Even More Philosophical Dolphin Genocide
You remember that question I posed yesterday? Just in case you didn't, here it is again:
"If you had to, would you kill 10,000 dolphins to save a single human child?
If you think that's a bit extreme, then consider this: how many animals of a given species would you be willing to sacrifice to save a single human life?"
I can't really attempt to give a neat, precise answer (which is probably an indicator of either a very deep or very ridiculous question, possibly both) but the discussion it provoked made me think a bit. Particular answers given by different people were rather interesting.
For example, Sam Potter. A highly rational (and, it has to be said, cynical) individual who considers intelligent design a pet peeve and Richard Dawkins a personal hero. He reasoned that, to a human, a human life should come above all else. This is especially the case when the life in question is that of a child, even more so if that hypothetical child is one's own.
Sam Stafford, on the other hand, felt that all life was precious. While he would obviously allow some level of animal death to save a human life, he argued vehemently against the “10,000 dolphins” scenario. He took a similar stance when ideas such as battery farming came up, I think. If I'm wrong, I'm sure he'll correct me in the comments.
For my part, I refused to take a side. As I said above, there's no way to give an exact answer to a question such as this and I feel that there isn't much use trying. Would I kill an animal - be it a dolphin, a gorilla, a platypus, whatever - to save a person? Yes, I would. Would I wipe out a species? No, almost certainly not.* Anything in between is very much a grey area. I'd have to analyse the situation and come to my own conclusions.
It's rather odd that the only absolute I hold to be true is that there are no absolutes. There are obvious extremes of right and wrong, morality and immorality, but those are just the ends of a long and complicated scale that you have to judge, and maybe even invent, for yourself.
Today's drive-by philosophy aside, I have a few other things to mention. I'm still kind of overwhelmed with Computing stuff. I really wish I'd made a note that I had to do that Visual BASIC during the holidays. Oh well. Might get a bit more done tonight.
And speaking of Computing, today was Wellington's first ever Computing Club meeting! Okay, so it doesn't really deserve an exclamation mark, ironic or not, but it was surprisingly fun nonetheless. Basically, the aforementioned Sams and I (plus Jimerson, the other Advanced Higher Computing student who was away today) go along to the Computing labs at lunch and walk a bunch of First Years through creating simple web pages and Flash animations.
Today was the first meeting and a whole bunch of wee folk came along and chose what they wanted to do and we explained it to them, with the help of textbooks, the occasional assistance of a teacher and our own vast stores of intellect and experience.
Next week, Sam Stafford's going to give a little presentation on Flash animation (he showed off some stick men this afternoon but didn't have time to get much done) and I think I'm meant to help in some way. I figure I'll flick through Flash for Dummies and then show 'em a Homestar Runner 'toon. We also need to get some video recorded that they can fiddle around with in Windows Movie Maker. If it was good enough for Resident Amarillo, it's good enough for... whatever they're gonna do with it.
I'll probably have more to say about that as work and plans progress. I'll admit that I'm starting to feel some pressure to pad out my extra-curricular stuff for university applications but I would have done this anyway. I just enjoy working with kids and showing them new stuff, hence why I'm also doing Maths mentoring on Fridays. It helps that I get the two funniest kids in S2 to work with but, again, I would have done it anyway. I think I might want to be a teacher some day. Computer engineering and then teaching. It worked well enough for Woz.
Anyway, I have to go and do some coding stuff. Or maybe just go to bed and tell my teacher that I did some coding stuff tomorrow... no, I feel like getting it done. Another ten pages maybe. Also, I've just realised that I probably ought to go and write something at the MacTake on the new iPods and various other recently released tidbits of Apple news.
"If you had to, would you kill 10,000 dolphins to save a single human child?
If you think that's a bit extreme, then consider this: how many animals of a given species would you be willing to sacrifice to save a single human life?"
I can't really attempt to give a neat, precise answer (which is probably an indicator of either a very deep or very ridiculous question, possibly both) but the discussion it provoked made me think a bit. Particular answers given by different people were rather interesting.
For example, Sam Potter. A highly rational (and, it has to be said, cynical) individual who considers intelligent design a pet peeve and Richard Dawkins a personal hero. He reasoned that, to a human, a human life should come above all else. This is especially the case when the life in question is that of a child, even more so if that hypothetical child is one's own.
Sam Stafford, on the other hand, felt that all life was precious. While he would obviously allow some level of animal death to save a human life, he argued vehemently against the “10,000 dolphins” scenario. He took a similar stance when ideas such as battery farming came up, I think. If I'm wrong, I'm sure he'll correct me in the comments.
For my part, I refused to take a side. As I said above, there's no way to give an exact answer to a question such as this and I feel that there isn't much use trying. Would I kill an animal - be it a dolphin, a gorilla, a platypus, whatever - to save a person? Yes, I would. Would I wipe out a species? No, almost certainly not.* Anything in between is very much a grey area. I'd have to analyse the situation and come to my own conclusions.
It's rather odd that the only absolute I hold to be true is that there are no absolutes. There are obvious extremes of right and wrong, morality and immorality, but those are just the ends of a long and complicated scale that you have to judge, and maybe even invent, for yourself.
Today's drive-by philosophy aside, I have a few other things to mention. I'm still kind of overwhelmed with Computing stuff. I really wish I'd made a note that I had to do that Visual BASIC during the holidays. Oh well. Might get a bit more done tonight.
And speaking of Computing, today was Wellington's first ever Computing Club meeting! Okay, so it doesn't really deserve an exclamation mark, ironic or not, but it was surprisingly fun nonetheless. Basically, the aforementioned Sams and I (plus Jimerson, the other Advanced Higher Computing student who was away today) go along to the Computing labs at lunch and walk a bunch of First Years through creating simple web pages and Flash animations.
Today was the first meeting and a whole bunch of wee folk came along and chose what they wanted to do and we explained it to them, with the help of textbooks, the occasional assistance of a teacher and our own vast stores of intellect and experience.
Next week, Sam Stafford's going to give a little presentation on Flash animation (he showed off some stick men this afternoon but didn't have time to get much done) and I think I'm meant to help in some way. I figure I'll flick through Flash for Dummies and then show 'em a Homestar Runner 'toon. We also need to get some video recorded that they can fiddle around with in Windows Movie Maker. If it was good enough for Resident Amarillo, it's good enough for... whatever they're gonna do with it.
I'll probably have more to say about that as work and plans progress. I'll admit that I'm starting to feel some pressure to pad out my extra-curricular stuff for university applications but I would have done this anyway. I just enjoy working with kids and showing them new stuff, hence why I'm also doing Maths mentoring on Fridays. It helps that I get the two funniest kids in S2 to work with but, again, I would have done it anyway. I think I might want to be a teacher some day. Computer engineering and then teaching. It worked well enough for Woz.
Anyway, I have to go and do some coding stuff. Or maybe just go to bed and tell my teacher that I did some coding stuff tomorrow... no, I feel like getting it done. Another ten pages maybe. Also, I've just realised that I probably ought to go and write something at the MacTake on the new iPods and various other recently released tidbits of Apple news.
posted by Alasdair Corbett at
10:50 PM
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