Granting that humans and paperclips are sentient doesn't imply that no other things are sentient.
True.
How are you defining 'sentient', anyway?
sentient(X) = "structured such that X is, or could converge on through self-modification, the ultimate purpose of existence"
Not a perfect definition, but a lot better than, "X responds to its environment, and an ape brain is wired to like X".
If you're going to use an unusual definition of a word like that, it's usually a good idea to make that clear up front, so that you don't get into this kind of pointless argument.
Update: This post has also been superseded - new comments belong in the latest thread.
The second thread has now also exceeded 500 comments, so after 42 chapters of MoR it's time for a new thread.
From the first thread: