Comment by torgian | Hacker News Reader

Comment by torgian | Hacker News Reader

Spoiler warning: I didn’t read the article (can’t access now due to vpn not working)

So from reading others comments and such: yeah, I understand the idea that the pigs could be comatose and not experiencing anything. From the science behind brains as we know it, that seems to be the case.

Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with this because, in the end, it will benefit humans. And we are more important than pigs.

Personally, I’d be all for human experiments as long as it was done correctly. This is why we do everything on animals first before human trials are even approved.

Give me, or my family enough money, and I’d be happen to be a brain in a bucket for a fixed period of time. Who knows what could happen. Maybe I’d be dead, maybe I’ll be in a waking dream, or maybe nothing at all. We don’t know.

Pig experiments may give us some insight to it. I hope so. Consciousness is one of those elusive things that we haven’t been able to pin down.

Who knows, we might even be able to Altered Carbon ourselves in the future, all thanks to pigs.

I’m curious. What is your basis for determining that it is okay to do this to pigs?

Could we also do this to dogs?

Dolphins? Elephants? Monkeys?

Cats? Mice? Ants? Paramecium caudatum? Bacteria?

We need a better framework for this issue than "where do you draw the line" Vegan Billboard[0].

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[0] - https://imgur.com/gallery/h9tbwcH

Well, we eat the pigs so doing some science experiments on them should be acceptable considering we have so many food alternatives and still eat pigs. I believe people who eat dogs don't see an issue with dog experiments.

I'll take cows as an example as I don't eat pig...

If the meat I buy is from someone who mutilated the cow and optimized for maximum pain in the death of the cow then I would not buy that meat.

So there is a spectrum here. Just because we kill animals for food does not mean that it's ethical along the rest of the spectrum of harm.

What if the "mutilated" cow would save your life or just fix a small health issue(i.e backpain)? Would you still accept the procedure? We test on animals so that we don't have to test on us(first). I find using animals for science experiments(even if they are painful) more ethical than killing them for their good taste. If you replace the animals with humans (eating vs experiments) there is no question which one is more wrong.

What if the mutilated cow (in the slaughterhouse) could save my life? Cows that are ill treated before they dead actually produce worse meat. So I think it's provable that tortured cow meat is bad for me.

Now I know you weren't referring to that.

As far as animal experimentation goes, it's pretty much illegal to do torturous experimentation on animals.

Getting IRB approval is difficult for anything besides normal life for an animal. Yes you can inject drugs into it etc., but pain to the animal plays a very large role in if you'll be allowed to do it.

* My wife is a cancer biologist who maintains and works with mouse models.

> If you replace the animals with humans (eating vs experiments) there is no question which one is more wrong.

Consent is the only issue here. What you're talking about isn't really ethics, more disgust.

>If the meat I buy is from someone who mutilated the cow and optimized for maximum pain in the death of the cow then I would not buy that meat.

What if more pain directly correlated with better-tasting meat (or some other tangible advantage, like health benefits or medicinal properties)? I think you'd find many, many people who'd be okay with cows inflicted maximum pain for maximum yum meat, let alone meat that made them healthier than the alternative.

If there's a spectrum here, an instance of that spectrum exists for each individual too. Is it rational to believe we could ever agree on a single universal line on that spectrum for everyone?

It's very personal, but for me "it could reasonnably be useful for humans" (ie it's not cruelty for fun) and "they are not humans" makes it okay to do this to pigs. So yeah, dogs/dolphin/elephants/monkeys would be okay too.

But I do appreciate that other people might have different sensibility or empathy with animals

For me, I drew the line at human and non human. I'm okay to do anything to non human.

Isn't that kind of arbitrary? What if I said "for me, I drew the line at white people and non white people. I'm okay to do anything to non white"

It is preference and yes your line might be different too.

Our lives and laws are necessarily filled with quasi-arbitrary lines and conventions. What is the age of consent for marriage? What threshold of blood-alcohol is too much to drive a motor vehicle? When is someone considered dead?

Comparing the acknowledgement of such lines with racism is ridiculous.

Ok, so let's propose another quasi-arbitrary line and convention: black people can be enslaved, white people cannot. So, this rule would be just as arbitrary and valid as any other. Or is there a ethical justification against it?

Where do you personally draw the line? I'm not trying to be adversarial, just trying to understand how cogent your argument is.

I think the race argument is a bit reductio ad adsurdum. Why is that any different than if you decide to only eat plants? That draws the line at the kingdom classification which is just another human convention. Drawing the line between species seems to have some logic to it at least, given there is a stronger biological definition rather than a contrived race argument. (e.g., we can strictly define a species, in part, by their ability to produce viable offspring)

I do not draw a line in kingdom either, that would be every bit as absurd and arbitrary as drawing a line on species or race. In practice, I end up eating only members of plant kingdom, but that is just a fortuitous artifact, not the result of drawing a line at 'kingdom'.

