People live longer than most but not all animals it’s true.

Rebirths in hell are said to be pretty long:

• the Nandaka Sutta says says, “the complete lifespan of beings in that hell is one trillion years. Once they have suffered one hundred thousand years, suddenly they hear a strange sound. This is how they know they have suffered for one hundred thousand years.”
• “Sixty thousand years have passed while we have been boiling in hell”
• “I have been eaten by a dog with torn ears for seven hundred years”

My 888th post – seems auspicious

You’re equating not two but three concepts you should distinguish: complexity, respect, and the levels of suffering.

complicated and worthy of basic respect

Complexity is not the thing that makes beings worthy of respect. A chicken certainly has a less complex mind than a dolphin, but both have minds capable of pleasant and painful experiences. And so do I. Therefore, if I want my consciousness to be in nice states, and I believe feeling good is good, I should want that for the chicken and the dolphin too. Nothing to do with their complexity.

Nor is the ladder of suffering anything to do with respect. Some beings are suffering worse than others: for example I knew a girl who had mental illness and also a chronic pain condition in her knee that had her in 10/10 physical pain at all times. She’s obviously experiencing more pain than me, or the happy people I know.

The intensity of suffering varies. You don’t have to deny that in order to deny a hierarchy of ‘respect’.

In order to deny a hierarchy of ‘respect’, you acknowledge that all beings have Buddha-nature, which is to say that consciousness itself is capable of clarity, capable of experiencing joy and pain. And if you accept that anything with consciousness is capable of that, you accept that their happiness is just as important as yours.

In fact, if there were no differentiation of suffering, there would be no reason to act compassionately, as everything is going to suffer equally anyway.

Yes, to be born as a man you must have some virtuous karma. You and I (and the son in the meme) have been born in lower realms many many times, same as the animals you meet.

‘Lower’ in this context refers to the amount of suffering. From least suffering to most, it goes –

1. Gods/devas
2. Demigods/asura/Æsir
3. Men
4. Animals
5. Hungry ghosts (preta, प्रेत)
6. Beings in hell

Even though being a human hurts more than being a god or demigod, it is the most fortunate because we have the right amount of pain to motivate renunciation. The lives of gods and demigods are too happy to drive them to seek liberation from rebirths.

A man has the ability to understand Right View, and take action to rewire his mind and choose his actions in accordance with Right View. A horse does not. There are no Dharma practitioners who are horses.

Your comment is based on the syllogism –

A) I am the result of actions taken that have led to a fortunate rebirth

B) The nature of my existence is as a separate self, outside of and in competition with other selves, capable of being compared to them

Therefore –

Conclusion: I am a superior self.

But the problem with the syllogism is the 1st and 2nd premises contradict each other. If you are a swirling-together of causes that have created a temporary formation, then you are not a separate self. And if you are not a separate self, there is no basis for the ego-view, no basis for pride.

Animal rebirth is caused by actions driven by base instincts with no reflection or wisdom.

Not all animal rebirths are equally nice (just like human rebirths).

So a nice animal rebirth would be caused by acting with generosity but also living an unexamined life.

Makes it seem like Argentinians are the ones you forgot to ask.

Don’t see how you got that. I would rather not spend my time on ‘please argue with me on the internet’ people, especially when their starting point is mental incapacity (“I am unable to think of [easy to think of thing]!”). That’s all I have said. Why would I wish to argue with them?

Hope you’re having a great day.

Got it, thanks.

Youse have already answered that: because Beliefs stop you from seeing.

I don’t have any ownership of the point, it’s not mine, it’s common-sense.

How the fuck do you expect me to provide an example of organization without authority if it’s not something I believe in dipshit?

“How the fuck do you expect me to use my brain when my beliefs are in the way?!?”

I expected exactly this tbh. You even admit that it’s your “beliefs” that blind you to the examples we see all around us. No point talking to a hostile deadminded Believer.

No, those aren’t examples of “organisation without authority”; they’re the opposite.

I only see two possibilities –

• You need to spoonfeed you examples of “organisation without authority” because you have excessive respect for my opinion, lack of independent thought
• You’re playing the role of ‘hostile skeptic on the internet’

You provide one, you have a brain, you don’t need me to spoonfeed you.

It’s trivially easy to think of examples of “organisation without authority” in nature, in history, in software.

A short ‘logical’ essay can give any answer in an abstract sense, but that doesn’t discount empirical examples.

Always seemed to me like Engels begs the question, takes “anarchy = chaos” as a starting assumption.

What appeals to you about that text?

In a concrete sense, yes