About a decade ago, I wrote a post Why Pro-Choice is Pro-Life. It wasn’t very detailed. Though, some good stuff came up in the comments.
Given the extremism in the U.S. today, I think this topic requires a much more detailed and well-thought out post. This post contains information that may be relevant anywhere, but is deliberately U.S. focused. I am a U.S. citizen. I am seeing increasing extremism in my country. I am appalled by the treatment of women in the U.S. today. Increasingly, we are passing legislation that turns women into incubators. I only wish that The Handmaid’s Tale were more far-fetched than it actually is.
These days, I’m even seeing people on the reddit sub /r/atheism arguing from a non-religious standpoint about why they think the anti-choice stance makes sense. I can’t understand that and want to have an answer on hand ready to explain all of the very many reasons why the so-called pro-life but really pro-fetus, anti-choice, and anti-woman stance is horrifically cruel and cannot be supported rationally.
This award winning video describing a wonderful program by the Snow Leopard Trust shows the effectiveness of working with local communities, especially those who lose livestock to snow leopard attacks, can do amazing things to prevent the number one threat to these beautiful animals today, retribution killing.
The video made by a staff of three beat out videos from such major organizations as BBC to win the best video showing the interaction of big cats and people.
Be forewarned, there is a disturbing scene that does show dead snow leopards.
But, the outlook for this program is fantastic, especially since it is run by the community that it helps and that in turn helps the snow leopard to survive.
On some not-too-distant day, it will become clear that our civilization has become so reliant on highly efficient, wondrously intelligent machinery that we simply do not need that many people to work in traditional jobs. There will be plenty of wealth to go around, but not that much work. Unless we want millions to starve or go homeless or riot in the streets, our society will need to guarantee a minimum income for everyone by letting all citizens share in the vast wealth created by robot labor.
Watch the 2017 Asimov Debate from the American Museum of Natural History. It was a great one. I did not expect the answer to the question of whether we can do this. No spoiler from me. Settle down for a couple of hours with a good drink for this one.
This debate discusses a wide variety of issues, including genetically modified organisms, agriculture, environmentalism, extinction, quality of DNA from preserved extinct animals, morality, animal welfare, legal issues, etc.
For a sample, just consider the question, if we brought back a mammoth (or mammophant) from extinction, is it automatically an endangered species? What is its “natural range”? What are its natural habitat and food? Is it moral to bring back a species adapted to the arctic in an age of climate change?
P.S. Neil is a bit out of his element on this first Asimov Debate that is NOT related to cosmology, astronomy, or astrophysics in any way. But, as he points out Isaac Asimov wrote about a variety of sciences, some of which did not even really exist at the time he wrote about them, such as robotics. So, de-extinction is perfectly within lines to honor the late Isaac Asimov who spent many hours at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
Exactly what it sounds like. I think this could sell very well in Latin America (especially in Mexico) where most toilets throughout the entire region cannot flush paper. So, you wad up used toilet paper and put it in a covered trash can next to the toilet.
What trash can could be better for the purpose?
P.S. Garbage man. Garbage man. Does whatever a garbage can.
P.P.S. I’m not asking that anyone send money. I just think it’s funny.
Formally, I classify myself as a gnostic atheist, meaning I know there are no gods. Most atheists (from what I read online) appear to be agnostic atheists, people who are without gods but who do not claim to know there are no gods. Some people who fit this description simply call themselves agnostic. But, on formal forums, like reddit’s atheism subreddit, all who are without gods are atheists and agnostic or gnostic is a statement of whether they know or have doubt. Similarly, they allow for agnostic theists, those who believe in god(s) but have some doubt.
Empirical evidence, also known as sensory experience, is the knowledge received by means of the senses, particularly by observation and experimentation. The term comes from the Greek word for experience, ἐμπειρία (empeiría).
After Immanuel Kant, in philosophy, it is common to call the knowledge gained a posteriori knowledge (in contrast to a priori knowledge).
This is the type of knowledge we use when we say that we know that if we drop a ball on the surface of the earth, it will fall. I don’t hear a whole lot of people telling me, you can’t claim to know that because you can’t prove it. But, indeed we cannot. We know the ball will fall because it has done so the last gazillion times we performed the experiment.
For some reason, most people expect that if you say that you know there are no gods, that this one case of knowledge requires certainty. We do not require certainty from any other type of knowledge. Why do we demand certainty to state knowledge only when we are discussing knowledge of the existence or non-existence of gods?
Why this one?
Nowhere in the definition of knowledge does it ever specify that we must have 100% certainty.
So, when I say I know there are no gods, I mean it the same way that I know the ball will drop or that I know the planet on which we live will continue to rotate through the night causing the appearance of a sunrise in the morning, even if it is blocked by clouds. Night will become day as the earth rotates. I know it. You know it. We cannot prove it to 100% certainty. We only know that it has always done so before.