I seek to avoid causing suffering (I'm an utilitarian, but you don't necessarily have to be utilitarian to try to prevent suffering). Q: What entities can suffer? A: Sentient beings, by definition of sentience. In particular, animals that we usually kill, do suffer (but not necessarily every individual belonging to that kingdom does). Carrots do not (but if in the future we discovered an individual of another kingdom that suffered as much as a pig on a slaughterhouse, I wouldn't eat him either, being there so many other options).

Richard Dawkins and Peter Singer had a chat explaining well this issue: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GYYNY2oKVWU

Thanks for the clarification on your stance and for sharing the link. Although I know a lot of people think Dawkins worships on the alter of rationality, I think some of his stances on this issue need to be taken with a grain of salt because he openly admits that he occasionally makes emotional arguments when it comes to (non-human) animal rights.

I think the assumptions that need to be called out in Singer's argument (and possibly yours, given the little bit in your post above) are 1) we know how to define sentience and 2) we understand the link between sentience and suffering. These points may be a departure from Singer in part because he's making a philosophical argument and not necessarily a scientific one. The science part being relevant to this thread because I think part of the discussion is how strict definitions are necessary to avoid the moral relativism aspect of the conversation.

There doesn't appear to be any scientific consensus on how to define consciousness or sentience. Some, like Sam Harris, define it simply in terms of information processing. In that case, what suffers can get murky fast. Are mollusks more conscious than, say, a venus fly trap? I don't know, but as a layman, I haven't come across a good definition to parse that question effectively.

Even if we have an understanding of sentience, there doesn't seem to be a definition on how this translates to suffering. You seem to imply it is a given that sentience leads directly to the ability to suffer, but I haven't found a good consensus on this either. Some people like Gerald Edelman take the stance that suffering is dependent on complexity of the nervous system, so there's nothing morally wrong with killing lobsters and less complex animals. There's others like Vilayanur Ramachandran who go further and don't think more complex animals like cows suffer because they don't introspectively experience pain the way humans do.

The above is a just a long-winded way of saying that I think we need strict scientific definitions to make some sense of the topic or we'll just be endlessly entangled in relativistic arguments. I'm not convinced we have made sense enough of the problem to define it this thoroughly.

So you would be OK with me killing black people then, just preference

I'm not but I am pretty sure there is someone who is Ok with that. Besides in my previous response I'm just specifically concerned with human vs non human. I'm not saying anything regarding human X vs human Y.

Sure there is, but in your view we couldn't say that those people are evil, because in the end it's just preference of where to draw the line, correct? Nazis chose to draw a line excluding jews, and that was their preference

Evil or not is relative. You can say nazis is evil but to the nazis they might not think its evil. To me evil or not is irrelevant. If you dont like Nazi action, then you have to force them to stop regardless.

Ok, so by that same rationale we could say: "Evil or not is irrelevant, but if you don't like animal-exploiters action, you have to force them to stop regardless"

Yes

By that same logic, is it fair to say that Nazis who don't like anti-Nazi action should be forced to stop those trying to stop Nazi actions?

Of course

I understand that, I'm pointing out that your drawing a line separating human vs non human is just as arbitrary as drawing a line separating white vs non white

Yes, its my personal preference. Of course it's might be different for every situation.

Do you have any interest in how we structure our societal laws and standards? Or do you prefer the laissez fairy approach to morality?

Edit: meant to say laissez-faire but I prefer fairy

Not really, in term of morality, I'm more inline to this idea https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_egoism

Are you afraid of having your rights violated? How can you hold this position in a society?

Not really, that's just how it is.

Someone (or a group of person) fought and convinced other that its in their best interests to make a particular law. For example a law against murder, some people think that its in their best interest to punish people for murder, some other don't.

Regardless what the "true" morality is regarding murder, the one who fight and and can either successfully force or convince other to follow, get to decide what the law is.

Thank you for being one of the few sane people in this thread.

What will we do when our technology gets to the level of the living things?

Is it forbidden to reverse-engineer to get there faster?

See: substratism

>>Give me, or my family enough money, and I’d be happen to be a brain in a bucket for a fixed period of time. Who knows what could happen. Maybe I’d be dead, maybe I’ll be in a waking dream, or maybe nothing at all. We don’t know.

That's an interesting perspective. Someone, extremely aware of what he's doing, taking one for the team--while being rewarded. Maybe the family will enjoy the $$ but at least you leave a legacy. Obviously it has to be a major experiment, the final one after all animal testing is exhausted. People sacrifice themselves to save others all the time, soldier jumping on top of grenade, people running into burning houses to save others, going to Mars etc etc

Just keep on piling ever more of the spoils of 'progress' on the 0,1%, while keeping the rest in a dog eat dog 'job hunt' struggle for survival, and you will have no shortage of 'volunteers'.

What is an astronaut, especially the early ones ?

I totally get the '0.1%' thought here, the idea being that the majority of this scientific progress will only benefit those how can afford it.

Personally, I'd be hoping for more universal advancement. I hope society gets to the point where scientific advancements benefit all people, not just the minority that can afford such advancements.

As with most advancements, it's doubtful we'll ever get to a time period where we'll discover/invent/create/do something new and suddenly it's available to everyone. All things get cheaper with time, and scale eventually propagates once-expensive things out to more of the populace. In most cases the higher origin cost funds manufacturing advancements or research to bring down other costs, which make the argument that targeting the 0.1% is actually necessary for a wider distribution later.

