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Google is the world's largest breeding ground for sociopaths who see morals as obstacles to overcome, rather than paths to follow. Their utter indifference to the ethical repercussions and potential consequences of their actions is beyond all comprehension. Stefan, if you see this, I need to tell you that I strongly disagree with you about artificial intelligence. It is far more capable than you seem to think. Please watch the videos listed below and make a video on it at your earliest convenience. Thank you.

Hello all:I have been searching for an answer to a basic question but I have yet to find one. This is a serious question. This is causing me great distress. My life is filled with guilt because of it.If we see nature as things that we can and should use (I mean past basic survival and comfort), what is stopping us from viewing vulnerable or 'weak" humans in the same light?For example: if someone buys land and clears it (let's assume it's forest), lots of plants and animals are going to be displaced or die. Let's also assume that person clears the land for a golf course or some other luxury purpose.Obviously, we are beyond Descarte, so we can agree that animals feel pain and emotional distress. When the land owner destroys their habitat, it will affect them.There is also some fledgling science that plants also react to negative circumstances: http://www.jperla.com/blog/post/plant-sufferingMany deny that plants and animals feel pain and/or suffer like humans, which I think it a little short-sighted.For this, let's assume they do feel pain. Some animals especially are very intelligent and have incredibly sophisticated ways of communication, structures, etc.We would never allow a land developer to displace or kill a severely mentally retarded human. It would violate the non-aggression principle.Assuming there are very intelligent animals and some mentally handicapped humans, one can assume that we cannot simply discard animals because they are not intelligent.Is it just because they are not human? What are the credentials to determine suffering?I feel like "strong" humans dominating and destroying animals and plants for luxury would lead down a slippery slope. How can we teach our children to not bully or harm when we do it to animals, plants, and the land for things beyond our basic survival?Further, since government has the guns, they dominate and oppress "normal" humans because they see us as livestock--lower than them. Well, WE see livestock as livestock--lower than us. The answer couldn't possibly be because they're not human. How can we reconcile exploiting nature because we can as acceptable, yet rail against the state for doing the same to us because they can? Thank you.

If you want agriculture, you first need to find an arable piece of land. If there are creatures on it, they will need to be killed or removed.To effectively work the Earth, you need metals.If you want metals, you have to have a mine. If you have a mine, you have to hire security to keep people away from it. (Look around; the police stand in front of everything somebody needs.) Mining is miserable work, so there will most likely be oppressed people doing it from land that the mine is on. Don't worry; they will be abundant since, after destroying their way of life via agriculture and domesticaiton, they will have no choice but to work. Bosses will keep them in line. Plus, in a few generations, they will forget that they were once independent and call their, "just the way it is".Agriculture means more food at first, so more people will have children. That means more agriculture, which means more metals. More smelters. More security. More houses built. Take more land to build those houses. Kill off nature or animals on those land. Cut down the trees. That requires more metal. More mining. More workers. More mines. If the people on the land with the new mine don't want to give it up, you'll have to "convince" them.More resources now available means more babies, which means people spread out, which requires more transportation, which needs more infrastructure. That requires more metal. More workers to do miserable work. More security to guard the infrastructure, agriculture, smelters, property and mines. More exploitaiton of nature. More death.Eventually you will run into more people and animals who don't want to give up their land. They will fight back. You now need an army. You need the strongest person with the most stuff keeping people in line. You don't want anyone not dependent. It will threaten your way of life. You need to create fictional justifications of why people are better off as domesticated under the new agriculture system. Call it "progress" and demonize the ancestors who lived under the old way. You'll need leaders to repeat this over and over again until people believe it. Tell them that they just have to be nice to people. Don't aggress. But nature is not people. It is here for us to use.You will encouter rough terrain. You need technology--chainsaws, ploughs, etc. More comes out of the Earth. The humans living on the land above the resources don't want to give it up. Send in the military. Create propaganda to justify it. Leaders emerge to tell the new generations that this is the way it should be. They hire security to keep people in line. Without that security, the system breaks down.More layers of control develop. People spread out. That means regional leaders. They want more land. More resources. That means more workers. The workers are now hopelessly dependent on the system that exploits them. Any that speak out need to be dealt with. That requires a miltiary and police, plus leaders to tell everyone why it is okay.The military makes capitalism possible. Without their guns, we wouldn't be able to get or transports the raw materials to make stuff that makes our way of life possible. And we wouldn't want to go back to how those savage idiots lived who didn't sell everything would we? The ones who created technology to preserve their land. That would be ridiculous. After all, then we wouldn't have smart phones, indoor plumbing or ice cream 24 hours/day. And everybody knows that is the only way to live.