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Joined 5 months ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2024

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  • Regardless of pain perception: Assuming someone is okay with killing a fruit fly but not a human, they have to draw the line somewhere. And a pig for example is WAY closer to human than to a fruit fly. It’s a sentient being with a brain that’s not really so far from human, compared to the fruit fly which is essentially a tiny biological robot.

    In fact, it’s kinda weird to draw the line at humans, especially when there’s such a big overlap between other animals and human children in terms of cognitive capabilities.

    I think it’s very reasonable to draw the line after insects, where we can be reasonably certain that there’s no complex thought or sentience. The value and subjective experience of an insect versus a farm animal are hardly comparable.




  • I’ll assume you’re commenting in good faith.

    I actually didn’t claim nurture was more important than nature as a sweeping statement. It clearly isn’t in cases like eye color for example. I haven’t done a deep dive on this, but research seems to show that genetics play a significant role in predicting personality in general, but less than 50%.

    Regardless, whether or not people are ‘fundamentally good’ or not is a moral statement, not a quantifiable one, as is “being shitty to other humans”. It’s a different question than personality, which is the closest topic that there seems to be any science on. Is there any specific research that actually makes a claim like this? (also, take a step back and remember what post this is on)

    Also as a sidenote, while believing in the good in humanity probably makes someone more likely to be leftist, I don’t think Marxism actually relies on people being ‘fundamentally good’ at all.