NationStates Jolt Archive

A few mebers have telegrammed me saying that they like this in principle but want it debated for the bugs to be worked out. So here it is. THoughts sugestions post here. Tomatos can be thrown over there. :D




SEEKING fairness and equality in the application of all resolutions;

NOTING the ongoing work which may result in the global decision of the sentience of the cetaceans (whales, dolphins, etc);

ACCEPTING the possibility of discoveries of extraterrestrial life through the works of the UN Space Consortium (created by the resolution of similar name);

AND IN VIEW of the Resolutions “BioRights Declaration” and the “Rights of Minorities and Women”;

THE UN HEREBY RESOLVES:

Article I: The words “Human” and “Human Being” shall apply equally to all residents of any UN member nation who have demonstrated sentience.

Article II: “Sentience” shall be defined as “the capacity for abstract thought and reasoning”.

Article III: A roster of all beings having demonstrated sentience shall be kept on permanent record in the UN.

Article IV: Any member of a species upon the record shall be considered "sentient" for purposes of Article I.

Article V: Sentience shall be determined by the ability to communicate.

Article VI: The UN does recognize any race as sentient as per Article III as a "person" and/or "human" and/or "human being" for purposes of enforcement of the many UN Resolutions using those words in their verbiage. In addition any race/species/ect. that fulfils the requirement for Article V shall immediately registered in the roster of Article III.

Article VII: All rights, privileges, and responsibilities of any human member of the UN shall be applied to any petitioning member.

First written by Vastiva

Article I: The words “Human” and “Human Being” shall apply equally to all residents of any UN member nation who have demonstrated sentience.

I don't thoink the Elves will like this very much. Other than that, though, good job. I'd support this proposal, as long as Article I is changed to defend the individuality of nonhumans rather than forcing them to be referred to as human.

Interesting proposal, this.. haven't made up my mind yet. Got an interpretation question though..

How do you reconcile articles II and V? In II you define sentience as the capacity for abstract thought and reasoning, while in V it is stated that sentience is determined by ability to communicate. I have nothing against those criteria (at least not so far), but I am a bit confused as to why there are two different clauses as to what is meant by sentience, that could be understood as either complementing or contradicting one another, where someone/thing's sentience is to be decided for the purpose of this resolution.

I don't thoink the Elves will like this very much. Other than that, though, good job. I'd support this proposal, as long as Article I is changed to defend the individuality of nonhumans rather than forcing them to be referred to as human.

I think that clause was added so that earlier UN resolutions would apply to nonhuman sentient beings (since the process of repealing and re-enacting every resolution would be nearly impossible). I've decided to support this proposal.

How about making article 1 say this:

"Where UN legislation refers to "human(s)", "person/people" or similar, it shall be interpreted to confer the legal status that it confers upon human beings to all beings which are deemed to be sentient by the UN, unless the legislation explicitly states otherwise."

I'd check any proposal of this sort with a mod.

And article 5 definitely won't work, because you don't specify the level of communication. Even bacteria can communicate after a fashion.

Article V is too restrictive of the definition of a sentient being because what can we describe as communication?

How narrow will we define communication?

Babies communicate only through crying (one cry can mean I'm hungry, and the same cry can mean Change Me; we just have to guess) and eventually learn abstract thought -- so under this resolution they are not sentient beings, are not considered humans, and therefore it opens a whole lot of doors for people to pass crazy laws.

Maybe a simple test to be set when a life form has reached 1/10th of it's life expectancy? Maybe they should have to spell the following words:
Realise
Defence
Colour
Programme
Tyre
Traveller
Theatre
catalogue
cheque

Maybe a simple test to be set when a life form has reached 1/10th of it's life expectancy? Maybe they should have to spell the following words:
Realise
Defence
Colour
Programme
Tyre
Traveller
Theatre
catalogue
cheque
Hmm? I bet one could make an insentient machine do that...
The problem here is figuring out how to test for sentience, beyond that, distinguishing sentience from mimicry of sentience, and beyond that, figuring out exactly what sentience is. It's a rather tall order.
Of course, this is assuming that I actually remember what I'm talking about here.

Well, if Bill Gates can't get MS Word to spell these words correctly, I don't think anyone can expect any computer too...

I don't thoink the Elves will like this very much. Other than that, though, good job. I'd support this proposal, as long as Article I is changed to defend the individuality of nonhumans rather than forcing them to be referred to as human.

How about article I: All laws and Privileges in all UN resolutions shall apply equally to all petitioning sentient species

Hmm? I bet one could make an insentient machine do that...
The problem here is figuring out how to test for sentience, beyond that, distinguishing sentience from mimicry of sentience, and beyond that, figuring out exactly what sentience is. It's a rather tall order.
Of course, this is assuming that I actually remember what I'm talking about here.

I figured that if you can contact the UN and ask to join you are giving uncontestible evidence that you can communicate. I know I lack lawer skills should I emphazie that in the resolution. If so can you give a piffy phrase to say it.

How about article I: All laws and Privileges in all UN resolutions shall apply equally to all petitioning sentient species

I think that might end up as game mechanics, since you're restricting the ability of resolutions to treat different species differently. There needs to be an "unless the relevant resolution explicitly states otherwise"

Saysomething, a PC could be programmed to automatically send emails asking to be recognised as sentient.

And if you say - easy to deal with, it's been programmed by a real sentient being to do that - then how do you make legislation distinguish between the programming of a computer and the way that the actions of sentient social beings are determined in large part by their original genetic programming (behavioural instincts) and subsequent social programming (learning from and being influenced by others) - especially if the program for the email was contributed to by several programmers?

Maybe a simple test to be set when a life form has reached 1/10th of it's life expectancy? Maybe they should have to spell the following words:
Realise
Defence
Colour
Programme
Tyre
Traveller
Theatre
catalogue
cheque
That would require all sentient beings to be English, or from the U.K. of some sort, which would negate the rest of the qualifications.

Next you're going to tell me that people from outside the UK are sentient, yes?

(jk ;) )

Sentience is notoriuosly hard to define, and althoiugh you mean well, any resolution to aid sentience may well end up harming it.

I had intended to fisk this while sober, but this could be fun too. Saysomething, sincere thanks for bringing this to the forum where we can debate it and improve it. Whatever point-by-point dissention I (or the scotch) might being up below, I believe this to be a vital resolution for NS UN.


SEEKING fairness and equality in the application of all resolutions;

NOTING the ongoing work which may result in the global decision of the sentience of the cetaceans (whales, dolphins, etc);

ACCEPTING the possibility of discoveries of extraterrestrial life through the works of the UN Space Consortium (created by the resolution of similar name);
This is a reality in NS, not a possibility. Perhaps follow up with DISMAYED BY legalistic interpretations that attempt to exclude these sentient beings from equal protection under UN Resolutions


AND IN VIEW of the Resolutions “BioRights Declaration” and the “Rights of Minorities and Women”;

THE UN HEREBY RESOLVES:

Article I: The words “Human” and “Human Being” shall apply equally to all residents of any UN member nation who have demonstrated sentience.

Article II: “Sentience” shall be defined as “the capacity for abstract thought and reasoning”.Article II should come before Article I. Article V should be merged into it. I like _mypoia_'s wording for Article I.

Article IV: Any member of a species upon the record shall be considered "sentient" for purposes of Article I.

Article VI: The UN does recognize any race as sentient as per Article III as a "person" and/or "human" and/or "human being" for purposes of enforcement of the many UN Resolutions using those words in their verbiage. In addition any race/species/ect. that fulfils the requirement for Article V shall immediately registered in the roster of Article III.Redundant. Apply the 3,500 characters towards definition of sentience


Article VII: All rights, privileges, and responsibilities of any human member of the UN shall be applied to any petitioning member.

First written by Vastiva
Vastiva is a friend of mind, and you, Saysomething, are no Vastiva!
I come to praise Vastiva, not to bury him.

j/k

Sentience is tricky. Not a black-or-white thing, as I'm sure Jeianga is prepared to argue. I think this resolution would be better spent with more definition of the level of sentience deserving of full NSUN protection.

I'll go with David Brin here and say that it should be judged for a species by the best examples of that species, too. That retard football jock in high school should still classify as a sentient being if I do.

Cogitation doesn't want us to set up any more administrative panels, or I'd suggest you put in verbiage that sets up an administrative panel to determine and apply hard criteria.

The mods also don't seem to be anywhere near setting up new proposal categories, or I'd say settle it by putting it to UN vote. [OOC: that could lead to some pretty kewl RP's].

With your indulgence, I will wait until I'm sober and have much time to think before trying to propose specific criteria.

You can take our country off of it - we are not after fame. But we thank you for the gesture.

Being one of the nations that would be affected by this, I must oppose it. Certain restrictions on humans do not apply to all species, and as it is the current requirements of age for the UN amount to allowing pedophilia in many nations due to differing rates of maturity. The same problem with the issue of schooling exists.

DLE, I'm sure your concerns could be dealt with in the text - we could say that the roster of sentient species will include judgements by biologists and sociologists of the ages for non-humans which are equivalent to any age limits specified in UN legislation (where legislation fails to take into account no-humans) - though I don't believe that there are, as yet, any specified age limits in UN legislation. I think we just have references to minors, which would be defined by each nation.

DLE, I'm sure your concerns could be dealt with in the text - we could say that the roster of sentient species will include judgements by biologists and sociologists of the ages for non-humans which are equivalent to any age limits specified in UN legislation (where legislation fails to take into account no-humans) - though I don't believe that there are, as yet, any specified age limits in UN legislation. I think we just have references to minors, which would be defined by each nation.

Age for consent for minors is, by UN law, set at 16 years of age unless the nation in question sets it as younger. This ignores the nations that don't reach physical maturity until longer after that, in some cases nearly 100 years. It specifies nothing about species. Same is true of the issue on free schooling.

Ok then, so first set up the roster, then when any new species is added, you appoint a committee of biologists and sociologists (I'd say that we should set a specific proportion - probably quite large - of that committee which should be scientists from that species, the remaining places may be from any other species already on the roster). That committee examines all passed UN resolutions which include age restrictions, and decides on an equivalent age to apply to the added species.

The proposal can then say that all UN resolutions passed prior to the date of this proposal shall apply equally to all species on the roster, except those which specify age restrictions - these will be applied but with the age restrictions replaced with those specified by the committee.

So that's age limits dealt with. We probably also ought to account for the likelihood that there are some species with more than 2 genders and some with only 1 - any ideas?

I'm not sure if it will be possible to apply this to resolutions not yet passed - I think we need a mod's ruling.

Also, we need to deal with the problems of old age for those sentient beings that have no maximum age, such as AIs.

The only resolution I can see that even comes close to specifying anything for the elderly is Legalise Euthanasia - but that's such a non-specific mess that I'm not even sure we need to do anything about it.

I was thinking we could throw in a clause about effectively-immortal beings being immune to benefitting from old-age resolutions. After all, it doesn't make sense to have them work for 60 years and then draw government aid for the elderly for the next several centuries.

The power to decide something like that should probably go to the committee. Although for AIs and the like, we're going to have to reconsider my suggestion of biologists and sociologists.

Anybody have ideas about how to define criteria for intelligence?

Unfortunately, no. That's a problem humanity has wrangled with for millenia, and every answer it has come up with usually excludes itself, either in portion or entirety. And all species will define it in a way that favors themselves and is by their standards.

Oh, I would keep the biologists and sociologists. You can use those on the biological lifeforms and, in the case of the sociologists, certain AIs. The AIs of DLE have developed a subsociety with rules and hierarchies worthy of an entire textbook. Maybe add in computer experts and psychologists as well.

Oh, I would keep the biologists and sociologists. You can use those on the biological lifeforms and, in the case of the sociologists, certain AIs. The AIs of DLE have developed a subsociety with rules and hierarchies worthy of an entire textbook. Maybe add in computer experts and psychologists as well.

What I meant was, the committees should be slightly more flexible in choosing members, because there's no use clogging up a committee on DLE's computer AIs with biologists.

Someone has mentioned that most of the UN resolutions if applied to other species etc would end up harming those other species. Yet I think it is sad that there would have to be two UNs isn't the ideal of the UN that all nations come together in peace and harmony (notice how I said Ideal not reality)
I appriciate all of your help but it seamd I have tried to do too much with too little. I will just have to hope that one day elves, humans, AI, Pokemon, digimon, wales, Cebestians, etc can all come togther in harmony but as for now I am no lawer and am completly at my wits end. Thanks again but I am just going to have to let this issue sit. Maybe someone out ther can complete it for me. But I am woefully inadequate for this task.
Saysomething

What I meant was, the committees should be slightly more flexible in choosing members, because there's no use clogging up a committee on DLE's computer AIs with biologists.

I see what you mean. Yes, that would be a good requirement.

Someone has mentioned that most of the UN resolutions if applied to other species etc would end up harming those other species. Yet I think it is sad that there would have to be two UNs isn't the ideal of the UN that all nations come together in peace and harmony (notice how I said Ideal not reality)
I appriciate all of your help but it seamd I have tried to do too much with too little. I will just have to hope that one day elves, humans, AI, Pokemon, digimon, wales, Cebestians, etc can all come togther in harmony but as for now I am no lawer and am completly at my wits end. Thanks again but I am just going to have to let this issue sit. Maybe someone out ther can complete it for me. But I am woefully inadequate for this task.
Saysomething
No, don't do that!
We're just getting warmed up over heah.

We have useful points about age limitations and how to make them work with this resolution,
We have userful points about AI's,
We have internal inconsistencies pointed out and at least a tiny bit of progress made on how to resolve them,
We have good thoughts on how to propose and accept species for inclusion.

We need a good way of talking about the level of intelligence needed to be included in UN resolutions, and you have a top-knotch proposal on your hands.

OOC and meta:
Oh. My. God.
My posting style is starting to read like a resolution.

brb.

This is indeed a massive challenge, but it's one definitely worth sticking to. If we can put together and pass a good-quality piece of legislation, it would be a significant step forward for the NSUN and a resolution to a long-term problem.

This is indeed a massive challenge, but it's one definitely worth sticking to. If we can put together and pass a good-quality piece of legislation, it would be a significant step forward for the NSUN and a resolution to a long-term problem.

Agreed. It's often quite a headache for a human like myself to run a nation with a two-thirds-nonhuman population. Any help this resolution could provide would be greatly appreciated. For the most part, Olwe stands behind this resolution. Although it obviously needs some wording changes and other minor tweaking, it's pretty solid overall.

I don't believe it's that close to completion. The only difference we've yet taken into account between species is aging. There are going to be more issues, plus we've got to sort out the actual definition of sentience (though I'd prefer actually if we replaced "sentience" with "sapience") - and sort out with the mods the legality of the whole enterprise.

There are side issues to be considered once you start down the "sentience" slope...

Such as: What about a human being who is alive, yet not "sentient" according to your definitions (due to severe mental handicap or injury)? Are these people then considered "animals" within the scope of the law?

That seems like a big loophole and one that could be used to exploit the mentally deficient in (for example) drug trials, the way we test with animals now.

And, also, you are aware that there are small colonies of primates (gorillas and chimpanzees) that are already communicating with >200 word vocabularies (sign language, passed down to new generations). These animals spend their lives in capitivity, because they are animals. Would this resolution grant them "sentient" status? If not, why not?

How does one join the UN in our system? The answer is that they send corespondence. Okay to do that indicates a certain level of thinking.
But the issues raised are:
1. Why should we limit rights to things that can think why not all life.
2. Isn't this reslolution too broad should day old quail be able to join the UN becase they have limited reasoning?
I beleive those are the two strands of thoughts are at odds with the resolution. Those that support the right of all life feel the resolution is too narrow and those who feel that life has a heirarcy and quality feel the resolution too braod.
Dolphins are not supposed to be killed with fish becase they are gentle to humans and can communicate with each other and in a maner of fasion to humans. Fish can only communicate in two dimensional ways danger and hunger and only to each other. Is that why some feel that fish can be killed becasue they don'tfeel pain.
The issues here raised by this proposal are at the core of that philosopic battle that has raged since the dawn of human philosophy and religion what makes a human being a human being. In the US this issue has reached a feavor pitched with the Teri Savo case. For those who haven't heard this is a case where a woman with a dead temperal lobe can move, sleep, smile but can't speak or feed self. The husband for various reasons wants her dead and the parents don't. Is she alive now? What will be the difference when she can no longer breath?
I have read each and everyone of your thoughts and I have begun to realize that I might have to undergo a complete rewrite of this proposal yet I am tempted to add a line stating that the one and only neccesity to be subject to be un law will be admission which will granted immidatly upon formal oral and written petition.

the elves wish to be called senient. they shall wage war on UN if not :sniper: :gundge: enchidnas also wish sentience, but stavromulica will have to speak on their behalf. :mp5:

in stavromulica echidnas are holy :D

Cyrian space is fully behind this measure, and I am sure that our regional delegate will support it. Being that there have been instances where a vacationing Cyrian or Sedenta has had their life threatened because they did not classify as people, we have a vested interest in this.
Also, we would like to make sure that this proposal reaches to a group of mammals native to earth who have, despite their obvious sentience and intelligence, had their rights disregarded time and time again, and have often been needlessly slaughtered. I believe you call them "dolphins."

A few things I would like to adress

1. Why should we limit rights to things that can think why not all life.
I don't know about your species, but Cyrians require organic food to survive. Any proposal to give Kiala fruit the same rights as a person will be met with disdain. I believe that most other nations, not having acclimated themselves to lab-produced synthetic nutreants, as you apparently have, will agree.

Sentience is more than reason. It is abstract thought. It is the ability to create, to design, to make art, and language, and song.

I do see one problem with this, though. Lets imagine a species, call them Species Y. Now Species Y are not sentient. But one member of Species Y has demonstrated sentience, as a result of some mutation. Does the proposal make provisions for him? And what if one member of species Z, which is considered sentient, is himself not sentient? will they still get all of the rights and privaleges of a sentient being?

There are side issues to be considered once you start down the "sentience" slope...

Such as: What about a human being who is alive, yet not "sentient" according to your definitions (due to severe mental handicap or injury)? Are these people then considered "animals" within the scope of the law?

