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Spoiler warning: I didn’t read the article (can’t access now due to vpn not working) So from reading others comments and such: yeah, I understand the idea that

Spoiler warning: I didn’t read the article (can’t access now due to vpn not working) So from reading others comments and such: yeah, I understand the idea that the pigs could be comatose and not experiencing anything. From the science behind brains as we know it, that seems to be the case. Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with this because, in the end, it will benefit humans. And we are more important than pigs. Personally, I’d be all for human experiments as long as it was done correctly. This is why we do everything on animals first before human trials are even approved. Give me, or my family enough money, and I’d be happen to be a brain in a bucket for a fixed period of time. Who knows what could happen. Maybe I’d be dead, maybe I’ll be in a waking dream, or maybe nothing at all. We don’t know. Pig experiments may give us some insight to it. I hope so. Consciousness is one of those elusive things that we haven’t been able to pin down. Who knows, we might even be able to Altered Carbon ourselves in the future, all thanks to pigs.

onetimemanytime 8y ago
>>Give me, or my family enough money, and I’d be happen to be a brain in a bucket for a fixed period of time. Who knows what could happen. Maybe I’d be dead, maybe I’ll be in a waking dream, or maybe nothing at all. We don’t know. That's an interesting perspective. Someone, extremely aware of what he's doing, taking one for the team--while being rewarded. Maybe the family will enjoy the $$ but at least you leave a legacy. Obviously it has to be a major experiment, the final one after all animal testing is exhausted. People sacrifice themselves to save others all the time, soldier jumping on top of grenade, people running into burning houses to save others, going to Mars etc etc
- PeterStuer 8y ago
  Just keep on piling ever more of the spoils of 'progress' on the 0,1%, while keeping the rest in a dog eat dog 'job hunt' struggle for survival, and you will have no shortage of 'volunteers'.
  - onetimemanytime 8y ago
    What is an astronaut, especially the early ones ?
  - torgian 8y ago
    I totally get the '0.1%' thought here, the idea being that the majority of this scientific progress will only benefit those how can afford it. Personally, I'd be hoping for more universal advancement. I hope society gets to the point where scientific advancements benefit all people, not just the minority that can afford such advancements.
    - drusepth 8y ago
      As with most advancements, it's doubtful we'll ever get to a time period where we'll discover/invent/create/do something new and suddenly it's available to everyone. All things get cheaper with time, and scale eventually propagates once-expensive things out to more of the populace. In most cases the higher origin cost funds manufacturing advancements or research to bring down other costs, which make the argument that targeting the 0.1% is actually necessary for a wider distribution later. Rather than thinking in terms of "all these crazy improvements will only be for the 0.1%", it's important to think of them on a per-advancement basis. Each one will be expensive at first, and then get cheaper; and as we start seeing cheaper things available, we will also continue to see more advancements that are inevitably targeted at the 0.1% that will also eventually fall in price, and the cycle should continue indefinitely. I don't think we'll ever hit a period where there are no more advancements to be made, which means there will always be previous iterations that are available for cheaper than the cutting edge of anything.
partycoder 8y ago
> in the end, it will benefit humans. And we are more important than pigs. Let's agree with you for a moment and understand what it really means: - Let's say you are N times more intelligent than an average pig. - Now let's say another species appears, where the average individual is N times more intelligent than you. According to your argument, you would voluntarily subject yourself to experimentation, including getting your brain removed. Of course you would not do that. So your argument is really about justifying the abuse of other species of mammals that cannot defend themselves. Variations of that same argument were used to enslave, abuse and kill millions of people. It is sad your comment is the most upvoted. Our society sucks.
- kortilla 8y ago
  >where the average individual is N times more intelligent than you. Nobody said anything about intelligence ratios except for you. Of course that’s a stupid metric. How many times more intelligent are you than a mushroom? Why is that an acceptable amount and not this pig ratio. >Of course you would not do that. Don’t call people liars without evidence to turn them into straw men that are easier to tear down. >Variations of that same argument were used to enslave, abuse and kill millions of people. It is sad your comment is the most upvoted. Our society sucks. It’s not op’s argument. It’s yours. Nobody said anything about intelligence ratios except for you. You then disregarded the part where op said he/she would volunteer because it didn’t fit your narrative.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  This argument is valid forwards, but not universally backwards. Otherwise you could repeat it with pigs and ants, and then with ants and bacteria. There is a spectrum of life, on one end you have self-propagating chemical reactions, on the other you have beings with moral significance. Whether or not experiments on animals are morally justified depend on where those animals lie on this spectrum, and the form and goal of the experiment. I'm not trying to say here where pigs lie on the spectrum, just that this discussion needs to happen on a much deeper level of details than "humans are more important than pigs" vs. "but aliens could say the same thing about us" for it to be useful. (Personally, as long as the brains remain comatose all the way through, I don't feel there's a problem here. If they were active... that would be animal cruelty to me. But that's just my individual moral intuition.)
perfmode 8y ago
I’m curious. What is your basis for determining that it is okay to do this to pigs? Could we also do this to dogs? Dolphins? Elephants? Monkeys?
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  Cats? Mice? Ants? Paramecium caudatum? Bacteria? We need a better framework for this issue than "where do you draw the line" Vegan Billboard[0]. -- [0] - https://imgur.com/gallery/h9tbwcH https://imgur.com/gallery/h9tbwcH
- thefounder 8y ago
  Well, we eat the pigs so doing some science experiments on them should be acceptable considering we have so many food alternatives and still eat pigs. I believe people who eat dogs don't see an issue with dog experiments.
  - tertius 8y ago
    I'll take cows as an example as I don't eat pig... If the meat I buy is from someone who mutilated the cow and optimized for maximum pain in the death of the cow then I would not buy that meat. So there is a spectrum here. Just because we kill animals for food does not mean that it's ethical along the rest of the spectrum of harm.
    - drusepth 8y ago
      >If the meat I buy is from someone who mutilated the cow and optimized for maximum pain in the death of the cow then I would not buy that meat. What if more pain directly correlated with better-tasting meat (or some other tangible advantage, like health benefits or medicinal properties)? I think you'd find many, many people who'd be okay with cows inflicted maximum pain for maximum yum meat, let alone meat that made them healthier than the alternative. If there's a spectrum here, an instance of that spectrum exists for each individual too. Is it rational to believe we could ever agree on a single universal line on that spectrum for everyone?
    - 8y ago

