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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cosmicforce who wrote (7804)	3/7/2001 12:31:49 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

No, I think I will just ditch it. I am sorry I got back into it........

To: cosmicforce who wrote (7804)	3/7/2001 12:48:15 PM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

I liked the challenge so much, I'll take it anyway. Dear Alien Species, I've been an inhabitant of this small isolated planet for 43 years. I live with a bunch of others of my kind and work in a professional capacity whereby I seek to reduce suffering. In my personal life, I try not to eat anything or harm anything without due consideration of its feelings. The evolution of our planet has put me in the awkward position that I must feed on other living things. I feel really bad about this but because I'm endowed with a brain and have compassion, I try to feed off those that will mind it the least. I would argue that the species I eat have evolved to deal with predation. They offer their seeds and fruits for consumption, knowing that the animals and other things that eat them (an inevitability on our planet) and these things will spread their seed. It is my belief that I'm in a comensal relationship with the things I eat. These food crops benefit because they get to be wider spread. We also raise animals. I don't eat them, but eat products produced by them that don't appear to produce great harm or suffering in these animals. I believe this is the best I can do under my current circumstances, but if you can provide a less harmful way to sustain myself I would try to embrace it. The small effect that I do make, despite my best efforts, comes about largely by accident and not intentional neglect or through a callousness. I've always maintained that it is better to eat as low on the food chain as possible for moral reasons. In closing, I'd like to remind you that almost certainly your kind was itself unevolved at some time and limited by the circumstances under which you were raised. I hope my good faith effort to make a difference here will make a difference to you and that my pleas for leniency will be heard. I think I can offer you more as a comrade or pet, than as part of this wonderful buffet you have before you. Please extend this courtesy to the rest of our kind and as many of my fellow creatures as you can. Thank you in advance for your consideration.

To: cosmicforce who wrote (7804)	3/7/2001 1:32:22 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

"The differences between us and chimps are more striking than the similarities." To whom? Not geneticists or evolutionary biologists. I imagine most geneticists and evolutionary biologists consider humans to be more important then corn. I also think that quite a few of them think there is an important difference between even chimps and humans. But I'm not looking to them as an authority on this issue so its not that important to me. Would you like to be eloquent and take a stab at talking the aliens out of making hamburger out of you? Tim didn't succeed. I'll go first, if you'd prefer. I didn't succeed. What a surprise. You set up a case where you assign me the burden of proof, you insist that I deal strictly with facts when discussing a philosophical issue, and then you judge it yourself when you disagree with me. I would have had to be eloquent indeed to have any chance of success. Tim