That seems like a big loophole and one that could be used to exploit the mentally deficient in (for example) drug trials, the way we test with animals now.

And, also, you are aware that there are small colonies of primates (gorillas and chimpanzees) that are already communicating with >200 word vocabularies (sign language, passed down to new generations). These animals spend their lives in capitivity, because they are animals. Would this resolution grant them "sentient" status? If not, why not?
I have already suggested that the wording make clear that a species be judged as a whole, and by its best specimens.

I've also suggested that a threshold be found - Lesbosian chimpanzees (the common species in my region) are not yet intelligent enough to deserve a vote or to deserve equal protection under UN resolutions.

And watch out, those goddamn monkeys bite, I'll tell ya!
No pun on your name intended. That's a Dennis Hopper quote.

You'll have to forgive my (recent) ignorance... until yesterday, I didn't know we were a part of an interstellar community.

I would propose that we take some direction from the Uplift Wars novels by David Brin, and list criteria by which a species becomes a full-fledged member of the interstellar governing community that is out current United Nations.

Species that match a subset of these criteria may be considered sentient, but with restricted priviledges. The label of "sentient" would carry with it certain protections (such as "the right not to be considered as food by any other species"), and also certain obligations.

If a species is considered sentient but not technologically advanced enough to participate fully in government, do we, as governing body, appoint a "caretaker" species for this group? If so, what are the duties of this caretaker species?

I would also propose that once a species is declared sentient, that it applies to all individuals within the species regardless of their individual mental capacities.

this brings us to another definition:
WHAT IS A SPECIES? Is this something that is determined by genetic testing (i.e. a group of individuals with a xxx% variance in genetic structure)? If two "species" can interbreed without outside medical intervention, and their offspring are fertile, are these, in fact, seperate species? Or are they sub-species? What about species (such as vampires) that procreate by altering members of another sentient species? Are they actually a seperate species, or just another variation on the source species? And should "conversion" be made legal only with informed consent of the converted?

The label of "sentient" would carry with it certain protections (such as "the right not to be considered as food by any other species")...

I hope you're talking about other sentient species, because I know wandrellas lack the mental capacity to recognize that right. :(

If two "species" can interbreed without outside medical intervention, and their offspring are fertile, are these, in fact, seperate species?

I don't know whether to applaud you for bringing up an excellent point or to be offended by the suggestion that my half-Elf daughter might be a different species from me. :(

What about species (such as vampires) that procreate by altering members of another sentient species? Are they actually a seperate species, or just another variation on the source species?

This is a bit of a stretch... I'd say that anyone made into a vampire is, quite obviously, a vampire, regardless of what they were before.

And should "conversion" be made legal only with informed consent of the converted?

That'd be a bit difficult to pull off with, say, werewolves, who become non-sentient (or, at least, a lot less sentient) during their transformation to wolf form, and therefore wouldn't particularly care about the law.

I hope you're talking about other sentient species, because I know wandrellas lack the mental capacity to recognize that right. :(

Yes, I omiited sentient from that sentence, and didn't realize it until after I hit "submit" (isn't that always the case?)

I don't know whether to applaud you for bringing up an excellent point or to be offended by the suggestion that my half-Elf daughter might be a different species from me. :(

If your half-Elf daughter can have children, would that mean that Elves and Humans are, in fact, different races of "Human"? If so, then Elves would automatically be granted all rights/privelidges afforded Humans. I don't know if that would offend Elves, to have it declared they are "Human," but depending on how things are defined, they may just have to "suck it up" and deal with it.


I'd say that anyone made into a vampire is, quite obviously, a vampire, regardless of what they were before.

<snip previous quoted text>

That'd be a bit difficult to pull off with, say, werewolves, who become non-sentient (or, at least, a lot less sentient) during their transformation to wolf form, and therefore wouldn't particularly care about the law


I don't profess to understand the mechanics of vampirism or were-creatures other than what has been shown in films and popular literature - and based on how Hollywood portrays other groups (i.e. Wiccans, for example), I'd have to say that their portrayal is probably NOT accurate.

But we need to look at this from a legal standpoint. If someone was already a member of a sentient species, and then was turned into a vampire, don't they still have the physical and mental capacities they originally had? If so, wouldn't Vampirism or Were-ism be something that is overlayed on top of their species (similar to a religious belief, or "lifestyle choice")? Do Vampires and were-creatures have means of reproduction besides altering another pre-existing individual? If not, how can they be a seperate species?

And similarly, if an erstwhile sentient species goes through a period of time where they are not sentient (as your Werewolf example), what provisions or allowances are we required to make on their behalf? If this is, in fact, a "lifestyle choice", should were-creatures be held accountable for their behavior while in thier diminished mental capacity state (assuming one does exist)?

I suppose we need someone from these groups to weigh in and educate us.

.

This is an excellent discussion on a topic that does indeed need to be addressed. After reviewing the discussion to date, I have only a few minutes at the moment to add my thoughts, so I will make them brief.

In the philosophy of animal rights (animal here refering to biological entities, not 'beasts'), sentience is the ability to feel pain (which generally presupposes perception of some form). Sapience, on the other hand, refers to the ability to think about ones perceptions. It is latin root of this word which gives Homo sapiens thier name. I suggest that in further discussion we consider sapience as the meaningful trait.

Note that sapience does not presuppose sentince. An individual under general anaesthesia in temoprarily non-sentient, but may still be highly sapient.

I will gladly approve this measure in its final form.

sentience is the ability to feel pain
:confused:
Main Entry: sen·tient
Pronunciation: 'sen(t)-sh(E-)&nt, 'sen-tE-&nt
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin sentient-, sentiens, present participle of sentire to perceive, feel
1 : responsive to or conscious of sense impressions
2 : AWARE
3 : finely sensitive in perception or feeling

I am tempted to add a line stating that the one and only neccesity to be subject to be un law will be admission which will granted immidatly upon formal oral and written petition.

I could teach a parrot to say "I want to join the UN" and I could probably teach a chimpanzee to write the same.

And what about species that don't communicate vocally or have a written language?

Neo-Anarchists, that definition applies to most animals. What we need is a definition that goes beyond it.

If two "species" can interbreed without outside medical intervention, and their offspring are fertile, are these, in fact, seperate species? Or are they sub-species?

Considering mules have been recently proven to be fertile and they are the result of two different species breeding, I would say the results are an entirely-different species.

What about species (such as vampires) that procreate by altering members of another sentient species? Are they actually a seperate species, or just another variation on the source species? And should "conversion" be made legal only with informed consent of the converted?

It depends on the type of vampire. Some vampires, such as those in DLE, can actually reproduce, allowing them to continue and grow without spreading the infection. I would rule them as a separate species myself and require conversion to have the informed consent of he converted.

Neo-Anarchists, that definition applies to most animals. What we need is a definition that goes beyond it.
-snip-
I know that. I posted that definition in response to someone saying that sentience was "the ability to feel pain", and that definition is as well as being flawed, not the definition applied IRL as they claim.

Also, if that post sounded snippish, I didn't mean for it to.

It depends on the type of vampire. Some vampires, such as those in DLE, can actually reproduce, allowing them to continue and grow without spreading the infection. I would rule them as a separate species myself and require conversion to have the informed consent of he converted.

If an individual is infected, is his/her genome altered?

I know that. I posted that definition in response to someone saying that sentience was "the ability to feel pain", and that definition is as well as being flawed, not the definition applied IRL as they claim.

Also, if that post sounded snippish, I didn't mean for it to.

It didn't. I didn't intend for my post to sound snippish.

If an individual is infected, is his/her genome altered?

No, but we've found genomes to be not as reliable in species differentiation. Especially when some of them don't even have DNA.

No, but we've found genomes to be not as reliable in species differentiation. Especially when some of them don't even have DNA.

Well, would you please indicate what would be more reliable for species differentiation? And we'd need something that would hold up legally as well as scientifically.

I think that rather than trying to define species to cover all possiblilities, we need to define a more general type of classification, Consider a non-biological, or even an incorperal. Such would be left out of any justifiable definition of species. A non-biological, or incorperal entity is not a living being in the biological sense and thus is not a member of a species.

I think that it would be simpler to call for a list of (possibly overlapping) groups of entities whose members are generally sapient.

[A note on my earlier comment on the definition of the word sentient: I do not contest that the word sentient often often carries the meaning we are using here. My point was that in the relevant area of philisophy (a subject which, like law or mathematics, terms demand precise difinitions) sentience is used to mean the ability to feel pain and is independant from sapience which is (roughly) the ability to think. To be precise many authors deal with a concept of intentionality as well which I will not get into now.]

OK. I did a little research. I grabbed this quote off a web page about mules, because of the post claiming that mules are fertile.

*Can Mules Reproduce? Do they have normal anatomy?
What is the offspring of a horse and a mule called?

Short answer - No, mules (both male and female) are sterile. Both have normal anatomy internally and externally. THe males must be castrated, as they have the equipment but do not produce the essential element needed (we're trying to keep this PG here...) Females may come into heat and may need hormone shots if heat is a problem.

For those who are following up with "Okay, what about the fertile mule we have read about..." - Fertile mules (hinnies) are a 1 in 1 million case occurance. All known fertile hybrids in the equine world have been female mules or hinnies. Why these few is still scientifically a mystery, and there is still scientific debate over the verification of some "Fertile"; cases. The most well known and documented cases are of Krause, a mare mule with two mule sons, and a fertile hinny in China, who;s offspring, Dragon Foal, is considered unique. The complications for Krause's cases is that her sire, Chester, is also the sire of her sons. However, DNA testing has been cataloged as conclusive that both foals, Blue Moon and White Lighting, are Krause's foals.
In most known cases of mule fertility, it has been noted that the mare mule passed on a complete set of her Maternal genes to the foal. Therefore a female mule bred to a horse would produce a 100% horse foal. Thus was the case of Old Beck, who was at Texas A&M in the 1920's;. This mare mule had a mule daughter, Kit. She was brought to TX A&M for observation. She was bred to a saddle horse stallion, and produced a horse son, Pat Murphy Jr. Pat Jr was fertile, and sired horse foals. Beck aborted a third foal, sired by a jack, which although deformed, appeared to be a regular mule.
There has more recently been a case of a mare mule in Brazil who has foaled two 100% horse sons. Tests in the future will hopefully prove them to be normal, fertile stallions.
Dragon Foal, instead of being a donkey foal from the mating of a hinny to a jack, is a unique hybrid, with combinations never documented before. Visually, she appears to be a strange donkey with some more mule-like features, and her chromosomes and DNA test seem to confirm this.

I think we need to arrive at a host of definitions that we can agree upon, and then word a resolution.

Sentience
Sapience
Species
Sub-Species
Hybrid

I also think it would be good to know what kind of non-Homo Sapiens People we are dealing with in this governing body:

Extra-terrestrial Aliens
Sentient/Sapient Terrestrial Species (i.e. Cetacians)
so-called "undead" beings (e.g. Vampires - and what types of these are we talking about)

Are shape-shifting/species-changing (were-creature) entities that spend a portion of their lives as H. Sapiens an actual seperate species? Or just a variant of H. Sapiens.

Honestly, for simplicity's sake, and because who knows how often an additional "race" or "species" is going to populate a new nation, I'd like to move to call all groups of creatures that are derived from H. Sapiens to be called "Human" and treated legally as Human.

Such groups of people include but are not limited to:

Homo Sapiens
Elves
Vampires
Were-creatures
Dwarves

Now, I can see some arguments from members of these races/species because they don't want to be associated with Humans in that way, but since we are looking to provide equal protections under intenational law for all of these people, considering them as Human would just make things easier, and new races of the Human species can be added to the list of "sentient/sapient beings" more easily. It would also table the discussion about whether someone's half-elven child was of the same species as the parent, or whether they're Human or not. (because they would be by definition)

Additionally, since some of these races/species do not conform to scientific laws, it's perhaps ridiculous to try to apply scientific principles to entites created from the minds of fantasy and science fiction authors.

I think that rather than trying to define species to cover all possiblilities, we need to define a more general type of classification, Consider a non-biological, or even an incorperal. Such would be left out of any justifiable definition of species. A non-biological, or incorperal entity is not a living being in the biological sense and thus is not a member of a species.

I think that it would be simpler to call for a list of (possibly overlapping) groups of entities whose members are generally sapient.



Yes, I think I'm coming to that conclusion as well. I shudder to think about non-biological and non-corporeal entities. It's difficult enough to reach consensus with other physically base beings. How can we expect a non-corporeal or non-biological entity to have similar priorities. :headbang:

Uh, nonbiologicals include the leader of my nation, so I am very interested in seeing that they are covered.

How about we say, to cover them, "And any other being, whether natural or not, that demonstrates sentience."

An incomplete draft:

[PREAMBLE...]

THE UN HEREBY RESOLVES:

1 That any entity demonstrating the following characteristics shall be considered sapient, and the state of being such shall be called sapience;

[a, b, ...] [definition of sapient]

2 That any entity demonstrating sapience, whether it be biological,
mechanical, digital, spiritual, communal, or of any other variety, shall
be regarded for all UN purposes as a person;

3 To keep on permanent record, in several forms to be made freely available to all member states, a list of all known species, subspecies, races, and other classifications which are composed primarily of sapient entities, and that such classes shall refered to as sapient classes.

4 That any member of a sapient class shall be regarded, for all UN purposes, as a person, even should that entity be demonstably not sapient.

5 That the effects of all previous UN resolutions concerning Humans, or Human Beings, including UN Resolution 26 "The Universal Bill of Rights" [other resolutions that should be highlighted], shall be extended appropriately and equally to all persons.

AND FURTHER RECOMENDS That all further resolutions use the terms "person" and "persons" unless a distinction is intended among the several sapient classes.

I despair of getting the fine-grained definitions in under a 3,500 character limit and making the resolution clear enough that people will be inclined to vote for it.

A week ago I would have suggested punting the details to a committee, but with that new sticky at the top of the page...

The national sovereignty argument is always popular. Perhaps the way to sidestep these issues of sapience and sci-fi/fantasy beings is to give local governments the responsibility to make the determination. That way, I could declare my Lesbosian monkeys non-sapient and a delicious entree, and Krioval could declare Chaotican monkeys sapient, but an evil race bent on the destruction of humanity (which, let's face it, all monkeys basically are).

Then we tell nationstates it's their responsibility to provide appropriate protection under UN resolutions for their sapient species, and mandate that they adjust age-specific clauses as appropriate.

I despair of getting the fine-grained definitions in under a 3,500 character limit and making the resolution clear enough that people will be inclined to vote for it.

A week ago I would have suggested punting the details to a committee, but with that new sticky at the top of the page...

The national sovereignty argument is always popular. Perhaps the way to sidestep these issues of sapience and sci-fi/fantasy beings is to give local governments the responsibility to make the determination. That way, I could declare my Lesbosian monkeys non-sapient and a delicious entree, and Krioval could declare Chaotican monkeys sapient, but an evil race bent on the destruction of humanity (which, let's face it, all monkeys basically are).

That could work...

Then we tell nationstates it's their responsibility to provide appropriate protection under UN resolutions for their sapient species, and mandate that they adjust age-specific clauses as appropriate.

Potentially illegal, as it is an amendment to many resolutions. We need to word this carefully to prevent that.

OK, we suggest it's their option to adjust...

I was wondering my self if extending previous resolutions to include all intelligent things would be considered an amendment. If it is is there any way to get around that other than defining everyone to be Human? As pointed out earlier, being called human will upset some people.

Also, After inspecting the current UN resolutions, I see that only four resolutions mention specific ages. (I may have missed some, I only read those that seemed as if they might pose a problem.)

Education For All
“To give every child under the age of 16 the right to a free education”
Free Education
“To give every person under the age of 18 the right to a free education”

I see this as a problem only if there is a state where that age of maturity is much younger than 18 and in which large numbers of mature citizens would take advantage of free education. However, as the original resolution reads "child" and not "Human Child" we are not explicitly affecting this resolution. This resolution should already cover children of all species, etc. So at most we would be extending this right to persons previously regarded as non-persons who are aged 17 or 18.

What this resolution does do is gaurentee proper free education to individuals that mature (or learn) very slowly. If a certain race etc, does not reach a schoolable age until after 18, they are not gaurenteed any free education.

I believe that any measure to change the Education For All resolution come under seperate cover, and not be tied to the Rights for all Intelligence measure.

Child Labor
“GIVEN that many nation states see fit to employ children under age 12 in manual labor and industry”

The Child Labor act does not set an age for the labor laws in the operative clauses. Further the only mention of an age (shown above) is entirely correct and appropriate. The Intelligence measure would not affect the Child Labor act and does not need to.

Required Basic Healthcare
This resolution is full of problematic ages, however it is no longer enforced by teh UN and is a reference document resolution only as proscribed by the RBH Replacement resolution.

THUS there will be no hardship placed upon UN nations by the Intelligence Measure because of non-human aging patterns.

Honestly, for simplicity's sake, and because who knows how often an additional "race" or "species" is going to populate a new nation, I'd like to move to call all groups of creatures that are derived from H. Sapiens to be called "Human" and treated legally as Human.

Such groups of people include but are not limited to:

Homo Sapiens
Elves
Vampires
Were-creatures
Dwarves

How are Elves or Dwarves "derived" from a species they were here before, and have no identifiable genetic link to? If anything is "derived" here, Humans are derived from Elves, not the other way around. :rolleyes:

this resolution/amendment/whatever could get broken into two parts:

The first would redefine the term "Human" in all previous resolutions to be "people/person" (or even "sapient being") (which would be an amendment to previous resolutions, I suppose)

The second is a resolution that defines what a "person" is and lists the criteria for sapience (and that's all it does). The rights for sapient beings (persons) would be a seperate resolution.

Would that work for people?

One more thing:

Should perhaps explicitly state that this measure shall not be construed to restrict in any way the rights protected by the Abortion Rights resolution? Otherwise people could argue that since unborn biologicals are are part members of a sapient species and thus have the right to life, etc. I really don't thin kany of us here want this to be seen in any way as an abortion bill.

