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arcticbull

> Scientific progress has come to a standstill ...

Has it?

> ... with paradigm shifting knowledge within sight but out of reach for ethical reasons run amok.

I mean we played this game before in the 40s, with Mengele and Japan's (and then the US') Unit 731. [1]

> It’s okay let a few monkeys die, think of them like the cows you eat.

I have no problem killing animals for food. I generally avoid torturing them to death though. Of course, in some cases suffering is going to be unavoidable - as in some kinds of medical research, but generally there's a high burden and a meaningful ethics committee involved.

[1] Warning: you may not want to follow this link, and I say that as someone who grew up with the internet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

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Yes everyone is aware of what happens if you completely do away with ethics in science. Moderation is key here, the pendulum has swung too far to the other extreme from your example.

Yikes. Nope.

The more we learn about other species, the more we realise that they are thinking and emotional creatures. I would no more want to see these experiments done on a human than on a chimp.

Do the ends justify the means? That's ethically extremely dubious, to say the least. Why conduct brain surgery on primates for neuralink? Where are we going with this, exactly?

As for comparing neuralink brain surgery to eating meat, that's chalk and cheese, and anyway millions of people don't eat meat.

A very useful area of research would look into how we can understand implications of procedures like this without needing to inflict hideous suffering on intelligent creatures - including humans.

Note: I'm not saying that all animal experiments are unjustifiable, but we absolutely need to improve how they are approved and conducted.

Where are we going with this? In the best case scenario the complete decoding of how brain signals work meaning true telepathy, flawless alternate reality generation, human distributed computing, instantaneous knowledge transfer, cure for persistent mental illness, consciousness transfer, immortality, intelligence argumentation etc. The list is pretty much endless.

Okay, wow. So, we're very much not going to achieve anything like what you describe, and Elon certainly isn't going to get there before you and welcome you in with open arms.

And honestly, I don't know why you believe any of these things you list are achievable, let alone desirable.

A question. You have two paths before you. Either path might lead you to you desired destination. Perhaps both will. Nobody knows, because (surprise) nobody can predict the future. One path definitely involves conscious animals mutilating themselves, the other definitely does not. Which do you choose?

>Do the ends justify the means?

Yes.

Hehehe :) Nope.

> Moderation is key here, the pendulum has swung too far to the other extreme from your example.

Ok, do you have some examples of experiments that you think wouldn't make it past ethics committee but are worth doing anyways to help unlock paradigm shifting advances? Please describe them, and explain specifically for what reason you think they wouldn't make it past ethics committee. I'm willing to be convinced.

> ethics in science

You forgot about politics.

From the same article:

> Sanders took this information to General Douglas MacArthur, who was the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers responsible for rebuilding Japan during the Allied occupations. MacArthur struck a deal with Japanese informants: He secretly granted immunity to the physicians of Unit 731, including their leader, in exchange for providing America, but not the other wartime allies, with their research on biological warfare and data from human experimentation.

Reminds me of present-day Yemen. How many are disgusted by that genocide now, the same way future generations will be by Unit 731?

The "right" political deals were struck.

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