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Only if I knew I would be successful and that people would know that it was me and then remember me for ever and ever and ever and build statues of me and give me my own holiday and force students to study my arguments on CD. That would be so awesome ;)
They would be soooo confused. "How can a gay illegal immigrant terrorist woman abort a baby?!?" ;)
Yeah, I would quickly sacrifice myself for the Human race. Even if I don't succeed, people will be like, "Wow. That guy was awesome. So we should all think of him as we go out, too."
I know. If I was a student studying your arguments, I think most of what I would learn about would be strange sex and Barack Obama. Then they would study this argument, and they would see mine and Frenchie's replies, and they would go 'Hey! What the hell? Why are we studying this! I thought this was real! I thought this was intelligence! I thought this was everything that matters! This is a load of shit!'
:P I think the world would be a very different place.
Considering how my family and my loved ones are part of the human race, yes. How could I be selfish enough to let them all die just because I don't want to?
Why wouldn't I? It wouldn't matter to me if I got great recognition just as long as what I did really did save the Human race. If what I did was just an attempt to save the human race and might not work I dont think so. Have some crazy people try it out first.
If the human race is about to die that means I'm about to die. So if my choices are die with the rest of humanity or die and become the hero of the human race and be remembered by the rest of the human race for thousands of years then I would sacrifice myself for the human race.
If I knew that the human race was going to have future success, than I would. But if I knew that they were going to die out within the next century, why should I?
any1 who wouldnt die for the sake of others is a selfish butt. hell, i would die for the sake of a stranger i never met. and the human race is way more important than any of your lives or mine! gosh you are all pathetic (the ppl that wouldnt die for anything). get some balls! other people have lives, so why screw up theirs for your own selfish acts? its not very Christianly
In my standpoint , weither you're attached to your life or not , the fact of imagining a little boy fetching his baloon crossing the road which makes him unpurposefully jeopardized by the arrival of an over speeding car will not let me emotionless I'm pretty sure It will unclensh some protective instinct such as I would be ready to throw myself trying to save him and damn if I'm knocked over by the car , at least I would have my consciousness peacefull.
Well You're gonna think twice before venturing with your own life if the person you're ready to die for is not emotionly close enough to you , but If I've had to die for my brother , sister , father or my mother I would do it blindly !
This debate is poised around one action, sacrifice. The concept of sacrifice reaches out far greater than "a life" or "many lives". I understand the title is "would you die to save the human race", but death in itself isn't the real sacrifice, it's existance. That existance incorporates the value of a singular being and the experiences or value that he or she has to either offer or dispose of with death. In my opinion the sacrifices we may all need to make may include death, but that's not where it begins. The first sacrifices are selfishness, individuality and lifestyle. To save anything, the core components of the faults or failures of a thing need to be recognized. Ultimately, if the death of a person and all they can offer or consume must be judged by mentors, peers and subordinates. If it would be decided that my non-existance served the better good of humanity... I would agree, happily. We put our lives into the hands of so many others and devices everyday, so why not let others acting in good faith for humanity choose life or death for me.
If it includes my Mother, my father, my sister, my aunt, my uncle, my best friends and the people I love... Yeah, I guess I would. It is the same as accomplishing something when I was living. So I'll do it. I guess love is a really strong thing.
Why would i die for something that's just a point in the Universe. Not logical at all.
Humans are merely organic machines, nothing more. And until you can prove otherwise (which you can't), it's pointless to die saving the human race. as pointless as dying to save a race of ants.
Thank-you Mr. Spock! LOL!!! Even though we are but a speck of dust in the grand scheme of the universe and may only be "organic machines" I think that if the question were put to me, in all seriousness and with proof, I may just allow that to occur. I don't think saving the human race is pointless at all and especially not if they can be taught to continue to preserve themselves and the earth upon which they live. An Epiphany of this kind may very well be worth the cost of one life.
but what point is there, a provable point, in saving humans in order to "continue preserving" what ever. If we die we break down into other living cells. THAT'S IT. nothing "bad" results from all of us dying or living because "bad" doesn't even exist.
why doesn't bad exist? cause there's no way of proving that a certain action can be bad or good. so what's the point?