Yes. Maybe in our "criteria for sapience" we can explicitly state that a biologically based being must already be born/hatched/budded. Also, I suppose something similar can be said about, say Artificial Intelligences: that they must have achieved an "operational state of awareness" (i.e. already been turned on once, which would be the equivalent of being born for them, I suppose).

I dont have a problem defining Human to include all persons, as long as it only affects previous legislation, otherwise we restrict the ability to pass future resoultions specifically concerning Homo sapiens. Plus there is the issue of Elves etc not wanting to be called Human.

Otherwise I like your divisions if we can get away with redefining terms.

How are Elves or Dwarves "derived" from a species they were here before, and have no identifiable genetic link to? If anything is "derived" here, Humans are derived from Elves, not the other way around. :rolleyes:

(stepping out of character for just a minute) I didn't know that NationStates included SF/Fantasy RP when I joined 3 days ago. Since as far as I know, all these additional "races/species/whatever", in their current form in this place, spring from the minds of people like JRR Tolkein, Larry Niven, Anne Rice, et al, "technically" they are all human-derived.

(stepping back into character)
You must excuse my ignorance about such exotic peoples. The Free Lands of Bitewaldi have not been visited by any except terrestrial Humans, at any official level, and our poor nation is obviously far behind in its interstellar and interspecies knowledge.

We invite members of all nations to open diplomatic offices with Bitewaldi and send ambassadors from off-world and other Earths (such as Middle Earth), so that we may learn more about such exotic and far-away lands.

We would also be interested in opening embassies in your countries, to strengthen interspecies ties.

How about:

UN RESOLVES etc.

That any member of a sapient class having commenced life through birth or any other method appropriate for thier class, shall be regarded, for all UN purposes, as a person, even should that entity be demonstably not sapient.

I would list more methods along with birth, but I confess I am rather ignorant in the ways that non-mamalian people start life.

It's a good start :)

We still have to define for the UN what "sapient class" is before the resolution could get voted on.

Other methods of biological reproduction include (but are not limited to):
hatching (from eggs or other containers)
budding (from a parent organism)
splitting (similar to budding)
growing (from a seed)
cloning - would clones have rights as individuals?
"infecting" (such as Vampirism and Were-ism)

I get lost when it comes to non-biological sapient reproductive practices, mostly because I'm not aware of what non-biological sapient beings exist.

(stepping out of character for just a minute) I didn't know that NationStates included SF/Fantasy RP when I joined 3 days ago. Since as far as I know, all these additional "races/species/whatever", in their current form in this place, spring from the minds of people like JRR Tolkein, Larry Niven, Anne Rice, et al, "technically" they are all human-derived.

(also out of character) Some people, including myself, are a LOT less comfortable roleplaying under the extreme restrictions of a "normal" (modern, only-human, etc.) setting. Not only that, but the Conclave Region was founded by people from a sci-fi and fantasy message board to roleplay as leaders of magic-using nations. I didn't think this was frowned upon here, but if it is I'll gladly leave. :mad:

(stepping back into character)

snipped excessive sarcasm :rolleyes:

We invite members of all nations to open diplomatic offices with Bitewaldi and send ambassadors from off-world and other Earths (such as Middle Earth), so that we may learn more about such exotic and far-away lands.

We would also be interested in opening embassies in your countries, to strengthen interspecies ties.

If you're serious about this (I honestly couldn't tell due to the aforementioned sarcasm), Olwe would welcome any diplomats from Bitewaldi with open arms... we don't get official visits from other nations very often, and we get offers to establish embassies even less. We would also very much like to visit your nation and learn more about the way that things are done outside the Conclave, if you were indeed serious about wanting us to send ambassadors. We can work out the details of this either in an RP or by telegram.

OOC again: I'll be out of town until the middle of next week, though, so I won't be able to log in again until then. :(

(also out of character) Some people, including myself, are a LOT less comfortable roleplaying under the extreme restrictions of a "normal" (modern, only-human, etc.) setting. Not only that, but the Conclave Region was founded by people from a sci-fi and fantasy message board to roleplay as leaders of magic-using nations. I didn't think this was frowned upon here, but if it is I'll gladly leave. :mad:

As I stated, I've only been here 3 days, and I came in from a "high-tech geek message board," and I didn't know what the parameters of this game were. (And let me further state that this is my first experience with a MMOG of any type). Some slack would be appreciated. Please don't leave on my account. I'm a character of minor significance here, I can assure you.



If you're serious about this (I honestly couldn't tell due to the aforementioned sarcasm), Olwe would welcome any diplomats from Bitewaldi with open arms... we don't get official visits from other nations very often, and we get offers to establish embassies even less. We would also very much like to visit your nation and learn more about the way that things are done outside the Conclave, if you were indeed serious about wanting us to send ambassadors. We can work out the details of this either in an RP or by telegram.



I wasn't being sarcastic, either. But I suppose my prose style was a bit too... formal? Purple? *shrug* (I'm still trying to find the proper "voice" for "official" communications) I will take any further communication regarding opening diplomatic relations with the Grand Duchy of Olwe off this thread, in any case.

No, but we've found genomes to be not as reliable in species differentiation. Especially when some of them don't even have DNA.

Can we assume that all biological species have hereditary information encoded in one form or another, that is passed down to offspring?

If so, then we may consider the information in this genome, plus the materials of the original cell, to be the basis of an organism. Any features not dependent on these are purely environmental issues, which do not change the fact that the organism is of a particular species. I would be inclined to regard vampirism and similar conditions as environmentally induced variation, and so vampires should be regarded as a variant of their original species, even though their environmental variation from the normal members of the species is so great.

THE UN HEREBY RESOLVES:

1 That any entity demonstrating the following characteristics shall be considered sapient, and the state of being such shall be called sapience;

[a, b, ...] [definition of sapient]

2 That any entity demonstrating sapience, whether it be biological,
mechanical, digital, spiritual, communal, or of any other variety, shall
be regarded for all UN purposes as a person;

3 To keep on permanent record, in several forms to be made freely available to all member states, a list of all known species, subspecies, races, and other classifications which are composed primarily of sapient entities, and that such classes shall refered to as sapient classes.

4 That any member of a sapient class shall be regarded, for all UN purposes, as a person, even should that entity be demonstably not sapient.

5 That the effects of all previous UN resolutions concerning Humans, or Human Beings, including UN Resolution 26 "The Universal Bill of Rights" [other resolutions that should be highlighted], shall be extended appropriately and equally to all persons.

AND FURTHER RECOMENDS That all further resolutions use the terms "person" and "persons" unless a distinction is intended among the several sapient classes.

I think this should be used as the framework for any proposal. Clause 5 is worded such that it doesn't constitute an amendment of past resolutions - rather it makes this resolution basically a copy of every preceding resolution but with "human" replaced with "sapient being" - although I'd recommend adding "for as long as each resolution is in effect for humans" so that repeals counted for non-humans too.

However, what is still required here, apart from a good definition, is taking into account species differences.

Education For All
“To give every child under the age of 16 the right to a free education”
Free Education
“To give every person under the age of 18 the right to a free education”

I see this as a problem only if there is a state where that age of maturity is much younger than 18 and in which large numbers of mature citizens would take advantage of free education. However, as the original resolution reads "child" and not "Human Child" we are not explicitly affecting this resolution. This resolution should already cover children of all species, etc. So at most we would be extending this right to persons previously regarded as non-persons who are aged 17 or 18.

What this resolution does do is gaurentee proper free education to individuals that mature (or learn) very slowly. If a certain race etc, does not reach a schoolable age until after 18, they are not gaurenteed any free education.

I believe that any measure to change the Education For All resolution come under seperate cover, and not be tied to the Rights for all Intelligence measure.

I disagree and believe this should be properly taken into account within this proposal if space allows. We could edit clause 5:

5 That the effects of all previous UN resolutions concerning Humans, or Human Beings, including UN Resolution 26 "The Universal Bill of Rights" [other resolutions that should be highlighted], shall be extended appropriately and equally to all personsexcept for resolutions Education For All and Free Education - committees of appropriate scientific experts will determine a suitable age for each sapient class equivalent to the human age of 18, up to which sapient beings of that class shall have the right to free education.

We still need to consider other biological differences, especially the number of sexes species have, and whether, for instance, abortion can be prohibited for egg-laying species.

Finally the problem of the start of life:

That any member of a sapient class having commenced life through birth or any other method appropriate for thier class, shall be regarded, for all UN purposes, as a person, even should that entity be demonstably not sapient.

Fertilisation of an egg could, at least in humans, be perfectly acceptably deemed to be the start of life. How about this:

That any member of a sapient class having commenced life outside the physical confines of a parent's body, shall be regarded, for all UN purposes, as a person, even should that entity be demonstably not sapient.

Problems are raised with egg-layers - I don't believe they should be allowed to abort, and I think this fulfils that, on the other hand many rights simply cannot be applied to an egg.

As I stated, I've only been here 3 days, and I came in from a "high-tech geek message board," and I didn't know what the parameters of this game were. (And let me further state that this is my first experience with a MMOG of any type). Some slack would be appreciated. Please don't leave on my account. I'm a character of minor significance here, I can assure you.

Sorry, I didn't know you were new. You just come off as more intelligent and worthy of paying attention to than a n00b, so I didn't check your join date and, in fact, assumed you were more experienced than me. I apologize for any misunderstanding. If you get to know me, you'll find that a lot of the time I speak before thinking, so my threat to leave was an example of that.

*puts foot in mouth*

Hmm, tastes like chicken. :D

Can we assume that all biological species have hereditary information encoded in one form or another, that is passed down to offspring?

If so, then we may consider the information in this genome, plus the materials of the original cell, to be the basis of an organism. Any features not dependent on these are purely environmental issues, which do not change the fact that the organism is of a particular species. I would be inclined to regard vampirism and similar conditions as environmentally induced variation, and so vampires should be regarded as a variant of their original species, even though their environmental variation from the normal members of the species is so great.

I am inclined to agree with this.



I think this should be used as the framework for any proposal. Clause 5 is worded such that it doesn't constitute an amendment of past resolutions - rather it makes this resolution basically a copy of every preceding resolution but with "human" replaced with "sapient being" - although I'd recommend adding "for as long as each resolution is in effect for humans" so that repeals counted for non-humans too.

<snip>

We could edit clause 5:

5 That the effects of all previous UN resolutions concerning Humans, or Human Beings, including UN Resolution 26 "The Universal Bill of Rights" [other resolutions that should be highlighted], shall be extended appropriately and equally to all personsexcept for resolutions Education For All and Free Education - committees of appropriate scientific experts will determine a suitable age for each sapient class equivalent to the human age of 18, up to which sapient beings of that class shall have the right to free education.

Also agree.

We still need to consider other biological differences, especially the number of sexes species have, and whether, for instance, abortion can be prohibited for egg-laying species.

Finally the problem of the start of life:



Fertilisation of an egg could, at least in humans, be perfectly acceptably deemed to be the start of life. How about this:

That any member of a sapient class having commenced life outside the physical confines of a parent's body, shall be regarded, for all UN purposes, as a person, even should that entity be demonstably not sapient.

Problems are raised with egg-layers - I don't believe they should be allowed to abort, and I think this fulfils that, on the other hand many rights simply cannot be applied to an egg.

Why can't egg-layers be allowed to "abort"? Are you then saying the laying of an egg is the equivalent of a live birth? Is there a mechanism to prevent the laying of an egg after fertilization? Are we forcing the females of egg-producing sapient species to raise clutch after clutch of young that they may not want? (What if the act of fertilization happens infrequently, as with chickens?) What if the eggs aren't protected (similar to amphibian eggs, rather than bird eggs)? Is the FSUN going to be required to send aide personell into the swamps to hunt for abandoned egg clutches and rescue them?

The Free State of Bitewaldi does not want to discriminate against females of a particular genome simply because they lay their eggs instead of using a uterus to grow their unborn!

(OOC: the abortion issue is difficult enough with human-only reproduction! ARgh!)

There is an egg laying species within our space, named the Sedenta, and they would support this fully. An egg that has been layed is independently viable, involves no discomfort for the mother, is not a part of her body, and can be given to another individual to be raised.
The smashing of fertilized eggs by a mother is a crime on the planet Molten, for these reasons.
Also, I am going to be checking the passed resolutions to see if there is an international adoption resolution in effect.

thank you for the clarifications. I think with those criteria (independent viability being a major one), I can also agree to this proposal.

(stepping out of character for just a minute) I didn't know that NationStates included SF/Fantasy RP when I joined 3 days ago. Since as far as I know, all these additional "races/species/whatever", in their current form in this place, spring from the minds of people like JRR Tolkein, Larry Niven, Anne Rice, et al, "technically" they are all human-derived.

OOC: We also have intelligent dinosaurs, intelligent penguines, nations of demons, nations of mechanical beings, incorporeal beings, and even a few that are alive but don't fit any known category, including biological, existing.

And that's just the surface.

Can we assume that all biological species have hereditary information encoded in one form or another, that is passed down to offspring?

I wouldn't risk it. Certain beings we've run across are clearly alive, questionably biological in nature, and so far have no identifiable traits that are the equivolent of genetic coding in what passes for their blood. Then there are the enormous variety of demons, quite a few of which are clearly alive and biological but which may not even have genetic data. I do think it is safe to assume that demons both corporeal and able to reproduce due have genetic data of some sort.

If so, then we may consider the information in this genome, plus the materials of the original cell, to be the basis of an organism. Any features not dependent on these are purely environmental issues, which do not change the fact that the organism is of a particular species. I would be inclined to regard vampirism and similar conditions as environmentally induced variation, and so vampires should be regarded as a variant of their original species, even though their environmental variation from the normal members of the species is so great.

Maybe. But this still doesn't account for the vampiric virus itself, which, due to their nature, cannot be held as separate from the vampire.

Yet another dilemma: What of viruses or parasites that cause sapience in a host, which was not before sapient. And what of creatures which are not sapient as a species, but through technology or magic, are made sapient. Surely some nation has developed a way to alter neural pathways. I would still press for an individual sapience necessity, as well as a clause stating that if a majority of the species is sapient, then the entire species gains rights of sapient creatures.

Yet another dilemma: What of viruses or parasites that cause sapience in a host, which was not before sapient. And what of creatures which are not sapient as a species, but through technology or magic, are made sapient. Surely some nation has developed a way to alter neural pathways. I would still press for an individual sapience necessity, as well as a clause stating that if a majority of the species is sapient, then the entire species gains rights of sapient creatures.

Individual sentience tests are a pain due to the fact we still don't have a working definition of sentience.

And I should now note my main opposition to the word 'sapience': It is based on part of the species designation of humans. Unfortunately, humans are a species best known for their stupidity, not their intelligence, even among themselves. So using the word 'sapience' may give it bad connotions through association.

This is not to say all humans are stupid, but when some of your greatest thinkers refer to it and one of them accuses it of being the only certain infinity, then it's pretty much going to be the most famous part of your species.

Individual sentience tests are a pain due to the fact we still don't have a working definition of sentience.
But can we allow any sentient being to be stripped of their rights simply because most of their species are not sentient? And should we give rights of sentience to, say, cattle, if one cow is somehow raised to the level of sentience?

And I should now note my main opposition to the word 'sapience': It is based on part of the species designation of humans. Unfortunately, humans are a species best known for their stupidity, not their intelligence, even among themselves. So using the word 'sapience' may give it bad connotions through association.
Theres no need to get insulting to the humans now, we DO share the universe with them, however misguided they sometimes are. And the Sapien species designation in homo sapien is used to denote sapience in their species. Indeed, human scientists would describe our species as Cyran Sapien.

This is not to say all humans are stupid, but when some of your greatest thinkers refer to it and one of them accuses it of being the only certain infinity, then it's pretty much going to be the most famous part of your species.
I have to admit I am unsure of what you are refering to here.

But can we allow any sentient being to be stripped of their rights simply because most of their species are not sentient? And should we give rights of sentience to, say, cattle, if one cow is somehow raised to the level of sentience?

Until we have a working definition that manages to not exclude a major portion of humanity (humans tend not to look too well at being defined as nonsentient) that doesn't manage to grant it to everything alive, we really don't have a good arguement for granting it to anybody.

Theres no need to get insulting to the humans now, we DO share the universe with them, however misguided they sometimes are. And the Sapien species designation in homo sapien is used to denote sapience in their species. Indeed, human scientists would describe our species as Cyran Sapien.

And Sarkarasetans are Homo dominus rex (recent reclassification), but that's due to being more evolved and having evolved from humans. Doesn't stop us from looking down on our relatives, much like humans do to lesser primates.

But the point I was making is that humanity's inability to prove itself sentient to itself beyond the assumption it is and a definition based upon itself is what will bring up objections from some. Add in the fact that some of their greatest thinkers, and quite a few of the average members, subscribe to the view of humanity that says, "People are idiots."

I have to admit I am unsure of what you are refering to here.

This quote:

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

Firstly, are there actually nations composed of demons and other supernatural beings that are members of the FSUN? I'd tend to suspect that they wouldn't necessarily care about what rules we "mere mortals" agree to with each other.

Second, I take umberage at a percieved denigration of human beings by other entities -- this proposed resolution is supposed to declare the equality of all sapient beings, rather than establish some sort of heirarchy of sapience. If that concept is insulting to your class of entities; if that would make you feel as if you are "lowering yourselves to the level of a mere human", I would suggest that you need to examine your own prejudices.

I think this resolution should limit itself to those beings whose "natural" existence makes the class of beings as a whole sapient, and that a seperate resolution be enacted (after this one has passed) to figure out how to provide legal protections for individuals who have been "uplifted" (to use the David Brin term) from their natural non-sapient state into sapience through artificial or magickal means.

Perhaps the resolution should also include the formation of a committee or board or regulatory body whose purpose is

I. To determine a standard set of criteria by which sapience is measured

II. To maintain the list of sapient entities

III. To proccess applications for sapience from entity classes who are not on the list.

I would also advise those beings who are capable of "uplifting" members of non-sapient classes that their "progeny" have, at this moment, a dubious legal standing.

For example, I would not want to be a "smart cow" at this particular point in time.

