Dumb fucks who switch from pro to anti abortion in 30min

[AndroAsc]

For laughs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y2KsU_dhwI

Short Summary:
Some video of some random dude going around talking to "pro-abortion" people. Starts with a discussion on the Holocaust, and twists that to equate abortion as being the Holocaust of babies. Shows how dumb fucks can change their morality 180 degrees by switching from pro to anti abortion with 30min of talking to this dude. Comments of the video also show how more dumb fucks become converts after 30min. It's apparently going "viral" with thousands of pro-abortion people becoming instant converts to the anti-abortion faction.

While it is funny to laugh at the stupidity of these people, it disturbs me as to how fucking stupid people can be. Some examples:
1) Half of the people on that vid did not know who Adolf Hitler was. WTF? Were these people born yesterday???
2) Failure to make a distinction between sentient vs non-sentient life. The holocaust was wrong because it was a massacre of sentient life. The "holocaust in America of unborn babies" is a fucking joke, because fetuses are non-sentient life. Hell, I would even argue a born baby is non-sentient.

Enjoy the video, if you can sit through 30min of sheer stupidity. I stopped watching after 20min cause I was choking on the sheer stupidity of the people in that video.

[SilverWingedSeraph]

That's not just "some random dude".

That's Ray Comfort.

Aka the Banana Man, who asserted that the shape of bananas constitutes evidence of god the creator making them just right for human consumption. Which is doubly hilarious when you take into consideration that bananas only have their current form thanks to artificial selection. Wild bananas do not look especially edible or easy to consume.

Here's a 'review' of 180. It's quite a bit more tolerable to watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3DP90hfZkc

[Simon_Jester]

It's probably staged- that'd be my bet.

It's like a Jack Chick tract: the heathen who doesn't agree with the righteous man exists purely as a tabula rasa, to be effortlessly converted to the cause as soon as he's told that the cause exists. Because the point of the exercise isn't to present a debate, or an argument seriously aimed at overcoming debate, the way a real theologian or philosopher might*. It's just there as an excuse to write down the argument, which is very facile and simplistic, but "good enough" in the minds of people for whom the quality of an argument isn't really all that important to begin with.

It's there to reinforce the opinions of people who already agree with it, not to convert anyone except perhaps the softest targets out there.

*See C. S. Lewis for an example of what someone with some intellectual integrity self-respect does when they want to convince people that their religious beliefs are valid.

[Alyeska]

Staged? Doubtful. Cherry picked. I bet my life savings he interviewed people who saw right through his bullshit and either stopped interviewing them, or simply didn't use the footage in the documentary. All we are seeing is the handpicked choices to prove his point. A lie through omission. Non-random sampling.

[mr friendly guy]

Currently within the first few minutes. Its almost surreal watching a Creationist fighting Holocaust deniers.

Then it deteriorated with Comfort using the same bullshit argument that Hitler was anti-Christian, as opposed to being a Christian.

[someone_else]

The "holocaust in America of unborn babies" is a fucking joke, because fetuses are non-sentient life. Hell, I would even argue a born baby is non-sentient.

A fast nitpick. Not changing the substance but perfecting a bit the form. (text from wikipedia)
Sentient is "the ability to feel, perceive or be conscious, or to have subjective experiences.", as such any moderately complex animal can be defined sentient (all mammals for sure). Babies should be sentient too. Unborn are not properly sentient until the most rudimentary parts of their nervous system go online and they start to actually react to some stimuli, which happens sometime after the first month and increases dramatically from that.

Sapient is "the ability of an organism or entity to act with appropriate judgment, a mental faculty which is a component of intelligence, since displaying sound judgment in a complex, dynamic environment is a hallmark of wisdom.", and as such only (adult) human beings can be called sapient.

"Sentient" is the term used instead of "sapient" in science fiction, but in real life it means the above.

Not that a dumbfuck that believes the Banana Man will actually laugh in your face if you do this mistake, but you may look cooler when talking with more normal people...

[AndroAsc]

"Sentient" is the term used instead of "sapient" in science fiction, but in real life it means the above.

Guess I've been watching too much scifi...

[AniThyng]

"Sentient" is the term used instead of "sapient" in science fiction, but in real life it means the above.

Guess I've been watching too much scifi...

So the logical conclusion to your line of reasoning is that killing babies and children is less of a crime than killing an adult since they aren't "sapient"? I'd hope that isn't an actual common pro abortion argument.

