= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Randaly comments on Humans are utility monsters - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (213)
I am fairly confident that I haven't understood your point, as it doesn't seem to me to address the discussion above. My interpretation of your post is that it claims that people engaged in ancestor worship were factually wrong about whether their dead ancestors still counted as humans- e.g. whether or not they experienced anything. However, this is irrelevant to the question under discussion- of whether or not ancestor worship is a counter-example to the claim that most people throughout history haven't cared about non-humans. All that matters for this claim is whether or not most ancestor-worshippers thought that their ancestors qualified as people.
I think the point that fubarobfusco was trying to make with that was a partial refutation of the "narrowing circle" thesis that says we care less about people not like us today than in the past. S/he was trying to say, "we haven't stopped caring about anyone we used to care about, we've just stopped believing in them. If we still believed our dead ancestors had feelings, we'd still care about them."
You're correct that all that matters for the question "did ancestor-worshippers care for non-humans" is whether the ancestor-worshippers thought their ancestors were human.