Back in the days it was humane to make many children because most of them would die. Today it may be more humane to make only a few but to invest more time into each.
I guess that depends on how you like to define humanity, doesn't it? If it's simply being a general sort of shape, or having a particular set of DNA, then perhaps being human is a simple yes/no. This creature isn't human, that creature is.
If you like to define humanity as an ideal, or a process, or a goal, or some other such, then it becomes much more of a spectrum.
All that said, anyone who does think in terms of binary when it comes to humanity needs keeping an eye on.
> So for the vast majority of history we weren’t human?
For any definition of "human" that is objective and universal, yes.
If you swore fealty to the wrong lord, worshiped the wrong god, were born into the wrong clan, ethnic group or state, you were considered something less than human. And of course, nobles claimed descent from divinity, making them more than human.
The concept of a common humanity with inalienable rights is relatively modern and in many places still controversial.
This is very true in Indian caste system. In fact in indian caste ladder system, one become lesser human as one takes birth in the lesser caste hierarchy. Except the Brahmin community in the indian caste system others castes are denied education as per the vedas. During the british rule everone got access to education and every one is trying to be a equal human fighting the caste system.
The death of a man does not make him a saint. Having good words for his family and friends is alright, but I see praises everywhere for Kofi Annan, and my perception is quite different.
He was a charismatic diplomat, but an extremely ineffective and spineless leader, whose errors damaged the credibility of the UN and had a responsibility in millions of civilian deaths.
The UN peacekeepers did nothing to stop or even slow the genocide in Rwanda (about 800,000 killed in a few months), and that was mainly Annan's responsibility. The same passivity was seen in Bosnia and Somalia under his control. When he was UN's First Secretary, he did say the US invasion of Irak was illegal, but spoke very softly against it, embraced a few lies of the Bush administration, then quickly sided with the occupying forces. Kofi Annan was also involved a scandal about the Swiss firm that employed his son and won contracts with the UN: the UN internal investigation judged there was no proof he intervened, but that his personal actions were inadequate when the accusations emerged. It was recently discovered that his son used offshore companies in Panama to hide his money.
I believe that, among the Peace Nobel-prize winners, he will be remembered to the sides of Kissinger, Obama or Suu Kyii, though it was more for his passivity that he failed to contribute to peace and human rights.
You don't know how U.N millitary forces work. They get "final" orders from their origin country not from the UN president. The country leaders didn't want to risk the lifes of their mil people so they backed off. UN is more a "voluntary" club with very little power(see the Iraq war)
As far as the saints are concerned I don't think people want or vote for saints...just look at our leaders! Ha ha! Saint Trump, Saint Putin, Saint Orban, Saint Duterte...
Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize at the same moment he was editing his kill list. We live in strange times where the team you're on is more important than truth or reality.
> He was a charismatic diplomat, but an extremely ineffective and spineless leader, whose errors damaged the credibility of the UN and had a responsibility in millions of civilian deaths.
I have to agree with this. Although I think you will be 'pissing in the wind' with this binary good/bad internet.
He was a completely ineffective leader of his organization during the whole WMD affair and the resulting weeks before and after the second Iraq conflict.
I see political news flagged faster and harder. Was David Bowie's death flagged?
IMHO, despite all the work done here on censorship and topic management, I've experienced a greater level of meanspiritedness and unkind comments here than on any other comment forum I've frequented.
Perhaps that's >why< there is such a presence and the need to shut down check potentially conttroversial topics. It begs the question of what is different on this forum.
I know I flagged it, I flag every death thread I see.
Some of these threads generate interesting discussion, but most of them just descend into maudlin nonsense, nostalgia or a cesspool of political or pop-cultural references. If these people weren't worth discussing on Hacker News when they were alive - and let's be honest, most of them haven't been, then their deaths shouldn't be worth discussing either.
The first thing I thought of when I heard about this was how surprised I was that he was still alive, given his very unhealthy daily breakfast of a coffee and a naan.
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[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 82.8 ms ] threadBack in the days it was humane to make many children because most of them would die. Today it may be more humane to make only a few but to invest more time into each.
If you like to define humanity as an ideal, or a process, or a goal, or some other such, then it becomes much more of a spectrum.
All that said, anyone who does think in terms of binary when it comes to humanity needs keeping an eye on.
For any definition of "human" that is objective and universal, yes.
If you swore fealty to the wrong lord, worshiped the wrong god, were born into the wrong clan, ethnic group or state, you were considered something less than human. And of course, nobles claimed descent from divinity, making them more than human.
The concept of a common humanity with inalienable rights is relatively modern and in many places still controversial.
He was a charismatic diplomat, but an extremely ineffective and spineless leader, whose errors damaged the credibility of the UN and had a responsibility in millions of civilian deaths.
The UN peacekeepers did nothing to stop or even slow the genocide in Rwanda (about 800,000 killed in a few months), and that was mainly Annan's responsibility. The same passivity was seen in Bosnia and Somalia under his control. When he was UN's First Secretary, he did say the US invasion of Irak was illegal, but spoke very softly against it, embraced a few lies of the Bush administration, then quickly sided with the occupying forces. Kofi Annan was also involved a scandal about the Swiss firm that employed his son and won contracts with the UN: the UN internal investigation judged there was no proof he intervened, but that his personal actions were inadequate when the accusations emerged. It was recently discovered that his son used offshore companies in Panama to hide his money.
I believe that, among the Peace Nobel-prize winners, he will be remembered to the sides of Kissinger, Obama or Suu Kyii, though it was more for his passivity that he failed to contribute to peace and human rights.
As far as the saints are concerned I don't think people want or vote for saints...just look at our leaders! Ha ha! Saint Trump, Saint Putin, Saint Orban, Saint Duterte...
I have to agree with this. Although I think you will be 'pissing in the wind' with this binary good/bad internet.
He was a completely ineffective leader of his organization during the whole WMD affair and the resulting weeks before and after the second Iraq conflict.
I sometimes see political news on HN, I don’t think I’ve ever seen pop culture news.
IMHO, despite all the work done here on censorship and topic management, I've experienced a greater level of meanspiritedness and unkind comments here than on any other comment forum I've frequented.
Perhaps that's >why< there is such a presence and the need to shut down check potentially conttroversial topics. It begs the question of what is different on this forum.
I am happy to keep such main stream news off the FP.
I am suggesting these threads were not controversial and were flagged down because they are boring.
I know I flagged it, I flag every death thread I see.
Some of these threads generate interesting discussion, but most of them just descend into maudlin nonsense, nostalgia or a cesspool of political or pop-cultural references. If these people weren't worth discussing on Hacker News when they were alive - and let's be honest, most of them haven't been, then their deaths shouldn't be worth discussing either.
What would you like for breakfast Kofi Annan?
Yes please!
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n09/perry-anderson/our-man
'Man of peace'....indeed...