Sorry if my question was weird.
And no, I am not some human’s pet that just became intelligent and took over their Lemmy account. 😺
They will probably be their own nation with their own laws on what is fair and what is not based on their values. I assume a new sentient specie will not have the same views and values as humans.
It’s an interesting idea. If they always were intelligent, then yes, they’d probably have their own nation, or maybe they’d even be integrated with us in a society that accommodates for both of our form factors, but I’m sure there’d be terrible racism concerns because if we’re this bad to people who look relatively similar to each other, then we’d be just terrible to a very different intelligent race.
But, if they suddenly became sentient through some sci Fi artifact or event, that’d be a whole other thing, and the process and debate of giving them rights and what to do about it would be complex and an ethical minefield on what to do or don’t do. Probably planet of the apes. But with cats and dogs.
They’ll be persecuted and discriminated
I mostly agree with the comment, however, mammals are already sentient. Our current laws are massively influenced by us not really understanding them and by ideas such as non-humans essentially being “living machines”, created as servants to humanity.
They are already sentient but have not the intelligence of a average developed human. Pigs for example are sentient but their intelligence is like that of a 3 year old human.
I knew how to read some words at 3 years old
killing pigs feels wrong
Of course it feels wrong, they’re living creatures. We should develop lab meat as a priority, but for now they must use hormones from cow fetuses to make it grow, which kind of defeats the purpose…
Lab meat would only benefit first world countries. The others would have to pay fortunes for licensing the techniques, and that’s if the developing countries ever get to the point where they can use the process.
All animals are sentient. Smarts/intelligence is what varies. We got the most of the smarts that we know of.
So those who remain in their country of origin, during the first waves of this development, would surely have to be given he right to vote etc?
No. There are already plenty examples of this. Thinking this will happen in the near future (100 years) is a fairytale.
As long as you don’t have vocal cords capable of creating effective speech and you don’t have appendages with which is possible to create and use tools you’re fucked.
Examples? Plenty, let’s go:
Pig: As intelligent as a 6 year old. What we do to them makes Auswitz looks like summer camp.
Dolphins: pushed into a bay and murdered by the hundreds. Thousands (millions?) die each year in the nets of our floating fishing factories. Their intellect is at least that of a 6 year old and most probably way more.
Whales: hunted to virtual extinction. Way more intelligent then a 6 year old.
Elephants: show clear sociological traits. Remembers stuff over a long time. Grieve over death. Hunted for their big ass teeth.
Apes: our close relatives. Hunted for meat. Most species of them easily operate at 10-12 year old level. Can use tools but can not create them. At the current path they’re on in the wild (extinction). They will never reach the stone age.
We rule. Harshly.
Don’t forget our corvid friends. Crows and ravens are very good at problem solving and abstract thinking.
Fuck Humans
that may exacerbate things.
Absolutely.
Humans would never grant rights to a species that could outbreed us in a decade.
Yes, intelligence is intelligence. There’s nothing about the rest of the body that the brain is encased in that makes one more or less deserving of rights.
If a human has the intelligence of a dog, they should have the same rights as a dog?
While not technically, practically they do yes. If someone has developmental issues they generally aren’t afforded the same rights as the average adult human.
Looks like something someone without opposable thumbs would type.
Rights have nothing to do with intelligence, otherwise people like Trump or Andrew Tate would have ~0 rights.
Of course it does. It’s why children and the mentally handicapped can’t sign into contracts and can’t consent to sex among other things.
In addition, I’m willing to bet both of those people are probably 1 or 2 standard deviations above average intelligence. Just because they say stupid things does not make them stupid.
I personally think they’re both modern geniuses in the sense that they learned how to grift in the new social media era better than so many others. Trump with his at the time unique use of social media and simple repetitive speeches while I was impressed at Tate’s ban evasion strategy.
Tate created a sort of pyramid scheme after he got banned from everywhere online. His people were encouraged to spread his content in order to get more sign-ups for his pyramid scheme. They would get a % of the revenue from sign-ups. So for a good few months his face was everywhere online and he was the top google search topic in the US - even though he was banned from most social medias. Thousands of his fans would post short clips of his content to YouTube, reddit, Instagram, etc.
Tate also has an impressive power of manipulation with certain types of women. He has managed to convince dozens of very attractive women to come from the across the world to essentially prostitute themselves online for him.
Of course, both broke the law with total disregard. Trump in too many ways to count and Tate by using fraud and coercion to maintain his control over the women (ie sex trafficking)… but honestly I’m impressed at both of them.
I think we need good guys who have balls and are creative with social media. Why is it only the nutters who are successful like this?
Because you have to be a manipulative cunt to do shit like this.
