I'm impressed, Schlack. You opened this orginating post by asking one question, and immediately answered an entirely different question. You asked what do individuals owe humanity. You answered with the suggestion of what the minimum is that individuals owe other "humans" (in other words, other individuals).
The rest of the posts by others that followed seem to have done the same and not actually answered what was asked.
No, everyone *is* addressing what we "owe" "humanity", by describing how we treat "humans" in general - not any specific human. That's the whole point. Apparently I'm missing your point, could you give an example of how I would interact with "humanity" without interacting with "humans"?
Not gonna work, reality bytes. The intended target of this thread was me in regard to my response to your claim that I “owed” “humanity” specific actions. Now you want to make it how “we treat “humans” in general – not any specific human”. You went from “humanity” to individuals (“humans”) in general but no specific individual (“human”). One reason for that, I suspect, is that you realized one cannot interact with “humanity”, but only with other individuals (humans). And it is not up to me to give examples of anything since it was you who first made a claim concerning my indebtedness to ‘humanity’. Instead you should provide an example of what debt I owe “humanity” and then explain why.
The historic basis for subordinating the Rights of individuals to the state, sending individuals into involuntary servitude, and pilfering their earnings has been the un-ending claim that the individual "owed" -- take your pick -- humanity, society, the King, the Capo, the Pack a portion of or all of his life. An individual can only be indebted to other individuals.
Yours,
Issodhos
humanity == collection of all humans, not just individuals that you meet personally - I thought I and several others made that clear from the beginning, several times.
If you don't want to answer the question just say so!
As for me I gave you plenty of examples for which you receive benefits (defense, research, exploration, hospitals, etc), everyone receives those benefits whether or not paying taxes (and many believe no one should pay taxes, but still receive those benefits) and should be grateful for and if not owe at least make an effort to contribute to the betterment of humanity as well.
The bit about govt, king, whatever is nothing that I said or am referring to, straw man alert.
I already acknowledged that "owed" may be too strong of a word, so tried to give you a break and ask at least that you 'care' about the effects of your actions on humanity, or I thought maybe we are defining terms differently, but you won't answer that, I have no further questions.
[Note: I do fairly strongly suspect that our failure to come to a meeting of the minds is a difference in definition, or at the very least a difference in perception... I don't foresee much more productive use of this space so maybe best to just agree to disagree at this point]