Rather than thinking in terms of "all these crazy improvements will only be for the 0.1%", it's important to think of them on a per-advancement basis. Each one will be expensive at first, and then get cheaper; and as we start seeing cheaper things available, we will also continue to see more advancements that are inevitably targeted at the 0.1% that will also eventually fall in price, and the cycle should continue indefinitely. I don't think we'll ever hit a period where there are no more advancements to be made, which means there will always be previous iterations that are available for cheaper than the cutting edge of anything.

> in the end, it will benefit humans. And we are more important than pigs.

Let's agree with you for a moment and understand what it really means:

- Let's say you are N times more intelligent than an average pig.

- Now let's say another species appears, where the average individual is N times more intelligent than you.

According to your argument, you would voluntarily subject yourself to experimentation, including getting your brain removed.

Of course you would not do that. So your argument is really about justifying the abuse of other species of mammals that cannot defend themselves.

Variations of that same argument were used to enslave, abuse and kill millions of people. It is sad your comment is the most upvoted. Our society sucks.

>where the average individual is N times more intelligent than you.

Nobody said anything about intelligence ratios except for you. Of course that’s a stupid metric. How many times more intelligent are you than a mushroom? Why is that an acceptable amount and not this pig ratio.

>Of course you would not do that.

Don’t call people liars without evidence to turn them into straw men that are easier to tear down.

>Variations of that same argument were used to enslave, abuse and kill millions of people. It is sad your comment is the most upvoted. Our society sucks.

It’s not op’s argument. It’s yours. Nobody said anything about intelligence ratios except for you. You then disregarded the part where op said he/she would volunteer because it didn’t fit your narrative.

This argument is valid forwards, but not universally backwards. Otherwise you could repeat it with pigs and ants, and then with ants and bacteria.

There is a spectrum of life, on one end you have self-propagating chemical reactions, on the other you have beings with moral significance. Whether or not experiments on animals are morally justified depend on where those animals lie on this spectrum, and the form and goal of the experiment.

I'm not trying to say here where pigs lie on the spectrum, just that this discussion needs to happen on a much deeper level of details than "humans are more important than pigs" vs. "but aliens could say the same thing about us" for it to be useful.

(Personally, as long as the brains remain comatose all the way through, I don't feel there's a problem here. If they were active... that would be animal cruelty to me. But that's just my individual moral intuition.)

Obviously, this is very sticky moral ground, and I don't claim to absolutely have the answers....

But I think there is merit to the idea of personage. Types of dolphins have been declared non-human persons, as have some primates, by several governments. There is some significant evidence that elephants may also belong in this grouping.

I think that at some point, an individuals awareness and potential for moral autonomy becomes significant enough that it deserves recognition as such by others with similar capabilities.

I don't pretend to know exactly how to judge this, but I think it is possible as we gain knowledge about the nature of intelligence to make judgements on this criteria.

I think that all animals (and plants) should be treated humanely within the practical possibility of doing so (I subscribe to the "if you can't fix it, try not to break it" philosophy) but I think it is farsical to attempt to equivilize the moral significance of dogs and pigs with that of humans and primates.

Others have already touched upon a few other points in your argument, but quite frankly, intelligence is not a good metric.

And neither is a creature's ability to measure morality.

Do we know how a pig measures morals? Do we know how to measure a pig's awareness? To an extent, we can measure a pig's intelligence, but is it simply 'doing what is repeated over and over' or is there actual understanding of the why behind an action?

Quite frankly, we don't know. We're not even close to understanding how to measure such things.

Because, right now, humans only really understand humans and how the human brain works. We can measure morality, intelligence, and awareness in humans, to a point. And yet...Shit, the brain is one of the least understood parts in humans still.

And we have very, very limited understanding of how animals "see" awareness, consciousness, intelligence, and moral ambiguity.

That isn't even why we need to do more brain research on animals.

Humans need to survive. That's our base-code. Survive. And quite frankly, humanity is on the verge of our own mass-extinction. Maybe brain research wont save us in the end, but it might help us find ways to continue living as a species when the Earth is a ball of dust.

And even then, the potential to understand ourselves, and animals, even more has amazing possibilities. Yes, five hundred years from now, we might look back and think, 'Damn, they did that to an animal?!'

But we would also understand why we had to do it, just like how we understand why people a hundred years ago experimented on animals and humans to develop our scientific knowledge to where it is today.

If theory of mind is the issue, some pigs display some attributes that could be interpeted as theory of mind.

In any case, your argument fell apart because there is no metric you can pick to justify what we do to animals other than: it is wrong but it is the least of evils right now (from a legal standpoint), which is different to "humans are more important than pigs".

Your argument is a slippery slope that leads to very dark places: can the rich experiment on the poor?, can we experiment on the disabled or mentally ill?... if being "important" justifies abuse, we would live in a world of abuse.

That is important because when simulations can solve the problem, we could outlaw experimentation in-vivo.

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