Remove ads

Cliches you can't stand

Avernus said:
If I get a headache I take some aspirin, I don't say "pain is what makes me human!" and put up with it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

There's something there though; a shared base of experience with other humans. People who never feel pain have lost a portion of that. One of the reasons why celebrities, unscripted, in their private lives, can come off as so out of touch and even alien is that they don't share important frames of reference with us.

So pain doesn't make you human. But it could be argued knowing what it is is part of what makes you human and while you don't need every part, you do need a certain critical mass.
 
Last edited:
Avernus said:
Yeah, I hear that sort of thing and while I'm sure it's usually unintended it makes it sound like an argument that either humanity is vile or that suicide the rational choice for any human, depending on if they are going with "humanity is defined by its vices" or "life is pain".

If I get a headache I take some aspirin, I don't say "pain is what makes me human!" and put up with it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The correct answer of course is to become a JRPG villain so you can kill all life on the planet so that nobody has to suffer anymore.:V
 
Never got how anyone can parlay heroin as anything remotely fun tbh.

I mean Coke has the whole drug of the rich urban myth going for it, pot and/or hashis depending on the country you are on may have entire song genders built around them but heroin?

Heroin is straight up let me fuck you up and ruin you for the rest of your miserable addled addicted life both in urban myth and reality.
 
Eliar said:
Never got how anyone can parlay heroin as anything remotely fun tbh.

I mean Coke has the whole drug of the rich urban myth going for it, pot and/or hashis depending on the country you are on may have entire song genders built around them but heroin?

Heroin is straight up let me fuck you up and ruin you for the rest of your miserable addled addicted life both in urban myth and reality.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
What I always found funny is that alcohol, while not as horrendously destructive on your body, has actually been shown by several studies as being more addictive than heroin and most of the other high-danger drugs.

Wish I could find these studies, I'd certainly read them, but now can't bloody find them >>
 
Night said:
There's something there though; a shared base of experience with other humans. People who never feel pain have lost a portion of that. One of the reasons why celebrities, unscripted, in their private lives, can come off as so out of touch and even alien is that they don't share important frames of reference with us.

So pain doesn't make you human. But it could be argued knowing what it is is part of what makes you human and while you don't need every part, you do need a certain critical mass.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
There are actual people who do not feel pain (neurological disorders, brain damage...).
So unless someone wants to argue that these people are not human, i don't think the argument is anything but complete bullshit.
 
Valmond said:
So unless someone wants to argue that these people are not human,
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

This is flat-out not what was said. Are you not reading the post casually or deliberately?

Night said:
But it could be argued knowing what it is is part of what makes you human and while you don't need every part, you do need a certain critical mass.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Like, seriously, why are you acting like this and just flat interpreting a post in a way it directly contradicts?
 
Last edited:
Valmond said:
If someone wants to argue that these people are less human.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

It doesn't say that either. The sum of enough of the parts of human experience is human, "a critical mass", that's direct from the post. There's no "less" or "more" human stated or implied. The post is binary.

Again, why are you acting like this and interpreting a post in a way it directly contradicts?
 
Last edited:
Night said:
It doesn't say that either. The sum of enough of the parts of human experience is human, "a critical mass", that's direct from the post. There's no "less" or "more" human stated or implied. The post is binary.

Again, why are you acting like this an interpreting a post in a way it directly contradicts?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
No, it very much says that.
If "pain" is part of being "human", and you need a certain mass of "human" to be human, then not feeling pain reduces the amount of "human" you have.
 
Not if it's like, humanity is one stat, and all these other traits raise humanity, but humanity has a hard cap, and the average human build passes that hard cap by a significant amount. So you can lose a lot of those traits and not affect your humanity.
 
And if someone is "borderline" human, and then looses their ability to feel pain making them go below the line?
The idea that specific traits (that can be lost) or experiences (that not all share) make us human, can have lot of unfortunate outcomes.
 
Valmond said:
And if someone is "borderline" human, and then looses their ability to feel pain making them go below the line?
The idea that specific traits (that can be lost) or experiences (that not all share) make us human, can have lot of unfortunate outcomes.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Dude hasn't even set a bar for how human you need to be human, though. He's just saying that there are traits that can be ascribed to humanity, which is inarguably true. You're the only one here who's trying to measure inhumanity.
 
Valmond said:
If "pain" is part of being "human", and you need a certain mass of "human" to be human, then not feeling pain reduces the amount of "human" you have.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

"Critical mass" is literally a binary state and a direct reference to whether you have enough mass of radioactive material to start a nuclear reaction. You either do and are at critical mass, or you don't and aren't. It's a question asked to determine if a reaction can occur, not how hard it is occurring or whatever else. The simile is clear enough, and doesn't work the way you are claiming it does.

