Seconding this explanation. It’s exactly right.

Rich folks can likely influence any situation but magnet != private school for rich kids.

That’s not to say there aren’t private schools for rich kids. There definitely are. But that’s not magnet schools, and it’s not where Spider-Man goes.

There was a whole scandal a few years ago where a bunch of people, including Aunt Becky from Full House, was caught paying to get her kid into Stanford. That’s university, not secondary; and maybe someone who wasn’t so splashy about everything might’ve done better. But it illustrates the point: we at least try to maintain the illusion of being meritocratic.

Even that Wikipedia article refers to several definitions for sentience, ranging from experiences sensation through ability to make choices all the way up to human-level consciousness. Sci-fi stories have used it to mean “human-like” when the word “human-like” was inappropriate for the story, but vegan literature uses it in what might be its original definition, which could be broadly termed as “able to sense.”

Speaking of literature, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article is a literature study, not an attempt at objective definition. I think any honest assessment agrees that there isn’t an objective definition here, partially because we don’t understand most of the questions we’re asking, let alone the answers.

I said more about it here, but in short, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to select a definition of sentience that includes chickens. I just also think it’s perfectly reasonable to select a definition that doesn’t.

As far as I understand it, there are three broad buckets on the spectrum of what is considered sentience:

• On the most open end (call it 0) it’s the ability to experience sensation (this might be the original definition, but language evolves); literally just being able to process and react to input by some mechanism. By the broadest, most open interpretation of this idea, even plants are sentient. Certainly chickens are, to say nothing of dogs and cats, and of course humans.

• More toward the middle (5) is the capability for experience and intent; not simply to sense and react, but to recognize a feeling and make a choice, however dimly, to pursue a course of action as a result. You might get higher-order emotions like love as a requirement for sentience with this definition. Here, plants are clearly not sentient; their reactions are simply the result of chemical processes. Chickens are on the line; I’m not an expert on chicken neurology, but as a person who lived in a rural area growing up, I think I could pretty well make a case on either side. Dogs and cats seem to certainly be sentient by this interpretation, and humans are as well.

• On the most restrictive end of the spectrum (10) is something more like human-level consciousness; tough to define without using fuzzy words like “feel” and “think,” but being able to reason and plan for the future in some way is one part. Another part I’ve seen a lot that seems like it’s in this bucket is being able to choose to follow or eschew raw impulses. This is the end of the spectrum that most sci-fi leans on when they discuss “sentience.” Chickens are probably not sentient by this measure, but dogs and cats may be. Humans are, as the prototype of our understanding of the term.

So, to answer your question, I’d say that chickens seem to be the midpoint of the spectrum. There are probably about as many definitions which include them as don’t include them. A manosphere meatfluencer would probably put sentience at a 9 or 10 on this spectrum, while some religious traditions might put it at a 1 or 2, or even as low as 0 in some cases.

My understanding is that Costco uses their rotisserie chickens as a loss leader. They make it as cheap as they feasibly can, and then they recycle the meat from the unsold ones into as many different prepared products as possible. Probably other stores are just matching their pricing structure.

No one knows. It’s not something that any two philosophers agree on. You having a definition which includes chickens is just as much a matter of opinion and belief as the person you’re replying to having a definition that doesn’t.

But where will here be there?

Not anymore it’s not. Back then, you were there. Before now. But now it’s now, and you’re here.

The characters in the comment are “LBRY.”

You must be fun at parties.

I don’t think they know what it’s designed to stop. Seems like this is pretty clearly just a piece of conspicuous legislation passed just to make it look like they’re actually doing something.

You can be there. Just not now.

I’m guessing autocorrect swapped “US” with “Us.”

Any such algorithm would be patched out of a jailbroken version of the firmware in minutes. 3D printers are already running on FOSS, so this is worse than useless. Anyone who wants to print a working gun will be able to do so trivially.

Honestly if they haven’t done it in the past 22 years, I’m not sure it’s ever coming. Not saying they’re a “good” corporation, just that it seems like they’ve been playing it fairly clean for a while.

Besides, Ubuntu is FOSS. If Canonical does do a rug pull, there’ll be a fork available for people to migrate from in approximately 10.3 milliseconds.

Not saying I like Ubuntu—I’m not a huge fan, honestly—just that this probably isn’t as much of a risk factor as it seems on the face of things.