Sweetie, I don't know what point there is to any of it but why does there have to be? Can the point not simply be the way one may feel about life or other things? No, there's no provable thing one way or the other but IF it were worthwhile, to preserve a world and save it from distinction by any method, I think we have a point...no matter what the proof, if any.
Although I agree that we are merely organic machines, and that we are infinitesimally small in the grand scheme of things, I think human beings are worth saving.
So far as we know humans are the only species that can think rationally and scientifically on earth. In addition, as far as we know earth is the only place with life. Therefore we are the only beings that understand the universe, and because we are made from parts of the universe, we are a way for the universe to understand itself. If the universe was an organism we'd be the brain. Do you think that is not worth preserving?
why would it be worth saving though? in what way does anything "benefit" from human existing continuing. why is rationalizing and knowledge a "good" thing if good doesn't even exist?
I'm not saying we should continue to exist because we are good, I'm saying we should exist because we are unique. There is no consciousness apart from humans. Without us, the universe is just a "thing." With us, the universe can think.
Well i guess if we look from a completely objective perspective then yes, you'd be right. The universe is vast and we don't matter. It makes me feel all warm and cuddly inside ;)
It is as you believe it to be...either a good thing or not worthwhile. While we all like to think that life matters and is a good thing, for some, it is a conundrum. There simply is no PROOF as you mean it. The proof is in one's heart, mind and the theory of "proof" given for one to ponder. Hell, I'd die simply to save the human race from itself!
my death may not matter, but i can still enjoy the pleasures of life until i die. the fact is, I know that what i feel is either a positive or negative feeling. since there is no meaning in the Universe and since all we are are matter, i could either use the benefit of emotions and feelings to give my self euphoria or i could kill myself right away for no reason at all.
Ah, but you are not the only one who can enjoy the pleasures of life.
You refrain from killing yourself because you want to enjoy life. Thus you are admitting that happiness is good. If happiness is good then we should create as much of it as possible. In this example you can maximize the world's net happiness by dying to save the human race. Therefore you should do it.
What's the difference between "feeling good" and actually being good?
You say pleasure "feels good" to you.
In other words you say that it is good, subjectivley.
Why not apply that same logic from the perspective of other people?
As for Charles Manson...
The human ideal is to live a relativley happy life, struggling with occasional obstacles, reproducing, and eventually dying. This is the sort of life we have evolved to enjoy. It is the basis of everything we call "good".
Charles Manson was bad because he interfered with this ideal in the people he murdered.
a feeling is merely a feeling. nothing more. your brain sending a message to your body that this is a pleasurable feeling. there is no REAL good done from it. merely the body itself acting a certain way.
being good is very different from feeling "good", because being good doesn't exist (as i've already explained). we have no proof to say that a certain action is good or not because we have no proof of any reason for it to be good. what reason is there for anything actually being good or bad? if i kill someone right now, all i am doing is stopping certain body parts from functioning. the body will break down into other mass forms. THAT'S IT. there's no meaning to any of this.
i do something because it has an effect that i enjoy (easier to say feels good, but like i said, good doesn't exist). Why would i do something to myself that i wouldn't enjoy? to save something that i won't even know that i'm saving? once i'm dead, that's it. nothing. so what would be the point? no point to anything, as usual. unless you can prove that somehow something can be "good".
Ok, so you agree that good can exist subjectively.
And yes, to some people, killing can be good.
But for the vast majority of people, their definition of good is more or less the same: it involves living the ideal life I described earlier. It does not involve murder.
We can derive rules about right and wrong from this consensus about what makes people feel best overall.
how the majority feels though doesn't make it right. like i said, maybe I feel that the majority feeling is a bad thing.
so, no, there is no right or wrong no matter how many agree with you. There was a time where the mass majority felt that slavery was right and that the holocaust was alright.
1. Moral relativism -- right and wrong are defined by a society and culture at a certain point in time. In America in the 1700s, slavery was right. This was due to the widespread belief that blacks were less than human. By our own modern sense of right and wrong, slavery was of course an abomination, but that's because our knowledge of the world has grown since then.
2. I'm not convinced that people really thought slavery was right. I bet they believed it was evil, albeit not as great an evil as we see it today. I bet they did it anyway out of the selfish parts of human nature. People will often do things they know are wrong out of moral weakness.
