“Disease” is just a label we gave another species. Just like a “predator” is just a label. Humanity cannot commit suicide because somebody convinces us to label ourselves with a word. That’s just being gullible.
disagree—disease-the-label is not the same thing as disease-the-set-of-physical-object-behaviors-referred-to-by-the-label, but reference and referent need to be separate in your physical language and bound tightly causally, by “gears model” as they say around these parts sometimes. humanity attacking other species of physics-gliders is generally not good, and if one says “hey, you are being <word that describes consuming other gliders for fuel in the local reference system of the speaker>” then I’d assume they’re mad at us for eating them.
In general, I think “eating” is a pretty fundamentally natural concept: pushing through the boundaries of a near-target-state system and converting it wholesale into another form. an agent protecting the original form will see the agent protecting the new form as a destroyer only, not also a creator. we need to be able to define agent boundaries, and coherent rules agents can agree on that, once agreed on, provide their local relationship network a way to implement a safe group agent that preserves and enhances their individual safety guarantees rather than making them worse. that means, among other things, that another species demanding we not eat them is actually a very reasonable request that we must bind ourselves to, provably.
“Disease” is just a label we gave another species. Just like a “predator” is just a label. Humanity cannot commit suicide because somebody convinces us to label ourselves with a word. That’s just being gullible.
Compare with current culture wars. There are plenty of gullible people around, ready to accept all the mud thrown at them and beg for more.
ETA: For example, Gianni Infantino.
disagree—disease-the-label is not the same thing as disease-the-set-of-physical-object-behaviors-referred-to-by-the-label, but reference and referent need to be separate in your physical language and bound tightly causally, by “gears model” as they say around these parts sometimes. humanity attacking other species of physics-gliders is generally not good, and if one says “hey, you are being <word that describes consuming other gliders for fuel in the local reference system of the speaker>” then I’d assume they’re mad at us for eating them.
In general, I think “eating” is a pretty fundamentally natural concept: pushing through the boundaries of a near-target-state system and converting it wholesale into another form. an agent protecting the original form will see the agent protecting the new form as a destroyer only, not also a creator. we need to be able to define agent boundaries, and coherent rules agents can agree on that, once agreed on, provide their local relationship network a way to implement a safe group agent that preserves and enhances their individual safety guarantees rather than making them worse. that means, among other things, that another species demanding we not eat them is actually a very reasonable request that we must bind ourselves to, provably.