Michael, I'll take your word for the content of the posts you give the numbers of, because I am not going to do archeology over this. I didn't mean to deny that you asked a question about man's intervention to save endangered species, I really meant what I said-- I got fascinated with the fact that no one (except Neocon, and I assume you), would admit that the woman I stipulated was 'selfish' for declining to be inseminated by a man unappealing to her.
It still fascinates me, and fascinates me, also, that by PM only I have received two agreements that in my scenario, the woman is a selfish bitch. I think Cobe agreed that in my stipulated scenario, she was selfish, too.
I wasn't coerced into anything, and am not aware of having changed my position. I like the people I was arguing with, they are friends, it is normal to continue in our accustomed friendly mode after any given disagreement.
Is what you perceived as a change of position that I, personally, was not sure what my feelings were, or would be, about repopulating the earth if I were in such a position? That isn't a contradiction. The stipulated woman was not I. Life isn't easy for any of us, and we are the luckiest people on the planet. It isn't perfectly clear to me that, given the horror that is and has been life for most of humanity, beginning the cycle over again would be a "good" thing to do. I just don't know right now. It's certainly a profound question. There is art, and love, and beauty, and nobility, and.... So how can one know what one would do off the top of one's head? (My stipulated woman, however, was not concerned with human suffering, but only with whether she wanted to have sex with Nouveau Adam.)
I do think your question, which I diverged from in deciding to narrow my quest to getting agreement to the word 'selfish' before going any further, and thus got no further, is a most interesting, provocative one.
If I understand it, its thrust is that you feel there is an irony in a situation in which great sacrifice is asked of, for example, people who work as loggers, in order to save an endangered tree squirrel. And you suspect that there are many who would choose to have the logger lose his job, house, children's educational fund and retirement savings to save the squirrel species, yet wouldn't sanction rape, or even have sex with someone they didn't want to, save the human species.
As I say, I think it's an interesting question, and not one on which I've taken two positions, unless absentmindedly.
I do think your depiction of your own politeness falls short of perfect accuracy, but really, I have no interest in proving it. I recall quite unpleasant remarks to Joan, for example, and about those who inhabit the Grammar thread.
If you want to ask me whether I've changed my mind about some particular thing, I"m happy to answer.
Of course I think where endangered species are concerned, many things must be taken into consideration when trying to figure out the ethical course; and I think that where the endangered species is the human one, too.
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