Hal

Ok fine, the final email was stupid. But she had been messed around by the company ("ok we'll give you a job. But not at the salary you agreed to when you initially accepted our offer!"), and was responding to a veiled threat that she received after declining the job in a fairly arrogant - but not rude - manner. Her being irritated is quite justified, and while it was a childish way to react, its probably excusable on the basis of having a bad day, and having to respond to an unpleasant person.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but it sounds like little more than petty vidinctiveness. He offerred her a job, then decided he wanted to cut her salary from the figure they had presumably agreed at the interview. After she (quite rightly) told him this wasnt acceptable, he spat the dummy. Perhaps her final email displayed a lack of thought, but I'd have been quite irritated after being messed around like that too.

What exactly do you have in mind? I'm genuinelly curious.

Putting a man on the moon is not necessary to know 'where the moon came from'. Sounds like a broken window fallacy. If that money had been spent subsidising private (non-space) related research, would there have been more benefits? And why do you think that computers are an offshoot of the space program - the theory of computation had been developed by people like Turing and Von Neumann several decades before the moon landing. edit Perhaps this makes more sense in context, but its little more than a hyperbolic strawman as it stands. Spending money on fighting poverty doesnt equate to 'teaching the alphabet to the mentally retarded', and the fact that astronauts happen to want something doesnt mean that money should be spent on giving them it.

Sounds like a waste of time; theres nothing obvious to be gained from having a man walk on Mars. If you want to piss away silly amounts of money into space, moon colonies sound a lot cooler. Funding actual scientific research would obviously be a better idea, however youre unlikely to get that onto the front pages of the newspaper. But then hey, its not my taxes paying for it. edit: I'm baffled by people who think that US-led colonies anywhere in space are a good idea. As a species, we've pretty much screwed up Earth - the entire planet is ruled by authoritarian governements of various degrees. The US is no exception here - it might be fractionally better than the rest, but not by much. Space colonisation is probably humanity's only real long-term hope of achieving genuine freedom, and why youd want to mess that up by having an irredeemably corrupt regime like the US government in charge of it is beyond me.

No, because the immorality of hard drug use (in particular contexts) is founded on the argument that it is bad for the life of the user in the long term. As I've said though, I dont think theres any such demonstrable link when it comes to animal torturing.

What knowledge is the child lacking? (dont say "that its wrong to torture animals"; this just begs the question). Its not as simple as saying he doesnt know that the animals suffer, because there are plenty of cultures where people are taught that inflicting suffering is ok. Theres no obvious reason why the child should care about the suffering of animals unless he is made to, perhaps by being shouted at whenever he kicks the family cat. You could say the same about adult torturers. Is there any real evidence linking animal cruelty to human cruelty? Animals apparently dont have rights, whereas humans do, so the two things seem as different as chalk and cheese.

It depends on how talented the comedian is. I think youre always going to find things funnier if you agree with whats being said, but if the jokes are actually good, this doesnt have to be the case. I find Bill Hicks funny for instance, although he can be left-wing at times (and bordering on nihilist). Having said that, I havent seen many American shows/comedians who do great satire - American humour tends to be too obvious, and lacking in subtelty, which doesnt make for clever parody. Something like Brass Eye for example is quintessentially British, and a perfect example of how poltical satire should be done. Most American attempts, on the other hand, tend to be far too in-your-face which makes their ideological bent both predictable and tedious ("lol liberals/conservatives are dum!!!").

Again, I would argue that the fact kids very often seem to derive pleasure from the pain of animal suffering calls this into question - pulling the legs off spiders and killing ants with a magnifying glass are fairly common things to do in childhood. Left to develop on their own, I dont think the average child would ever reach the conclusion that there's anything wrong with hurting animals - it seems to be more a consequence of his socialisation into a society which condemns that sort of thing. As such, I dont think theres any real basis for equating enjoyment of torture with psychological problems - it does seem to be fairly natural. Thats fair enough, at least youre consistent. If you really dont think theres much difference between enjoying incredibly graphic (fake) violence in videogames/films, and torturing (real) animals then I can accept that, although I disagree.

