Wow - I never realized that he was named after Tupac Amaru. Thanks for intriguing me; reading up is in order.

I think that the project of updating our legal frameworks to include the idea of non-human persons (whales, chimps, perhaps one or two other species), members of species whose cultural, social, and intellectual complexity entails specific needs. While your answer is more pragmatically feasible and maybe a better…

Thanks for that correction and link. I had heard them speaking out against pet ownership before, but it seems that their official position on that point is a lot more nuanced and respectable than that.

Then you're not necessarily infertile - if it's used correctly, withdrawal is as effective as condom use. Even over many years, you're extremely unlikely to get pregnant that way.

Totally agreed. I do think that calling them slaves was a stupid distraction from a good point though. We are now comparing two unacceptable things instead of addressing each on their own terms.

OK, PETA would probably say yes, but I think that there is a huge difference. In the wild, for tens of thousands of years, whales have been extremely social animals that live in complex societies and travel huge distances over the course of a year. They are like humans in that regard - I can't imagine that being…

I think that animals' rights should reflect their cognitive/emotional/social characteristics. Basically, they should all have the right to a chance at happiness while they live/at not suffering horribly, but what that entails would differ dramatically from one species to the next.

This must happen. Both to avoid the moment of horror months down the line when two people find out that their quirks are incompatible, and because flaws are what people really fall in love with one another over (I think?).

Same on all counts!

I think that she might not be anorexic. I mean, she could well be - there are much larger women who are. But waist excepted, she doesn't look super unhealthy - I would guess that she's just a very thin woman who has a naturally small waist and has been shrinking it with corsets for years.

Exactly. Porn that uses people struggling with extremely skinny bodies and fetishizes their illness in a way that may well exacerbate it? Gross. Those women's bodies? Not gross, just human bodies.

You have an interesting point and I will need to stew on it longer.

I would assume that it's like a lot of badly produced/non-amateur porn (most porn?): it's likely that most of the models aren't turned on at all. The porn is meant for the viewers who are not anorexic but who fetishize the models' disease (or body type, although the name suggests that they like the idea of actual…

Yeah. Obviously that amount is completely unaffordable for many. But for others it's the cost of, say, a vacation, or of putting new tiles on the bathroom floor, or it's something that they can save up by giving up some small luxury (store-bought coffee for a year?).

Largely famous for being famous. Most of the details have been covered by other commenters already, but if you have time to burn, this podcast explores the idea and history: [www.cbc.ca]

I don't think that this research supports the idea that actual social behaviours are at all innate, though... only that there is an important biological component to them. The relationship between socio-cultural environments, genes, and hormones/other things that ultimately regulate gene expression is probably a very…

I don't think that your premise is correct.

I'm not tattooed and, for various personal reasons, will never be. I do find tattoos beautiful though (and when they want to share, people's stories about getting them are often really interesting).

Does s/he love you because of who you are, or because of who you are?

Thank you for that! It's sad when intriguing papers don't get a fair shake here :).