Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwawaysleep | Hacker News Reader

Why are rat rights a thing at all? We learned something. We learned something! Learning new knowledge is precious. Learning new knowledge is hard.

And people will throw it away on whether vermin are being "mistreated."

I also don't think that the future implications are the problem of the scientist. This discussion reminds me of how schools in the USA are expected to solve every social problem involving children. Let the scientists study their stuff. If we don't like a technology, we can just ban its use later.

View on HN

> Why are rat rights a thing at all?

Because when one is disproportionately powerful, it's one's responsibility to maintain high standards of ethics. It's the burden of being powerful. This almost fetish way of thinking about knowledge is wrong. Just because one can do something that will benefits does not mean it should be done, let's try to have a larger circle of empathy.

This research does not provide any life saving or (afaik) improving knowledge, what gives us the right to mess with another living being just because of curiosity?

Edit: wrong word used

>what gives us the right to mess with another living being just because of curiosity?

When thinking about right, I usually go the inverse. What makes one not have that right?

> Why are rat rights a thing at all?

Because it's unethical to cause unnecessary suffering. If rats experience suffering, then we should not cause them suffering as much as reasonably possible. We wouldn't want advanced aliens to treat us like we treat rats in experiments, just because we're smarter than rats.

That is definitely a point that is made by modern ethics and is widely supported, but it’s not necessarily one that should be taken for granted. Q in Star Trek TNG treated us like this, and it’s a serious topic of debate whether we ended up better as a race as a result of his influences.

I think that’s the crux of the debate for me: Are we treating rats as well as our learnings about them are capable of supporting? Would I trust aliens to treat me with better dignity than we’ve historically treated our own ‘lesser’ species, if it’ll cure cancer?

Do we honor their social and thermal preferences? Do we design minimal experimentation and experiment judiciously? Do we monitor their pain levels using whatever means available and terminate experiments, and rats, early and painlessly — rather than force them to endure suffering for the sake of completionism?

We absolutely should want alien experimenters to treat us like rats in experiments, because we should be treating rats with the maximum respect and dignity possible to us. We certainly can’t stop motivated aliens, but we can show them by example that we treat lesser species with dignity, and maybe they’ll do the same to us.

Are we treating rats with the most dignity and respect possible? If not, then we deserve no better from aliens.

This is why it’s important to me to consider the ethics of treatment of rats. Not to end all animal testing, but to ensure that we, with our big smart brains, are able to find it in ourselves to treat well those beings we view as lesser. It sounds ridiculous to discuss it in terms of aliens, but that’s what we are to rats, and that viewpoint makes it a lot less ridiculous to consider.

ps. I would absolutely turn myself over to alien science if the need was great enough, especially if my quality of life was heading downhill, but only if I knew it would benefit the rest of you.

There was a Voyager episode where an alien species using stealth tech was performing various medical experiments on the Voyager crew to further their treatment of various ailments. Suffice to say that when the Voyager crew uncovered the alien experiments, they were not agreeable to continue. In fact, Captain Janeway was willing to destroy Voyager to stop the experimentation. And the lead alien scientist made the same pitch to Janeway about how the experiments would help many others. Janeway rejected the argument.

> I would absolutely turn myself over to alien science if the need was great enough, especially if my quality of life was heading downhill, but only if I knew it would benefit the rest of you.

That's noble of you, but I'd rather the aliens left us alone if it was between that and experimenting on us for their (or our) own good. No thanks.

Should the mentally disabled have rights? Let the scientists study their stuff! /s

Would you support experiments on live humans?

I’m reminded of Gene Hackman in Extreme Measures: if you could cure cancer, but you would have to kill a patient to do so, wouldn’t you have to try?

Humans experimentation on humans dates back to caveman Grogg eating funky-looking berries and taking one for the team.

Supporting experiment on rat doesn't necessarily mean supporting experiments on live humans.

We can arbitrarily draw the line between human and the non human.

> We can arbitrarily draw the line between human and the non human.

Giving up any pretence that there’s a rational argument to defend and not just something arbitrary only justifies the criticism.

Maybe arbitrary is not the accurate term.

I mean if the concern if experiments on live humans then why can't one just specifically address the concern and draw the line ?

You could but it would indeed be arbitrary.

In that case every rule/law is arbitrary.

No, because not every rule/law is a case of special pleading.

If you think it's not arbitrary then you are free to make that case, and then I or someone else will point out flaws like the special pleading that is already glaring. Peter Singer's work on speciesism is a good place to find out the obstacles you will have in constructing a non-fallacious, non-arbitrary argument.

There's no rational reason to care about non-human lives at all. When we talk about pragmatic, secular ethics, we do so for the purpose of creating a stable and happy society. We know that by training other humans not to harm humans we reduce the likelihood that we will face hardship. There is no reason to include animals in this system other than that some people feel more sympathy for them. But animals can't engage in ethics with us, treating lab rats better will not make the rat species less likely to cause damage to us. Animal rights are a purely emotional impulse

> There's no rational reason to care about non-human lives at all

> Animal rights are a purely emotional impulse

That would be like saying you're going on holiday but there's no need to take account of the climate or weather.

Humans have emotions, therefore they are a consideration. To ignore emotions is not rational at all.

> We know that by training other humans not to harm humans we reduce the likelihood that we will face hardship. There is no reason to include animals in this system other than that some people feel more sympathy for them.

I, and many others throughout history would disagree with this assertion. As Tolstoy wrote: “As long as there are slaughter houses there will always be battlefields.” Psychopaths that hunt humans are well known for beginning on small animals and working their way up.

You may say that not all of society are psychopathic, but then we could ask if you would want to live somewhere where animal rights are strong, like the UK, or China, where they aren't even part of public consciousness.

If the powerful treat the less powerful badly, then I'd say it's naive to rely on their making the same arbitrary distinction between humans and other animals as you're relying on here.

Edit: missed out that very important word!

I wouldn't but I'm sure you could find volunteers somewhere in Portland.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com