Activity feed
#120 · Dennis Hackethal, 4 months agoThere’s ‘evictionism’: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evictionism
I like this view because it sidesteps the issue of personhood and at what point it arises. It says you’re free to evict anything, person or not. We don’t how creativity (ie the universal-explainer software mentioned in #119) works so this is handy.
(Amaro)
The linked Wikipedia article says:
Evictionists view a woman's womb as her property and an unwanted fetus as a "trespasser or parasite", even while lacking the will to act. They argue that a pregnant woman has the right to evict a fetus from her body since she has no obligation to care for a trespasser.
If this is an accurate description of the evictionist view, it strikes me as deeply flawed.
A pregnant woman does have an obligation to care for her fetus (at least once it’s a person). She took an action which resulted in the fetus’s existence.
#107 · Dennis Hackethal, 4 months agoI’m pro abortion but I have some pro life in me.
Banning the abortion of a zygote seems ridiculous. So does aborting a seven-month-old fetus.
Why not go with: you can abort until the nervous system develops.
Clearly, a fetus without a nervous system can’t be sentient and thus can’t be a person, right? And as long as it’s not a person, it doesn’t have any rights.
According to https://www.neurosciencefoundation.org/post/brain-development-in-fetus, “an embryo’s brain and nervous system begin to develop at around the 6-week mark.” And: “At as early as 8 weeks (about 2 months), you can see physical evidence of the brain working (the electric impulses) as ultrasounds show the embryo moving.”
There’s ‘evictionism’: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evictionism
I like this view because it sidesteps the issue of personhood and at what point it arises. It says you’re free to evict anything, person or not. We don’t how creativity (ie the universal-explainer software mentioned in #119) works so this is handy.
(Amaro)
Because personhood is not the result of something physical but of having and running the right software.
Specifically, it’s the universal-explainer software David Deutsch outlines in his book The Beginning of Infinity.
This software presumably can’t run in the baby before its nervous system is formed to some sufficient degree. At the earliest, it’s when the nervous system reaches computational universality. (Does anyone know when that is?)
#107 · Dennis Hackethal, 4 months agoI’m pro abortion but I have some pro life in me.
Banning the abortion of a zygote seems ridiculous. So does aborting a seven-month-old fetus.
Why not go with: you can abort until the nervous system develops.
Clearly, a fetus without a nervous system can’t be sentient and thus can’t be a person, right? And as long as it’s not a person, it doesn’t have any rights.
According to https://www.neurosciencefoundation.org/post/brain-development-in-fetus, “an embryo’s brain and nervous system begin to develop at around the 6-week mark.” And: “At as early as 8 weeks (about 2 months), you can see physical evidence of the brain working (the electric impulses) as ultrasounds show the embryo moving.”
Why would a fetus without a nervous system not be a person?
#116 · Dennis Hackethal, 4 months agoWhile the fetus is attached to the mother, it’s her property and she is free to do what she wants with it. Therefore, she can abort the baby at any time prior to being born and the umbilical being but, at which point the baby is an independent person.
(John)
If the baby is a person, the mother has a responsibility to it. She can’t just be allowed to kill it. That makes no sense.
(Danny)
#107 · Dennis Hackethal, 4 months agoI’m pro abortion but I have some pro life in me.
Banning the abortion of a zygote seems ridiculous. So does aborting a seven-month-old fetus.
Why not go with: you can abort until the nervous system develops.
Clearly, a fetus without a nervous system can’t be sentient and thus can’t be a person, right? And as long as it’s not a person, it doesn’t have any rights.
According to https://www.neurosciencefoundation.org/post/brain-development-in-fetus, “an embryo’s brain and nervous system begin to develop at around the 6-week mark.” And: “At as early as 8 weeks (about 2 months), you can see physical evidence of the brain working (the electric impulses) as ultrasounds show the embryo moving.”
While the fetus is attached to the mother, it’s her property and she is free to do what she wants with it. Therefore, she can abort the baby at any time prior to being born and the umbilical being but, at which point the baby is an independent person.
