At Vote:Rights of Biological Sapients [Complete]

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Voting Ends Wednesday the 21st, so get your votes in by Tuesday evening.

Rights of Biological Sapients

A resolution to improve worldwide human and civil rights.
Category: Human Rights
Strength: Significant
Proposed by: Reformentia

Description: RECOGNIZING the anthropocentric tendencies of UN legislation.

ACKNOWLEDGING the possibility of the existence of non-human sapient life worthy of being granted the rights and freedoms humans enjoy.

REGRETTING the difficulty in establishing an objective direct measure of the possession of sapience.

CONVINCED that some clearly identifiable criteria for granting such rights and freedoms must be established.

DECLARES that, if any biological species or member thereof demonstrates the capacity to issue a request to the UN, of their own volition, that the rights and freedoms granted to human beings be extended to them and demonstrates a coherent understanding of the request under cross examination, they shall be considered to be equal to humans under the law with regard to those rights and freedoms. This shall not apply when such rights or freedoms are inappropriate to the biological characteristics of the species.

DECLARES that should these rights and freedoms be granted to the requesting species that species will also be subject to the restrictions contained in UN law except where they too are inappropriate to the biological characteristics of the species.

REQUIRES that if any genetic or technological modifications or augmentations are required to communicate this request they be performed by the members of the species in question if the entire species is to qualify for those rights and freedoms. If any member of a species is genetically or technologically augmented by a member of a different species that individual or individuals shall be considered a distinct species of their own under the law, qualifying for the rights and freedoms requested but only securing them for themselves.

FURTHER REQUIRES that if a request is made by any UN member that a species be thus evaluated for sapience that contact between that species and the UN shall not be prevented by any member nation.

DECLARES that the rights and freedoms of non biological life forms shall be left unaddressed by this resolution and open to separate consideration.

Co-authored by: The Two Sheds
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This resolution is currently up for vote in the UN.

Please post your views and stance on this resolution below. Note, however, that you must have a UN nation in The North Pacific, or on active NPA duty, in order for the Delegate to count your vote.
 
Erastide:
Rights of Biological Sapients

A resolution to improve worldwide human and civil rights.
Category: Human Rights
Strength: Significant
Proposed by: Reformentia
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Ok, then, here we go...

RECOGNIZING the anthropocentric tendencies of UN legislation.
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Well, gee, I wonder why that would be...?

ACKNOWLEDGING the possibility of the existence of non-human sapient life worthy of being granted the rights and freedoms humans enjoy.
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Possibly.....? :blink:

REGRETTING the difficulty in establishing an objective direct measure of the possession of sapience.
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Find a dictionary, that'll help...

CONVINCED that some clearly identifiable criteria for granting such rights and freedoms must be established.

DECLARES that, if any biological species or member thereof demonstrates the capacity to issue a request to the UN, of their own volition, that the rights and freedoms granted to human beings be extended to them and demonstrates a coherent understanding of the request under cross examination, they shall be considered to be equal to humans under the law with regard to those rights and freedoms. This shall not apply when such rights or freedoms are inappropriate to the biological characteristics of the species.
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Ok... so basically what I'm getting out of this is that the UN is going to sit on their lazy bums until a group of monkeys evolves enough to realize that they can even submit such a request, and end up doing all the hard work themselves. Then we say, "Oh, you're smart now? Have some rights!" and kick 'em out the door. Kind of odd, IMO.

DECLARES that should these rights and freedoms be granted to the requesting species that species will also be subject to the restrictions contained in UN law except where they too are inappropriate to the biological characteristics of the species.
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So we're automatically making them UN members, even if they have no representation in the UN, and if they're from a nation which isn't a UN member.

REQUIRES that if any genetic or technological modifications or augmentations are required to communicate this request they be performed by the members of the species in question if the entire species is to qualify for those rights and freedoms. If any member of a species is genetically or technologically augmented by a member of a different species that individual or individuals shall be considered a distinct species of their own under the law, qualifying for the rights and freedoms requested but only securing them for themselves.
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Ok, so not only are we waiting for them to evolve far enough to be able to read, write, and speak intelligently, but they also need to get genetic science under their belts. And again, they're doing all the hard work to get this request in.

FURTHER REQUIRES that if a request is made by any UN member that a species be thus evaluated for sapience that contact between that species and the UN shall not be prevented by any member nation.
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Ah! Here we go, finally! The UN actually actively searching for sentient life! Ok, that makes it a little better.

DECLARES that the rights and freedoms of non biological life forms shall be left unaddressed by this resolution and open to separate consideration.
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Non-biological life.... ok, now we're just getting weird.

