/sci/ - Science & Math

Shaved bear for good measure.

warm fuzzy feeling

>>4348631
Both provide opportunities to test human-replacement parts on.

It varies from person to person. Some handicapped people are quite useful and intelligent. Some retards can still do manual labor and live on there own.

The real question should be "From a logical standpoint, explain the benefits of keeping mentally useless, and greedy people alive."

>ethics
>logical

From a logical standpoint, explain the benefits of keeping the op alive.

Stephen Hawking is physically handicapped and he has much to offer the world. With the society we have today, culling the strong mentally handicapped people would be bad for many other people's emotional health. And those who are weakly mentally handicapped can still function in society, down syndrome etc.

>>4348631
> explain the benefits

Benefit: We don't live in a barbaric culture.

>From a logical standpoint, explain the benefits of keeping mentally handicapped and physically disabled people alive.
>benefits of keeping physically disabled people alive

Stephen Hawking

That drooling crippled motherfucker contributed more in a few years than you will in your entire life. The real question is, what are the benefits of keeping you alive? You're breathing our air, consuming our resources, contributing to pollution, and may one day go on to produce several more faggot OPs.

>>4348647
>>4348644
I should rephrase that, since now I notice I didn't convey what I was looking for too well. I mean completely useless, practically vegetable kind of handicapped, what benefits are there to keeping them?

>>4348655
>buttmad hawkingfag

OK next question: from a logical standpoint, explain why people should be kept alive based on the benefits of doing so.

>>4348656
Many humans don't want to let go. Religousfags hope for miracles and logicfags hope for advancements in tech and medicine to one day bring them out of their current state.

Genetic testing, understanding how our genes work and how mutations affect us.

Other than that, nothing.

>>4348661
>drooling crippled motherfucker
>buttmad hawkingfag

lol

>>4348656
If it is absolutely certain that nothing can ever be done for them, then there is no benefit. Harvest them for organs.


>>4348666
Any such system will become corrupt and tyrannical. There are no real benefits.

>>4348656
no benefit for a brain dead person being kept alive by machines. Because, technically they aren't really alive. Benefits of keeping your baby born with no high functioning cognitive abilities (can breath, can't talk or have much of a thought)? well none really, but most normal human beings don't kill their own children.

It's well known that when someone has a mental or physical handicap, the rest of the senses become heightened to make up for the loss.
A person who got brain injury in an area that focuses toward hearing, speach, or other senses will become almost superhuman toward in other areas like math and problem-solving skills and music. It is similar how to an autistic person like Einstein can be a genius in skills he focuses on.
By keeping these mentally/physically handicapped people, we will be enabled to study in the changes the brain makes and perhaps accumulate enough knowledge to develop drugs that will enable us to unlock these same aspects to non-crippled, normal people to create a superhuman race in which everyone can be an Eienstein or Mozart with little effort.

/thread

>>4348649

Albeit trite, this is the correct answer. The benefits of a society that values the lives of the individuals over the optimum allocation of resources is also going to be one that is not a dictatorship. While it is possible for a dictatorship to value the lives of individuals, it's far less likely.

In the past, societies that value the freedoms of the individual have inevitably been the more successful.

The drain lost to those with mental handicaps, while sizable, is a drop in the bucket compared to the costs you'd incur in every area of life for exterminating them.

>>4348688
>no benefit for a brain dead person being kept alive by machines. Because, technically they aren't really alive
>brain dead
>technically they aren't really alive
>technically

>implicitly defines human life in terms of philosophical consciousness
>uses term "technically"

oh you

entertainment

>>4348699
>no high or low functioning brain processes
>no chance of recovery
>alive


I suppose you believe that Terri Schiavo should have been kept on life support...I'm all for human compassion but what would it benefit the individual in question to keep them lingering around in such a state?

>>4348722

If the technology does develop to restore their damaged brain, it could potentially restore them to awareness. Given the rate of technological development, we could see technology/treatments to cure many such incidents before the decade is out.

Not that I necessarily agree on the concept of supporting what is essentially a pile of tissues at that point, no more human than any of its component organs, but it's still a potentially valid argument.

>>4348638
Off topic, but the bear wasn't shaved. Instead, it has some sort of balding condition and no one seems to be able to understand why.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/12/091208-bald-bear-picture.html
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2009-12/germany-zoo-bears-struck-mystery-baldness

Okay. Continue.

>>4348722
You missed the point. The term "technically alive" is nonsensical in that context. Yeah, braindead is dead, but it's not a technical view.

Fwiw, I think they should have unplugged Schiavo right at the start. The fact that they passed emergency legislation to prevent it just shows how fucking religiously retarded the politicians are.

>from a logical standpoint, explain things governed by emotion

>> Anonymous 02/09/12(Thu)22:45 No.4348770
I JUST WANNA SMELL UR GRANDMAS SMELLY FILTHY CHEESE LADEN CUNT ON MY 20 INCH MORNING SMELLY FUCKING WOOD
I SMELL LIKE HULK HOGANS BUTTHOLE WHEN HES POOPING OUT DICKS

>>4348722
>>4348747
>Life =>
>1. Must have DNA which is programmed to duplicate itself across generations
>2. Adapts to environmental changes
>3. Organized with compartmentalized functions
>4. Must be able to receive energy from environment and change it to one form or another
>5. Must have the ability to restore (even if only partially) bodily areas prone to damage (ie. skin)
>6. Must respond to external stimuli through some sort of response mechanism
>7. Must maintain many seperate metabolic processes

I believe 6 and 7 are the debated criteria. A vegetative state invokes the ambiguous concept of being unconsciously alert Many vegetables are unable to respond to external stimuli (whether that means that they don't experience it or they are are unable to communicate their experience to the outside world is up for debate, but perhaps that's best left to another thread, eh?) while at the same time are not actually brain dead, implying that they are not truly "dead."
They are also unable to maintain their own metabolic processes, relying on machines to keep them from dying.
So let's recap: People in a vegetative state do not meet two of the seven criteria for a living organism, yet they are not dead. Do you see the problem here?
You're arguing about the definition of the terms rather than the premise.

>>4348789

>Human
>Logical

Please. We're evolved from animal not descended from Eden.

>From a logical standpoint, explain the benefits of keeping mentally handicapped and physically disabled people alive.

None. Of course it gives warm fuzzy feelings inside but we get none in return of investment. Nothing should be free, we should kill these moochers of society!!!!!!!

>>4348863
But there is still a lot that we can learn from them and their condition that is potentially applicable to the rest of society. I'm not implying experimentation (Good luck getting that past legislature) but running some tests to learn more about how the brain functions under such conditions may offer beneficial insights into the behavior of neurons and synapses.

From a logical standpoint, explain the benefits of keeping a 55 year old man with clogged arteries or liver cancer because he's an alcoholic alive. explain the benefits of keeping serial rapists alive. explain the benefits of keeping the internal combustion engine alive.

>>4348631

in a restricted darwinian sense we get nothing, if we consider only the "kill or get killed" way of living.
but since we suck at wilderness survival and we have developed a massive brain to cope with it, the answer is not immediately "burn them all" but rather select them for their merits.
so the physically impaired but mentally valid would have more chances in a modern society while the mentally impaired but physically able should be used for low mental challenge physical labor.

There are mental health benefits for everyone when living in a society where your life doesn't depend on your utility.

Mentally handicapped can be of use for their physical attributes.
Physically handicapped can be of use for their mental attributes.

>>4348631
because they are anomalies,we can study them to see what precisely cased this anomaly, and how it could be exploited or corrected.

We should use braindead people for vivisection and drug testing purposes.