onetimemanytime 8y ago

>>Give me, or my family enough money, and I’d be happen to be a brain in a bucket for a fixed period of time. Who knows what could happen. Maybe I’d be dead, maybe I’ll be in a waking dream, or maybe nothing at all. We don’t know. That's an interesting perspective. Someone, extremely aware of what he's doing, taking one for the team--while being rewarded. Maybe the family will enjoy the $$ but at least you leave a legacy. Obviously it has to be a major experiment, the final one after all animal testing is exhausted. People sacrifice themselves to save others all the time, soldier jumping on top of grenade, people running into burning houses to save others, going to Mars etc etc

PeterStuer 8y ago
Just keep on piling ever more of the spoils of 'progress' on the 0,1%, while keeping the rest in a dog eat dog 'job hunt' struggle for survival, and you will have no shortage of 'volunteers'.
- onetimemanytime 8y ago
  What is an astronaut, especially the early ones ?
- torgian 8y ago
  I totally get the '0.1%' thought here, the idea being that the majority of this scientific progress will only benefit those how can afford it. Personally, I'd be hoping for more universal advancement. I hope society gets to the point where scientific advancements benefit all people, not just the minority that can afford such advancements.
  - drusepth 8y ago
    As with most advancements, it's doubtful we'll ever get to a time period where we'll discover/invent/create/do something new and suddenly it's available to everyone. All things get cheaper with time, and scale eventually propagates once-expensive things out to more of the populace. In most cases the higher origin cost funds manufacturing advancements or research to bring down other costs, which make the argument that targeting the 0.1% is actually necessary for a wider distribution later. Rather than thinking in terms of "all these crazy improvements will only be for the 0.1%", it's important to think of them on a per-advancement basis. Each one will be expensive at first, and then get cheaper; and as we start seeing cheaper things available, we will also continue to see more advancements that are inevitably targeted at the 0.1% that will also eventually fall in price, and the cycle should continue indefinitely. I don't think we'll ever hit a period where there are no more advancements to be made, which means there will always be previous iterations that are available for cheaper than the cutting edge of anything.

