Humans do not have rational minds, they have rationalizing minds.
Humans are fantastically good at being sapient. We come up with things like language, cities and iPods to show it off. The trouble with testing whether other species are capable of sapience is that it hinges somewhat on whether those species give a flying fuck about being quite such show offs.
Verified extranthropical sapience would be an amazing thing, and hopefully pave the way for some much-needed deanthropocentrification in our culture(s). Then we can start making some really cool changes.
Yes, it's true, some slippery slope arguments go uphill!
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