[SpaceMarine93]

How do we stop this video and this intolerant moron, before any more damage could be done?

[Eleas]

How do we stop this video and this intolerant moron, before any more damage could be done?

"We" don't.

[HMS Conqueror]

Abortion is the archetypal cloudy ethical issue. Everyone makes up for the fact that they don't really understand it by having incredibly strong tribal views on it one way or the other. The result is that these views aren't based on a firm foundation of reasoning, and so in certain circumstances can be easily changed.

[Stark]

Thanks for universally declaring all viewpoints equal, pal!

The idea that attitudes that lack 'a firm foundation of reasoning' are easy to change is hilarious. That's why religion is so dumb, right?

[AndroAsc]

So the logical conclusion to your line of reasoning is that killing babies and children is less of a crime than killing an adult since they aren't "sapient"? I'd hope that isn't an actual common pro abortion argument.

I never said anything about children, don't twist my words. "Killing" fetuses is as much as a crime as killing a chimpanzee. Both organisms are non-sapient. Sometime between birth to preschool, the infant develops sapient. I am not qualified to determine when that point is. But if we can determine this "sapient threshold", I would not find it objectionable to kill off non-sapient life is there is a good reason. To conform to societal norms, I do adopt the standard that a born child is sapient (although it is technically unlikely). Granted, I admit this is an extremely arbitary division, cause one could always argue there is not much a difference between a 8-mth fetus and a born child, but the line has to be draw somewhere. So unless there is conclusive research out there that proves a fetus is sapient (I strongly doubt it), pro-life people are just dumb fucks.

And if you have problem with killing non-sapient life, perhaps you should not be eating that hamburger. Oh, don't step on that ant too. Oh wait... you just killed millions of bacteria. OOPS.

[HMS Conqueror]

Thanks for universally declaring all viewpoints equal, pal!

The idea that attitudes that lack 'a firm foundation of reasoning' are easy to change is hilarious. That's why religion is so dumb, right?

Abortion boils down to deciding when life starts, or at least when we start assigning legal rights to living things, and there's simply no clear dividing line. Of course viewpoints aren't "equal", but there is no objective way to determine the "correct" one either, and it takes a lot of thought to come to a reasoned view. The say-so of a religious authority is a stupid reason to oppose abortion, but I wouldn't say that the pro-abortion lot's thought processes are much better on average. In particular, the womens' rights argument is utterly question-begging: being a woman doesn't give you the right to murder someone because they're inconveniencing you, and if you rejoinder that abortion isn't murder, then you've begged the question.

[Samuel]

Abortion boils down to deciding when life starts,

No it doesn't. A sperm and egg are alive. So is a chicken, a cow and many other things we are a willing to kill.

but there is no objective way to determine the "correct" one either, and it takes a lot of thought to come to a reasoned view.

Sure there is- consistency.

[HMS Conqueror]

Abortion boils down to deciding when life starts, or at least when we start assigning legal rights to living things

No it doesn't. A sperm and egg are alive. So is a chicken, a cow and many other things we are a willing to kill.

The full quote. Cut'n'rebutt is sometimes ok but at least read the whole thing first.

but there is no objective way to determine the "correct" one either, and it takes a lot of thought to come to a reasoned view.

Sure there is- consistency.

Please explain how "consistency" allows us to determine the objectively correct time to start assigning rights to life. You should start by explaining with what we are to be consistent, and how that was objectively derived.

[mr friendly guy]

Abortion boils down to deciding when life starts, or at least when we start assigning legal rights to living things, and there's simply no clear dividing line.

Since you most probably haven't seen these debates before, our Emperor Darth Wong has enunciated his argument succinctly and elegantly. He doesn't decide when life starts. He decides when sapience starts. Which is someone more verifiable since you can argue from when the brain is developed.

Of course viewpoints aren't "equal", but there is no objective way to determine the "correct" one either, and it takes a lot of thought to come to a reasoned view.

I love how you say viewpoints aren't equal on one hand, and then immediately go to to explain the opposite. If there is no way to determine which one is correct, then all viewpoints are equally crap or equally good.

The say-so of a religious authority is a stupid reason to oppose abortion, but I wouldn't say that the pro-abortion lot's thought processes are much better on average. In particular, the womens' rights argument is utterly question-begging: being a woman doesn't give you the right to murder someone because they're inconveniencing you, and if you rejoinder that abortion isn't murder, then you've begged the question.