I dont know what a 'psychological problem' is, other than that it seems to apply to people who do things that the user of the the term disapproves of. Do we have some sort of objective criteria for determining which sort of behavior constitutes having a problem? Is there a proven link between torturing animals and (proper) mental illnesses such as schizophrenia? Why is torturing animals that dont have rights any worse than deriving pleasure from killing enemies in violent computer games such as Grand Theft Auto (apparently people who play these games are sickos too according to certain tabloid newspapers...)?

I'd also question the idea that a coherent distinction can be drawn between 'torturing for pleasure' and 'torturing for a purpose'. Cosmetic testing is a good example here - animals are routinely tortured for the purposes of testing products (blinding is fairly common), yet the results are things like lipstick and shampoo which do not help to keep humans alive - these products simply exist for the sake of our vanity/pleasure. So it seems that its acceptable to torture animals for (non-essential-to-life) pleasure, as long as the pleasure isnt the actual tortuting itself? To put it in a slightly more exaggerated way, does it really make that much of a difference that the person pulling the legs off his cat is doing so because he thinks that warm cat-blood looks nice on his face, rather than because he enjoys watching the cat suffer?

Well... if you say so. ("not giving money to the poor is a profound injustice, and people who dont feel sad when they see homeless people are psychologically SICK"/"homosexuality is psychologically SICK"/etc. What any particular person personally happens to find sick is philosophically uninteresting, since I'm only interested in what can be consistently defended.) Its more likely that they dont care until they are taught to do so. Children who grew up in (eg) ancient rome, mongol civilisations, etc probably realised the degree to which slaves/enemies suffered when beaten, yet they dont seem to have considered this very interesting. Children (and adults) will generally pick up the values/morality of their surrounding society, and people will base their ideas of what is 'sick' on what they have been taught since childhood. But the question isnt what a particular group of people happen to think is acceptable/'sick' - its what things are capable of objective defence. And if animals objectively dont have rights, there doesnt seem to be any reason why torturing them is immoral (although since our culture frowns upon it, most of us will find it distasteful, myself included. But then I also find the thought of eating sheeps eyeball/octopus distasteful, and I dont think there anything objective involved in this judgement - its just how I've been brought up). Then, assuming animals have no rights, what else is there? Theres no obvious connection between torturing animals and being 'psychologically damanged', because in the past we have had entire societies where torturing humans was perfectly alright, and it seems strange to say that everyone who lived in them was 'damaged' somehow. However, we are able to say that these human-torturers were wrong, because we have an objective theory of human rights. But without an objective theory of animal rights, where can we stand to condemn animal-torturers? The disgust you feel animal torturers kicking cats is probably similar to the way that PETA activists feel when they see you eating a hamburger, but I dont see why your position can be called more objectively correct than theirs if animals are simply property. I think the attempt to reconcile "animals have no rights" with "it is wrong to torture animals" is an attempt to both have your cake and eat it. Once you agree with the first statement, you have nothing left with which to consistently defend the second.

This sounds like intrinsicism - a value to whom? The life of the average spider is of no value whatsoever to me, and I suppose other people feel the same about cats/cows/whatever. What if my purpose is simply because I derive pleasure from it? Some people derive pleasure from hunting rabbits or (painfully) killing fish - why cant I derive pleasure from tortuning a cat? No - a lot of children derive pleasure from (eg) pulling the legs of spiders or hurting the family dog, and I dont think this is grounds for sending them to a psychiatrist. When they grow older, they learn that we, as a society, tend to frown upon that sort of thing and hence stop doing it. But in the absence of an animal rights framework, this cant be said to be objectively correct - its just what we happen to do as a culture. The life of the average human is of no value to me - I couldnt care less about the deaths of people I do not know. However, I refrain from initiating force against others because I believe that all humans have a basic set of rights regardless of whether I value the individuals in question. Buf if animals have no rights, theres no obvious reason why theres a problem with torturing them if it brings you pleasure (hunting or fishing for instance, or just pulling the legs off cats, which is pretty much the same thing). Again, this is intrinsicism. You cant have it both ways.If nothing is intrinsically valuable and animals have no rights, there is no good reason to view torturing them as immoral, unless you can show that this is likely to have negative effects on the torturers. And if you want this to be objective, then youre going to need something a lot more substantial than vague notions of being 'psychologically twisted' or whatever.

