(December 5, 2014 at 5:41 am)robvalue Wrote: I have to disagree there.
If we personify evolution, then suicide is just another way to weed out the "unfit".
Further, it's impossible to help or hinder evolution, because evolution is just "whatever happens". Everything we do, or don't do, is just part of evolution.
I think a lot of people assume without any thought that keeping the human race going is important, and good. I totally disagree with this too. It's only good for us. For the planet as a whole and for all its other inhabitants, we are awful. It's just one of the reasons I would never create more humans.
I value animal life as much as human life, as much as I can. (I know this is an impossible ideal to live up to when you consider insect life and so on, but at least with the larger, more intelligent forms of life.) If there's something you wouldn't do to a human, then in general, you shouldn't do it to an animal. Otherwise, were just being bullies and are no better than slave drivers.
And if we personify gravity I would be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but I can't.
The 'human race' is a myth. What we view as permanence is a snapshot in the endless genetic drift, your argument is predicated on the belief we are worse than other animals, the truth is we are no better nor no worse, we just are. Our genes will continue to drift and even though we believe we have control over that genetic material we do not have any foresight as to what mutation will be the next 'human saver' when the next major environmental shift occurs. There is a possibility we may have already marginalised it without knowing.
We are a particularly rapacious primate, of that there seems to be little doubt, but we are still just passing waves in the genetic tide. We are no more or no less worthy of this planet than any other wave.
Suicide has nothing to do with this genetic tide, it is an ancient survival strategy (loss - depression - withdrawal - recovery - live to fight another day) a physiological and psychological process that no longer has a context in the modern world.
If we think of ourselves as unfit, then it is only because we have created a society that is too big for us to fit.
MM
"The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions" - Leonardo da Vinci
"I think I use the term “radical” rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as “atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean atheist, I really do not believe that there is a god; in fact, I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one ... etc., etc. It’s easier to say that I am a radical atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it’s an opinion I hold seriously." - Douglas Adams (and I echo the sentiment)
"I think I use the term “radical” rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as “atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean atheist, I really do not believe that there is a god; in fact, I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one ... etc., etc. It’s easier to say that I am a radical atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it’s an opinion I hold seriously." - Douglas Adams (and I echo the sentiment)
