Sisyphus

Options 1 and 2 benefit us just from being offered, by confirming such things are possible, when right now we believe they are not. Neither tech would likely give us immediate benefit, so there's no harm in figuring it out ourselves. Option 3 would provide immediate benefit, so it's probably the one to take. Option 1 might not have much use without option 2. Or maybe not - depending on how it works, it might make computers a lot faster, or something.

Yeah, it works best within, between, and to and from high density cities. Definitely not every situation. Still, a high speed rail between, for example, city centers of the eastern seaboard would be preferable to either driving or flying. Much faster than driving, and city dwellers often don't have cars anyway. (I don't.) And much more convenient than flying, between security nonsense and the fact that airports have to be on the outskirts but train stations can be right under the city center. And of course, the reason I don't have a car is that mass transit in such a dense city actually is much more convenient most of the time. Both because of the extent of the transit system, and because owning a car is much less convenient than it is most places.

I don't think this is true. There aren't objective units of measure for happiness, but that doesn't mean I'm talking nonsense if I say that sometimes I'm happier than other times.

Yeah right. You were clearly born in Ethiopia.

Or maybe all these changes are actually just an attempt to sabotage the institution itself.

I don't, no. I think worrying about potential people quickly descends into absurdity. I'm just trying to make sense of the premises of the hypothetical, of the loss of a zygote being tragic but not the formation of a chimera. You would have to consider the "tragedy" to be the loss of a specific genetic line, which would necessarily mean that the merging spouses would be just as tragic.

I don't think it can be considered the same. In the thought experiment you are preserving the "selfhood," the implication being that that is the important part, and losing the physical body, genes, etc. In a chimera you are losing the (future) selfhood (Only one person develops instead of two, and that person is not the two "selves" in one.) while preserving the physical continuation of those specific genes, i.e. the opposite situation. Depending on what you consider makes something "tragic," their lack of tragedy is mutually exclusive. So is it the "selfhood" that makes a person important, or is it the continued existence of living cells that have a specific genetic code?

To that question, I would wholeheartedly say no. What happens is good or bad. That any one possibility out of a limitless set fails to happen has to be neutral. I came to be, but a billion other possible children my parents could have had did not. If that means a billion tragedies, then tragedy doesn't mean anything.

So, "the right to communicate?"

In that sense, yes. The monotheist only believes in one god out of thousands (or really, an infinite number of possible gods), the atheist believes in none. By the same standard, a Unitarian who finds "truth in all religions" (or something like that), would be far more religious than the Christian. However, "number of things you have religious faith in" seems less relevant to me than "strength of religious faith." The atheist has basically none and may aspire to have as little as possible. The Christian may concentrate as much faith as possible into that one god, and aspire to have even more.

I think a government salary is extremely low on the list of reasons most people run for office.

If it were the case that larger noses and ears meant for better sense of smell and hearing*, then a better question would be, "why do young people have such small noses and ears?" Surely they could benefit as well. *(Not that it is the case.)

Exactly. Biological categories have fuzzy edges.

Yes. In the big mirror 500000ly in the opposite direction.

I guess that would depend on what is meant by receiving the personality and memories. If the spouse simply has her memories, then I would say that she still died. But "personality?" Are there two distinct, conscious personalities, sharing a body? (This would be different than MPD, since in that case only one is conscious at a time.) If so, then I would think of her as still being alive. Does the spouse have a mental image of her personality (whatever that means, "image" isn't appropriate, but our language isn't sufficient)? I would say she died. Are their two personalities "fused" into a single consciousness? Well, then maybe they both died? That's hardest to fit to familiar concepts. But really, why should we try to fit it to familiar concepts? It is no longer a puzzle if you accept that rigid categories of life and death are just convenient constructs anyway. What physically happens isn't a mystery. Has she died? Answer: not applicable.

And what is your argument that the zygote and specifically the zygote is the non-arbitrary point at which a living human being first exists? You keep asserting that, but I don't recall any actual arguments, per se. At least, nothing that can be said uniquely about the zygote, which is the whole point, since you are asserting that it is the one and only beginning of life. The whole business with identical twins and chimeras are simply examples which, by their existence, prove certain assertions false. (Namely, that presence of genetic code represents individuality, that there is continuity of individuality from zygotehood, etc.) Your response has been that they don't count, because they are rare. At a certain point this becomes repetitive. I don't find the assertions that the zygote is in the same category of things as a human being compelling. You don't find anyone else's' arguments compelling. Alright. Agree to disagree?

For the umpteenth time, the argument is not whether to protect lives, but whether there are lives to protect. Your argument that there are is that those lives begin at an unambiguous, non-arbitrary point that can be identified. This has been demonstrated not to be the case. Hence, there is no longer an argument.

Jefferson is at least an Enlightenment thinker, and was one of the primary thinkers in interpretting Enlightenment ideas for the practical goal of founding a country. Like Madison, Franklin, Hamilton, Adams. Thomas of Aquinas was hundreds of years prior to anything that could be called the Enlightenment, and was very much an ancient philosopher in outlook. (He would have to be, since his primary goal was reconciling Aristotleanism with medieval Christianity.) The American revolution was born out of the philosophical revolution of modernist philosophers. I suppose you could say that medieval theologians were a precursor in that they were studying philosophy beforehand, but what Enlightenment thinkers had in common was a break with such traditions.

You're right. The problem is not that there are conservatives on the board, and I shouldn't have said it that way. The problem is that the crazy "conservative" faction is apparently not just two or three people, but, somehow, an actual majority. Or at least, they're able to wield the power of a majority. So, how does something like this happen?

It's hard to come up with a day that feels momentous enough. Maybe the Apollo 11 landing (the day we became no longer a single planet species), but that's recent enough that I don't feel like I have the historical perspective to really judge it. AD and BC are already replaced with CE and BCE ("common era" and "before common era") in many contexts, which everyone can agree is at least accurate (while only Christians would say AD and BC are accurate), since, well, it is the common calendar. This seems sensible enough, but a lot of Christians are deeply and inexplicably offended by it. (That Wikipedia allows CE and BCE is one of Conservapedia's main pieces of evidence that it's a big anti-Christian conspiracy.) Though I guess if they're offended by that, they'd be offended by any change. Alternately, we could institute a calendar that counts down to some arbitrary point in the future. Make it distant enough, and when that time comes around gullible people will think it's the end of the world. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged That's not a bad choice, but it sure wouldn't help with the "Darwinism is a religion" claims.

This, ironically, is awfully disrespectful and dismissive. Let's stick to addressing arguments.

The Earth's magnetic field is generated deep within the Earth. It would be unaffected by global warming, which is a small increase in temperature in the atmosphere only. Neither have anything to do with gravity, which depends only on the mass of the Earth and distance from its center.

Black holes don't have "suction." They have mass, and hence gravity. So I guess you're just suggesting that artificial gravity could be used as propulsion. Which it could, if such a thing existed.

Where does it say that? I was referring to the bullet points iNow was quoting.

"Constitutional republic" is a more accurate description than "democracy." Is that a "conservative" contention? (Those other bullet points are ridiculous, though.)