5 ms·
It's a one-time cost for knowledge that will have benefits indefinitely. I don't eat or wear animals, but I'd holocaust a million rats to solve the opioid epide
by firethief 9y ago
It's a one-time cost for knowledge that will have benefits indefinitely. I don't eat or wear animals, but I'd holocaust a million rats to solve the opioid epidemic.
- komali2 9y agoIs the barrier for you species difference? For example, medical insights provided by Nazi scientists, and to a lesser extent Japanese ones, were provided by tests on human subjects with often fatal results.
- velp 9y ago"medical insights". Japanese and Nazi human experiments were hardly scientific. Torture disguised as science does not produce reliable results.
- nine_k 9y agoUnfortunately not. E.g. most of what we know about reactions of human body to extreme cold was found by Nazi scientists in quite unethical, but reasonably scientific ways, for entirely practical military purposes.
- firethief 9y agoOnly as a matter of degree I suppose. For valuable enough knowledge, I'd support medical experiments on unconsenting human subjects too if it were the only option. But this is a very hypothetical situation; the former bar and the latter constraint are extraordinarily unlikely ever to coincide (they are very rarely met even separately).
- komali2 9y agoThat is the problem with these hypotheticals, yea. In what circumstance do we absolutely need to perform human experimentation on unconsenting humans to get results? But because these are my favorite too-drunk-at-a-bar conversations I wanna give it a crack. Here's a couple things I think require human experimentation 1. Creative a definitive best-practice guide to child rearing. I.e., hitting yes/no? Shouting at yes/no? 2. Fully understanding primitive/baseline human psychology absent of culture, which could help us understand if there is for example biological morality, how to teach language, how languages form. Can't see how to do this without abandoning a child in the wilderness. 3. Determining best-case formula for human tribal organization. I.e. what's the most effective leadership traits, organizational schemes, rule enforcement mechanisms... Could be figured out with Vaults ;) 4. Is post-death ressurection possible and at what point? I suppose you can get consent before death, but does that count when that individual terminates? Can you think of any more? What are your thoughts on what would be "worth it?"
- wavefunction 9y agoYour first two examples don't even seem scientific, or at least incredibly difficult to structure as a study in a truly scientific way.
- komali2 9y agoReduce for simplification: How do we scientifically demonstrate effective means of raising children without experimentation on children?
- nordsieck 9y ago> Is the barrier for you species difference? I haven't met a person for which this isn't true. From my conversations with other people, the hierarchy of care is roughly: Humans > large mammals > small mammals / cephlopods > birds / large reptiles > small reptiles / fish > large insects / trees > small insects / spiders / plants > yeast / fungi / bacteria
- komali2 9y agoIf this is true then why does non consenting human experimentation happen ever? In any case, hierarchies like that are almost totally arbitrary, like anything about a culture. I'm just poking the bear here and seeing what comes out. Let's play with this more.
- drdeca 9y agoBecause expiraments on humans can provide information that expiraments on other animals can't, and the information in question is information that we care about. In addition, humans can consent to things.
- pbhjpbhj 9y agoConsent is interesting, usually poor people will get paid for it, in which case it's a sort of coerced consent.
- Tomminn 9y agoYup, totally arbitrary. That's why I prefer the poetry yeast writes about the beauty of the universe and the pain of existence to that written by humans.
- komali2 9y agoIs your point that only humans have culture? There is evidence of culture and learned behaviors in animals as simple as birds.
- dredmorbius 9y agoNB: I'm not finding a source with a summary of total Nazi human experimentation subjects, though eyeballing totals, it seems that both Germany and Imperial Japan had several thousands of victims in ttheir respective programmes. Triggers: pretty much all of them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731
- pbhjpbhj 9y agoThere are other states too - USA did live human subject experiments with nuclear weapons, for example. Also they did biological experiments with people having some diseases, not curing them in order to watch what happened. Also non-consented administration of drugs. I'm sure we, the public, don't know the half of it.
- dredmorbius 9y agoTuskeegee, St. George, San Francisco, and elsewhere. Modern ethics requirements were established for reasons.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]