I'm actually not quite sure where to put my vote on this one. In some ways, I think it's great that the UN is willing to give rights to other sentient species, but at the same time, I think the UN is overstepping it's bounds in some places. And unless the UN does use that second-to-last clause to actively search for such species, I sincerely doubt we're going to get a bunch of apes walking into General Assembly one day and say "Hi, there! We'd like to join?", at least for a few million years.

No, it's intentions are good, and I might have voted for it otherwise, but in it's current form, Hersfold votes AGAINST.

The United Federation of Hersfold
UN Member
Author, UN Resolution #54, UN Educational Committee
 
Hersfold:
mr_sniffles:
I think it's about the NS countries that aren't human, like RP states. FOR.
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I suppose it could be... but then one would assume that if the nation is already a UN Member, that this legislation wouldn't really be needed.
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Well no I think maybe the point was that most if not all of the civil rights or political freedoms issues specifically point out HUMAN, including ages, sex and whatnot. While a country of asexual robots would clearly be left out.
 
I mean humans can be pretty damn cruel to each other but why be mean to those asexual robots? Think of cool old CPO, do you really want to oppress a cool sapient like that?
 
wouldnt the assexual robots have human creators and masters though? or can you program them to rule nations? wouldnt that be a technical dictatorship?

wait a second, assexual robot nations???
 
Robots can make themselves, most manufacturing nowadays is automated and I think it's more of hive mentality. So less dictatorial and more totalitarian.
 
Well, seeing as it was obviously a monkey who wrote this resolution, I fail to see why others would have a problem doing the same.
 
Fedele, be nice.

I'm not quite sure where you were going with that, mr sniffles, but whatever. Your vote is your vote.
 
This is THE most ridiculous thing I've ever read in my entire life.

Are these people trying to predict evolution here?

AGAINST with extreme vehemence.
 
I'm quite tempted to vote for this. Its hilarious. I wouldn't want to put off other equally enjoyable resolutions by shooting this one down.

However, like so much of life, common sense prevails.

AGAINST.
 
FOR.

Think of the poor sentient lizard-folk of Drakhar V who've pulled themselves out of the muck, creating a fabulous civilization of sophistication and beauty, reaching out to their human counterparts in the UN community only to discover they are viewed as second-class citizens because their method of reproduction or some other such species-specific trait isn't the same as humans.

This ain't the real world we're playing here. I see no reason to restrict RP possibilities to what you can find in everyday life. If I want to be the Lizard-King of Sirixis, then so be it, and the UN should recognize my rights as well as those of the puny, little humans. :p
 
Yes, but NS and RP are completely seperate.

Once again, I ask, what issue will this resolution decide?
 
FOR.

Really, why is anyone here laboring under the delusion that the NSUN only covers non-RPed dilemmas? We just finished passing a resolution concerning neutral states during periods of war. NS War, I will remind you, is a strictly RPed phenomenon. And if that isn't enough, just go through the list of passed UN proposals. Very few of them are oriented towards simple stat changing.

In a way, almost everything about NationStates involves role-playing your nation's character-including the daily issues and UN resolutions. If this were not the case, the issues you would get every day would be simple descriptions of effects: "Option 2-increase taxes, raise political freedoms." So it's rather fallacious to dismiss this due to its focus on RP.
 
But the UN has no way of enforcing RP. Quite pointless if that is the true purpose.

Example: See Teruchev's proposal. It actually accomplishes something
 
Hell, just because its weird isnt' the only reason I voted against this one. This dosen't do enough to define sentience in my opinion. And yes, I did take other types of RP nations into account when voting against this.
 
From what I can see, this resolution is just saying that the rest of the rights and restrictions (maybe even a right to citizenship?) that are granted by UN legislation will apply to anything that can ask the UN to do so. It isn't quite the Turing test but it's a decent enough idea to give rights to anything that can ask for them, whether it be by sign-language, learning to type or translating some other communication which chimps, gorillas or dolphins can be taught. (The resolution is predicting learning by other species, not their evolving.) I think it's unfortunate this doesn't go as far as saying that even machine intelligence would also be considered. Alas.

I also think that water-tubes to make buildings equally accessable to dolphins would be a hoot.

I vote FOR this proposal.
 
Voting on this resolution has ended.

Thanks to those nations who cast their votes. Your participation is a great help to the region.

This topic has been locked and sent to the Archives for safekeeping. If you would like this topic to be re-opened for further discussion, please contact the UN Delegate, a Global Moderator, or an Administrator for assistance. Thank you.
 
Voting on this resolution has ended.

Thanks to those nations who cast their votes. Your participation is a great help to the region.

This topic has been locked and sent to the Archives for safekeeping. If you would like this topic to be re-opened for further discussion, please contact the UN Delegate, a Global Moderator, or an Administrator for assistance. Thank you.
 
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