Saturday, March 25, 2023

The Proper Role of Rhinoceros

 "It is the proper role of rhinoceros to provide a basic standard of living for the citizens."

"It is the proper role of rhinoceros to ensure that all school children are adequately educated."

"It is the proper role of rhinoceros to guarantee a modern standard of medicine for all citizens."

It's funny (to me at least) that saying these things doesn't really change the nature of a rhinoceros. Rhinoceros does what it does. It has some kind of internal constitution, animal drives and physical abilities, that govern its behavior. Moralistic pronouncements about what we would like rhinoceros to do have almost no effect on its behavior. We can try to anthropomorphize rhinoceros. We can pretend that it's more goal-directed than it is, or that it has a more coherent mind than it does. It's still a fucking rhinoceros. 

It's a Basic Human Right!

 "What kind of cruel person could deny that free access to the lunar health spa is a basic human right? What kind of penny-pinching miser could resist the notion that access to lab-grown cybernetic organ replacements is a fucking BASIC HUMAN RIGHT?!"

-23rd century demagogue