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Well the thing is, the metric is intelligence. We are on a whole other platform in comparison to any other animal. In fact Kasz is saying that the difference in intelligence between us and other animals is comparable to the difference in intelligence between other animals and plants. Now that is IMO a pretty arguable claim, but I agree with the general idea he is trying to get across.

If he said we are that special in eyesight compared to other animals, you would be right to object.

If you object to his judging the value of human life vs. that of animals or plants by intelligence rather than eyesight or whatever, that's a completely different debate and maybe an interesting one. But you should make it clear if that's what you're doing.

...

Oh wait, in your last post that is exactly what you did. OK, well first of all you are wrong that there is anything out there which has a trait rarer than our intelligence that is completely unique to our species (on Earth, to a reasonable degree of certainty).

Next, I am interested in what you think would be more special than such intelligence. Natural radar? I guess that would be more remarkable because it is not just a "stepped-up" version of something other species have, no matter how dramatically stepped-up it is. But ultimately, why would that make it more special? Why would anything be more valuable or "special" than intelligence? I could talk about all the interesting things intelligent life could do, but you could say with some justification that a completely arbitrary standard might think it didn't matter as much as a being that could fart rainbows. But even by a totally uncaring viewpoint, human intelligence is the direct cause of spectacular biological changes. Aside from our own sudden spread and dominance and city-building, all the stuff we've done to biospheres across the planet is just amazing -- not necessarily good, but very, very special and (off the top of my head) simply unprecedented. The only things that even come close, I think, are oxygen-giving microbes, and maybe grass.

Anyway, to address your point comparing it to the console wars or cultures thinking they are far superior, both of those can be debunked by the fact that none of those consoles are on a completely different level from what they are claiming they are superior to. Unless the console war you refer to is the Atari 2600 vs. the PS3.



Tag (courtesy of fkusumot): "Please feel free -- nay, I encourage you -- to offer rebuttal."
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