You decided to start this fight by misreading the post and your continued unwillingness to just admit you were wrong and move on isn't doing you any favors.
 
Last edited:
cB557 said:
Dude hasn't even set a bar for how human you need to be human, though. He's just saying that there are traits that can be ascribed to humanity, which is inarguably true. You're the only one here who's trying to measure inhumanity.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
We can ascribe lot of shared experiences to humans purely from living on the same planet, yes.
But when you start saying you need some sort of critical mass of those to be human, and we are talking of fiction where lot of those experiences might not be there, things get lot iffier.

Night said:
"Critical mass" is literally a binary state and a direct reference to whether you have enough mass of radioactive material to start fusing it. You either do and are at critical mass, or you don't and aren't. The simile is clear enough, and doesn't work the way you are claiming it does.

You decided to start this fight by misreading the post and your continued unwillingness to just admit you were wrong and move on isn't doing you any favors.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
And if you shave away enough of that mass, you no longer get to critical.
 
Valmond said:
And if you shave away enough of that mass, you no longer get to critical.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Yes? And? Have you moved the goalposts this far? This is a different assertion from "less human for not feeling pain" or "not human for not feeling pain". If you don't have enough shared experiences with others successfully communicate some level of basic concepts, are you one of them?

That's not a value judgement on this theoretical other. It does not necessarily make them less. If we met aliens they wouldn't be human but that doesn't make them less than us. But it does make them different. If you think that outlining difference necessarily makes someone less, that's on you.
 
Last edited:
Valmond said:
We can ascribe lot of shared experiences to humans purely from living on the same planet, yes.
But when you start saying you need some sort of critical mass of those to be human, and we are talking of fiction where lot of those experiences might not be there, things get lot iffier.


And if you shave away enough of that mass, you no longer get to critical.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Its part of human nature to dehumanize humans you dont like.
Its the counter balance to empathy :V
 
Night said:
There's something there though; a shared base of experience with other humans. People who never feel pain have lost a portion of that. One of the reasons why celebrities, unscripted, in their private lives, can come off as so out of touch and even alien is that they don't share important frames of reference with us.

So pain doesn't make you human. But it could be argued knowing what it is is part of what makes you human and while you don't need every part, you do need a certain critical mass.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Dunno chief, this seems like a position with pretty unfortunate implications. From my time in disability advocacy discourse, "critical mass" is not really regarded as a comfortable concept in the disabled community.
 
Last edited:
Spartakrod said:
Dunno chief, this seems like a position with pretty unfortunate implications. From my time in disability advocacy discourse, "critical mass" is not really regarded as a comfortable concept in the disabled community.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Implications are what you choose to make of them. This is an attitude driven by people who choose to believe disability implies a lack in the shared human experience. So, dunno chief, should I believe those people?
 
Night said:
Implications are what you choose to make of them. This is an attitude driven by people who choose to believe disability implies a lack in the shared human experience. So, dunno chief, should I believe those people?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Well, not feeling pain is a disability, and you clearly feel that not feeling it is a lack in shared human experience.
 
Spartakrod said:
Dunno chief, this seems like a position with pretty unfortunate implications. From my time in disability advocacy discourse, "critical mass" is not really regarded as a comfortable concept in the disabled community.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
He's not talking about the context of disability advocacy though. Like yeah if you arbitrarily take a statement from one context and drop it into another, you an make anything sound bad.
But he's not talking about like, "are some humans less human than others?" Look at the example he just used, he talks about comparing humans to aliens. It's pretty clear from context that he's not talking about setting the bar for this anywhere where the critical mass would exclude anything anyone here would consider a human. He's talking about like, "Trees are not humans, based on lacking the traits that make something a human. What traits are those?"
 
Avernus said:
What would be more "human"? A fully functioning human mind uploaded into a computer that has no DNA at all; or a brain dead person with normal DNA?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Brain dead person, assuming they are human, instead of martian or something.
Because any set of traits you could ascribe to the computer will no doubt be shared by any number of animals in zoos.
Now, if you want to ask which is more of a person, i would go for the upload, but that is a separate thing entirely.

edit-
Though i would not argue with the upload claiming to be human.
Trying to measure humanity is a fools errand that never ends well.
 
Last edited:
Tundra Sniper said:
When in fiction, the faction going against the evil regime is simply called "The Resistance."

There are a thousand more inventive names the rebels could come up with for their organization like New Way or Chain Breakers. Any other name for your group of rebels than the generic Resistance will work. Simply calling themselves "The Resistance," makes me go, "Really? THAT'S the best you could come up with?"
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I don't know, I like "the Resistance". Sounds simple and competent to me personally. "Chain Breakers" or "Flag Smashers" sounds silly, like they're trying to overcompensate for something.
 
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top