Hacker News Reader

It's also just such a perfect half-measure. You're not asking people to not eat these little guys. They're not even confirmed to be fully conscious. This is a speculative fix for a theoretical problem. Plus like, there's some company making shrimp zappers. So by donating you're also kind of paying two people to kill the shrimp?

View on HN

> They're not even confirmed to be fully conscious

Please read the cited Rethink Priorities research: https://rethinkpriorities.org/research-area/welfare-range-es...

Notably the FAQ and responses.

I think Dennis Prager is a hack, but this quote looms larger in my mind as I get older.

> The foolishness of that comment is so deep, I can only ascribe it to higher education. You have to have gone to college to say something that stupid.

The entire effort to quantify morality rests on the shakiest of foundations but makes confident claims about its own validity based on layers and layers of mathematical obfuscation and abstraction.

I also think that people shouldn't eat them, but donating is much more effective. In total, fewer shrimp die painfully, which is good (it a second doctor provides an anesthetic for a patient before death, that wouldn't be bad by making two people complicit in death).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com