Word: sentient
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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Debates about environmental preservation and conservation often center around the role of the sentient market. Adherents of Adam Smith tend to tout the unfettered market as the means to environmental salvation, believing that eventually the price of a good reflects its true costs. Environmentalists scoff at this logic for a multitude of reasons: Some believe that economics is bunk since it's largely based on (what to them appears) untenable assumptions, others criticize free market solutions because of the incredible difficulty in valuing the environment. Still, most environmentalists believe that political will and the action of individuals is necessary...
...designers of a cheap and inaccurate punch-card system. Need I even mention that we are in the 21st Century? Is the best system for reading the will of the people truly an ugly fusion of ancient paper technologies, a blunt metal mini-club held over from our pre-sentient days roaming the planes of Africa, and poorly controlled, circa 1970's computer ballot reading machines...
...know that your roommates are conscious? No, not at 4 a.m. after copious libations have reduced them to senseless Neanderthals, but how do you know they are conscious, sentient beings to begin with? You might reason as follows: You are conscious (one can be fairly certain of that, most days) and when you interact with your roommates they behave as if their brains possessed the same characteristics that you attribute to your consciousness. Therefore, you attribute the characteristic of "conscious" to these other entities, your roommates. But this inherently subjective definition of consciousness opens the door wide for beings...