The UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has
a right to food, clothing, and education. "Rights" apply only between
person and person, not between person and Nature. I can have a "right"
for you not to punch me in the nose; I can't have a "right" to eat a
meal. Maybe I have the "right" to take your meal away from you and eat
it, but if that's what they meant, they should have said so.
I don't know if anyone has phrased it that way before, but it strikes me
as being a clean logical-plane counter to an unfortunate way of
thinking, so I thought I'd share
Sincerely,
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky.
--
sentience@pobox.com Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
http://pobox.com/~sentience/AI_design.temp.html
http://pobox.com/~sentience/singul_arity.html
Disclaimer: Unless otherwise specified, I'm not telling you
everything I think I know.