11 KiB
Pokemon: The Origin of Species, Chapter 5
-
Author: u/DaystarEld Pokémon Professor*
-
URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9794740/5/Pokemon-The-Origin-of-Species
-
Score: 14
-
Created: 2014-01-27T23:35:00
Post:
Comments:
u/4t0m [+2] Chaos Legion (5 minutes later)
Red's argument for humans being more important assumes its conclusion in its premises. If you're going by the effect the death has on others, why are they rating the deaths of both groups by their effects on humans, rather than rating the affect on a pokemon of the death of another pokemon? Also, the argument defines value of a life solely as its effects on other lives, so in that system it wouldn't be immoral to kill a homeless person with no friends, or kill someone and trick everyone into thinking they aren't dead.
Obviously you can have him be wrong if you want, but it annoyed me.
Typo: "Keep laughing when after I catch one" When or after, pick one.
u/4t0m [+1] Chaos Legion (10 minutes later)
And the last line probably shouldn't be there.
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (19 minutes later)
<.<
Shhhhh... waves hand you didn't see anything... fades away
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (17 minutes later)
If you're going by the effect the death has on others, why are they rating the deaths of both groups by their effects on humans, rather than rating the affect on a pokemon of the death of another pokemon?
Yes, that's part of the hierarchy of his values: human suffering is more important than pokemon suffering, so it would take quite a lot of pokemon suffering to be an equivalent exchange for some human suffering. Just how much is something Red hasn't really had to explore, yet.
Also, the argument defines value of a life solely as its effects on other lives, so in that system it wouldn't be immoral to kill a homeless person with no friends, or kill someone and trick everyone into thinking they aren't dead.
Not the value of a life: just the impact of a death. There is a distinction, and as the argument is specifically about the death of a human vs a pokemon, killing homeless people or tricking people into thinking someone isn't dead is not really relevant.
There are, rest assured, many other reasons why Red would be against those activities.
Obviously you can have him be wrong if you want, but it annoyed me.
Oh yeah, I don't expect this to be a popular opinion :P
Typo: "Keep laughing when after I catch one" When or after, pick one.
Fixed, thanks!
u/4t0m [+1] Chaos Legion (25 minutes later)
He gives it as a justification for why he wouldn't care about experiments being done on his charmander.
It seems like the argument is:
People are more sad when people die than when pokemon die.
Therefore human deaths are more important than pokemon deaths.
But premise one assumes that human suffering is more important than pokemon suffering by only considering how humans feel about the deaths. Do you see what I mean? You can't have the premise and conclusion of an argument be the same?
u/None [+2] (13 days later)
Premise one is not a premise, but an observation. The situation is not a hypothetical. He has empirically observed this experiment, and the fact is that human deaths make him sadder than pokemon deaths. Our morality is a black box we examine through a game of twenty questions. Sometimes we can notice patterns very strongly and be confident in what we feel is right. Other times we find to our surprise that we aren't bothered by things we expected to be bothered by, and have to search for why, or the reverse. But the observational fact of it remains, and tells us something about the flaws in our hypothesis, and the nature of the box.
u/Timewinders [+1] (34 minutes later)
Red cares more about people than about pokemon for emotional reasons; he hasn't had any close relationships with pokemon before. Like Leaf said, that will probably change when he gets to know his own pokemon better, but even then he will still care more about strangers than about their pokemon, unless perhaps those strangers are assholes.
u/4t0m [+2] Chaos Legion (42 minutes later)
Ok, I think I know what my misunderstanding is. When he gives the example of people dying vs pokemon dying, it isn't a justification of his beliefs but a demonstration of how those beliefs are common, right?
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (44 minutes later)
I think so, unless I've missed the mark on my comment below. I think you're misapplying the logic of one argument to another, in any case, which may be my fault in how I wrote it.
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (43 minutes later)
It's not that he wouldn't care: it's that he would accept it (or thinks he would) as a means to an end.
Yes, his charmander's death would be sad. It would cause human suffering: but only to himself, or predominantly to himself.
If that experimentation was to develop something that would save a person's life however, it would be worth it to alleviate the suffering of not just that person, but all the people who know that person, suffering Red measures and believes to be on a much deeper scale.
u/someonewrongonthenet [+1] (8 hours later)
I wonder how his opinion will shift as he meets some of the pokemon with language or human / better-than-human levels of intelligence...(as in, is he just favoring his own species, or does he basing his judgement off some other attribute?)
