[extropy-chat] Spanish Socialists consider giving apes human-level rights

[A B]

Hi James,
   
  I strongly agree. Reducing or eliminating animal suffering should be a high
  priority post-Singularity. My view on this might seem extreme, but I would recommend
  safely enhancing animals to be roughly on par with human intelligence (I suppose some instincts will need to be tweeked), and beyond if that is their choice. In my
  opinion, after million(s) of years of supporting (proto)humans in various painful ways, we owe them a favor.
   
  Best Wishes,
   
  Jeffrey Herrlich

"Hughes, James J." <james.hughes at trincoll.edu> wrote:
  
I may not be as radical as George Dvorsky but I am a great supporter of
Great Ape rights. I see the move to non-anthropocentric personhood
rights as a central agenda item for transhumanism, one of its defining
ideas along with human enhancement technologies. The debate needs to be
how far beyond humans we grant rights/moral-standing, not whether we
transcend human-racism or not. - J. Hughes

http://www.spainherald.com/3438.html

Socialists: Give apes human rights

Spain Herald

The Spanish Socialist Party will introduce a bill in the Congress of
Deputies calling for "the immediate inclusion of (simians) in the
category of persons, and that they be given the moral and legal
protection that currently are only enjoyed by human beings." The PSOE's
justification is that humans share 98.4% of our genes with chimpanzees,
97.7% with gorillas, and 96.4% with orangutans.

The party will announce its Great Ape Project at a press conference
tomorrow. An organization with the same name is seeking a UN declaration
on simian rights which would defend ape interests "the same as those of
minors and the mentally handicapped of our species."

According to the Project, "Today only members of the species Homo
sapiens are considered part of the community of equals. The chimpanzee,
the gorilla, and the orangutan are our species's closest relatives. They
possess sufficient mental faculties and emotional life to justify their
inclusion in the community of equals." 

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