980: Choke-take

[Pollywog1]

Have her on again! Nuff of this cameo shit!

[Bucho]

Originally Posted by Cretaceous Bob

You're forgetting that we're weighing the suffering of specific peoples here, not determining which criminal was the worst. I am comparing the genocide with that in mind. I do think that the enslavement of African peoples is on par with all of Hitler's genocide, though, and I have given my reasons for thinking so already.

Then I would point out that, if we are accounting for trends, slavery tends to be on a larger scale than genocide.

No, I'm not forgetting anything, just digressing to illustrate points.

To oppress is to prevent cruelly, and I contend that what is prevented by wiping a race of people from existence is a magnitude more than what is prevented by enslaving them. You might weigh the greater numbers enslaved in the Americas (14 million) against the smaller numbers of Jews affected by the Third Reich (9.5 million living in Europe in 1939), and like I said, you have something of an argument there because of those factors, the greater number affected and the length of the endurance of the oppression.

Originally Posted by Cretaceous Bob

As I said, that it a crime, but it cannot compare to the suffering of very real people.

I get why you put it this way, but you've missed the point. Being faced with genocide happens to very real people. The suffering of those very real people is based in the fact that they are not just either hunted or interned in horrific conditions, but that their oppressors not only have no intention of letting them live, they have no intention of letting their entire people live.

Originally Posted by Cretaceous Bob

Our instinct also drives us to secure comfort and security for those related to us, and I would say depriving us of the ability to do that is also denying the reason for our existence. Every single piece of our instinct dictates the avoidance of suffering, and so it is contradicted by the infliction of suffering.

Yes, but that drive to secure comfort and security is driven by the survival instinct. The survival instinct is the base, is the reason for our existence. The desire for comfort and security is born from that.

Originally Posted by Cretaceous Bob

... requiring a choice between one or the other does not indicate a lack of a marginal difference; it only shows that a detectable difference exists, and does not indicate the size of that difference.

You're right, the question should be to give an indication of the difference, not just a simple yes or no.

Originally Posted by Cretaceous Bob

I would also ask you: would you rather live your life as you have and as you will, except sterile for its entirety, or endure a lifetime of suffering, and raise a child that you cannot educate, you cannot provide for, and cannot protect from horrendous abuse, nor save it from repeating your own horrible lifetime of inflicted cruelties?

If you choose the latter, you prove that aversion to suffering is a greater drive than the need to reproduce. That is the choice I would make.

No, this is just as sloppy as the question I put. For the sake of answering whether survival instinct is a greater driver than the desire for a comfortable life you're asking someone to choose between slavery and sterility? The scale is as wildly skewed as if I asked you to choose between being subjected to genocide vs being subjected to lifelong detention. A more solid comparison would be comfortable sterility with some form of detention that allowed breeding.

But whatever theoretical scenarios we might invent the fact remains that all species continue to reproduce despite the fact that having children more often than not leads to more inconvenience and discomfort than when the animal was without young. Rearing offspring in itself brings greater danger and more potential for discomfort and suffering but the rewards outbalance that aversion to a massive extent, and that in itself is the proof that as a rule (and even though we can easily find some exceptions to this rule, Chemda being a perfect example) survival instinct far, far outweighs desire for comfort.

[propertyofbrolo]

favorite show of the moment went and get all of ben's stock of songs afterwards.
i'd really like the clip of ben singing "my name is ben lerman", but i don't know how to cut it out. if anyone could do that i'd love you forever...