(John)
It’s arguably a sexually active woman’s responsibility to monitor whether she’s pregnant. If it weren’t her responsibility, then a burden would fall on the baby, which can’t be right because the baby only exists because of the mother’schoices.choices.↵ ↵ Home pregnancy tests are affordable and reliable. According to https://health.clevelandclinic.org/how-early-can-you-tell-if-you-are-pregnant, “[h]ome pregnancy tests can detect pregnancy just two weeks after ovulation”. So there’s plenty of time.
Use proper subjunctive
It’s arguably a sexually active woman’s responsibility to monitor whether she’s pregnant. Ifit’s notit weren’t her responsibility, then a burdenfallswould fall on the baby, which can’t be right because the baby only exists because of the mother’s choices.
Give credit
There are some practical considerations, too. There’s no point allowing abortion only in the first six weeks because many women don’t realize they’re pregnant untillater.later.↵ ↵ (Danny)
#108 · Dennis Hackethal, 4 months agoThere are some practical considerations, too.
There’s no point allowing abortion only in the first six weeks because many women don’t realize they’re pregnant until later.
It’s arguably a sexually active woman’s responsibility to monitor whether she’s pregnant.
If it’s not her responsibility, then a burden falls on the baby, which can’t be right because the baby only exists because of the mother’s choices.
#107 · Dennis Hackethal, 4 months agoI’m pro abortion but I have some pro life in me.
Banning the abortion of a zygote seems ridiculous. So does aborting a seven-month-old fetus.
Why not go with: you can abort until the nervous system develops.
Clearly, a fetus without a nervous system can’t be sentient and thus can’t be a person, right? And as long as it’s not a person, it doesn’t have any rights.
According to https://www.neurosciencefoundation.org/post/brain-development-in-fetus, “an embryo’s brain and nervous system begin to develop at around the 6-week mark.” And: “At as early as 8 weeks (about 2 months), you can see physical evidence of the brain working (the electric impulses) as ultrasounds show the embryo moving.”
There are some practical considerations, too.
There’s no point allowing abortion only in the first six weeks because many women don’t realize they’re pregnant until later.
6 unchanged lines collapsedClearly, a fetus without a nervous system can’t be sentient and thus can’t be a person, right? And as long as it’s not a person, it doesn’t have anyrights.rights.↵ ↵ According to https://www.neurosciencefoundation.org/post/brain-development-in-fetus, “an embryo’s brain and nervous system begin to develop at around the 6-week mark.” And: “At as early as 8 weeks (about 2 months), you can see physical evidence of the brain working (the electric impulses) as ultrasounds show the embryo moving.”
#105 · Dennis Hackethal, 4 months agoI’m pro abortion but I have some pro life in me.
Banning the abortion of a zygote seems ridiculous. So does aborting a seven-month-old fetus.
Why not go with: you can abort until the nervous system develops.
Clearly, a fetus without a nervous system can’t be sentient and thus can’t be a person, right? And as long as it’s not a person, it doesn’t have any rights.
Why not go with: you can abort until the nervous system develops.
When is that?
Point out that rights come from personhood
6 unchanged lines collapsedClearly, a fetus without a nervous system can’t be sentient and thus can’t be a person, right? And as long as it’s not a person, it doesn’t have any rights.
I’m pro abortion but I have some pro life in me.
Banning the abortion of a zygote seems ridiculous. So does aborting a seven-month-old fetus.
Why not go with: you can abort until the nervous system develops.
Clearly, a fetus without a nervous system can’t be sentient and thus can’t be a person, right?
#62 · Dennis Hackethal, 4 months agoThat is not what freedom means.
Freedom does not consist in the guarantee of certain thoughts or scope for action.
Roughly speaking, freedom is when you are left alone by others when you want to be left alone.
If you are sent to school against your will, you are not free. School is forced.
Forcing children to be free is a contradiction in terms.
Superseded by #102.
