“Why must destroying a conscious model be considered cruel if it wouldn’t have even been created otherwise, and it died painlessly? I mean, I understand the visceral revulsion to this idea, but that sort of utilitarian ethos is the only one that makes sense to me rationally.” -Anonymous Coward
Should your parents have the right to kill you now, if they do so painlessly? After all, if it wasn’t for them, you wouldn’t have been brought into existence anyway, so you would still come out ahead.
This is a great post. I didn’t realize how much my values were shaped by early childhood fiction until I read this. The ability of Donatello (from TMNT) to use his reasoning ability to fight evil really encouraged me to learn “science”. I suppose I should be grateful for Saturday morning cartoons for making me value reason as much as I do.