No way... the idea is ridiculous. Just absurd... that's like asking if chickens should be considered as airplanes.

Warren G. Harding. His administration was ridiculously corrupt.

Gah... You make a very good point. Since I'm in favor of genetic engineering, that's painfully difficult to argue against... But I think I can.

There is some distinction between humanity and animals. The fact that we're typing this on a computer, whereas most animals couldn't even scratch letters in dirt, is adequate proof of that. So doesn't that give grounds for treating animals differently? I suppose what I'm saying is that if your hypothetical "more intelligent, more powerful" aliens showed up, they would be justified in using us like animals. We wouldn't like it, and if we could resist it then we certainly would, but if we couldn't... then we'd be in the same position as Tracy the goat. Also, I would like to point out that animals don't seem to mind being used by us. They're probably happier in the lab than anywhere else.

Anyways, the core of my argument is uncomfortably close to "might equals right", but it's the only argument I can come up with.

The fine is a punishment for a wrong action. If people perform the same action, they should get the same punishment. How could anything else be justice?

Besides, making it relative to one's income is like punishing people for being successful, since richer people would have to pay more... that's just absurd.

Solipsism is always fun to think about...

Although I'm not aware of any decent logical refutations to the idea, it's functionally invalid just because it's practice doesn't meet with the most desirable results.

If I think I'm the only real person, and everyone else is simply a product of my mind (or at least, can't be proven to be real), then that gives me a perfect justification for being a totally selfish sociopath. Even if it IS philosophically justified, behaving that way will cause me to end up in jail.

Also, can you imagine the convoluted feelings of resentment a solipsist in jail would have? "All of reality and my perception of reality is my creation, and yet the reality I've created has me sitting in a cold, damp prison cell. I hate me." :D

Higher crime rates didn't cause racism, racism caused higher crime rates. The history of racism in our culture forced most black people into the lowest positions of society, poverty ridden slums. The underclasses, regardless of race, always have higher crime rates than the rest of the population.

People are racist because of our evolutionary roots: we were tribalistic creatures, competing with other tribes of our species. I imagine this was concurrent with the rise of intelligence, and if so, then you can see why "racist" emotions would evolve. A rational, thinking being would have a hard time hating other members of the species just because they were from a different tribe, but it was evolutionarily advantageous to hate them (If you didn't hate them, you wouldn't fight them, and they'd kill you). So we evolved irrational, arbitrary emotions that pit us against any one who is different in order to help us survive when competing with them.

Human society has changed since then, but unfortunately human biology hasn't. So we're left with these brutal vestiges of our tribal days, and those of us who are too ignorant to rise above instinct are cruel, racist people.

Admittedly, there are other factors that contribute to racism, notably fear, upbringing, social circumstances, etc; but none of these factors could exist without the initial instinct.

It's also worth noting that this instinct has many other manifestations. Sporting competitions, nationalism, "cliques' in high school, and countless other human behaviours are all examples of it. Racism is probably the most serious and most detestable of all of these, however.