I would just like to add that we must be very careful not to allow the creation of a "slave race," or entities that can be altered (uplifted) and then exploited.

We must also be careful not to legislate ourselves into forced starvation.

Firstly, are there actually nations composed of demons and other supernatural beings that are members of the FSUN? I'd tend to suspect that they wouldn't necessarily care about what rules we "mere mortals" agree to with each other.

We do know the answer to that and should not exclude such beings until it is known for sure that all of them are not, and never will be, in the UN.

Second, I take umberage at a percieved denigration of human beings by other entities -- this proposed resolution is supposed to declare the equality of all sapient beings, rather than establish some sort of heirarchy of sapience. If that concept is insulting to your class of entities; if that would make you feel as if you are "lowering yourselves to the level of a mere human", I would suggest that you need to examine your own prejudices.

The question is not "Is humanity sentient?" The question is "Is all of humanity sentient?" Humanity itself cannot answer that question without using assumptions. You must keep in mind that humanity's characteristics that have a naturally immense range include intelligence, and now we're looking at the possibility it may include sentience as well. Considering humanity is one of the first species of its evolutionary line to be classified as sentient, it is perfectly natural for such a borderline species to have nonsentient members still capable of functioning in human society naturally resulting without some mutation of DNA.

I know it's insulting to have members of your species referred to as nonsentient, but it may simply be an aspect of nature that humanity, in its limited experience and lack of reference points in most cases, failed to account for.

I think this resolution should limit itself to those beings whose "natural" existence makes the class of beings as a whole sapient, and that a seperate resolution be enacted (after this one has passed) to figure out how to provide legal protections for individuals who have been "uplifted" (to use the David Brin term) from their natural non-sapient state into sapience through artificial or magickal means.

I wouldn't include this, as AIs are not natural beings by any stretch of the imagination and they are definitely sentient. And if humanity is found to include members naturally nonsentient, then that creates another headache of us trying to decide whether humanity's sentience is natural or unnaturally induced, in which case I don't even want to be around for that arguement.

Perhaps the resolution should also include the formation of a committee or board or regulatory body whose purpose is

I. To determine a standard set of criteria by which sapience is measured

II. To maintain the list of sapient entities

III. To proccess applications for sapience from entity classes who are not on the list.

Please! Not Another Useless Committee! Can't we solve this without resorting to that?

I would also advise those beings who are capable of "uplifting" members of non-sapient classes that their "progeny" have, at this moment, a dubious legal standing.

For example, I would not want to be a "smart cow" at this particular point in time.

What about AIs? Do you oppose the inclusion of them as well?

What makes a person a person. Communication is one thing true a parrot can be taught to say "I want to join the UN" but can it respond when I ask it why? Someone has said that primitive humans had a form of sighn and tonal language. Now how can we tell the difference between a computer and AI. I could pre-program a computer to come up with 150 responses to given questions but intellegence is the ability to respond to a question never before encountered. Okay I can ask the Computer "Do you want to join the UN?"
It can answer yes. I ask "why." It can be programded to say "To promote the general good." Intellegence comes when I ask it to elaborate on that answer.
A solution to this resolution may be to have a pannel of neutral officals be appointed to test new applicates like a scholastic review board the point of the board is not to see if the applicant is a genuis but whetere or not it can comunicate at least on some rudementray level. Even if I don't understand the language I know that the petitioner is communicating by the variation in response to the given stimuli. A mule when you talk to it will contune to do what it was doing. True animals can alert each other to danger in a manner of communication but little else. In an experiemnt in the UK I bleive they used a dancing bee robot to communicate with the bees in telling them where a dish of sugar water was. But bees cannot communicate beyond that the sicenits could not for example tell them who and what they were neither could the bees. Thus if I was on the pannel I could ask the petitioner "why do you want to join the UN."
If the petioner responds "where is the honey? " I could then ask "Why is it you want the honey what do you want to do with it."
If the response is "where is honey?" criteria has not this year been met.
However, if the response is "Hoeny food for me and colony, needed to survive." Admission granted.
Thoughts, comments reasons why I suck.

No, the question is Are races other than Human (Homo Sapiens Sapiens) sapient in the eyes of the law?

Because right now, the way things stand, all NSUN resolutions, the way they are written are basically referring only to Humans.

Sad as it may be to a "higher being" such as yourself, Humanity is the benchmark. This is a very Humanocentric Universe.

And what I absolutely do not want to see is the relegation of various subsets of any group to the classification of "animal" because they are deficient in some way from what is considered the "norm" for their species/class.

I am having difficulty, it's true, accepting AIs automatically as a "natural sapient entity", but that is mostly from RL prejudice creeping in. I am willing to accept AIs as a sapient entity race.

Are there established criteria for machine intelligence in existance in NationStates?

And I don't see how this body (the United Nations) will be able to determine any future sapient beings without a committee being established. If you can propose some way to do this, I'd be more than happy to read about it.

What makes a person a person. Communication is one thing true a parrot can be taught to say "I want to join the UN" but can it respond when I ask it why?

Yes, if it repeats what someone else has said. Hell, I had a dog who could figure out a variety of metaphors for "Outside" just by hearing them once.

Someone has said that primitive humans had a form of sighn and tonal language.

I wouldn't know, having not on Earth during that period.

Now how can we tell the difference between a computer and AI. I could pre-program a computer to come up with 150 responses to given questions but intellegence is the ability to respond to a question never before encountered. Okay I can ask the Computer "Do you want to join the UN?"
It can answer yes. I ask "why." It can be programded to say "To promote the general good." Intellegence comes when I ask it to elaborate on that answer.

Intelligence also comes with the possibility you may annoy it and it may tell you to perform sexual acts on yourself involve various fruits and to stop bugging it so it can get back to work. Don't forget some AIs come with the whole emotions thing as well.

A solution to this resolution may be to have a pannel of neutral officals be appointed to test new applicates like a scholastic review board the point of the board is not to see if the applicant is a genuis but whetere or not it can comunicate at least on some rudementray level.

Bees communication using complicated dance moves to direct the hive to a source of food. Wolves and dogs communicate using a complicated series of gestures that required humans years of study to figure out. A type of tree developped a way to communicate danger using chemicals. Really, that is probably the worst method of testing for sentience I have heard due to the wide range of nonsentient animals that communicate.

Even if I don't understand the language I know that the petitioner is communicating by the variation in response to the given stimuli.

Which doesn't help if the petitioner communicates using a method not yet accounted for, such as telepathy or chemicals released into the air.

A mule when you talk to it will contune to do what it was doing. True animals can alert each other to danger in a manner of communication but little else.

Your average dog can communicate its emotional states, its hunger, its readiness to play, its seriousness, and even whether or not it wants to go to bed (if so inclined). And that's ignoring its ability to communicate its willingness to mate, position in the pack relative to yours, and a wide range of others. In essense, your average dog can communicate more than your average human baby.

In an experiemnt in the UK I bleive they used a dancing bee robot to communicate with the bees in telling them where a dish of sugar water was. But bees cannot communicate beyond that the sicenits could not for example tell them who and what they were neither could the bees.

Bees also communicate membership of the hive through scent, that they don't want a certain individual in the hive, and willingness to mate.

Thus if I was on the pannel I could ask the petitioner "why do you want to join the UN."
If the petioner responds "where is the honey? " I could then ask "Why is it you want the honey what do you want to do with it."
If the response is "where is honey?" criteria has not this year been met.

Unless that is the only phrase in your language the petitioner knows. In that case, they are trying to communicate but are using what limited tools they have that they know you can understand. Keep in mind that, even among humans, most physical gestures used for communication are not universal, so a species not of the same evolutionary family would have a completely different set of even base gestures than humans do and might know that it cannot rely on those for communication in that instance. All you have proven is that it knows a phrase in your language, not its actual intelligence.

However, if the response is "Hoeny food for me and colony, needed to survive." Admission granted.
Thoughts, comments reasons why I suck.

The problem is too many variables to account for. It was a nice idea, but it barely works among just humans.

What makes a person a person. Communication is one thing true a parrot can be taught to say "I want to join the UN" but can it respond when I ask it why? Someone has said that primitive humans had a form of sighn and tonal language. Now how can we tell the difference between a computer and AI. I could pre-program a computer to come up with 150 responses to given questions but intellegence is the ability to respond to a question never before encountered. Okay I can ask the Computer "Do you want to join the UN?"
It can answer yes. I ask "why." It can be programded to say "To promote the general good." Intellegence comes when I ask it to elaborate on that answer.
A solution to this resolution may be to have a pannel of neutral officals be appointed to test new applicates like a scholastic review board the point of the board is not to see if the applicant is a genuis but whetere or not it can comunicate at least on some rudementray level. Even if I don't understand the language I know that the petitioner is communicating by the variation in response to the given stimuli. A mule when you talk to it will contune to do what it was doing. True animals can alert each other to danger in a manner of communication but little else. In an experiemnt in the UK I bleive they used a dancing bee robot to communicate with the bees in telling them where a dish of sugar water was. But bees cannot communicate beyond that the sicenits could not for example tell them who and what they were neither could the bees. Thus if I was on the pannel I could ask the petitioner "why do you want to join the UN."
If the petioner responds "where is the honey? " I could then ask "Why is it you want the honey what do you want to do with it."
If the response is "where is honey?" criteria has not this year been met.
However, if the response is "Hoeny food for me and colony, needed to survive." Admission granted.
Thoughts, comments reasons why I suck.

Here is a proposed set of criteria for declaration of legal sentience/sapience within the scope of NS:

1. Communication: this can be through language (verbal. written, signed, scented, etc.), telepathy, or transmission

2. Technology: A certain level of tecnological development must be reached to be awarded all the rights and priveledges afforded to FSUN member nations. I am open to suggestions as to what this level might be, but it should be more than hive building and the occaisonal use of a rock to break open an oyster shell.

3. Sociological development: the class of beings should be sociologically advanced enough to desire social intercourse (dialogue, people, get your minds out of the gutter!) with other beings; forming social groups with others, or even communities or other social structures.

We can state that if more than a certain percentage of the members of a class of beings exhibit these criteria, then that entire class of beings is sapient and subject to "coverage". We can further state that if that percentage hasn't been reached, individuals within that class of beings may be considered for special dispensation and awarded individual sapience status.

would that cover idiot humans, smart cows and AIs?

No, the question is Are races other than Human (Homo Sapiens Sapiens) sapient in the eyes of the law?

Are other races sentient in the eyes of the law? Of course. But keep in mind that humanity is the worst judge due to it not even being able to prove its sentience to itself without using itself as the criteria by which sentience is to be judged. That is hardly a scientific standpoint, and yet human scientists use it all of the time.

Now you know why I have said we must create criteria that do not exclude humanity in some portion, which pretty much most criteria manage to do.

Because right now, the way things stand, all NSUN resolutions, the way they are written are basically referring only to Humans.

Wrong. Check the Definition of Marriage resolution.

Sad as it may be to a "higher being" such as yourself, Humanity is the benchmark. This is a very Humanocentric Universe.

And what I absolutely do not want to see is the relegation of various subsets of any group to the classification of "animal" because they are deficient in some way from what is considered the "norm" for their species/class.

Humanity is the benchmark simply because of how many humans there are. Humanity is a fast-breeding species, much like rabbits, that quickly spreads out and tries to acquire territory rapidly. Many of its evolutions drop these tendencies for some reason, probably related to all of the trouble it can get a species in.

And, while it would be nice to be able to include an entire species, we must allow for borderline species in the role of sentience, as those are species naturally acquiring sentience for the first time in their evolutionary lines and may still have many members who are nonsentient.

I am having difficulty, it's true, accepting AIs automatically as a "natural sapient entity", but that is mostly from RL prejudice creeping in. I am willing to accept AIs as a sapient entity race.

Are there established criteria for machine intelligence in existance in NationStates?

Prejudice is another problem of sentient species, and we may have to accept that it exists.

Any requirements for machine intelligence? No. That is why some machines reach, for their creator's standards, near-godlike intelligence while others remain as unintelligence automatons. Among the UN there are AIs that control ships, orbital defense platforms, and even rule an entire nation. In a few cases, there are nations that are nothing but machines. The problem is how to deal with them all.

And I don't see how this body (the United Nations) will be able to determine any future sapient beings without a committee being established. If you can propose some way to do this, I'd be more than happy to read about it.

First, we need an idea of what sentience is. As it exists, we have standards that either apply to most animals, standards that exclude humans in large numbers, and standards that are just focused on using a single species as an ideal. And even machines are guilty of that last one.

Here is a proposed set of criteria for declaration of legal sentience/sapience within the scope of NS:

1. Communication: this can be through language (verbal. written, signed, scented, etc.), telepathy, or transmission

2. Technology: A certain level of tecnological development must be reached to be awarded all the rights and priveledges afforded to FSUN member nations. I am open to suggestions as to what this level might be, but it should be more than hive building and the occaisonal use of a rock to break open an oyster shell.

3. Sociological development: the class of beings should be sociologically advanced enough to desire social intercourse (dialogue, people, get your minds out of the gutter!) with other beings; forming social groups with others, or even communities or other social structures.

We can state that if more than a certain percentage of the members of a class of beings exhibit these criteria, then that entire class of beings is sapient and subject to "coverage". We can further state that if that percentage hasn't been reached, individuals within that class of beings may be considered for special dispensation and awarded individual sapience status.

would that cover idiot humans, smart cows and AIs?

#1: Perfect.

#2: I would allow for biological technology, such as living ships. Certain species use biological instead of mechanical.

#3: Add in an allowance for individuals to go against social norms. That covers all possible variations of humanity imaginable and stifles any possible arguements.

Suggested #4: Adaptability. A sentient creature must be able to adapt itself to unusual and changing circumstances. This is actually the chief of humanity's advantages, the thing that has allowed it to manage to live in so many different climates and even allow individuals to go from living spread out to living in densely-packed habitats.

Sentience: Make it 65%. Even at its worst humanity must have at least that many people who can qualify as sentient for the species to have been able to advance as far as it had. Anything less than that and there are too many people who have to be "carried" by the rest for as much advancement to happen as fast as it has.

#1: Perfect.

#2: I would allow for biological technology, such as living ships. Certain species use biological instead of mechanical.

#3: Add in an allowance for individuals to go against social norms. That covers all possible variations of humanity imaginable and stifles any possible arguements.

Suggested #4: Adaptability. A sentient creature must be able to adapt itself to unusual and changing circumstances. This is actually the chief of humanity's advantages, the thing that has allowed it to manage to live in so many different climates and even allow individuals to go from living spread out to living in densely-packed habitats.

Sentience: Make it 65%. Even at its worst humanity must have at least that many people who can qualify as sentient for the species to have been able to advance as far as it had. Anything less than that and there are too many people who have to be "carried" by the rest for as much advancement to happen as fast as it has.


I would suggest that your #4 is more important than my #3.

I also think that 65% is a generous figure, so I won't complain about that, either <g>.

I think we've come to a consensus (at least between the 2 of us!).

okay it has been said:
1. Communication: this can be through language (verbal. written, signed, scented, etc.), telepathy, or transmission

2. Technology: A certain level of tecnological development must be reached to be awarded all the rights and priveledges afforded to FSUN member nations. I am open to suggestions as to what this level might be, but it should be more than hive building and the occaisonal use of a rock to break open an oyster shell.

3. Sociological development: the class of beings should be sociologically advanced enough to desire social intercourse (dialogue, people, get your minds out of the gutter!) with other beings; forming social groups with others, or even communities or other social structures.

We can state that if more than a certain percentage of the members of a class of beings exhibit these criteria, then that entire class of beings is sapient and subject to "coverage". We can further state that if that percentage hasn't been reached, individuals within that class of beings may be considered for special dispensation and awarded individual sapience status.

would that cover idiot humans, smart cows and AIs?


#1: Perfect.

#2: I would allow for biological technology, such as living ships. Certain species use biological instead of mechanical.

#3: Add in an allowance for individuals to go against social norms. That covers all possible variations of humanity imaginable and stifles any possible arguements.

Suggested #4: Adaptability. A sentient creature must be able to adapt itself to unusual and changing circumstances. This is actually the chief of humanity's advantages, the thing that has allowed it to manage to live in so many different climates and even allow individuals to go from living spread out to living in densely-packed habitats.

Sentience: Make it 65%. Even at its worst humanity must have at least that many people who can qualify as sentient for the species to have been able to advance as far as it had. Anything less than that and there are too many people who have to be "carried" by the rest for as much advancement to happen as fast as it has.

Why not make this as basic as possible why not make fire a prequist considering it is the baisis for all technology. But what about Cebastians, whales, dolphens and other sea dwelling creatures?
I like where you "higher beings" are going though it seams we are getting cloaser here. I mean red hot. I'm ready to add this in the proposal but I still want to hear more from others after all caution is the basis of knowledge.

Cetacians are the order of sea mammals that encompases both whales and dolphins (IIRC). There are other sea mammals that have a lower intelligence level, such as seals, walruses, and otters.

Perhaps we can assign "scores" to the various categories, and if a given entity has a cumulative score of over a certain number, they are considered sapient.

the thing about Cetacians is that they are not a very technologically advanced group of entities, I assume by choice (and lack of hands). However they are a very social group of entities, forming complex relationships with each other, and their communication skills are highly developed.

Are there any Cetaceans here that can help shed light on the particulars of these beings?

Additionally, do we have mer-creatures among our interstellar populations?

Lesbosian monkeys use primitive tools, and I'll roast in hell before I see them granted equal protection under UN resolutions. They're just not intelligent.

I like the direction of the discussion from Bitewaldi's criteria. While I think we can all agree cavemen were sapient, I can't imagine how UN resolutions would apply to a nation of cavement.

(ooc: that's a pretty funny RP idea. now i'm tempted)

If technology is going to be a criteria, it should be more than fire and primitive tools, but less than, say, shampoo and conditioner in one bottle. Technology is probably going to rule out any member of Cetacea with which I'm familiar, as well as the weirder SF creatures (intelligent stars, hydrogen-based life forms, etc.)

But then, it would be silly to try to apply the Eon Convention to an intelligent hydrogen dust-cloud. Perhaps they don't need to be included.