I'm not prepared to define a rigid boundary between abuse and non-abuse, but I could you give you some examples of the sort of things which would definitely lie on either side of the line, wherever its drawn. Yeah, I said 'money' though. I think you could be right about the identifying marks thing, it makes intuitive sense. Ok, I misunderstood you. But given youre prepared to grant rights to beings which arent rational (and perhaps not even self-conscious), I'm not sure why youre so opposed to granting them to animals too. Animals obviously shouldnt be entitled to the same set of rights as adult humans, but that doesnt automatically mean they shouldnt be granted any rights at all (in a similar way to babies and the severely brain damaged).

Very rarely read poetry. Theres a couple of poems I like (eg Eliot's Prufrock), but in general I dont see the point. I normally read it silently, because I feel odd reading it out loud. A recitation can be good though, assuming the reader is talented.

Yeah, thats what I said...

hmmmm

On a sidenote, if animals are to be treated like any other piece of property, then we need to be consistent. For example, if I tell my neighbour that I dont want his dog to be in my garden, then I am surely entitled to keep/shoot/whatever the dog if it comes into my garden (compare to my neighbour throwing garbage onto my lawn). Similarly if I see my neighbours cat out in the street, it shouldnt be classed as theft for me to pick it up and keep it, just like it isnt theft to keep the money in a lost wallet which you find lying around (at least I dont think it is).

Well yes, we should. The whole free speech thing means that you shouldnt really be executing people for promoting radical Islam. Issuing a bounty is morally actionable however, since its a direct incitement to violence (compare someone saying "I hate black people", to someone telling his friend to murder a particular black person).

I wouldnt consider either of these things to be abuse. Similar to how I dont think a child should be taken away from its parents if they give it poor quality baby food or fail to fufill their weekly cuddle quota. But if they start hitting it with a frying pan, thats a different story.

Actually yeah, youre right. I was making the same mistake I accused you of making (I was confusing the symbol '+' with the addition function).

Talking about beliefs gives us a framework in which to explain the behavior of others. Why did John bother go the shop when it was closed? Because he believed that it was open. Why did Peter duck when a football was kicked at his head? Because he believed it would be sore if he let it hit him. It also makes sense when youre talking about things you used to think were true, but now dont; "I used to believe that Sydney was the capital of Australia but now I know otherwise". At any given point in your life, some of the things which you think are true are almost certainly going to be false, but you still believe them. You wouldnt normally say something like "I believe that the world existed 10 years ago" or "I believe the moon exists" though, becuase use of the word 'believe' in this particular context implies uncertainty.

I dont think theres a meaningful answer to this question. We genearlly apply the label 'mathematician' to anyone who does mathematics, so it would be true by definition that only sentences generated by mathematicans would be mathematics. Although I suppose an advanced artificial intelligence program can generate new non-trivial theorems. Well, its not inherant in the concept '2' that 2+2=4, since there are infinite ways of defining relations on the real numbers. If we were taking the combination of water droplets as our paradigm case, we might want to say that n + n = 1 for all integers n>0, but this wouldnt be very useful. Yeah, this is one way of saying that 2+2=5. But I dont think it was what he meant. Youre using the same numbers and the same function, youre just writing them differently. 2+2=5 might be a statement we'd consider correct if we lived in a world where whenever you combined 2 pairs of objects, a fifth one spontaneously sprang into existence. But since this does not describe the reality we live in, 2+2=4 is more sensible.

Sorry, I meant in base 3 modular arithmetic.

Not really, its more a body of theorems and structure. The 'method' of mathematics has changed a lot over the last 3000 years, so it cant really be considered defining. Numerals arent numbers - a sign isnt the thing it signifies. XV, 15 and binary 1111 are all symbols for the same number, and X+V = XV, 10 + 5 = 15, and 1010 + 0101 = 1111 all represent the same equation. But this is saying something different from 2 + 2 = 5. Its not just that we're going to write the sign '5' instead of '4', its that we are definiting the addition ('+') operator differently. Its more comparable to saying that 2 + 2 = 1 (in base 3 arithmetic)