partycoder 8y ago

> in the end, it will benefit humans. And we are more important than pigs. Let's agree with you for a moment and understand what it really means: - Let's say you are N times more intelligent than an average pig. - Now let's say another species appears, where the average individual is N times more intelligent than you. According to your argument, you would voluntarily subject yourself to experimentation, including getting your brain removed. Of course you would not do that. So your argument is really about justifying the abuse of other species of mammals that cannot defend themselves. Variations of that same argument were used to enslave, abuse and kill millions of people. It is sad your comment is the most upvoted. Our society sucks.

kortilla 8y ago
>where the average individual is N times more intelligent than you. Nobody said anything about intelligence ratios except for you. Of course that’s a stupid metric. How many times more intelligent are you than a mushroom? Why is that an acceptable amount and not this pig ratio. >Of course you would not do that. Don’t call people liars without evidence to turn them into straw men that are easier to tear down. >Variations of that same argument were used to enslave, abuse and kill millions of people. It is sad your comment is the most upvoted. Our society sucks. It’s not op’s argument. It’s yours. Nobody said anything about intelligence ratios except for you. You then disregarded the part where op said he/she would volunteer because it didn’t fit your narrative.
TeMPOraL 8y ago
This argument is valid forwards, but not universally backwards. Otherwise you could repeat it with pigs and ants, and then with ants and bacteria. There is a spectrum of life, on one end you have self-propagating chemical reactions, on the other you have beings with moral significance. Whether or not experiments on animals are morally justified depend on where those animals lie on this spectrum, and the form and goal of the experiment. I'm not trying to say here where pigs lie on the spectrum, just that this discussion needs to happen on a much deeper level of details than "humans are more important than pigs" vs. "but aliens could say the same thing about us" for it to be useful. (Personally, as long as the brains remain comatose all the way through, I don't feel there's a problem here. If they were active... that would be animal cruelty to me. But that's just my individual moral intuition.)

perfmode 8y ago

I’m curious. What is your basis for determining that it is okay to do this to pigs? Could we also do this to dogs? Dolphins? Elephants? Monkeys?

TeMPOraL 8y ago
Cats? Mice? Ants? Paramecium caudatum? Bacteria? We need a better framework for this issue than "where do you draw the line" Vegan Billboard[0]. -- [0] - https://imgur.com/gallery/h9tbwcH https://imgur.com/gallery/h9tbwcH
thefounder 8y ago
Well, we eat the pigs so doing some science experiments on them should be acceptable considering we have so many food alternatives and still eat pigs. I believe people who eat dogs don't see an issue with dog experiments.
- tertius 8y ago
  I'll take cows as an example as I don't eat pig... If the meat I buy is from someone who mutilated the cow and optimized for maximum pain in the death of the cow then I would not buy that meat. So there is a spectrum here. Just because we kill animals for food does not mean that it's ethical along the rest of the spectrum of harm.
  - drusepth 8y ago
    >If the meat I buy is from someone who mutilated the cow and optimized for maximum pain in the death of the cow then I would not buy that meat. What if more pain directly correlated with better-tasting meat (or some other tangible advantage, like health benefits or medicinal properties)? I think you'd find many, many people who'd be okay with cows inflicted maximum pain for maximum yum meat, let alone meat that made them healthier than the alternative. If there's a spectrum here, an instance of that spectrum exists for each individual too. Is it rational to believe we could ever agree on a single universal line on that spectrum for everyone?
  - 8y ago