I reiterate that I think the best way to do this is to have the resolution say what the categories are and give individual nationstates the responsibility of setting pass/fail criteria in those categories and deciding whether their native species are sapient and deserving of protection under UN resolutions.

The Member from YGSM must really hate those monkeys!

I didn't want to put an "intelligence" criteria on the list, because, in some respects I think that's what we're trying to determine.. But if "intelligence" is not equal to "sapience" (and I think we can all agree on that), but a factor of sapience, then we should add "intelligence" to the list of criteria. I think an intelligence criteria, properly defined, in addition to the overall "scores" concept of granting legal sapience to an entity would grant sapience for Cetaceans, and stellar-stentients (which, I think, we would like to do), yet exclude those pesky Lesbosian monkeys.

The Member from YGSM must really hate those monkeys!

I didn't want to put an "intelligence" criteria on the list, because, in some respects I think that's what we're trying to determine.. But if "intelligence" is not equal to "sapience" (and I think we can all agree on that), but a factor of sapience, then we should add "intelligence" to the list of criteria. I think an intelligence criteria, properly defined, in addition to the overall "scores" concept of granting legal sapience to an entity would grant sapience for Cetaceans, and stellar-stentients (which, I think, we would like to do), yet exclude those pesky Lesbosian monkeys.
You only have to get bit once to realize what they're really like.

*Ahem* I feel I need to clarify: My comments are directed at real monkeys, not the delegate or members from Monkey Island. I do not attribute to Mousebumples any of the qualities of real monkeys.

Allow me to summarize the recent conversations about how to determine sapience:

I. SAPIENCE
An entity shall be considered sapient if he/she/it scores above 80 sapience points. Sapience points are allocated 20 points each, according to the following 5 criteria:

1. Communication: The individual must be able to communicate with others through
language (verbal. written, signed, scented, etc.),
telepathy, or
transmission.

2. Intelligence: In this context, intelligence is defined as the ability to understand and communicate abstract knowledge (such as mathematics, philosophy, or emotional states),
the ability to learn new things (add knowledge to their repository of information),
the ability to process information,
the ability to make predictions for future occurances based on previously gathered information,
the ability to learn from experience.

3. Adaptability: The ability to adapt itself to unusual and changing circumstances.

4. Technology: The ability to manipulate or create tools or other items to enhance the natural abilities of the individual or group. The amount of technology an individual "posesses" can range from a score of 1 (simple tool use, such as using a found rock to open a mollusk shell to obtain food), to a score of 20 (interstellar travel, creation of dyson spheres, god-like powers of life and death over entire planetary systems, etc.)

5. Sociological development: sociological development includes
the desire for social intercourse with other beings;
the ability to form social groups, communities or other social structures with others;
tolerance for a diversity of social behaviors, including a preference to be left alone for a great majority of the time.

For an entire race, species, or class of beings to be considered sapient, 65% of the members of that race, species or class of beings must posess individual sapience scores of 80 or above.

Personal comments: I believe that this will allow an entity to be completely deficient in one of these criteria, yet may be considered sapient. We will probably need to refine some of the criteria details, but I think we are approaching something that can be workable. If anyone would like to amend the language of these criteria to make it less ambiguous, I would appreciate the assistance.

Further, if you think a minimum score of 80 is too high for sapience, I am very flexible about that number. I was trying to pick a number that would admit intelligent stars, cavemen and dolphins, but would exclude Lesbosian monekys and dogs.

I also have no idea what this is going to do to the word count on the final proposal. :)

Allow me to summarize the recent conversations about how to determine sapience:

I. SAPIENCE
An entity shall be considered sapient if he/she/it scores above 80 sapience points. Sapience points are allocated 20 points each, according to the following 5 criteria:

1. Communication: The individual must be able to communicate with others through
language (verbal. written, signed, scented, etc.),
telepathy, or
transmission.

2. Intelligence: In this context, intelligence is defined as the ability to understand and communicate abstract knowledge (such as mathematics, philosophy, or emotional states),
the ability to learn new things (add knowledge to their repository of information),
the ability to process information,
the ability to make predictions for future occurances based on previously gathered information,
the ability to learn from experience.

3. Adaptability: The ability to adapt itself to unusual and changing circumstances.

4. Technology: The ability to manipulate or create tools or other items to enhance the natural abilities of the individual or group. The amount of technology an individual "posesses" can range from a score of 1 (simple tool use, such as using a found rock to open a mollusk shell to obtain food), to a score of 20 (interstellar travel, creation of dyson spheres, god-like powers of life and death over entire planetary systems, etc.)

5. Sociological development: sociological development includes
the desire for social intercourse with other beings;
the ability to form social groups, communities or other social structures with others;
tolerance for a diversity of social behaviors, including a preference to be left alone for a great majority of the time.

For an entire race, species, or class of beings to be considered sapient, 65% of the members of that race, species or class of beings must posess individual sapience scores of 80 or above.

I likee!

Personal comments: I believe that this will allow an entity to be completely deficient in one of these criteria, yet may be considered sapient. We will probably need to refine some of the criteria details, but I think we are approaching something that can be workable. If anyone would like to amend the language of these criteria to make it less ambiguous, I would appreciate the assistance.

Adaptibility should have a longer definition to make it more useful. How about:

3. Adaptability: The ability to adapt itself to unusual and changing circumstances. Adaptibility includes being able to survive in multiple environments, the ability to decide which item or action is appropriate for a certain circumstance, and the ability to utilize one's environment to maximize advantages.

That should cover it.

Further, if you think a minimum score of 80 is too high for sapience, I am very flexible about that number. I was trying to pick a number that would admit intelligent stars, cavemen and dolphins, but would exclude Lesbosian monekys and dogs.

I also have no idea what this is going to do to the word count on the final proposal. :)

Let's hope the word count isn't too high.

I agree with that score. The average human would have to be actively trying to fail to get below an 80. The average dog would have to be getting help to pass.

I concur with DemonLordEnigma's changes/additions.

Can someone post the entire, revised proposal as it stands now?

SEEKING fairness and equality in the application of all resolutions;

RECOGNIZING the diversity of peoples present in UN member states;

AND IN VIEW of the general disregard for non-human persons in present resolutions;

THE UN HEREBY RESOLVES:

1 That any entity demonstrating not less than four of the following characteristics shall be considered sapient, and the state of being such shall be called sapience;

a The ability to communicate with other entities through language or other methods of transmission,

b The ability to

i understand and communicate abstract concepts such as mathematics, philosophy, or emotional states,

ii learn new concepts and skills from sources including experience

iii process information to draw conclusions and act accordingly

iv make predictions for future occurrences based on previously gathered information,

c The ability to adapt to unusual and changing circumstances.

d. The ability to manipulate or create tools or other items to enhance the natural abilities of the individual or group. The amount of technology an individual "posesses" can range from simple tool use, such as using a found rock to open a mollusk shell to obtain food to interstellar travel, creation of dyson spheres, god-like powers of life and death over entire planetary systems, etc.;

e. The desire and ability

i to engage in social intercourse with other beings;

ii to form social groups, communities or other social structures with others;

iii tolerance for a diversity of social behaviors, including a preference to be left alone for a great majority of the time.

2 That any entity demonstrating sapience, whether it be biological,
mechanical, digital, spiritual, communal, or of any other variety, shall
be regarded for all UN purposes as a person;

3 To keep on permanent record, in several forms to be made freely available to all member states, a list of all known species, subspecies, races, and other classifications which are composed primarily of sapient entities, and that such classes shall refered to as sapient classes.

4 That any member of a sapient class shall be regarded, for all UN purposes, as a person, even should that entity be demonstably not sapient.

5 That the effects of all previous UN resolutions concerning Humans, or Human Beings, including UN Resolution 26 "The Universal Bill of Rights" [other resolutions that should be highlighted], shall be extended appropriately and equally to all persons until such time as they are repealed, excepting resolutions Education For All and Free Education, concerning which committees of appropriate experts shall be convened from time to time as needed to determine a suitable age for each sapient class equivalent to the human age of 18, up to which age sapient beings of that class shall have the right to free education.

AND FURTHER RECOMENDS that all future resolutions use the terms "person" and "persons" unless a distinction is intended among the several sapient classes.

SEEKING fairness and equality in the application of all resolutions;

RECOGNIZING the diversity of peoples present in UN member states;

AND IN VIEW of the general disregard for non-human persons in present resolutions;

THE UN HEREBY RESOLVES:

1 An entity shall be considered sapient if he/she/it scores above 80 sapience points. Sapience points are allocated 20 points each, according to the following 5 criteria:

a The ability to communicate with other entities through language or other methods of transmission,

b The ability to

i understand and communicate abstract concepts such as mathematics, philosophy, or emotional states,

ii learn new concepts and skills from sources including experience

iii process information to draw conclusions and act accordingly

iv make predictions for future occurrences based on previously gathered information,

c The ability to adapt to unusual and changing circumstances. Adaptibility includes being able to survive in multiple environments, the ability to decide which item or action is appropriate for a certain circumstance, and the ability to utilize one's environment to maximize advantages.

d. The ability to manipulate or create tools or other items to enhance the natural abilities of the individual or group. The amount of technology an individual "posesses" can range from a score of 1 (simple tool use, such as using a found rock to open a mollusk shell to obtain food), to a score of 20 (interstellar travel, creation of dyson spheres, god-like powers of life and death over entire planetary systems, etc.)

e. The desire and ability

i to engage in social intercourse with other beings;

ii to form social groups, communities or other social structures with others;

iii tolerance for a diversity of social behaviors, including a preference to be left alone for a great majority of the time.

For an entire race, species, or class of beings to be considered sapient, 65% of the members of that race, species or class of beings must posess individual sapience scores of 80 or above.

2 That any entity demonstrating sapience, whether it be biological,
mechanical, digital, spiritual, communal, or of any other variety, shall
be regarded for all UN purposes as a person;

3 To keep on permanent record, in several forms to be made freely available to all member states, a list of all known species, subspecies, races, and other classifications which are composed primarily of sapient entities, and that such classes shall refered to as sapient classes.

4 That any member of a sapient class shall be regarded, for all UN purposes, as a person, even should that entity be demonstably not sapient.

5 That the effects of all previous UN resolutions concerning Humans, or Human Beings, including UN Resolution 26 "The Universal Bill of Rights" [other resolutions that should be highlighted], shall be extended appropriately and equally to all persons until such time as they are repealed, excepting resolutions Education For All and Free Education, concerning which committees of appropriate experts shall be convened from time to time as needed to determine a suitable age for each sapient class equivalent to the human age of 18, up to which age sapient beings of that class shall have the right to free education.

AND FURTHER RECOMENDS that all future resolutions use the terms "person" and "persons" unless a distinction is intended among the several sapient classes.

There we go. I say we replace the "[other resolutions that should be highlighted]" with "and any other relevant resolutions" in that.

I meant that clause as a place holder only, to be replaced by the names of any other resolutions that we feel should be specifically highlighted.

I have a problem with considereing technology. In my opionion it only makes sense to judge the technology of a community or society. For example, were I to be removed from my society and placed in the wild, I would probably rate a 2 out the possible 20. That is I could use found tools, build a shelter, and would have a 50/50 or so chance of starting a fire. But use on a regular basis computers, cars, mechanical pencils, microwave ovens, etc. Further I would be quite capable of learning to pilot an interstellar starship or program a planet-sized quantum computer, if only given the chance. I just don't think that technology is a useful indicator of sapience in an individual. Remember that our definition is for sapience in an individual.

I also have issues with sociological development as an indicator of sapience, since many very non-sapient creatures are highly social. Now I will admit that is is likely that social nteractions helped to elevate Human anscestors to sapience, but again, this is should be a test for individual sapience.


Just for fun, lets check our standard test subjects.
Stupid (or disabled) Human: is considered a person under clause 4.

Smart Cow: presumably would have communication and intellect (ability to think etc.), but likely not have technology, social interaction (being somewhat of a rarity), and would be rather bad at adapting (domestic cows are not really that adaptable). So NOT A PERSON

Intelligent Star: (OOC I am rather lost as to how this one works, but its a cool idea. /OOC) Presumable can think, possibly communicate (via fluctuations in wavelength, intensity?), almost certainly not make or use tools, nor likely adapt to anything other than deep space (perhaps adaption is to be evaluated diffeerently for such beings...) so NOT A PERSON.

Rock: cannot communicate, think, use tools, but is HIGHlY adaptable, it can remain a rock in most any environment. NOT A PERSON.

Lesbosian(sp?) Monkey: CAN communicate, learn, display and react to emotion, adapt, and is highly social. so IS A PERSON.


Conclustion: the definition/test for sapience needs work.

1 (a), (b), (c), and (e) should not be optional. 1 (d) needs a much higher threshold.

Well, Playtnor, since you altered some significant details in my initial proposal, I can see how the test isn't working out for you.

You ommitted the "scoring" aspect of the sapience test (and also the categories, but I can let that go) - which makes all the difference, IMHO. You also omitted the 65% rule.

Plus you omitted Enigma's addendum:
Adaptability: The ability to adapt itself to unusual and changing circumstances. Adaptibility includes being able to survive in multiple environments, the ability to decide which item or action is appropriate for a certain circumstance, and the ability to utilize one's environment to maximize advantages.

In the first place, the "sapience test" doesn't mean "let's drop a being out in the woods and see how he/she/it does" - it's supposed to examine the "normal living conditions" of a particular being or class of being.

Let's take a look at Playtnor, assuming he is Human...

1. You communicate using a verbal and written language. (20 points)
2. You posess the criteria for intelligence (this is NOT an IQ test) (20 Points)
3. Adaptablility - (well, this may involve dropping you off in the woods. Let's say you didn't die) so 20 points
4. Depending on the society you're from, probably 12 to 14 (that's where current 'developed' countries are in the 21st century)
5. you are part of a community and engage in social discourse. If you haven't been convicted of anti-social behavior/crimes, you get a 20 for that, too.

you get a 92 or a 94. Ding! you're sapient.

Let's take a Rock:

1. Does not communicate. At all. 0 points
2. Does not posses any of the intelligence criteria. 0 Points
3. Adaptable - it's a rock wherever it is (except possibly in a lava flow) 20 points (I'll be really generous here)
4 Technology - it's a rock! 0 points
5. sociologial - it's a ROCK 0 points

the rock gets a whopping 20 points -- NOT sapient!

Intelligent star:

1. communicates - 20
2. intelligent - 20
3. adaptable - not sure how to "test" this - but an intelligent star could manipulate E/M fields and gravity to affect its environment. Depending on when the stellar entity gained intelligence and where in the cosmos it was, it could have survived in various interstellar environments. - 10? 15?
4. technology - I don't know if an intelligent star would need any technology - as humans know it. But it can certainly manipulate cosmic forces at will - that counts for something (and also magickal abilities are the equivalent of technology, as well). It certainly weilds planet-threatening power. I'd be inclined to give a star a high score, just so I wouldn't piss it off. 18?
5. sociological - I have no idea. In the Jack Williamson "Starchild" novels, the intelligent stars communicated with each other in a sort of loose community. so a score of 10?

by my calculations, it's sapient.

While I like the 1 sigma rule in theory, I don't think it's practical.
If there are 3 million Lesbosian monkeys scattered around my region (and I hope the actual number is far fewer), that means testing 2 million of them.

There. I included the changes in my quote.

YGSM, the reason the percentage is given is due to the fact that is the minimum amount of sentience a species can have in its population before it starts to become hindered. If humans had less than that in reality, there is the possibility humanity would be enjoying the new invention of fire this century instead of looking at Mars as a possible colony world.

Allow me to summarize the recent conversations about how to determine sapience:

I. SAPIENCE
An entity shall be considered sapient if he/she/it scores above 80 sapience points. Sapience points are allocated 20 points each, according to the following 5 criteria:

1. Communication: The individual must be able to communicate with others through
language (verbal. written, signed, scented, etc.),
telepathy, or
transmission.

2. Intelligence: In this context, intelligence is defined as the ability to understand and communicate abstract knowledge (such as mathematics, philosophy, or emotional states),
the ability to learn new things (add knowledge to their repository of information),
the ability to process information,
the ability to make predictions for future occurances based on previously gathered information,
the ability to learn from experience.

3. Adaptability: The ability to adapt itself to unusual and changing circumstances.

4. Technology: The ability to manipulate or create tools or other items to enhance the natural abilities of the individual or group. The amount of technology an individual "posesses" can range from a score of 1 (simple tool use, such as using a found rock to open a mollusk shell to obtain food), to a score of 20 (interstellar travel, creation of dyson spheres, god-like powers of life and death over entire planetary systems, etc.)

5. Sociological development: sociological development includes
the desire for social intercourse with other beings;
the ability to form social groups, communities or other social structures with others;
tolerance for a diversity of social behaviors, including a preference to be left alone for a great majority of the time.

For an entire race, species, or class of beings to be considered sapient, 65% of the members of that race, species or class of beings must posess individual sapience scores of 80 or above.

Personal comments: I believe that this will allow an entity to be completely deficient in one of these criteria, yet may be considered sapient. We will probably need to refine some of the criteria details, but I think we are approaching something that can be workable. If anyone would like to amend the language of these criteria to make it less ambiguous, I would appreciate the assistance.

Further, if you think a minimum score of 80 is too high for sapience, I am very flexible about that number. I was trying to pick a number that would admit intelligent stars, cavemen and dolphins, but would exclude Lesbosian monekys and dogs.

I also have no idea what this is going to do to the word count on the final proposal. :)

This is, in general, good. However, there are two major improvements I'd like to see.

For starters, I don't believe the categories should have equal weighting. Taking RL Earth's species, one one has any substantial technology, but many are highly adaptable, communicate and are social. The social abilities of entities should, i think, be particularly low in the weighting, otherwise ants and internet-linked PCs may well come up with scores at least equalling humans.

Second, as long as you simply say, assign a score from 1 to 20 for each, the whole thing is very subjective. We need some criteria for different scores.