Hey, a little show business and flair for the dramatic for a good cause can be considered manipulation but I think it would be good. Imagine a socialist Trump who isn’t afraid to blast people and is able to get all the attention Trump does.
I’d rather have a decent person who doesn’t r*pe minors
I agree. A tendency for raping minors is definitely not a desirable trait in a leader.
Really I want a controversial leftist populist who is good with modern media. Maybe it’d be dangerous but I’d imagine no more dangerous than Trump and his death cult.
I’m so tired of the media circus shit. I wish we could elect someone utterly boring and pragmatic :(
Humans go out of their way to mistreat and abuse other humans. If cats and dogs became as intelligent as humans, some dickhead leader of a leading religious cults would label them satan/ abomination/ equivalent b.s. and call to have them exterminated. and/or capitalists would lobby to deny them rights and pass laws to profit off them & their labour.
If they became more intelligent than us, would they pick up our poo?
Yes, absolutely they should have rights.
In some countries (like France, iirc), chimps are recognized as having civil rights. They don’t have identical rights to humans of course. They don’t have the same rights as a human, but they are recognized as having rights as individuals.
Although the US hasn’t recognized that, yet, it has effectively banned chimpanzee research. You basically cannot get funded for chimpanzee research unless you a) demonstrate they are necessary for the research and b) you pass a review board similar to a human subjects review board who are charged with maintaining ethical research standards. I don’t do primate research, so I’m not sure of all of the details, but with human subjects boards you have to show that not only does your research. avoid harming humans, the subjects themselves must benefit from your work, if it is health related. When the new rules were passed, most research chimps were retired to preserves
So if there was a l other animal with fully human intelligence, there’s legal precedent to recognize that they have inherent dignity and rights.
Parts of the US struggle to offer an adequate level of rights to its human residents.
And they haven’t signed the International Declaration of Human Rights. Apparently declaring work and housing as human rights “goes too far”.
No country opposed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Every country that was a UN member at the time either voted in favor of it, or abstained because they believed it didn’t go far enough to include denying human rights to nazis and fascists.
Although, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights itself isn’t legally binding. It’s just a joint statement by UN members declaring what is considered human rights. It’s not like a violation of International Laws if they just ignore what they said. (Even if it were an international law, who’s gonna enforce it?)
The Third General Assembly adopted the Declaration just before midnight on December 10, 1948 with a vote of 48 to zero and eight abstentions. The abstentions came from the USSR, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (UKSSR), the BSSR, Yugoslavia, Poland, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.
The Six Communist Abstentions
The Communist abstentions coalesced around the view that the Declaration did not go far enough. They had repeatedly made the point that to protect human rights adequately, the Declaration needed explicitly to condemn fascism and Nazism. Since it did not do that, they would abstain from the vote. The deep animosity that exists between Marxist egalitarianism and Nazi racism led the USSR delegation to propose amendments to what became Articles 19 and 20 stating that fascists and Nazis did not have human rights to freedom of expression and association. When those amendments were rejected, the Communists, rather than abstaining, which was their custom, voted against these articles.
https://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/mmt/udhr/udhr_general/drafting_history_10.html
I mean, cats are pretty much little space wizards and they know damn well they’ll have to start finding odd cat jobs and paying rent if we catch on to them being more intelligent than us. They got it figured out.
Why not? Some cultures such as the Greeks already did this for dolphins because of the idea dolphins have human level intelligence.
And no, I am not some human’s pet that just became intelligent and took over their Lemmy account. 😺
If one of my cats took over my Lemmy account, you’d know it for sure. One of them would be always silent, lurking; the other would be spamming stupid shit about yoghurt, towels and boxes, in German.
If cats and dogs became as intelligent as humans, should they have the same rights as humans under law?
Under the moral premise that intelligent beings should get similar rights, yes. Thankfully people don’t usually follow this premise - otherwise mentally disabled people would suffer even more.
Instead I think that most people follow some sort of “naive Realpolitik” - we’re humans and we defend human interests, that’s it. In this case cats/dogs would likely get rights above most other animals (as allied species), but still lower than our own.
I’m not sure on what I would defend in this case.
If a human has deficiencies from birth or after an accident, should they have the same rights under laws?
Intelligence is a term too vague to be of use for the comparison of species. If you were tasked with finding the next waterhole in an arid landscape you might not be found very intelligent compared with a whole range of other species. Or if the proof of intelligence was to manage a planet in a sustainable way.
Rights are difficult. Basically we have, gradually, invaded a lot of spaces once occupied by other species, and keep invading more. Giving rights to dogs, cats, whales or horses is an invader giving rights to the invaded. On the other hand, as we keep turning the temperature of the planet up, we worsen the conditions for ourselves and some bug, fungus, microbe or lizard might prove to be the next big thing after mammals had their chance?