Can you explain how this is begging the question for the pro abortion side? Especially since the pro abortion side only made one point ie "abortion isn't murder." Usually to commit a fallacy, you need several point do you not, since arguments take the form A (premise) therefore / because of (logical step) B (conclusion).

For example Country A is planning to attack us (premise) therefore we must be prepared to defend against them (conclusion).
Or homosexuality is wrong (conclusion) because God said so (premise is God said so, and the "logical step" is because its God).

A single statement like what you stated that could be either correct or incorrect, or an unsupported claim, but its hard to claim its fallacious because the pro abortion side never demonstrated what was their reasoning.

[Samuel]

The full quote. Cut'n'rebutt is sometimes ok but at least read the whole thing first.

Except "living thing" is irrelevant for wheter or not something has moral worth. Robots are not alive, but it is possible to make ones that have feelings, hopes, dreams (note- do not attempt. May cause destruction of human species.)

Please explain how "consistency" allows us to determine the objectively correct time to start assigning rights to life. You should start by explaining with what we are to be consistent, and how that was objectively derived.

If your position is that the embryo is valuable because of potential you have an inconsistent position for example. As for explaining consistency... I'm using the definition generally used in logical argumentation.

Example:
For the potential arguement, the problem is that all sperm count as potential. If you believe that potential is something valuable you should be encouraging people to have as many children as possible. Given that pro-lifers do not encourage will orgys, we can conclude that their position is not consistent with the potential argument.

Now, just because an stance isn't consistent with what people do doesn't mean it is wrong- it could simply be people are assholes (see rascism, sexism, etc). However, if the consistent stance leads to ridiculous outcomes, we can conclude it is bunk.

[HMS Conqueror]

The full quote. Cut'n'rebutt is sometimes ok but at least read the whole thing first.

Except "living thing" is irrelevant for wheter or not something has moral worth. Robots are not alive, but it is possible to make ones that have feelings, hopes, dreams (note- do not attempt. May cause destruction of human species.)

Really? Not everyone would agree that a robot with "feelings, hopes and dreams" isn't alive.

Please explain how "consistency" allows us to determine the objectively correct time to start assigning rights to life. You should start by explaining with what we are to be consistent, and how that was objectively derived.

If your position is that the embryo is valuable because of potential you have an inconsistent position for example. As for explaining consistency... I'm using the definition generally used in logical argumentation.

Example:
For the potential arguement, the problem is that all sperm count as potential. If you believe that potential is something valuable you should be encouraging people to have as many children as possible. Given that pro-lifers do not encourage will orgys, we can conclude that their position is not consistent with the potential argument.

Now, just because an stance isn't consistent with what people do doesn't mean it is wrong- it could simply be people are assholes (see rascism, sexism, etc). However, if the consistent stance leads to ridiculous outcomes, we can conclude it is bunk.

I'm not interested how to debunk one random theory, but how to arrive at the single objectively correct one (which I contend doesn't exist).

[SilverWingedSeraph]

The say-so of a religious authority is a stupid reason to oppose abortion, but I wouldn't say that the pro-abortion lot's thought processes are much better on average. In particular, the womens' rights argument is utterly question-begging: being a woman doesn't give you the right to murder someone because they're inconveniencing you, and if you rejoinder that abortion isn't murder, then you've begged the question.

Murder is killing a human. A blastocyst isn't a human. An embryo isn't a human. They aren't babies. To claim that abortion is murder requires the false premise that anything that could grow to become a human is by default a human. That's nonsense. Sure, they're "alive". Sperm is alive. Eggs are alive. What do you know, we kill tons of those! Women kill eggs every month and men kill sperm every time they jerk off, omg murder!

No, it's not murder. Just because something is alive, doesn't mean it's human. Just because something will grow into a human if you leave it long enough, doesn't make it a human now. A women's right to control her own body trumps the rights of a clump of cells to grow into a person.

I'm not interested how to debunk one random theory, but how to arrive at the single objectively correct one (which I contend doesn't exist).

Objectively, embryos are non-sapient and non-sentient, especially first trimester, when the majority of non-lifesaving abortions occur. Objectively, they're alive. Objectively, they're not human, except in the sense that they're capable of growing into humans and are made up of human DNA.