We could score communication based on its complexity - thinking of this, I remembered a New Scientist article about measuring the compexity of communications and its possible applications to SETI. 12 July 2003 - the idea was to use Shannon entropies, which appear to be measures of how unpredictable a communication is.

Zero-order entropy measures the diversity of the communicative repertoire - how many different types of elements (letters, words, phonemes, whistles, barks and so forth) make up the signal. In written English, for example, everything can be represented by 27 characters - 26 letters and a space. The entropy value is the logarithmic value of the number of elements. The researchers used base 2 logarithms because the binary digit or bit, is the most familiar form for information (though any base will do), making the zero-order entropy of English to be 4.755. Next in Shannon's scheme is first-order entropy, which measures - again, using logarithms - the frequency of occurrence of each element within the language.

The higher entropy levels, second order and up, relate to the notion of "conditional probabilities": once you have seen a particular sequence of elements, what are your chances of predicting the next element in the series? If, for instance, you know the first and second words of a phrase, the third-order entropy tells you (in logarithmic form) the odds of guessing the third word correctly. Analyses of English and Russian suggest that these languages show evidence of 8th or 9th-order Shannon entropy, meaning that when presented with a string of eight words, you have some ability (slim but non-zero) to predict what the ninth word might be. After that, though, all bets are off. If you want to guess what the 10th word is, the previous nine are of no value.

Primitive communications, such as chemical signalling systems employed by cotton plants, don't go beyond first-order Shannon entropy. That means there is no discernible connection between signals - knowing one doesn't help you predict the next. Adult squirrel monkeys, on the other hand, show second or third-order Shannon entropy: their "language" has some predictability in its structure, but not much. So far, the research of McCowan, Hanser and Doyle indicates that dolphin whistles bear signs of 3rd or 4th-order Shannon entropy.

This looks to me a promising way to standardise language scores. Technology should be possible to scale (and BTW should probably be judged on a species-wide basis), but I'm pretty stuck on the others.

I have a problem with considereing technology. In my opionion it only makes sense to judge the technology of a community or society. For example, were I to be removed from my society and placed in the wild, I would probably rate a 2 out the possible 20. That is I could use found tools, build a shelter, and would have a 50/50 or so chance of starting a fire. But use on a regular basis computers, cars, mechanical pencils, microwave ovens, etc. Further I would be quite capable of learning to pilot an interstellar starship or program a planet-sized quantum computer, if only given the chance. I just don't think that technology is a useful indicator of sapience in an individual. Remember that our definition is for sapience in an individual.

yes, but it's not out of any context. We are defining sapience for classes of beings and individuals. I was basing a lot of the initial theory on David Brin's "Uplift Wars" novels; if you haven't read them, it's about an interstellar government that has very strict criteria for admission - one of them is that a race develop interstellar travel. Usually, "patron" races "help evolve" the younger races, and these younger races owe a huge debt of fealty (not unlike slavery or indentured servitude) to their patron race. Humans (in the story) arrived by space flight on their own, so technically had to be considered an "elder race". Many of the already established Elder races didn't like this AT ALL and were looking for ways to get humans kicked out of thier club (that's the overarching plot of the series, anyway). Humans also gained a lot of prestige by helping the immanently sapient races on Earth (dolphins, chimpanzees and gorillas) by "uplifting" them - by being their patrons.

Technology has to play a factor in determining sapience. Either by development or by learning how to use the technology of others.

I also have issues with sociological development as an indicator of sapience, since many very non-sapient creatures are highly social. Now I will admit that is is likely that social nteractions helped to elevate Human anscestors to sapience, but again, this is should be a test for individual sapience.

I thought we were looking for ways to get cetaceans listed as sapient. All they've got going for them right now is communication, intelligence and social structure. they're not particularly technological (although they can learn to use tools, but they can't make them), and they're not terribly adaptable (they live in a marine environment. Even changing the salinity of the water endangers them). Unless cetaceans in the game universe are different than RL cetaceans, in which case a lot of this argument is moot.

This is, in general, good. However, there are two major improvements I'd like to see.

For starters, I don't believe the categories should have equal weighting. Taking RL Earth's species, one one has any substantial technology, but many are highly adaptable, communicate and are social. The social abilities of entities should, i think, be particularly low in the weighting, otherwise ants and internet-linked PCs may well come up with scores at least equalling humans.

Second, as long as you simply say, assign a score from 1 to 20 for each, the whole thing is very subjective. We need some criteria for different scores.

We could score communication based on its complexity - thinking of this, I remembered a New Scientist article about measuring the compexity of communications and its possible applications to SETI. 12 July 2003 - the idea was to use Shannon entropies, which appear to be measures of how unpredictable a communication is.



This looks to me a promising way to standardise language scores. Technology should be possible to scale (and BTW should probably be judged on a species-wide basis), but I'm pretty stuck on the others.


That's the hard part <grin>. I'm not sure how to formalize it, either. I am open to weighing the criteria in a non-equal basis. (i.e. technology > social structure).

the overarching purpose of this resolution is to guarantee that any entity exhibiting sapience will not be exploited (enslaved, eaten, etc) just because the FSUN does not officially recognize that entity as "sapient", and to be inclusive with the NSUN resolutions to the NS's diverse population of member entities.

I thought we were looking for ways to get cetaceans listed as sapient. All they've got going for them right now is communication, intelligence and social structure. they're not particularly technological (although they can learn to use tools, but they can't make them), and they're not terribly adaptable (they live in a marine environment. Even changing the salinity of the water endangers them). Unless cetaceans in the game universe are different than RL cetaceans, in which case a lot of this argument is moot.

I don't honestly believe there's any reason to assume whales and dolphins are sapient. We just don't know yet.

Another note - we'll have to include provisions for committees of experts to collate existing scientific research on species and carry out further research if necessary to score them.

By the way, what is the FSUN you keep referring to?

Apology:
Hmmm... I guess I was remiss in ommitting the point system. I had done it in an attempt to simplify the criteria, since only Technology listed any indication of how to distribute points, I assumed the other categories were all or nothing, which would mean that to score 80, one must have at least four categories.

points:
Points would be fine, as long as there are good guidlines for using them.

Comment:
I realize that part of our goal is to decide which species, etc are sapient, but the definition of sapience we are formulating (in my opinion) should be strictly for an individual. The way the proposal is currently structured (and I realize that I am biased towards this structure) is to first define what a sapient entity is, then say (1) that all sapient entities are persons, and (2) that any member of a class comprised primarily (as in 65%) of sapient entities is also a person. So that there is no confussion as to which traits are possesed by individuals and which by societies.

To me this approach seems more sensible than considering whole classes, because we still need to define sapience for individuals so as not to exclude execptional or rare beings, like a magically enhanced wolf, or the world wide web should it ascend to sapience.

Further, we are not determining the requirements for a group to join the UN, membership is open to any nations willing to abide by it laws. If I had a nation of treefrogs with myself, a human, as leader, I would be admitted. (Though few existing resolutions would apply to me.)

Comment:
I realize that part of our goal is to decide which species, etc are sapient, but the definition of sapience we are formulating (in my opinion) should be strictly for an individual. The way the proposal is currently structured (and I realize that I am biased towards this structure) is to first define what a sapient entity is, then say (1) that all sapient entities are persons, and (2) that any member of a class comprised primarily (as in 65%) of sapient entities is also a person. So that there is no confussion as to which traits are possesed by individuals and which by societies.

This works fine for some of the criteria but not all. Technology would have to be judged species-wide, as most people don't understand a lot of the technology they use, and I imagine this would be even more true of societies more advanced than modern humans - after all, there's only a certain amount each person can learn. Sociology would also be a more general investigation, and communication would probably need to be too, since analyses of the type I am suggesting require very large numbers of samples of communication, so for the sake of practicality it would be easier to obtain these from many individuals.

A reference:

This is the Starfleet Legal Definition of a sapient being:

Sapient being - an organised system having all of the following characteristics:

1. Sentience - self-awareness as an individual distinct from all other individual members of the species.
2. Time-binding sense - ability to consider the future, conceive optional future actions and act upon the results thereof.
3. Creativity - ability to make bisociative syntheses of random matrices to produce new concepts.
4. Behavioural adaptivity - capability of overriding the preprogrammed behaiours of instinct with behaviour adapted to perceived present or imagined future circumstances.
5. Empathy - capability of imaginitive identification with another sapient being.
6. Communication - ability to transmit information to another sapient being in a meaningful manner

Any comments on this definition? This would definitely need to be reworded to use (if only for copyright reasons), but I don't see any of these characteristics that seem uneccesary except possibly empathy. I say empathy only because it often lacking in human children below a certain age, and it would be reasonable to include a being equivelent (at full development) to a human toddler, but not necessary.

That's very interesting. I'd like to replace our definition of adaptability with something like that definition of behavioural adaptability, and give it quite a heavy weighting. Self-awareness is also something we should include, if we can take into account the possible existence of hive minds, where an entire group of physically separate organisms is in fact one sapient entity, or certain cases where an entity is the only individual in its class or species - e.g. if an AI is the only one of its type created, or if a being is the last remaining member of its species.

I think we should also add to our criteria for intelligence the ability to make intuitive leaps. Is that what number 3 of the starfleet thing is referring to?

Hmm.. I've not quite gotten a hold of that one yet. (I know asociative, but not bisociative.)

Her Royal Loveliness, Queen Smukke XIII, likes the concept behind this proposal, if only because so many members of the NS UN are not human. There are whole regions of non-human nations, and even in my own region, a nation of canines. We have trade arrangements with other canine nations as well.

Her Supreme Cuteness would add that she hopes her fellow delegates are not thinking of NS as if it were "Earth," that fictional, human-dominated world from science fiction. Rather, NS is a much more vibrant and ecologically diverse set of nations, regions and worlds, full of males, females and other genders, and humans as well as other beings that are fully capable of announcing their sentience and even requesting UN membership.

We hope that the issue of 'how to exhibit sentience' will not doom such measures to failure, many members of the NS UN having already exhibited their sentience by seeking and obtaining membership. We also wonder if some of the older, already passed resolutions about 'human rights' should not be amended to include nonhuman sentients.

A reference:

This is the Starfleet Legal Definition of a sapient being:



Any comments on this definition? This would definitely need to be reworded to use (if only for copyright reasons), but I don't see any of these characteristics that seem uneccesary except possibly empathy. I say empathy only because it often lacking in human children below a certain age, and it would be reasonable to include a being equivelent (at full development) to a human toddler, but not necessary.

One problem: Even in Star Trek, not all beings showed empathy. The problem with that is in NS we have species of entirely different being classes mixed together. A velociraptor is going to have a very hard time showing empathy for a human, simply because of how radically different the two are. Hell, even between mammal species empathy is going to be a hard one and require a lot of explanation to develop. When you add in AIs, sentient planets, and a whole mess of others, empathy possibilities fly out the window. After all, a human cannot understand what it is like to have your entire existance be inside a computer, mainly because a human usually doesn't experience that and usually never will.

The time-binding sense is another problem. The reason is because it is so relative, varying based on species. The typical human lives on the here/now ideology and everything is discussed in relation to the here/now. The problem is that we have no evidence that all sentient species comprehend time under the same scale.

That's very interesting. I'd like to replace our definition of adaptability with something like that definition of behavioural adaptability, and give it quite a heavy weighting. Self-awareness is also something we should include, if we can take into account the possible existence of hive minds, where an entire group of physically separate organisms is in fact one sapient entity, or certain cases where an entity is the only individual in its class or species - e.g. if an AI is the only one of its type created, or if a being is the last remaining member of its species.

Behavioural adaptibility is what I was going for, as well as a test of a beings ability to recognize which choice or tool is appropriate to a given situation. Check on the previous page to see an expanded definition.

Also, the possibility of hive minds does not preclude the possibility that each individual is a sentient being on its own. Telepathy isn't that uncommon in NS for a sentient species to combine themselves together into a hive mind willingly.

I think we should also add to our criteria for intelligence the ability to make intuitive leaps. Is that what number 3 of the starfleet thing is referring to?

In essence? Art and imagination. That is one I have been trying to dodge due to DLE AIs. It's not that they're not creative. It's that they are and most of them are in positions where they have access to powerful weaponry.

For social structure, what are the factors that add up to 20? Government? Organized religion? History?

Also, I'm not really getting who does the rating.
Are species to submit their claimed scores to the UN as proposals, and the entire UN to vote on resolutions to acknowledge the sapience of the species?

Are we going to form a (shudder) committee, or (gasp) organisation to perform the tests and publish the ratings?

And who gets to decide what an appropriate age conversion factor is for the education resolution?

I just looked over the rules again and realized we cannot use the Star Trek requirements. Plagiarism rule would come along and bite us.

For social structure, what are the factors that add up to 20? Government? Organized religion? History?

Also, I'm not really getting who does the rating.
Are species to submit their claimed scores to the UN as proposals, and the entire UN to vote on resolutions to acknowledge the sapience of the species?

Are we going to form a (shudder) committee, or (gasp) organisation to perform the tests and publish the ratings?

And who gets to decide what an appropriate age conversion factor is for the education resolution?

Personally, I like the idea of a committee, even though that's an anathema to many representatives posting in this discussion. The members of the committee can be voted into office by the entire UN, but I think it would be a drain on the entire UN's time to decide on individual entity's sapience.

(OOC: I think it would be an interesting job to RP, and it would expose the players on the committee to a vast range of beings)

And I would like to think that the group of us can be more creative (or more sapient) than that bunch of writers from Star Trek. Sure, we can use some of their ideas, just like we're using David Brin as a starting point, but I think we need to go beyond that.

One more comment before this ambassador has to go into a financial committee for a number of days (OOC: I have to finish my taxes); If we can convince a pack of velociraptors not to eat us for lunch with this resolution, then I am all for it! (I don't think the velociraptors I've seen animated in films and described in stories are "sapient" in any case)

I've had another thought...

Thinking about the many SF shows I've seen, and books I've read, I think we can pretty safely use a Technology (and/or magic) scale as an indication of sapience. HOWEVER, it should not be the SOLE criteria by which we judge sapience. If a being is highly evolved in other areas, but has no use for technology (such as in the case of, say, an intelligent star), we need OTHER "tests" that come into play in such cases.

someone telegramed mestating they were unable to post this:
The Holy Republic of Universal Divinity
Received: 1 day ago Unfortunately for some reason I cannot post in forums.

The Holy Republic of Universal Divinity, considering its view that all beings are possessed of a Universal Divine Soul, supports the proposed "Rights for all Intelligences".

We believe that basically any being claiming sapience should be considered sapient. There is, however, the issue of parrots and computers being taught.

Therefore, we have a proposal. Individual beings should have to be registered. The registration process should be secret and vary continuously. No being except for interpreters shall be allowed to accompany the applicant, and thus, if the being can fill in all the forms and do what is required, adaptability and ability to understand and communicate is demonstrated.

To prevent the flood of registrations immediately after the passing of the resolution:
1. All beings previously recognized by the UN shall be automatically considered sapient.
2. Any person with voting, labour, citizenship rights, etc. as well as responsibility for crimes (i.e. any being which can be tried shall be considered sentient.)
3. Any birth-registration, etc. shall include sapience testing as outlined above.
4. Any being considered sapient by any member government as per above shall be considered as such by all member government.

Personally, I like the idea of a committee, even though that's an anathema to many representatives posting in this discussion. The members of the committee can be voted into office by the entire UN, but I think it would be a drain on the entire UN's time to decide on individual entity's sapience.

(OOC: I think it would be an interesting job to RP, and it would expose the players on the committee to a vast range of beings)

Actually, we can just classify it as part of the job of xenobiologists and make them do it.

As for a committee: I'm loathe to do it and wish to examine if there are any other possibilities first. If we can find a path people have not taken, it may make this truly novel and a shining hope in the future.

If we can convince a pack of velociraptors not to eat us for lunch with this resolution, then I am all for it! (I don't think the velociraptors I've seen animated in films and described in stories are "sapient" in any case)

I'm allied with two nations of sentient dinosaurs. So I know very well they exist. One of them keeps getting annoyed because Sarkarasetans can't be bothered to tell the difference between reptiles and dinosaurs.

To prevent the flood of registrations immediately after the passing of the resolution:
1. All beings previously recognized by the UN shall be automatically considered sapient.
2. Any person with voting, labour, citizenship rights, etc. as well as responsibility for crimes (i.e. any being which can be tried shall be considered sentient.)
3. Any birth-registration, etc. shall include sapience testing as outlined above.
4. Any being considered sapient by any member government as per above shall be considered as such by all member government.

I must disagree with the use of these. It allows too easily for abuse that can lead to sentient creatures being forced into a form of legal slavery. After all, they would just be animals.

Also, the possibility of hive minds does not preclude the possibility that each individual is a sentient being on its own. Telepathy isn't that uncommon in NS for a sentient species to combine themselves together into a hive mind willingly.

Yeah, that's a possibility. Come to think of it, has anyone read Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men? The human race evolves to a point where it is capable of switching at various times between a group of individuals and a massive group consciousness - how do we deal with entities which are sometimes sapient in their own right, and sometimes part of a larger sapience? Do we give the group consciousness rights as an independent entity, then say that when they revert to their normal individuality, the higher entity has simply died? Or do we treat the group consciousness not as a sapient entity in its own right, instead seeing it as more like an organisation (treated under law like a corporation or a club) of many members which exists for a certain time, and its decisions are simply the collective decisions of its members?

And regarding hive minds, my point was that the Starfleet criteria for self-awareness requires an individual to recognise itself as an entity distinct from the rest of the species - but if the entire species IS just one individual, that definition doesn't really work, and needs changing.

For social structure, what are the factors that add up to 20? Government? Organized religion? History?

_Myopia_ would be strongly against taking government and organised religion as criteria for sapience - where would that leave anarchist athiests?

It should be focused on how individuals are capable of relating to each other and whether they organise themselves and work together in some way in order to make life better for all of them. Recording their own history might be something to include.

I just looked over the rules again and realized we cannot use the Star Trek requirements. Plagiarism rule would come along and bite us.

We can however take ideas from them.

Thinking about the many SF shows I've seen, and books I've read, I think we can pretty safely use a Technology (and/or magic) scale as an indication of sapience.