A combination of those two answers addresses the Holocaust as well.
1. our opinion on the matter changed, that's all. once again, we can't prove that slavery is right or wrong.
2. Many people argued back then that slaves were better off than the working class people. They also said that we gave them civilization and brought them Christianity, and that this was a good thing.
Right and wrong are defined by what more people are willing to accept.
(Actually it's more complicated that that, but that's the general idea.)
What do you mean by "prove something right?" I think you mean prove it from an objective perspective. That can't be done because right and wrong only exist from a subjective perspective.
since right and wrong can change at any moment and any time, though, that makes it overall useless. Everyone used to think the world was flat, at least with that though we could actually prove that it wasn't.
with subjective perspectives, it never matters what the majority thinks, if one person thinks one way, that makes it right for them.
More people believe that gay marriage should be banned. does that mean it's right to ban gay marriage?
if we're constantly arguing on what should be right, we're basically arguing for what WE think is right. we can get more to agree with us, but that doesn't change the fact that nothing overall happened.
Ok, I see your point. Morals being completely relative doesn't make sense.
Let me take another approach:
We start with the basic principle that people have the capacity to enjoy life. As you have said, this is what stops us from killing ourselves.
The enjoyment of life is the most basic form of good. It only exists subjectively, but that doesn't make it less real.
From there we can incorporate our knowledge of the world to reason about morality.
Murder is evil because it interferes with the enjoyment of life.
Slavery is wrong for the same reason.
A long time ago people thought slavery was ok, but that was because their knowledge of the world was not as advanced as it is now, and this flawed knowledge led them to bad conclusions.
Similarly people who oppose gay marriage do so because they are working with incorrect knowledge -- thats is, they think the Bible is written by an infallible God.
it does make it less real though. As i keep on saying, subjective views don't make any difference in what's real or not. All it proves is that we have the ability to think subjectively.
The enjoyment of life also exists from an objective point of view.
You could measure the chemicals released in our brain. You could trace the neural activity that leads to happiness and fulfillment. Thus happiness can be seen as objectively real.
But besides that, why do you say subjective things aren't real? If I look at a painting and think it's beautiful, would you say, "no you don't, that feeling isn't real"? That makes no sense.
well, subjective exists, but only exists for each individual. if i were to decided that there was no reason behind anything, i would just decide that our feelings don't actually mean anything.
but i'm an agnostic. although i don't exactly believe that there's meaning behind anything, i don't throw out that possibility.
It's true. Yet here we are speaking of organic machines and what not, sounding a lot like the Borg :P Chris (Kukla) already referenced Mr. Spock. CD is turning into Dork mania! Hum hum hum!
Animals with the instinct to sacrifice themselves for other animals would stand a greater chance of survival (as a species) against other animals without that instinct.
If there's no point to life, then you'd have to also agree there's no point not to life.
"Mattering" is subjective to the individual's desires. In an evolutionary sense, we're preprogrammed with the desire to live, so it does matter in that sense.
I'm not gonna say that i would die to save the human race and the people saying yes are lying because its human to put yourself first, thats America for you! the people saying yes are merely saying it because it makes them look good. i doubt if faced with the challenge anyone would and thats normal, personally id probably be too scared. Yes there are a few people i would die (best friends, parents, etc). People stop worrying about your "reputation" and be truthful for once.
Well I was being truthful. I'd rather let my loved ones live their lives and be happy with each other than let them all die and feel the guilt and loneliness every single day.
"Save" is used somewhat ambiguously. Saved from what? Utter destruction? Inevitable pain? Minor annoyance? A bad pedicure?
On one hand, if the future existence of mankind depends upon the action of a single person, are the rest worth saving? Should billions of people be dependent on one person?
On the other hand, we've evolved the ability to sacrifice our lives for the greater good, since societies with that instinct stand greater chance of survival against societies without that instinct.
The only specific things on this life that don't change is the act of change itself. Meaning that I die of something, given few months and they come up with a new problem and just forget all about if you ever existed. The world will just go on whether you die today or not. But if you are going to live there's still a sheer chance that you can brought up change, and people would remember you while you are still living.
