(June 23, 2021 at 5:36 pm)Brian37 Wrote: So someone, not the guy I was debating, but someone posted a video still asking responders to "Caption this".
And it was the picture of a bear standing full up pressing it's paws on a sliding glass door peering in.
I responded, implying I was the bear, "Don't get mad at me, you built your home in mine."
A couple of people laughed in agreement.
But this one person argued this, and they are not entirely wrong, but just still missing the point.
Quote them "Human life is more important than other species that’s why when there is a killer tiger on the loose we eliminate the tiger. If a dog bites a human then it is put down."
It isn't that human life is more important than other life. It is just that in the moment, on an individual conflict basis, anyone can understand not wanting to die. But he falsely accused me of "inferring" that humans are "evil" because I said we are an invasive species. And we are.
So he is not wrong, if I come across a rattlesnake or cotton mouth, and feel like I cant run and it is too late to run, sure, I would kill it. So I can understand killing a bear, or even an elephant or crock that got too close. But that is not what I am arguing in saying I am not more important.
Humans are NOT more important than other life, we are merely important to ourselves as individuals while we are alive. So in that context fight or flight makes sense. Nobody likes to die. But that doesn't make our species an apex, or more important to evolution, and that is the part this guy was missing.
I object to the blanket claim "Human life is more important".
Our planet has had 5 mass extinction events, and out of that 4 billion years, humans in our current form have only been around an estimated 2 to 300 thousand years. The planet doesn't care about our species, much less covid, which will kill a communist, a capitalist, a Christian a Muslim a Jew an Atheist, a Buddhist, ect ect ect.
Humans are literally the only animal currently capable of causing a mass extinction through our own awareness and ignoring it. Other species have been invasive for sure, but we are the only capable of being aware of the damage we are causing and ignoring it.
‘I would gleefully strangle every chimp on the planet to save one street junkie with AIDS.’ - Penn Jillette
Boru
‘But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ - Thomas Jefferson