I was thinking about this, and realised it may not be appropriate to use technology for much past ability to design and use some tools. Human technology has improved massively over the past century or so, but I don't think we can really say we are significantly more sapient than people were 100 years ago. Once a species achieves sapience, technology will probably develop, but the extent to which it has developed is not such a good indicator of the level of sapience.

Actually, we can just classify it as part of the job of xenobiologists and make them do it.

As for a committee: I'm loathe to do it

I had been thinking along the lines of committees of biologists, AI experts, sociologists and linguists being the judges (depending on the entities under consideration).

I'm going away tomorrow until Friday, so good luck with developing this.

Platynor first posted this. I have made a few ver few changes.

SEEKING fairness and equality in the application of all resolutions;

RECOGNIZING the diversity of peoples present in UN member states;

AND IN VIEW of the general disregard for non-human persons in present resolutions;

THE UN HEREBY RESOLVES:

1 That any entity demonstrating not less than four of the following characteristics shall be considered sapient, and the state of being such shall be called sapience;
a The ability to communicate with other entities through language or other methods of transmission,

b The ability to
i understand and communicate abstract concepts such as mathematics, philosophy, or emotional states,

ii learn new concepts and skills from sources including experience

iii process information to draw conclusions and act accordingly

iv make predictions for future occurrences based on previously gathered information,
c The ability to adapt to unusual and changing circumstances.

d. The ability to manipulate or create tools or other items to enhance the natural abilities of the individual or group. The amount of technology an individual "posesses" can range from simple tool use, such as using a found rock to open a mollusk shell to obtain food to interstellar travel, creation of dyson spheres, god-like powers of life and death over entire planetary systems, etc.;

e. The desire and ability

i to engage in social intercourse with other beings;

ii to form social groups, communities or other social structures with others;

iii tolerance for a diversity of social behaviors, including a preference to be left alone for a great majority of the time.

2 That any entity demonstrating sapience, whether it be biological,
mechanical, digital, spiritual, communal, or of any other variety, shall
be regarded for all UN purposes as a person;

3 To keep on permanent record, in several forms to be made freely available to all member states, a list of all known species, subspecies, races, and other classifications which are composed primarily of sapient entities, and that such classes shall refered to as sapient classes.


4. That the effects of all previous UN resolutions concerning Humans, or Human Beings, including UN Resolution 26 "The Universal Bill of Rights" [other resolutions that should be highlighted], shall be extended appropriately and equally to all persons until such time as they are repealed, excepting resolutions Education For All and Free Education, concerning which committees of appropriate experts shall be convened from time to time as needed to determine a suitable age for each sapient class equivalent to the human age of 18, up to which age sapient beings of that class shall have the right to free education.

AND FURTHER RECOMENDS that all future resolutions use the terms "person" and "persons" unless a distinction is intended among the several sapient classes.


The only real change I made was the deletion of Platynor's number 4 to avoid the Terri Savo debate. I am also going through other comments to see how i can incoprorate any further changes.

Platynor

SEEKING fairness and equality in the application of all resolutions;

RECOGNIZING the diversity of peoples present in UN member states;

AND IN VIEW of the general disregard for non-human persons in present resolutions;

THE UN HEREBY RESOLVES:

1 That any entity demonstrating not less than four of the following characteristics shall be considered sapient, and the state of being such shall be called sapience;
a The ability to communicate with other entities through language or other methods of transmission,

b The ability to
i understand and communicate abstract concepts such as mathematics, philosophy, or emotional states,

ii learn new concepts and skills from sources including experience

iii process information to draw conclusions and act accordingly

iv make predictions for future occurrences based on previously gathered information,
c The ability to adapt to unusual and changing circumstances.

d. The ability to manipulate or create tools or other items to enhance the natural abilities of the individual or group. The amount of technology an individual "posesses" can range from simple tool use, such as using a found rock to open a mollusk shell to obtain food to interstellar travel, creation of dyson spheres, god-like powers of life and death over entire planetary systems, etc.;

e. The desire and ability

i to engage in social intercourse with other beings;

ii to form social groups, communities or other social structures with others;

iii tolerance for a diversity of social behaviors, including a preference to be left alone for a great majority of the time.

2 That any entity demonstrating sapience, whether it be biological,
mechanical, digital, spiritual, communal, or of any other variety, shall
be regarded for all UN purposes as a person;

3 To keep on permanent record, in several forms to be made freely available to all member states, a list of all known species, subspecies, races, and other classifications which are composed primarily of sapient entities, and that such classes shall refered to as sapient classes.

4 That any member of a sapient class shall be regarded, for all UN purposes, as a person, even should that entity be demonstably not sapient.

5 That the effects of all previous UN resolutions concerning Humans, or Human Beings, including UN Resolution 26 "The Universal Bill of Rights" [other relevant resolutions that should be highlighted], shall be extended appropriately and equally to all persons until such time as they are repealed, excepting resolutions Education For All and Free Education, concerning which committees of appropriate experts shall be convened from time to time as needed to determine a suitable age for each sapient class equivalent to the human age of 18, up to which age sapient beings of that class shall have the right to free education.

AND FURTHER RECOMENDS that all future resolutions use the terms "person" and "persons" unless a distinction is intended among the several sapient classes.

The applicant shall petition an elected board of inquiry who will grade applicant base on given criteria. The committee’s recommendations shall come before general body of the UN and meeting at least 6% approval the applicant shall be considered Sapient.

The following clause is of most concern to me. Thoughts?

My thoughts (and I'm really trying to be helpful here):

1. You don't say who does the judging. This is a proposal killer. Misread. You say the same number of approvers as required to bring a resolution to floor vote. I made the suggestion, but I didn't intend for you to use it. I hate this idea.

ii. You don't define limits. A dog (a RL dog, not a mutant canine sapiens) would be sapient under this proposal, and would therefore have the right to vote.

C) I read this to say that every member of the human race would have to prove themselves sapient under this resolution in order to be protected under UN resolutions. This is another proposal killer.

IV You make no mention of whether every UN nation would have to recognize the same list of intelligent beings. If my (congenitally) bastard neighbors in AOF decide to consider Lesbosian monkeys sapient, what recourse do I have, knowing they've failed 2 of the 5 criteria and are bent on the destruction of human civilization to boot?

8) is just an all-around cool number.

My thoughts (and I'm really trying to be helpful here):

1. You don't say who does the judging. This is a proposal killer. Misread. You say the same number of approvers as required to bring a resolution to floor vote. I made the suggestion, but I didn't intend for you to use it. I hate this idea.
I beleive I say that 1. a group of nominated scholars whose recomendations will be voted on my the UN general assembly.

ii. You don't define limits. A dog (a RL dog, not a mutant canine sapiens) would be sapient under this proposal, and would therefore have the right to vote.

I thought the proposal stated that you must meet two areas of the teat described above to be admitted. I like dogs don't get me wrong but I not sure they would pass.

C) I read this to say that every member of the human race would have to prove themselves sapient under this resolution in order to be protected under UN resolutions. This is another proposal killer.
I will reread this but this is not how I read and interpreteded this, I thought this propsal was refereing to the petioner meaning the authorized reporesentitives.

IV You make no mention of whether every UN nation would have to recognize the same list of intelligent beings. If my (congenitally) bastard neighbors in AOF decide to consider Lesbosian monkeys sapient, what recourse do I have, knowing they've failed 2 of the 5 criteria and are bent on the destruction of human civilization to boot?

UHHH you got me there I need to think about that.

8) is just an all-around cool number.

I thought 42 was the number that was the answer to everything. :D

Below is my proposal. The proposal specifics, (category etc.) will be as listed in the initial post of this thread. Please pay special attention to

1a thought is now a necessary requirment for sapience
1e desire for social interaction nor longer considered, only ability
5-7 these three clauses used to be all in clause 5 which kept growing.

any further passed resolutions that should be explictly affirmed or otherwise mentioned?

If there are no further major suggestions, This proposal will be formally submitted within 24hrs.





SEEKING fairness and equality in the application of all resolutions;

RECOGNIZING the diversity of peoples present in UN member states;

AND IN VIEW of the general disregard for non-human persons in present resolutions

THE UN HEREBY RESOLVES:

1 That any entity demonstrating not less than four of the following characteristics, including thought (a) shall be considered sapient, and the state of being such shall be called sapience;

a [THOUGHT] The ability to

i understand and communicate abstract concepts such as mathematics, philosophy, or emotional states,

ii learn new concepts and skills from sources including experience,

iii process information to draw conclusions through deduction, induction, or intuition and act accordingly,

iv make predictions for future occurrences based on previously gathered information,

b [COMMUNICATION] The ability to communicate with other entities through language or other methods of transmission,

c [ADAPTATION] The ability to adapt to unusual, adverse and changing circumstances,

d [TECHNOLOGY] The ability to manipulate or create tools or otherwise enhance the natural abilities of the individual or group,

e [SOCIETY] The ability to

i engage in social intercourse with other beings;

ii form social groups, communities, bonds, or other social ties and structures with others;

iii tolerate a diversity of social behaviors, including a preference to be left alone..

2 That any entity demonstrating sapience, whether it be biological, mechanical, digital, spiritual, communal, or of any other variety, shall be regarded for all UN purposes as a person;

3 To keep on permanent record, in several forms to be made freely available to all member states and citizens thereof, a list of all known species, subspecies, races, and other classifications which are composed of at least sixty-five percent (65%) sapient entities, and that such classes shall referred to as sapient classes;

4 That any member of a sapient class shall be regarded, for all UN purposes, as a person, even should that entity be demonstrably not sapient;

5 That the effects of all previous UN resolutions concerning Humans, or Human Beings, including Resolution 26 "The Universal Bill of Rights", shall be extended appropriately and equally to all persons until such time as they are repealed;

6 That all resolutions, past or present, which do not explicitly name Humans or Persons but which apply to Children, Prisoners, or other such sub-classes, including Resolution 31 "Wolfish Convention on POW", shall be regarded as applying to all persons in that sub-class regardless of sapient class unless otherwise specified;

7 That resolutions Education For All and Free Education shall not be enforced as written, but that committees of appropriate experts shall be convened from time to time by member nations as needed to determine a suitable age for each sapient class equivalent to the human age of 18, up to which age sapient beings of that class shall have their right to free education protected;

AND FURTHER RECOMMENDS that all further resolutions use the terms "person" and "persons" unless a distinction is intended among the several sapient classes.

The proposal is sexy and good.
I will badger my regional delegate until he signs his name to it, and once it comes to a vote I will badger him until he votes for it.

The proposal finally reads well. Good job :)

The formatting could be cleaner (with indents and such), which would make reading it even easier.

The delegate from the Free State of Bitewaldi supports this proposal in its current form. And, since I am the regional delegate from my region, I will vote for it to become a resolution. (at which time I will poll my constituent nations when it comes to a final vote; but I feel confident that I can persuade them to vote yea).

Formatting comment noted. I will indent and such to make it look spiffy.

I think the technology one should be mandatory for any species to be considered sapient, because the ability to create tools is what sets us apart from other animals. Then the other conditions should come into play.

The characteristics given are for an individual, not a species. I think that an individual who can think, communicate, adapt, and form social relationships should be considered a person even if they can't manipulate the world to extend thier natural abilities.

The characteristics given are for an individual, not a species. I think that an individual who can think, communicate, adapt, and form social relationships should be considered a person even if they can't manipulate the world to extend thier natural abilities.

Can the individual use and understand technology if their species is of one capable of having it? That should be the question.

My one argument with your proposal reguards article V. The term "communicate" is ill defined. Parrots can communicate many desires using our own language. A dog learns to respond to our commands, and even devise ways of communicating their own desires to us. In fact, virtually all animals have methods of communication. This article could be used as a loophole by radical extremists to declare all forms of animal life sentient and thusly having equal rights. That needs to be taken care of.

hey, you've got my support.

My one argument with your proposal reguards article V. The term "communicate" is ill defined. Parrots can communicate many desires using our own language. A dog learns to respond to our commands, and even devise ways of communicating their own desires to us. In fact, virtually all animals have methods of communication. This article could be used as a loophole by radical extremists to declare all forms of animal life sentient and thusly having equal rights. That needs to be taken care of.

I keep thinking we've already dealt with these things... Communication is but one of four criteria that must be present to be granted sapience (which is a higher level of development than sentience, as was pointed out way upthread). Parrots don't have an understanding of our language - they just know how to make sounds to get a food reward. Dogs may have greater than rudimentary language and social skills, but they fall short on technology and some other things (However, I think there is at least one nation of intelligent/sapient canines in NS, and they have had their representative post here, IIRC).

I believe the "ability to think about abstract concepts" (such as mathematics and philosophy) is the main tests that both parrots and dogs will fail.

Remember it's not "pick any trait from this list", but a sapient entity must exhibit all of these characteristics.

It's an AND operation; not an OR operation.

Can the individual use and understand technology if their species is of one capable of having it? That should be the question.

Agreed.

The proposal has been submitted. Please encourage your Regional Delegate to support this important piece of legislation.

Assure me that Lesbosian monkeys will not be considered sapient under this proposal.

And assure me SaySomething gave the OK to submit this revision. It was SaySomething's original work that started this all off.

In private communications the delegate from Saysomething ceeded to me, as the editor, the right to submit the proposal, as it was ceeded to him by Vastiva.

Lesbosian Monkeys will not be protected as sapient being under this proposal provided they do not have abstract thought or lack both technology and high lievel communication. (Heres hopeing they never gain those things.)

The proposal has been submitted. Please encourage your Regional Delegate to support this important piece of legislation.

You just got your first approval :) (from my puppet, The Roman UN Puppet)

I keep thinking we've already dealt with these things... Communication is but one of four criteria that must be present to be granted sapience (which is a higher level of development than sentience, as was pointed out way upthread). Parrots don't have an understanding of our language - they just know how to make sounds to get a food reward. Dogs may have greater than rudimentary language and social skills, but they fall short on technology and some other things (However, I think there is at least one nation of intelligent/sapient canines in NS, and they have had their representative post here, IIRC).

I believe the "ability to think about abstract concepts" (such as mathematics and philosophy) is the main tests that both parrots and dogs will fail.

Remember it's not "pick any trait from this list", but a sapient entity must exhibit all of these characteristics.

It's an AND operation; not an OR operation.

Well, admittedly I haven't read the entire thread, so you may have made changes since the initial post. But going by the initial phrasing, it seems that communication is the primary indication that the qualities of sentience mentioned in previous articles have been met.

Crap! I've just been ousted by my region as delegate! :eek:

Crap! I've just been ousted by my region as delegate! :eek:

Well, that blows. :mad: Are there any nations in your region you'd like us to blockade or anything in order to get you your rank back? :D

OOC: I've had to go out of town for several days, and therefore missed about 100 posts, which I have nowhere near enough time to catch up on, so if someone could provide a brief summary of anything really, really important I'd appreciate it.

The new regional delegate has endorsed this proposal. (and I'm working on getting some more endorsements, so I'll be back soon, I hope. OOC: We're a pretty friendly region, and most of us are new to Nation States, so we're taking it all pretty easy for the moment).

How are people "marketing" this proposal so it gets the requisite number of endorsements?

I don't see the point in this proposal and the way I'm reading it it appears that citizens not un will not be considered human beings officially.

How are people "marketing" this proposal so it gets the requisite number of endorsements?

I'm going to telegram my region's UN delegate... other than that, I'm not very good at "marketing" (the one bad thing about being a socialist), so I'm not sure how much help I'll be. :(

We need a telegram campaign.

1. A form telegram
2. A list of active nationstates likely to be supportive of this proposal.


Most honorable [nationstate], delegate for [region]:

Platynor has submitted a proposal entitled "Rights For All Intelligences". This proposal is the result of a collaborative effort in the UN forum based on Vastiva's original idea and SaySomething's draft.

This proposal would extend UN Resolutions to be applicable to all intelligent NS races, with allowances for differences in species. As such, it will be an important addition to the body of NSUN law.

The proposal can be found in the queue by searching for "Intelligences". Today it is on page [8] of the queue.

Thank you for considering this important proposal,

The [description] of [yourname].

p.s. [positive comment about the nation's flag, motto, national animal, currency, size, etc.]


Don't use the above. Post suggestions on how to improve it for a day. The personalizations and p.s. are important to show the recipient that this isn't just a spam letter, and are a great way to start a conversation that may lead to a friendship.

As for the list of delegates: Platynor, this is your job. Check the Delegate Votes link on Eradicate Smallpox, cross-reference against the approvers of other proposals in the queue, add anyone who debated the issue in this forum.

Mikitivity keeps useful lists. Perhaps if you could convince him to support the resolution he'd be able to provide suggestions.

*ahem* and I'm sure it would help to win Mikitivity's support if everyone supporting this resolution volunteered to sit on a Pretenama Panel. Mik has a complaint that can't be processed right now because there aren't enough panel members available.

nota bene: here is the current list of delegates supporting Eradicate Smallpox.
Perhaps the telegram could be customized to mention/thank them for their support.

