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How to demonstrate empathy? Easy. Conduct experiments in which the caged rats undergo a range of living conditions from idyllic to neutral to outright torture
by randcraw 10y ago
How to demonstrate empathy? Easy. Conduct experiments in which the caged rats undergo a range of living conditions from idyllic to neutral to outright torture. If the free rat favors freeing the tortured rat over the idyllic rat then it shows greater empathy.
- xg15 10y agoThat was, in (slightly) less horrible form, what they did. It's apparently still disputed that this shows empathy, however. For your experiment, you could counter-argue in the same way: Maybe the free rat was just particularly tired of the torture screams and that's why it freed that rat first...
- developer2 10y agoIf I was the outside rat, you damn well better believe the only reason I'm freeing the other rat from the idyllic environment is so I can get in there and enjoy some paradise for myself. :)