[pas]

> sanctity of human life

what's so sacrosanct about life? life is common, many argue too common. (see the overpopulation hysteria.)

I'd argue there are better things that we should hold dear, like empathy and cooperation, the resilience of getting up after devastating events, our ability to cooperate in even the most abstract frameworks.

[krapp]

>I'd argue there are better things that we should hold dear, like empathy and cooperation, the resilience of getting up after devastating events, our ability to cooperate in even the most abstract frameworks.

You can't hold those things dear without first believing in the sanctity of human life. If human life has no value above the value of human endeavor neither do empathy, cooperation or resilience, human life becomes just another resource to exploit and consume.

I disagree religion is the only possible framework through which this can be expressed, however. It's entirely possible to hold human life sacrosanct in its own liminal terms without invoking the supernatural.

[brnaftr361]

You're not negating properly, you've got to balance both sides of the equation.

If we discount life altogether, there is perhaps a greater hidden element of value which goes unseen.

Instead, if we acknowledge that all life is meaningless, that we're on some infinitesimal little body floating around a star whose life is slowly ticking away set to vaporize everything ever known - if we really acknowledge that desperation, certainly the closest to universal value we might have, then we can engage with reality and work together. Real egalitarianism, and trans-species as well, because at least within the scope of our limited knowledge we're the only advanced life known, and correct me if I'm wrong, but the only planet with confirmed life.

The sanctity of life shit is just a means to defer the ultimate end that we're all fraught to look into, our inevitable deaths. It's a write off. Chris's life was sacrosanct, he died delivering Pizza Hut for $8.50/h, he died painfully and left behind a mangled corpse. We make a big, superficial guffaw about it. That's fucking tragic! We, collectively, should all be fucking horrified that someone was relegated to that, horrified that someone could possibly die like that - but it's sacred by default - that's bullshit though, we let Chris fall into a swirling oblivion that carried him to a rock bottom and put him in a position that made it really likely he'd die doing the shameful shit of delivering a pizza.

Sanctity of life is what allows us to justify the egregious, not the lack thereof.

[NateEag]

> and put him in a position that made it really likely he'd die doing the shameful shit of delivering a pizza.

Delivering a pizza is not "shameful shit".

It brings warmth, sustenance, and comfort to those Chris delivered it to.

What's shameful is being paid tens or hundreds of times Chris's annual salary to manipulate people into clicking on ads or continuing to doomscroll.

[the_af]

> real egalitarism

... is worthless if you don't value life. Who cares about egalitarism for motes of dust?

[sifar]

You do realize none of them would exist without life.

[pas]

yes, of course, but life is just a necessary not sufficient condition.

[sifar]

Sorry i cannot parse this.

How can you value something and not the thing that it cannot exist without ?

[Thiez]

Life cannot exist without excrement, but relatively few people think highly of poop. What is your point? If you go far enough with your reasoning you have to basically value the entire universe and everything in it to be allowed to say you value any particular thing. It dilutes the meaning of valuing something to the point where the word/concept itself becomes meaningless.

[the_af]

I disagree. You cannot hold this principle "in theory" without understanding the specifics of this case.

It makes no sense to value (human) empathy and cooperation without valuing (human) life. You can argue about first principles, excrement and the universe, but this will still be true.

Without valuing human life, all sorts of things start to unravel in our society. Of course, just life is not enough! Empathy, cooperation, kindness, curiosity, etc: all things that make the human experience worthy.

[pas]

Human life is valuable, but it's valuable because it has things like dreams, empathy, etc.

That's why we usually don't keep braindead people alive just because we could.

[rhn_mk1]

In the way that you value the end, not the means, I guess.

[mensetmanusman]

In the rational context of the universe, life is impossibly rare.