Classifying gods:
To begin our discussion, we have to classify gods. This way we can address different claims of gods individually.
See link below for article about how this ad pisses off an Australian Christian group and what they’re doing about it. Me? I’m going to buy Australia’s Volley sneakers when my current ones wear out. The company’s liberal/progressive policies will definitely get my vote. And, I vote with my wallet.
FDR’s Fireside Chats are still within living memory, albeit not mine. But, of course, I’ve heard about them. I’m not sure if that’s true of younger generations.
So, now we about to have another president who communicates informally to the people. But, Trump is no FDR! So, what do we get instead?
Instead of fireside chats, we get fireside tweets. And, they’re usually angry tweets lashing out at whoever dared to say something even slightly negative about our country’s largest and most insecure ego.
And, since all of his tweets and policies are extremely reactionary, trying to take our country back to some mythical golden age when white men could openly hate everyone else, I am calling these tweets the Fireside Angry Reactionary Tweets, FARTs.
Feel free to use the term FARTs for any or all of Trump’s tweets without the need to give credit or worry about copyright infringement. But, I reserve the right to continue to use the term as well.
This is what the electoral college was put in place to do. It was always intended to protect us from ourselves. The founders understood that the greatest risk to democracy was that “we the people” would vote against having a democracy.
If the electoral college refuses to do their jobs, “You’re fired!”
At the last debate, Donal Trump again reiterated that no one has more respect for women than he does. That got me thinking, unfortunately.
If all men had the same level of respect for women as Donald J. Drumpf, what kind of a world would we live in? Worse, what if some women had so little self-respect that they voted for someone who cared as little for women as Donald Trump?
Robert De Niro would like to punch Donald J. Drumpf in the face, a worthy goal indeed. But, disturbingly, he insults animals by comparing them to Drumpf in the process of telling us why he’d like to punch the Donald.
She showed an incredible amount of foresight in anticipating the human element in computer use. It almost wouldn’t surprise me if she had invented the term luser. Note that the L is silent, of course, but if said properly, the tone of voice makes the L more than apparent despite its silence.
“Our research is very preliminary, but it’s possible that they will become more receptive to facts once they are in an environment without food, water, or oxygen”
Perhaps. Or, we’ll become less resistant to facts by being less alive.
On this day 15 years ago, the United States experienced the largest terror attack in our history. It is a day that we will long remember. My heart goes out to the families of the victims.
On this day, I would also like for us to remember that Osama bin Laden who orchestrated the attack was of the house of Saud. 16 of the 19 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia. In response to our attack by Saudis, we attacked Iraq in what is now considered to be an enormous blunder of epic proportions.
We still treat Saudi Arabia as a friendly nation in that region. I don’t know why. We still talk about selling arms to Saudi Arabia. I don’t know why. We still buy oil from Saudi Arabia. I don’t know why.
Further, if we assume that every 3,000 lives lost prematurely is “one 9/11” then we have ten 9/11s on our highways every year. We have another ten 9/11s every year as a result of lax gun laws and a nationwide obsession with the damn things (should we consider the NRA a terrorist organization? perhaps). We have sixty-five 9/11s every year as a result of air pollution which we might have reduced tremendously if we took action on climate change (is ExxonMobil a terrorist organization? perhaps).
So, will we do anything for safer roads, stricter gun regulations, and strong regulation of pollution to actually prevent some or all of these 9/11s going forward?
I am not hopeful.
I grieve not only for the 3,000 victims 15 years ago, but also for the 3.9 million lives lost prematurely just from these causes and from many other causes as well since then. And, I grieve for the 260,000 we will lose in 2016.
Perhaps I should subtract out the highway deaths? We do, last I heard, have the safest roads in the world. Maybe we are already doing as much as we can about that. But, the other 230,000 every year can certainly be reduced by at least several 9/11s, if we were to pretend to care.
I’m glad to see this question becoming more public. Though it seems to still be considered radical. It is one of many factors that went into my (and my wife’s) decision not to have children decades ago.
P.S. I should really correct my statement above. Neither I nor my wife ever really wanted children. But, while we were still of breeding age and before my vasectomy, when we’d hear a wailing infant, we’d make comments like “Reason number 837 not to have kids.” But, we’d also make comments on hearing about overpopulation or some environmental crisis, especially climate change and ocean acidification, like “won’t be our kids dealing with this.” Actually, we still make such comments.
Also, check out the incredibly impressive Heart of the Adirondacks project in the Adirondack State Park, the largest park in the continental United States at twice the size of Yellowstone.
Posted by Misanthropic Scott 
The Misanthropic Principle 