[lcw]

There are a bunch of weak arguments here.

> How would we feel if aliens stopped the mass extinction events that led to our existence?

This statement is just appealing to emotion and is commonly used in arguments against abortion or attempts to thought police. There is nothing provable or disprovable in your argument and this question is used to just try and bait people into an emotional response.

> Non-human life seems by and large indifferent to its long-term fate on this planet.

I would argue that self preservation is an innate characteristics of every plant and animal on this earth. Isn't a desire to live the basis for self preservation? Isn't it natural for a plant or animal to stop something from killing them if it impedes in their ability to survive? At a basic level plants compete for sunlight at the expense of other plants. If there was an cognitive leap in a plant or animal wouldn't it be natural for anything to protect their greater habitat? If that's narcissistic than I guess it's the most natural narcissism I can think of.

[the_af]

> This statement is just appealing to emotion and is commonly used in arguments against abortion or attempts to thought police

Your statement itself seems like a fallacy to me.

It makes sense to me that the comment you're replying to is emotional, because it's not meant to be a "proof" but an opinion, and it's valid to have emotional opinions; moreover, it was a reply to a comment which was in itself an emotional appeal!

Self-preservation is not innately good (or bad). Mass extinction events seem to have been good at giving rise to species that are now self-preserving; maybe a new mass extinction would give rise to even "better" species.

As a human, I'd rather we didn't go extinct. I'd rather mankind prospered and even spread out to more planets. But I'm ok with anthropocentric appeals to emotion :)

[lcw]

I see what your saying in regard to me trying to appeal to emotion by using a topic like abortion. However, my intent in the example was/is that emotions are high in these topics and are used to give some opinions more attention than they deserve.

In this case I feel like the main point of the parent commenter was not a well formed opinion and as such the commenter was trying to appeal to emotion. I'm not trying to say they can't say something like what they said here. This is a perfect place to have a discussion.

> Self-preservation is not innately good (or bad)

I agree with you. The parent comment that I was responding to does not agree with this statement. That's clear when they say "what rubs me the wrong way", and referring to work done in the name of human preservation as narcissism.

[themitigating]

I think he's right. The person isn't offering an opinion they are asking "how would you feel". They want the other person to form an opinion biased by an emotion