D&D (2024) How did I miss this about the Half races/ancestries

[Chaosmancer]

Is there a predator that isn't vicious and cruel?

Probably, though I can't think of one off the top of my head. Does it matter?

It's been a while since I took any anthroplogy courses, but I don't think you'd find many anthropologist who would agree that Neaderthal wasn't human. I believe Homo habilis is still considered by many to be the creature we'd recognize as human and they were around 1.5-2.5 million years ago.

But they would agree that they are not Homo Sapien Sapien, which are the only humans anyone in living memory has ever talked to. But, this just goes to show many of these concepts are very loose and stretchy.

Animals can communicate with one another, but it's not widely accepted that they have a language. The way we communicate with one another is fundamentally different from how animals communicate with one another.

How so? Language is the convenience of ideas. Animals do that. Sure, there are things we communicate that we do not seem to see them communicating in the same ways, but we are not the same species.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Does that mean anything? All life here on Earth has the same origins. You wouldn't be expected to have encountered non-carbon based life.

True, so why is the idea we might encounter non-carbon based life make our carbon-based selves special? Wouldn't it be the opposite?

 

[Chaosmancer]

To be fair, very few animals have grammar (mostly birds, IIRC), and of those animals that have been taught to speak, they almost never ask abstract or existential questions. Alex the parrot, the one with a huge vocabulary, may have been the first and possibly only. So most animals can communicate in some fashion but probably in nothing more than one concept at a time.

Mind, there are an increasing number of people who are teaching animals how to use communication boards, so I wouldn't be surprised if the number of animals shown to have a human-like type of thinking increases. (I saw a funny video of a cat who pressed the buttons for yes and treat; when the human responded by pushing no treat, the cat pressed the button for mad.)

Cute Kitty

But sure, many of them don't have grammar. But is grammar needed for language? It makes language more clear but it isn't actually one of the things considered for a languages prosody. Unless it is umbrella'd under vocabulary. Things like pitch, prominence, length and timber, which all convey meaning without any need for grammatical rules.

And one concept at a time is all you really need for "language" because the only point in language is to convey ideas. Animals have very simple ideas, so they only need very simple language.

 

[Guest 85555]

That is a fair point. However, there is also the risk that if we rely on unproven metaphysical reasons to claim we are "special" then even if we encounter another species that can do everything we can do, we can claim they are not special, because they lack that metaphysical element. Something that we have a long history of attempting to do.

I agree this is a risk of the claim, and I will address that more in my response to your next point because I feel that raises some key issues. But if we demand proof that humans abd human life are special, rather than take for granted that does open the doors to mistreatment of other human beings

 

[Faolyn]

Cute Kitty

But sure, many of them don't have grammar. But is grammar needed for language? It makes language more clear but it isn't actually one of the things considered for a languages prosody. Unless it is umbrella'd under vocabulary. Things like pitch, prominence, length and timber, which all convey meaning without any need for grammatical rules.

And one concept at a time is all you really need for "language" because the only point in language is to convey ideas. Animals have very simple ideas, so they only need very simple language.

I'm not linguistic, but grammar does seem to be important for languages to develop beyond speaking the simplest of concepts. And the things you mention--pitch, prominence, etc.--would be a form of grammar, since they would most likely influence what a particular word or concept means in relation to everything else. As far as I can tell, no human languages are completely devoid of grammar.

Of course, alien and fantasy languages might be completely different!

 

[Guest 85555]

But it is precisely in fantasy and sci-fi that we explore these questions, and in the exploration of these ideas, try and peer into the future to understand the trials and challenges.

True, and I think that is a worthy thing to do. I wouldn't put limits on that

For example, you claim an ethical reason for never separating "person" from "human" because it may deny personhood to humans. However, I have also encountered stories where the opposite was explored. I have been told, by many people, that a digital construct cannot be a person, cannot be human. A writer wrote a story about a person whose mind was digitally downloaded into a computer, therefore since that was a digital construct and not a person, they were free to endlessly torture this individual. It was no crime. It was no moral failing, because it wasn't a person, it was a thing. Even though the person was in a coma, and their mind was in the machine. You cannot torture a digital thing after all.

Yes and this is definitely something that could happen and something I would be against were we to create a digital intelligence. But I think AI also raises serious questions about what constitutes sapience and free will. What I would say is my primary concern with how personhood gets separated from humanity is it enables us to say humans with X qualities or humans lacking Y qualities may not qualify as people. So I think whatever personhood is, it always needs to encompass every human being. If we want to extend that or create new categories of -hood I am fine with that. But so far these are all theoretical so I am just more worried about what is in front of us in reality.

We run a serious risk when we ascribe certain rights, benefits and privileges to "people" and then make sure that "people" can only be humans. Because while we have never encountered another sapient, free-willed species, we are both trying to create one and statistically nearly guaranteed to meet one in the future of our species. And when we meet them, we need to be ready to either accept that they are people, or consign ourselves to repeating the worst moments of our history as we declare them "non-people" and therefore lacking any right to consideration.

Here I don't know. Your theoretical assumes we will be in a position of power enough to be the ones repeating the worst moments of our history (at least in the sense of being the ones committing the atrocities). It's is just as, maybe more likely, if that happens we will be the ones being conquered (and the ones trying to persuade them to acknowledge our personhood).

But what if we do meet an alien species and it turns out they are wholly malevolent, have minds that are in no way, shape or from like ours, and bent on our destruction? Is calling them people useful or helpful? The truth is we have no idea what an alien species could be like. The only example we have is what has happened here on earth (and even here the range of species is quite stunning). It is easy to imagine that what we meet may in no way resemble people intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, etc.

That isn't to say we should mistreat these hypothetical aliens, but I do think we should at least see what they are before we automatically confer personhood

 

[Horwath]

Ah, I see. So the dwarves can legally kick out people who have lived multiple generations in a place, because the dwarves have more influence in society and a "better claim" to the land. But there are no racist overtones here, just the wealthy and affluent who are more influential in society dictating rules to the less wealthy and affluent about where they are allowed to live and what rights they have.

yes. living 5 to 10 times longer on average in an inherent species advantage in all cases.

you might have written record of the ownership on your person. Definitely more likely than having a record from your grand-grand-grand-grand parents.

you will definitely known more(have more levels) on average than short lived races and know more people.

In the end, even an orc cleric can cast zone of truth on you and confirm 1st hand that you are lawful owner. You, not your ancestor 5 or 6 generations ago that MIGHT have been the owner.


but in the end, it will all probably be boiled down to Might makes right and whoever can keep the land, will keep the land.

 

[Maxperson]

True, so why is the idea we might encounter non-carbon based life make our carbon-based selves special? Wouldn't it be the opposite?

No. Not at all. We would be special and so would they, assuming that they didn't eat our faces or terraform us to death with their advanced technology and different moral outlook and thought processes.

 

[Vaalingrade]

To be fair, very few animals have grammar

A hefty point in their favor, for true.

 

[Maxperson]

And you definately can't use default orc for a a PC. Hence the creation of half orc. LOTR, WH, Warcraft, Might and Magic, and TES didn't need half orcs.

But fans stated: "Other media made orcs people. Why doesn't D&D just make orcs people?"

For the same reason that everything isn't a clone of everything else. When it's all the same it gets boring. Let LotR, Warhammer, Warcraft, etc. have the people orcs, and let D&D have half-orcs.