This stance is consistant. Human life is valuable to humans not because it contains human DNA, but because humans are capable of experiencing things subjectively and reacting to them, are capable of feeling pain, experience emotions, and all the things that sapience and sentience denote. When a human is no longer capable of these things, they're braindead. An embryo is not even that. It is a potential human. It is not sapient, even at the latest stage of the first trimester they're less sentient than a kitten. Objectively, what holes or inconsistancies can you see here?

The only way to be consistent with any sort of anti-abortion viewpoint is to be completely against the ending of any life, up to and including skincells, sperm, bacteria, insects and all animals AND plants. That viewpoint defeats itself, as humans can only survive by consuming things that are or were alive.

The only other way to be consistently anti-abortion to assert that anything that could grow into a human is a human, in which case sperm and eggs are humans and deserve human rights. You're killing millions every time you jerk off. Women are ending potential human lives every time they have their periods. This viewpoint is perhaps logically consistent, but it's not objectively correct. Potential humans are not humans.

So, objectively, which of these makes sense? Or are you just going to keep crying that none of them are objectively correct and thus they're all valid?

[Samuel]

Really? Not everyone would agree that a robot with "feelings, hopes and dreams" isn't alive.

"Living organisms undergo metabolism, maintain homeostasis, possess a capacity to grow, respond to stimuli, reproduce and, through natural selection, adapt to their environment in successive generations."

Robots don't fit the definition of life.

A blastocyst isn't a human. An embryo isn't a human. They aren't babies. To claim that abortion is murder requires the false premise that anything that could grow to become a human is by default a human.

Technically they are human (so is your skin), but they aren't sapient. That is the criteria you seem to be aiming for.

[SilverWingedSeraph]

Technically they are human (so is your skin), but they aren't sapient. That is the criteria you seem to be aiming for.

Yes, that would be more accurate. By definition they are human in the strictest biological sense.

Really? Not everyone would agree that a robot with "feelings, hopes and dreams" isn't alive.

"Living organisms undergo metabolism, maintain homeostasis, possess a capacity to grow, respond to stimuli, reproduce and, through natural selection, adapt to their environment in successive generations."

Robots don't fit the definition of life.

A sentient AI could fit some definitions of the word "alive", but certainly not the biological definition. But you certainly can't label a sentient AI alive in the same way as a human embryo.

I was really tempted to address HMS's response by saying "If a sentient AI is alive, and a human embryo is alive, does that mean my laptop is alive too? My laptop is to a sentient AI what a human embryo is to a sentient human." But that would have just been facetious.

[AndroAsc]

"Living organisms undergo metabolism, maintain homeostasis, possess a capacity to grow, respond to stimuli, reproduce and, through natural selection, adapt to their environment in successive generations."

Robots don't fit the definition of life.

Metabolism and maintaining homeostasis is simply the intake of resources and maintaining a proper working body. If a robot can incorporate energy sources and use that fuel its function, it has fulfilled this criteria.

If robots have the ability to replicate or make copies of themselves, it has fulfilled the criteria of reproduction and growth.

Robots obviously can respond to stimuli.

If robots have an artificial intelligence that can modify its own "base code" incorporating new information into its programming, then it can adapt to the environment via natural selection (if you have a bunch of these robots).

So what was your point? Robots today are non-sapient? I won't argue with that. Robots or any form of artificial machine can never be sapient? That's bullshit. You are a machine, just that you are made up of proteins, DNA, lipids, etc...

[AndroAsc]

A blastocyst isn't a human. An embryo isn't a human. They aren't babies. To claim that abortion is murder requires the false premise that anything that could grow to become a human is by default a human.

Technically they are human (so is your skin), but they aren't sapient. That is the criteria you seem to be aiming for.

Where did you get your science education? My skin is human? A bunch of cells is human? I guess my personal laptop can be considered human too.

[Hillary]

A blastocyst isn't a human. An embryo isn't a human. They aren't babies. To claim that abortion is murder requires the false premise that anything that could grow to become a human is by default a human.

Technically they are human (so is your skin), but they aren't sapient. That is the criteria you seem to be aiming for.

Where did you get your science education? My skin is human? A bunch of cells is human? I guess my personal laptop can be considered human too.

Well your skin is human, insofar as it is human skin. It is not, however a human.

HMS Retard's argument is simply the classic "we don't know everything, therefore we know nothing" line. Clearly we know when an embryo/foetus is certainly not sentient. We know when it certainly is. The actual point where it crosses from one into the other varies a bit but can be roughly determined. Therefore abortion laws should be made with that as reference (although not, of course, the over-riding factor).