[MHGinTN]

“Are we going to declare that only individuals who are self-aware AND capable of making conscious decisions ...” How is it that we would arbitrarily cancel her as unable to make conscious decisions when she can hear and respond —at least in her mind— to their directions? Are these scientists so dead in soul that they would not look for some means by which to communicate with this woman since she is able to hear their directions and do something with her mind to show it? God help us, how have we descended so deeply into the utilitarian deathpool?

[Jim Noble]

“Are we going to declare that only individuals who are self-aware AND capable of making conscious decisions ...” How is it that we would arbitrarily cancel her as unable to make conscious decisions when she can hear and respond —at least in her mind— to their directions? Are these scientists so dead in soul that they would not look for some means by which to communicate with this woman since she is able to hear their directions and do something with her mind to show it? God help us, how have we descended so deeply into the utilitarian deathpool?

Most of these cases are quite complex, and your simplification of the decisions which get made - every day, hundreds and hundreds of them - as a "descent into the utilitarian deathpool" is a gross oversimplification.

It has the secondary bad effect of making ordinary people terrified that you will ever gain a smidgen of political power.