
That has nothing to do with being harmonic with nature. You realize everything we do is part of nature, just because it is different than what animals do, does not make not a part of nature.

FiveB247x

I also just thought of something quite funny.

Humans have religion and spiritualism as a way to cope with death and life. In fact, some actually even believe in reincarnation. Yet you question animals for not understanding death? Really? In comparison, seems to me that humans are far more out of touch with reality, the concept of death and life than any animal could ever be.

HeidiJam wrote:

Instincts, emotions and awaraness of surroundings - Yes that is how they survive (survival of the fittest) Butt to say they understand death is not true, just because its part of their life cycle does not mean they understand what death is. One species saving another shows that we value life, as opposed to the comment you made about animals being more than humanity. Humans are doing nothing different than animals are, we are just doing it on a larger technological scale.

Blockhead

FiveB247x wrote:

I also just thought of something quite funny.

Humans have religion and spiritualism as a way to cope with death and life. In fact, some actually even believe in reincarnation. Yet you question animals for not understanding death? Really? In comparison, seems to me that humans are far more out of touch with reality, the concept of death and life than any animal could ever be.

When i say that we understand death, I mean that we have the ability to know what it is we know our life will come to an end. Humans that have religions use it as a coping mechanisim because they can't handel the tradgies of life. Show me proof that animals understand death, where are their drawings or writings about them pondering death. Do you think if they understood death that they would live they way they do? Our evolution enabled us to understand death.

FiveB247x

To somehow correlate that humans understand or cope well with death because we talk about it, have creative outlets for commentary about it or even turn to religion as a result are more signs that we're not ok with it. To make some assumption that animals aren't aware they'll die or similar is to say they don't have self-awareness or learning patterns.. and it's been proven scientifically that they do. And once again, if humans understood death do you think they'd treat other humans the way they do? I don't see animals doing the types of things to one another that humans do. To them it's very cut and dry, black and white, survival - that's it. All the rest you make assumptions upon to pat humankind on the back as some accomplishment or similar, and it's nothing more than self-adulation.

HeidiJam wrote:

When i say that we understand death, I mean that we have the ability to know what it is we know our life will come to an end. Humans that have religions use it as a coping mechanisim because they can't handel the tradgies of life. Show me proof that animals understand death, where are their drawings or writings about them pondering death. Do you think if they understood death that they would live they way they do? Our evolution enabled us to understand death.

Blockhead

FiveB247x wrote:

To somehow correlate that humans understand or cope well with death because we talk about it, have creative outlets for commentary about it or even turn to religion as a result are more signs that we're not ok with it. To make some assumption that animals aren't aware they'll die or similar is to say they don't have self-awareness or learning patterns.. and it's been proven scientifically that they do. And once again, if humans understood death do you think they'd treat other humans the way they do? I don't see animals doing the types of things to one another that humans do. To them it's very cut and dry, black and white, survival - that's it. All the rest you make assumptions upon to pat humankind on the back as some accomplishment or similar, and it's nothing more than self-adulation.

Self awareness /= knowledge of death. Show me proof that they know about death? I would think that all humans understand death. Find me someone who does not know that they will die someday? The human brain is to complex to understand why people do the things they do, animals have one thing to worry survival, I would say humans have alot more to worry about on a regular basis. You can't compare that to an animal brain.
The only reason your here is because of humankind, the only reason you have lived as long as you have is because of the comforts that humnakind have given you, have you ever had to worry about hunting your own food. NO???? Well thank humnakind.

redrock

HeidiJam wrote:

Self awareness /= knowledge of death. Show me proof that they know about death? .

Animals know when their time is near and prepare for it (usually finding a dying place and waiting). So there is awareness of this part of their life cycle. Obviously, they don't fret about it like humans but they know.

ed243421

heidi

to know you will die does not mean that you understand death

redrock

ed243421 wrote:

heidi

to know you will die does not mean that you understand death

I don't think anyone 'understands' death.

FiveB247x

Just did a 2 second search and found tons of stuff on this. I rather enjoyed this one:
http://www.newscientist.com/blog/shortsharpscience/2008/08/do-animals-understand-death-do-humans.html

Also, because humans invented a way to not be hunter/gatherers, it has also created all the methods in which we kill and discriminate against one another... so I wouldn't necessarily marvel over those accomplishments. A Wallmart isn't a sign of growth, it's a sign of economics transcending comfort and accessibility, but if you correlate it the same idea that we use these things to stock pile and take more than is necessary when others suffer as a result, I highly call it anything redeemable in a positive humanistic trait.

HeidiJam wrote:

FiveB247x wrote:

To somehow correlate that humans understand or cope well with death because we talk about it, have creative outlets for commentary about it or even turn to religion as a result are more signs that we're not ok with it. To make some assumption that animals aren't aware they'll die or similar is to say they don't have self-awareness or learning patterns.. and it's been proven scientifically that they do. And once again, if humans understood death do you think they'd treat other humans the way they do? I don't see animals doing the types of things to one another that humans do. To them it's very cut and dry, black and white, survival - that's it. All the rest you make assumptions upon to pat humankind on the back as some accomplishment or similar, and it's nothing more than self-adulation.

Self awareness /= knowledge of death. Show me proof that they know about death? I would think that all humans understand death. Find me someone who does not know that they will die someday? The human brain is to complex to understand why people do the things they do, animals have one thing to worry survival, I would say humans have alot more to worry about on a regular basis. You can't compare that to an animal brain.
The only reason your here is because of humankind, the only reason you have lived as long as you have is because of the comforts that humnakind have given you, have you ever had to worry about hunting your own food. NO???? Well thank humnakind.