6 unchanged lines collapsedIf you are sent to school against your will, you are not free. School isforced.↵ ↵ Forcingforced.↵ ↵ [Forcing children to be free is a contradiction interms.terms.](https://blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/forced-to-freedom)
Remove superfluous space
It doesn't matter that he is a physicist, because his thoughts on the subject are of aphilosophical/ epistemologicalphilosophical/epistemological nature.
#75 · Dennis Hackethal, 4 months agoOne difference between having multiple objectivist countries and having private arbitration services is that the latter can operate in the same territory whereas the former have distinct territories. So this may not be a stolen concept after all.
Requiring one government per physical territory is an anachronism that Rand retains. Seems unnecessary – see criticisms to #2.
#74 · Dennis Hackethal, 4 months agoBuilding on #17 and #22, imagine a world with multiple objectivist countries. Say the US is purely objectivist, and so is England.
Presumably, Rand would see no problem with multiple objectivist countries coexisting. She would consider this state of affairs not only possible but desirable.
Yet how is that state different from the problem she describes in #14? Objectivist countries would be voluntarily financed by voluntary taxation; private arbitration services would be voluntarily financed through voluntary payments as well.
Isn’t this an instance of a stolen concept?
The “stolen concept” fallacy, first identified by Ayn Rand, is the fallacy of using a concept while denying the validity of its genetic roots, i.e., of an earlier concept(s) on which it logically depends.
Rand is using a concept – objectivism, which logically depends on peaceful coexistence of voluntarily financed groups of people – to argue against the possibility of the peaceful coexistence of voluntarily financed groups of people!
One difference between having multiple objectivist countries and having private arbitration services is that the latter can operate in the same territory whereas the former have distinct territories. So this may not be a stolen concept after all.
#14 · Dennis Hackethal, 5 months agoOne illustration will be sufficient [to show that a society made of competing governments cannot work]: suppose Mr. Smith, a customer of [arbitration service] A, suspects that his next-door neighbor, Mr. Jones, a customer of [arbitration service] B, has robbed him; a squad of Police A proceeds to Mr. Jones’ house and is met at the door by a squad of Police B, who declare that they do not accept the validity of Mr. Smith’s complaint and do not recognize the authority of [arbitration service] A. What happens then? You take it from there.
As I have written before, Rand “implies that they could never resolve their conflict – or worse, that they would be in a perpetual state of war – because they don’t have a shared jurisdiction, an underlying legal framework.”
Building on #17 and #22, imagine a world with multiple objectivist countries. Say the US is purely objectivist, and so is England.
Presumably, Rand would see no problem with multiple objectivist countries coexisting. She would consider this state of affairs not only possible but desirable.
Yet how is that state different from the problem she describes in #14? Objectivist countries would be voluntarily financed by voluntary taxation; private arbitration services would be voluntarily financed through voluntary payments as well.
Isn’t this an instance of a stolen concept?
The “stolen concept” fallacy, first identified by Ayn Rand, is the fallacy of using a concept while denying the validity of its genetic roots, i.e., of an earlier concept(s) on which it logically depends.
Rand is using a concept – objectivism, which logically depends on peaceful coexistence of voluntarily financed groups of people – to argue against the possibility of the peaceful coexistence of voluntarily financed groups of people!
This is an example of version control for ideas. As I revise this idea, new versions are created and automatically diffed. Click the arrows below to cycle through the versionhistory.↵ ↵ I fixedhistory. You can also click on ‘versions’ to see thetypo that was here previously!entire version history plus diffing.
This is an example of version control for ideas. As I revise this idea, new versions are created and automatically diffed. Click the arrows below to cycle through the versionhistory.↵ ↵ Say you make a *tpyo*. Then you can fix it.history.↵ ↵ I fixed the typo that was here previously!
This is a comment on version 4, but it applies toversion 5subsequent versions as well.
#69 · Dennis Hackethal, 4 months agoThis is an example of version control for ideas. As I revise this idea, new versions are created and automatically diffed. Click the arrows below to cycle through the version history.
Say you make a tpyo. Then you can fix it.
Say you make a tpyo.
You got a typo there!