Except I suppose that interaction won't happen unless they are wild, since you've said that the pokeballs will dumb them down to human-toddler level? (Shit, I wonder if that gives trainers who don't use pokeballs a huge edge with respect to pokemon which are smarter than toddlers...)
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (8 hours later)
This fic follows the games more closely than the anime, where very few, if any, pokemon display intelligence higher than animal, and those that do are usually legendaries.
u/someonewrongonthenet [+3] (16 hours later)
the game pokedex says alakazam's IQ is 5000, that dragonite is kindhearted and its intelligence matches that of a human, and Yamask retains all the memories of when it was human... though you could just stick to the previous generations and decide that alakazam's intelligence is too domain specific to be useful, and that dragonite matches a human in the sense that dolphins probably "match" humans, but with a different structure (which in my opinion still qualifies them for ethical concerns)...
On the other hand, the pokedex says all sorts of weird things, so you could just say the pokedex is wrong and people were anthropomorphizing when they wrote that...
u/DaystarEld [+4] Pokémon Professor (22 hours later)
On the other hand, the pokedex says all sorts of weird things, so you could just say the pokedex is wrong and people were anthropomorphizing when they wrote that...
Bingo.
Despite the pokedex's many mentions of incredibly intelligent pokemon, we never really get any evidence of this intelligence in the games from pokemon other than legendaries. Furthermore, that intelligence almost certainly gets blunted after being caught, since the pokemon become so docile and suggestible that, for the most part, a child can order them around like a plaything.
u/Anakiri [+3] (2 hours later)
It's jarring to see humans and pokemon referred to as "the two species". That's definitely not the right word, but I can't think of anything better... I'd probably just go with "the two" or "they" until I thought of something.
I certainly wasn't expecting Leaf to be a Plasma sympathizer! I see why you made her a native of Unova. That's a very good way to inject some philosophical discussion into the story, and I applaud you for it.
I also really like the little traces of color you're sprinkling around. Sit-down restaurant, dogs welcome. Birds the size of an ultralight landing on the street, whatever. Please help yourself to the ficus. Keep it up!
u/DaystarEld [+2] Pokémon Professor (2 hours later)
It's jarring to see humans and pokemon referred to as "the two species". That's definitely not the right word, but I can't think of anything better... I'd probably just go with "the two" or "they" until I thought of something.
It gets a bit complicated because on our planet, "species" are defined as being all capable of interbreeding within the same classification, but in Pokemon, the way they can interbreed is very unorganized. So you could for example say "bug species," but many bugs can also breed with water pokemon or field pokemon, who themselves are made up of practically every type in the game. But ultimately all pokemon are part of the same species, while humans are distinct from them.
I certainly wasn't expecting Leaf to be a Plasma sympathizer! I see why you made her a native of Unova. That's a very good way to inject some philosophical discussion into the story, and I applaud you for it.
I also really like the little traces of color you're sprinkling around. Sit-down restaurant, dogs welcome. Birds the size of an ultralight landing on the street, whatever. Please help yourself to the ficus. Keep it up!
Thanks!
u/DeliaEris [+2] Fully General Idealist (4 hours later)
I think there were some tense shifts.
I definitely get the feeling that there's some sort of foreshadowing or something going on in this chapter, that the traces of color Anakiri mentioned aren't just for color.
I like the new title.
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (5 hours later)
I think there were some tense shifts.
Grr. I can never quite catch all of these: the different projects I'm working on use different tenses. I'll take another look through.
I definitely get the feeling that there's some sort of foreshadowing or something going on in this chapter, that the traces of color Anakiri mentioned aren't just for color.
Completely innocent, I assure you :)
...this time.
I like the new title.
Thanks!
u/Serious_Senator [+2] (13 days later)
Really good story, I've enjoyed it so far. The writing is brisk. I'm not part of the rationalist community, so I can't nitpick that part. Anyway, keep it up!
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (15 days later)
Thanks a lot :) Feedback is always appreciated regardless.
I'm not part of the rationalist community,
shuffles toward you arms outstretched Jooooin uuuuuuuusss...
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (a minute later)
Feeeeeedback, Seymour!