Mearas [6], Benjikistan [3], Yopp [3], Ire and Irony [3], Snake Eaters [3], Emerald Phoenix [9], Teithril [2], Troll-la-la [2], The Three-Toed Sloth [4], Darker Autumn [2], Fu Su Lu [3], Lesser Jersey [4], Drizuz [5], West Bunghole [2], Ex-City [2], Junon City [4], El Guapa [3], Beaster [8], The Ivory Kingdom [2], Sealab 2024 [2], Dalumu [4], Ancients Tomatoes [2], Jenlandrocks [5], New Koalastan [3], Veganea [2], Slovitopia [9], Nieuw Hollandia [3], Dragiona [5], Bloodmoon-Hyperion [31], United Drewtopia [3], Black Reading [2], Scoopy [2], Eris23 [6], Neo-Carpathia [5], Chief Yellowtooth [3], Thieran [5], Shizukanara [2], Mument [3], The Big 10 [3], Nova Gothia [2], Anahuacalli [3], Republic of Freedonia [12], StingingFlea [2], Nord-Flanders [7], Inner Antartica [2], Gaiah [22], Gaar [3], Yelda [3], Alviss [2], SS sturmgrupen [2], Jaghur [2], Gunnerium [3], Vladitude [2], Thordavia [5], Windleheim [4], Over zealous Penguins [5], Wonkas Choc Factory [2], Sulamar [2], Landris [9], Soldier City [3], Lunar Destiny [11], Skarthaborg [2], Germanian Sudbury [3], Spoonforkia [3], Santanoplis [2], Practical Ambiguity [3], Dakota Land [3], Harmonicalobster [2], Laikavia [4], Catanacia [11], Fessel [6], Liandera [3], Macchiavellian Masons [17], Saint Les [3], Faceless Assassins [2], Milandaros [4], Bling-Blaow [2], Tell-El-Amarna [3], Kaweb [2], Stransworthe [2], Blonde Chixs [4], Calibeach [2], NathanMindeman [2], The Cariebbean [9], Estigmaland [8], Mordor And Haradwaith [4], Lost Valley [5], Babbabooey [12], Wortegem-Petegem [2], Slimpy [2], Prosinistre [2], Tuonela [5], Brausi-mausi [2], Ecky Ecky Ecky Patang [4], The Potatohead Tribe [5], Lynners [2], Shanagolia [4], Cheddaron [2], Golden Rangeria [3], Flying wookies [3], Crack Pottia [2], Roman Republics [11], TheSamurai [3], Archoz [32], New Paradigmia [2], UppinCumming [2], North Koster [4], Dominicalius [4], The Great Bud [6], Torenthia [3], Culpland [2], Danabunga [6], Nundinae [2], Gurnee [7], Javelindon [2], Mommy D [2], Bassainia [2], Odphi [2], Crankton [2], Aloradoona [12], Zenrath [2], Curralandia [6], Damila Sur [4], Locomotia [3], The Ethics Union [4], Pennsylvania and Me [6], Finbergia [3], TomTomlandia [5], Sarturia [9], The Imperials [10], Kemdoph [4], Cigaro [2], Aakron [2], Arglemeton [3], New Faluya [8], WorldDominationGlobal [4], Acelinia [5], South Lake Tahoe [2], Artamazia [3], Ahrahlzerine [3], Domino Muthaf- -ka [5], Charles Henry Peare [22], The Zeph [2], United Sociologists [3], Harkadia [2], Novaesck-III [2], Methyr [2], Pommieville [5], Nova Capitalia [3], Shamb [2], Cataleptic States [6], Trum [2], Brenderous [2], BOS Land [2], Niknil [3], Crystall Tokyo [3], Saysomething [4], Night Lude [4], Abilenia [2], Palidor [3], Archanan [6], Hoo-Doo [2], Constitutionals [6], Cuzlania [3], New finlandom [3], Eastern Coast America [20], Wallachistan [3], Zouloukistan [3], Hershelopolis [2], Tamerlandia [8], Mayve [6], Pimp Headquaters [2], Llanfair PG [4], Jaranctu [4], Triphoria [2], Purpleation [5], Pryussa [4], Hergot [3], Dread pirate annie [4], Alamount [6], Rovamania [3], Shlaga [8], Great Brantland [3], Mookiedom [5], WinterAlchemist [3], Honey Swiss [2], Rianon [5], Golgothastan [3], Technocratic Thought [3], Dimernesti [2], Homestar Land [11], VermGang [2], Leaking Dogs [3], Mermaidville [2], Lornica [4], ChengJutsu [2], Gombo De Poulet [2], Mcaffery [5], Aquatnis [5], Happy Smart People [5], Danorussia [2], Fallowat [3], Mwadeen [2], Nopyland [2], LeFault [6], Astiania [2], XxChinaxx [2], Our Lord Spenser [5], The Rawlsian Kingdom [3], The Talisman [2], Kennethica [4], Daggersdale [2], Skybear [2], Fenure [8], Qualish [7], King Matthew X [2], Cockeysville [3], Ancients awakening [5], Schwartzhood [5], Very Liberal Intent [5], Dul Pantra [2], Green Forrest People [5], James Machiavelli [6], Sunnisucksia [2], Cylea [3], Anishinabek [14], Sir Bismarck [3], Tresifs [4], Mythila [5], Xaeron [4], Maxitron [7], Srok Khmer [3], WZ Forums [2], The Airplanes [2], Tinis [8], Zlat [2], Chanderson [2], Leithe [15], Paulitrea [3], Agnostic Jew Punks [3], Chibin [3], Poprockistan [3], Matt Bell [6], Palteau [5], Original Yehwah [2], Neo San Diego [3], Norris Land [6], Glinde Nessroe [2], Kadield [3], Optima Justitia [3], Wojcikiville [2], Hidlberg [3], Collonis [2], Liberal Fascism [3], Samohtian Love [2], Ashala Rock [2], Crvena Zvezda [5], Boston [3], Danielledom [2], YGSM [7], Alindale [13], Draconis Magnus [5], Svenstenberg [10], Miclovech [2], The Mayflower [9], Malaric [2], Benignant Neglect [3], Janistania [2], Kerubia [2], Lichter [3], Tenkistan [7], UMCD [4], Substantial Influence [2], Sirosis [5], Tikkizlandia [4], Dillonistan [3], Onix [2], Gr1m [2], Somnimia [3], Easternmost Wasteland [4], Oi Land [2], Aztec National League [5], Gusev Crater [3], Kagu-Zuchi [2], Tom Joad [3], Qotel [2], Iemjaxland [2], Hectopius [3], SidMeiersAlphaCentauri [9], Logical-ish Vulcans [5], Bubuania [3], Screw you all [2], America--- [16], Albanian Unification [2], Unexpected Doom [5], Jiggy MaMerica [4], Victoria the First [2], Zomnkeria [4], Lower Sirion [2], Rosthern [2], Mackacona [3], Regurge-a-burger [6], Explosive Bears [3], Barmland [4], High Mage Darkfire [3], Markuk [7], ETopps [6], Sud Italia [4], Couplingography [2], Jontan [4], Expressionasia [3], Moonriders [2], 3chordvalentine [2], Selat [4], Mirmuranski [4], Jardines [2], Sremos [2], Mastodontfilmsmats [3], The Clinically Unsane [2], Slotoid [2], Scattered Panhandle [3], Bowquida [3], Lancaster of Wessex [8], Nattyworld [10], Harko City [4], Apage [2], Pathros [2], Andaras Prime [7], Hulincracy [3], Republican Australia [8], Saint-White [3], Corrumpere [5], World Utopia [6], Those that Bibble [3], Wendellia [4], Montplaisir Street [2], Gremlinape [3], Ueberwald [14], Filthy Tomfoolery [5], Bodaciousland [4], Adlerstadt [8], Borkistan [52], Groot Gouda [13], Cloud and aeris [3], Non sense [4], Gladstonbury Hill [2], Michele_S [4], Kevin Islands [10], Rush-ia [2], Schlank [3], Shoshure [2], Supa-Smurfland [3], Tiqwah Ha Am [3], Scandics [4], Agolthia [2], Black-Uruks [9], Moonstarpeople [4], God like monkeys [2], The Meatball Eaters [2], Nahalli [2], Creaclia [2], North-Territories [4], A rebelious fool [6], Unrealistic Utopia [2], The Lands of the Nile [2], Interesting Slums [8], Beedies [2], Matrixbadger [2], Cullinania [6], Kazimierzia [7], Mallah [3], East shaw [3], The Mighty Eagle [2], Nijmegan [3], Iabastan [3], Navillus [2], Melloway [2], Simillarianth [2], Last Standing [2], Trasadingen [2], Conaduntu [5], Jimbob the Jingoistic [10], Morganix [2], Endorak [2], Jinuwine [3], Small Cats [2], Sante Fe [11], TUBAHO [2], Dail Baeg [2], Compassioun [5], Satyagraha Pravda [7], Mark from Peep Show [5], Auxillia [2], The Iron Wolf Brigade [2], Addopaddistan [3], Muumysland [2], The Gifted [2], The Hidden Dagger [2], Jaredkistan [8], TheShaman [14], Mycos [2], Knuckles Promised Land [4], King Dowie [2], Egomanics [3], Kyoryu [2], Zealotos [2], Bonkey Muggerers [4], Spurland [10], Derekbooth [4], The Great Mo [2], Irlynn [10], Borgoa [47], MonkeyPr0n [2], Turaj [10], Howardland [5], Mirtana [5], Paulandiana [2], Dangertk [11], Hamnataing [2], Mattabooloo [14], Setonasia [3], Soni [2], Shaloch [2], No power structure [4], Norvikeland [3], Blue Moon Neon [2], Rovescio [5], Bitewaldi [12], Grumioland [4], Bretnoniana [2], Gernistan [3], Nireva [10], Canada Reborn [3], Tappey [4], The Talking Towel [3], Venerable Artemus [2], Gemje [2], The lands Of Mann [4], Oiligar [3], Meitantei Zeruda [2], Schapen land [2], Pharan [22], Obscure Populists [2], Dorig [3], Gings and Smegs [3], SilentAssassin [11], Skidetenland [4], Neo-Lavaria [4], Woodsworth [2], P BONIA [4], Ordo Sancti Johannis [2], Neo Esthar [3], Hessen Nassau [4], Milination [3], Marconiates [5], Zhaihelleva [2], Binzer [11], Wood Felder [5], Bozyncki [4], Rick8925 [2], Tal Maritima [2], Cumulo Nimbusland [2], Xender [4], Nunulu [3], Juraina [8], Master Tom [5], Gilbekistan [4], Blastorm [3], Saint Gulik [4], Vampirist [4], Josun [2], Woottie [2], Bastardstein [3], Brahumptia [4], Nick Gates [3], Lord Judas [3], Meeptrinity [4], Marble Falls [4], The Demons of Razgriz [2], Heimlich II [2], Riegab [7], JujenDanq [7], ELAV8ION [2], Wildtypes [13], Zocoran [3], Elysium Satori [6], The Hellish Wasteland [2], FAOs Frederick [3], Carlbard [4], Mosquitania [2], Colleagues [2], Krunt [3], Caseylvania [8], Christinkitink [2], Phychoastricy [3], Allroundsmiles [4], Robin Lori and DJ [3], El Sandwich [5], Lolitatopia [3], Philosophya [2], Center County [3], The Greek Asteroids [4], Nenuial [3], Stormward [3], Hapax Legomenon [2], Libertarianada [8], Olera144 [2], St Kandyland [4], LindsCaldwell [2], Isle of May [5], Magnolia Blues [2], Krowman [4], Loprestia [17], Roberstan [2], Jin-You [2], Nadianara [2], Flame From Hell [2], Disjecta Membra [8], Zhukhistan [25], Space Mooses Rectum [2], Littlechefia [2], Incompetent Lunacy [9], Suburbian Demise [5], Sirakou [2], Borg Planets [10], The Assassins of bat [2], Rhodastan [3], Maltese Falcon [12], The Sea of Dirac [4], The German Dominion [8], MiaFan [2], The Red Lair [3], Quetzcotl [4], Hellieville [2], Neo-Pangaea [6], Beava [2], Birds of a Feather [2], SherwoodC [18], Mendeleyev [2], Castanheira de Baixo [3], E-Rokk [2], The maker Iluvatar [2], Crraxsh [2], The Byzantine Church [3], San Ardor [3], New Happyworld Land [2], Simonaylonia [2], Abion-saka [2], Tomatoe [2], Das Germanisch Reich [2], Feevera [7], Da westside gangstas [2], Mudrak [3], SekiMra [2], Pyro Kittens [6], Baldricks Trousers [2], Quinn-Sixia [2], Kilkis [3], Huismania [2], Magdalen Yard [2], Public Lawyers [2], Freelancing Rogues [2], Averma [6], Great Johns [2], Protagoras [2], Utopyah [9], Outpost 2 [4], Zaxenberg [2], Flibby [4], Lucazmodei [11], Carainia [2], Ceterusparibus [4], Bluemason [2], Der Mannia [13], SainXor [3], Rith Essa [2], NURoxana [2], Cowschickens [5], The Western Concordiat [6], The Roxy [2], Tomas Eriksson [2], Vanazu [4], Nara Isle [2], Tsaroth [7], De Nile [2], Alabamaa [2], Dos Locos [9], Chickenzrus [4], Jewish Imperialism [3], Tannu Tuval [5], Buaness [2], Buddy man [4], D2b [2], Naval Snipers [5], Mowitz [25], Grays Harbor [13], South Park CO [2], Tzorsland [3], Alfandra [2], THEM Central [3], United Necromancers [4], Ceskeland [5], Jjuulliiaann [15], Eric the Brave [3], Kawnipi [2], Danelagen [2], Onley [4], Rushmoria [2], Obstinacy [2], Sarulan [2], Bretonnian Europa [3], Cilley Walks [2], Planetary Alignment [6], Arkrull [9], Darkwater9 [6], Domintora [2], Kyldrana [4], Math Murderer [8], The Great Honey Bear [8], Biresia [3], Punkyrockyland [2], The Gondolindrim [2], Hedley Lamar [2], Cordona [4], Natopia [3], The Floodcity [4], Naravostia [4], LaserMonkeys [2], Bedouin States [7], Jofess [2], Dragaia [2], Thermadore [2], Turetel [12], Ladvicitavoi [5], Ruskigrad [3], Uwantaxe [2], Nerrethans [10], KDinCT [3], Comica IV [13], Calorom [11], Manea [7], Phoond Phools [8], Thunderstud [2], Patents Pending [14], Ashualiat [2], Baudrillard [45], Baikonour [2], St Iwfuan [2], Moudaddy [2], Akubleh [2], Saqqara [2], Middle Earth1 [3], Jonestopia [2], Kylun [4], Phatt101 [2], Slicktopia [2], Tovarich Patrick [5], Soviet Pembroke [8], Langillia [2], Defenestrate [3], Fenor [4], Edolia [13], Omega Worlds [3], Clarity Of Thought [3], Danubium [15], Orthodontics [2], Jamesburgh [14], Vultan [2], Akhlaq [6], Coffeee [3], Lighfingerers [6], Scoyle [4], Westaway [64], Kage Ookami Batsu [3], Redrige [14], The Soil Of The Free [5], Amritpall [12], Zippy giggletushie [3], Suburbya [3], Sanosukia [3], Tri-Hylians [2], Damon X [24], Zbr [2], Ostfriesenlande [2], Sprogdom [8], Trevors Stern [4], Meikleriggs [2], Son0ma [2], New-Reno [2], Happy dragon [2], King Charles I [14], Routerdom [4], Emmaterra [2], Jarvisia [11], Los Loskos [2], Grinchland [3], His Majesty [58], Tea tea [2], Saxist Saxons [5], New Endenia [3], Slapshoot [4], TheUnion [4], Vbisbhdncigsa [2], Lunaria Mirandia [3], Wegason [6], Ardchoille [8], Laurinians [2], Wolvenmorr [3], Sparkystan [2], Borginia [4], Keruvalia [2], Political Annoyed [4], Lenno Bird [5], Tiber City [4], Taoliban [7], Mohawkian [2], Velornika [2], Hyperslackovicznia [4], Optunia [4], Hailowniss [4], Germireland [5], Kershdom [5], Khanrad [3], Ancient Avalon [5], Somewhere 999 [2], The Goddess Incarnate [7], Perlib [4], ImWinkel [6], Quirn [2], Jennisim [4], Aequus Virtus [8], DonDoroDon [2], Blijia [2], HCTV [2], Kamsaki [2], Erenpreis [2], Invazion [2], North-Baltia [2], Telkar [2], Muranni [2], Mucilania [3], Physicalium [5], Th Symbionese Army [4], Canine Despotism [3], Beld [9], Austervenia [2], Greshion [7], Nihilanarkovnia [9], Witsle [4], Grebo [4], Coolsonia [2], Minskia [4], Krioval [9], Clarkestan [8], T3hFrod [2], Hysnia [9], Mitchellina [4], Flying Evil Pigs [2], Archfiends [4], Katzenartig Supremacy [3], Hack_erz [3], Fatus Maximus [2], Dizziness [2], Squatia [4], The Moon Snake [2], Emory [51], PatrikeN [2], JS Nijmegen [8], Urginoth [11], Simpsonial [3], Europa Minor [2], New Imperial Mexico [12], Toastinopia [2], Presqu-Isle [7], Corellia Prime [3], Kumay Kyair [2], Marsovia [4], Killax [3], North Shire [2], Spirius [2], Short Welsh People [4], The Mighty Eggplant [2], Farkasland [2], Amerieurostralia [2], People who say fish [6], Watari [3], Modravo [11], Mogin [4], Kreitzmoorland [2], Rotovia [2], C-Ferns [2], Frankenland [5], Ankarhesica [6], Komer [11], Little Mexican Girls [4], Macous [6], Legra [2], Elomeras [8], Vickola [2], Ministria [2], Celtic Wicca [4], Acarob [8], Neopunis [3], JernNeve [12], Erroneous Errol Island [26], Tubular [6], Tennegus [3], Aahhh [2], Friggin Badasses [4], Keg o Powder [20], Anduvar [2], Safj [4], Arachnus [2], HetStence [3], Flooders [3], LouFerringoland [4], Enelve-edrin [2], Cluedom [2], The-Guardians [3], Spheniscidae [3], Jonathalia [13], Nantukans[2], Texicanio[2], Ophainia[5], Onoo[3], Dowsley[2]

One other thing:

I've maybe been posting in the wrong thread.

heh.

One other thing:

I've maybe been posting in the wrong thread.

heh.
Don't feel bad when Saysomething starts talking we just ignore.

*ahem* and I'm sure it would help to win Mikitivity's support if everyone supporting this resolution volunteered to sit on a Pretenama Panel. Mik has a complaint that can't be processed right now because there aren't enough panel members available.

Vastiva volunteers to sit on the Pretenama Panel. Just TG us a link.

I've been away since Monday and missed everything. The proposal's looking good to me, although I'd still like to see more stringent requirements for communication - such as language that shows evidence of, say, 6th order Shannon entropy (then briefly explain that this is a measure of how complex a language is).

EDIT: See my post on page 8 about Shannon entropies