On Friday, December 03, 1999 9:41 AM Glen Finney Delvieron@aol.com wrote:
> I think I if any animal deserves to be uplifted, it is the dog.
I agree, though the drinking out of the toilet thing has to go!:) And I assume Glen does not mean toy dogs.:)
> Since prehistory, the dog has been with us. It has been companion,
workmate,
> and guardian. I know of no animal that so totally accepts us as the
domestic
> dog. On any list of uplifts, they'd be up there near the top.
I don't think one should uplift based on affection. I suggest again octopodes for the reasons I gave earlier. Dogs would be nice to do, though I think they would be harder in some ways. Plus more people might see uplifting them as animal cruelty.
> We've been
> determining their genetic destiny for a long time now, so I think we have
a
> responsibility to their species.
The case is not so clear as Glen would think. I recommend he and others read Darcy F. Morey's "The Early Evolution of the Domestic Dog" (in _American Scientist_ 82(4) July-August 1994) and Lyudmila N. Trut's "Early Canid Domestication: The Farm-Fox Experiment" (in _American Scientist_ 87(2) March-April 1999). While I don't think humans have had no input into domestication, domestication (for dogs and other domesticated organisms) is a type of niche exploitation.
Dogs used humans! The furry bastards!:) This whole uplifting thread might merely be their attempt to change who sits at whose feet.:)
> I can think of quite a few dogs that I
> would raise to SI before some humans<G>.
I'm with you there. Though one would hope the SI brings with it rewards such that an SI would not carry over any malevolence from its former state. Hard to say though, since this is highly speculative.
Cheers!
Daniel Ust
http://mars.superlink.net/neptune/