Comment by thaumasiotes | Hacker News Reader

Comment by thaumasiotes | Hacker News Reader

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The company PR is quite obviously, as claimed, "disingenuous":

> The spokeswoman insisted that the insects are treated humanely and that the backpack - first developed in 2011 - does not harm them.

Boring a hole in the head, and then another hole in the chest, and then clipping the antennae, so you can attach an apparatus which appears to roughly half the size of the roach itself and which exerts major control over its motion, does not approach "humane". Anyone found doing this to humans could very reasonably be lynched.

I'd prefer to see the company own it. To repurpose an argument I first saw on that bastion of philosophical thought cracked.com, "Cockroaches? Fuck 'em." Focus on the scientific potential of remote-controlled cockroaches.

Cockroaches have no rights that man is bound to respect. [1] There are no conceivable benefits to extending them any rights. And I'm not particularly worried that a child who grows up thinking of insects as something to be used or abused as they see fit will mistreat humans. I burned ants with a magnifying glass. It didn't seem to bother anyone. I went on to burn my sister's name into a block of wood as a gift. That's pretty much where things ended.

If a child of mine showed any interest in this sort of thing, I'd be happy to sponsor it.

The article actually made me wonder whether the cockroach lives through installation; I have read that cockroaches "live on" for a period of weeks after being beheaded. It would be really, really cool to get something like this that

- didn't prevent other cockroaches from accepting the bugged one

- didn't block the roach from fitting through gaps it would normally be able to fit through.

- included a highly miniaturized video camera

> It's the reason people put sickly pets down, rather than letting them suffer for months.

People are generally (there might be exceptions) more attached to their own pets than they are to other people's cockroaches.

[1] http://www.acslaw.org/acsblog/no-rights-which-the-white-man-...

> Boring a hole in the head, and then another hole in the chest

According to the article and the instructions[1] there is only one hole and it is in the thorax (through the exoskeleton), which is the middle section and not the head at all (remember from primary school biology, insects have a head, thorax and abdomen).

Not making a case for or against this method or product, just saying.

[1] http://wiki.backyardbrains.com/RoboRoach_Surgery

I was referring to this:

> sandpaper is used to remove the waxy coating on the shell of the insect's head.

I interpreted the waxy coating as being something that was part of the head. Could be wrong.

It is on the head, but it isn't a hole. I imagined it to be more like filing the smooth surface of one of your nails at there are no nerve endings located in the exoskeleton (which is why insects shed their chitin exoskeletons until maturity).

Chitin is the arthropods version of keratin (the stuff your hair and nails are made of).

If someone filed down my nails to the point where they were gone, I'd be more than a little distressed. The skin under the nails is incredibly sensitive (I believe it becomes less so over time when exposed to the air, but we are talking about filing off a protective coating here). If they wouldn't grow back (no idea whether that applies to the cockroaches or not), I'd feel much worse.

I said filing the smooth surface of the nails, not filing all the way through the nail. It is the same as what woman do when they stick fake nails over their real nails... they simply rough up the surface for adhesive purposes, not file the entire nail away.

There are other, more logical, reasons to be outraged if that is your position on this.

> If they wouldn't grow back (no idea whether that applies to the cockroaches or not), I'd feel much worse.

The waxy surface will not grow back, well not if they do the more ethical approach as they would only perform this on mature cockroaches who will not shed any longer.

Again, not supporting or attacking their approach. I think the purpose seems to be the ethical grey area for me. For instance, the black rhino is considered extinct (last I checked) and how we save the white rhinos is by removing their keratin horns to stop poachers. Am I happy we have to do that? Certainly not, however, I'd rather have that then no white rhinos.

Morality is less about the victim and more about the actions of the oppressor. You can say 'screw cockroaches' all you want but how does that justify the savage action of torture?

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