>which is cheaper than separate rods.

Not just cheaper. Fuel rod distance is important, if there is made room for both boron and graphite side-by-side, you'll need fuel rods with a lot more uranium in them and overall efficiency would drop a lot.

It's pretty annoying, that the word "rights" is used both to signify legal, practically existing rights and abstract, fictional "natural rights". Those two concepts are not closely related, and people using them interchangeably only causes confusion

If you're american, does it not make sense to prioritize the wellbeing of other americans over the wellbeing of irish or italians (in Ireland and Italy)? How is that racism? When you're american you are part of a community with rights and obligations, you pay taxes and expect certain rights as a citizen. That reciprocal relationship does not include irish and italians or any other nationality. And obviosly, as an american they have no responsibility to take care of you.

Yes, that's between them and their government. They have no right to expect me to take responsibility for their wellbeing, just as I can't expect them to care for mine. We are not in a mutually reciprocal relationship

No and that's not what i'm arguing. I'm arguing that there is no practical responsibility for me to ensure, that strangers who I am not in a reciprocal relationship with (even as "fictional" as nationality) have the practical ability to enjoy their rights. And I don't think people are willing to accept that there even is such a theoretical responsibility.

>And surely it makes no sense to place more importance on someone who lives 100miles from me rather than 1000miles.

Of course it does. If I am french I have every reason to expect to be able to enjoy the rights of a french person in the french society which provides a reasonably amount of protection from illness and crime and so on. Obviously that is contingent on me also recognizing that every other member of that community enjoys the same rights. We are in a reciprocal relationship, even if we are strangers. That same community does not include people in Australia, I can demand nothing from them and they nothing from me.

It seems that people perceive their surroundings in concentric circles, family is closest, friends and colleagues close, the "in-group" also quite close and strangers are far away and not considered important. It is not racism to fail to place significant value on the lives of strangers, unless one arbitrarily places value on certain strangers because of the color of their skin. So I don't want to legitimize racism, and racism is probably not relevant to the fact that "distant" strangers are automatically given a lower value than close relatives.

I think it's pointless to make an elaborate philosophical system, if it is likely to be ignored by ordinary people, I think that is the case with deontology and utilitarism, both are really far from the way people make decisions in reality.

So is everybody, inherently. Everyone prioritizes the health and well-being of those closest to them over the health and well-being of strangers. People spend thousands of $ on their pets and nickles on relief for developing countries.

Yeah, there are a ton of people that argue that this random trait is somehow significant, and this is always taken as a given, and noone seems to be able to argue coherently, why that would be the case.

If you get a parasitic worm in your intestines, does that have a right to live, even if it causes you significant distress?

Yeah, I just dont agree that that is the point here. Sentience has no inherent moral value.

> I believe my treatment of other organisms should be determined by that organism’s capacity to suffer from whatever action I am taking against it and whether that action is necessary.

I don't think this a reasonable or practical perspective. I care more about one of my kids scraping his knee, than the death of a starving child on the other side of the world, and even if they do not admit it when asked, so does everybody else, who do nothing while our society perpetuates a situation where we let starving children die. We as a society are certainly not treating people or animals according to their capacity for suffering.

I think it is fruitful and meaningful to take a descriptive approach to ethics. From a descriptive perspective, ethics is largely about reciprocity. people feel a high degree of ethical obligation towards those closest to them, less obligation towards strangers they perceive as "in-group" and none or very little towards strangers from various out-groups. This is why people frequently to donate a kidney to a family member but ignore starving migrants. People naturally also have a justified expectation, that the obligation they themselves feel towards their loved ones, is matched by an ethical right to support the other way.

The descriptive approach to ethics is a necessary starting point for discussions about ethics, as there is no indication that people can be convinced to act based on any of the more theoretical approaches to ethics (deontology, utilitarianism, etc.).

It is hard to see how to get from mutual commitment to animal rights. In the descriptive approach, it is not difficult to explain why the senile and brain-damaged have rights, but that is impossible if cognitive abilities is taken to be the foundation of rights: I risk becoming senile and brain-damaged myself, and in that situation I wouldt still want help; I am consequently obliged to render the same assistance. On the other hand, it is difficult to see how the same contract-like relationship can arise in the relationship with an elephant. Animals can have protection to the extent that they are someone's property, they cannot enter into an ethical relationship with humans because such relationships are always based on solidarity. Pets may be an exception, but not because they have "rights", pets are also "part of the family" and given priority above human members of out-groups.

Why is it relevant, whether or not elephants share cognitive abilities with humans such as self-awareness, empathy, awareness of death, and learning?

Being a smart elephant doesn't make an elephant human, it's still a smart elephant?

"invaded" would be more accurate

Classical Islamic theology is pretty clear on the position that everything has already been determined by Allah. Obviously that means that he's unfair by human standards, but they seem chill about that.