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Children choose to save dogs over humans, adults chose 1 human over 100 dogs
- BayAreaEscapee 6y agoMen love women, women love children, children love puppies. It's just the way the world is.
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- donatj 6y agoI think the true nature of death is far less well known the younger you are.
- slumpt_ 6y agoI’d say the true nature of death isn’t something we gain insight into the older we are, either.
- giantg2 6y agoYeah, probably better worded as we don't understand the impact death has on others until we are older and have experienced those impacts ourselves.
- kiba 6y agoI never quite experienced those impacts myself yet, but I had existential dread early on.
- donatj 6y agoTo a point. We better understand the hurt of those who remain.
- cortesoft 6y agoYeah, my five year old is both weirdly obsessed with the idea of death but also weirdly not bothered by the concept. She is always asking if some person she learns about is dead, and always says we are "trying to die her" whenever we stop her from doing something she wants to do, but is never too distraught.
- smegcicle 6y agoSounds like her true form encompasses the entire universe of possibilities, so any time you limit her choices you are effectively killing off a part of her consciousness, for no reason but your own convenience or some vain attempt to prepare her for some vague 'real world'. By preventing her action you are literally denying her right to fully exist.
- As_himself 6y agoOr perhaps the exact opposite.[?]
- mewpmewp2 6y agoI wonder how many dog lives compared to human lives median adult chose.
- infofarmer 6y agoWould be a highly theoretical question, but let's hope it would still be «infinite». In practice, killing all the dogs (somehow) would almost certainly result in a significant number of human deaths, widespread suffering, and general chaos.
- mewpmewp2 6y agoBut we could go deeper to find some place where we can draw the line. E.g would you save 10000 family pet dogs or an old person in pain who will die within a month for sure?
- smnrchrds 6y ago> Although they valued pigs less, the majority still prioritized 10 pigs over one human Children are so clueless and innocent.
- dylan604 6y agoI don't think clueless is the right word. Innocent, sure, but they just haven't learned how to value things within a more realistic manner.
- smnrchrds 6y agoI was referring to the fact that they are not bothered by eating ham, bacon, etc. They are clueless about what happens to pigs in the real world, and how many have perished to provide their sustenance.
- dylan604 6y agoThat brings up an interesting perspecitve. How would answers to this question break down by urban vs rural demgraphics. Kids that raise animals for something like FFA or even directly on a farm as well as kids that are around this type of environment are much more aware that they are raising food. Does that skew their answers compared to kids in the city that may not ever even see a cow/pig in real life?
- leafmeal 6y agoPerhaps children in our culture are "clueless" because usually they grow up far removed from the animals they eat. I wonder if children who grow up with farm animals, or in a culture dependent on hunting would feel differently.
- bigbubba 6y agoChildren are ethically immature? Who could have guessed?!?
- ghostbrainalpha 6y agoOr... Adults become so overly conditioned to accept that killing animals for our daily lives is normal, that we no longer register animal death as an ethical issue.
- dylan604 6y agoI don't buy this either. No-kill shelters wouldn't exist if that were true.
- giantg2 6y agoMaybe. Perhaps some killing is ethical. PETA (people for the ethical treatment of animals) has shelters and I hear they have very high kill rates, like >95%.
- dylan604 6y agoI would consider other organizations like Operation Kindness that have actual no-kill shelters. Personally, I do not like PETA, and would never have even thought their name in this discussion had they not been mentioned by someone like yourself. I get how other people might be enitced to believe in them as you pointed out Ethical is in their name. However, I don't put any more weight in that than MacBookPro is a professional device with its Prosumer specs (as I type this out on my maxed at 32GB RAM MBP).
- read_if_gay_ 6y ago> killing animals for our daily lives is normal It is normal. Historically speaking, not doing so is what’s not normal. The nature of this planet is that every living thing lives off eating other living things.
- jessep 6y agoMy 6 year old twins like to come up with questions about whether you would rather die or have X happen. Recently, one asked, "I know the answer is obvious" and then asked me if I'd rather die or have a bunch of dogs die. And I was like, "I'd rather live and let the dogs die" and she and her sister were appalled. They were like, "obviously you die and save the dogs".
- underyx 6y agoHmm. It's reasonable to assume one human could save more than "a bunch of" dogs' lives by dedicating their post-decision life to doing so. I wonder what they'd think about this as a reason to save your own life.
- CreepGin 6y agoScenario: You are at the Louvre Museum, suddenly there's a big fire. You are standing next to the painting of Mona Lisa that is about to catch on fire. From the corner of your eyes you also see a small kitten collapsed under fallen rubbles and desperately and hopelessly trying to get out. Which one do you rescue first?
- whatshisface 6y agoA truly amoral rational agent would save the kitten, because they can't keep the painting.
- pteraspidomorph 6y agoTrick question; Both would be impossible to remove under the circumstances. You should probably leave immediately, since you're almost as flammable as the Mona Lisa.
- notRobot 6y agoI'm going to go for the kitten, but I'm aware that I'm probably in the minority. I don't think I would be able to live with myself if I chose to save an inanimate object over a living creature. And there's the matter that I am of the firm opinion that art being damaged doesn't stop it from being art. It just adds to the story behind the piece. Also, I fucking love cats.
- aphextron 6y agoI got a puppy when the pandemic hit, since I live alone and figured it'd help me cope with the isolation. This is the first pet I've ever owned. I thought that I would be able to "love" it the way other people seem to. But I can't, and until seeing this article I almost felt like that meant I was sociopathic or something. Sure it's cute, but I would also have no hesitation whatsoever in killing it to save the life of a random stranger I've never met. How are you supposed to love something when you feel that way about it? I think the way our relationship toward pets is portrayed, in western society at least, must be extremely unhealthy and immature because of this.
- k__ 6y agoI loved all my cats. Still I would sacrifice them to save a human, but it would probably take a huge toll on my mental and emotional health.
- gscott 6y agoSeriously if you feel this way about your pet you should find someone to adopt it from you.
- aphextron 6y ago>Seriously if you feel this way about your pet you should find someone to adopt it from you. You would let a person die to save your pet?
- notRobot 6y agoPeople die all the time. Animals die all the time too. But this animal dying would have a huge negative impact on my life, whereas whether or not someone I've never met would not. So yeah. I'd consider it.
- postalrat 6y agoWhy do you continue to keep the pet? Out of some sense of duty or shame of giving it up? If someone told me they don't love their child but consider it cute I'd also wonder if they should remain the child's guardian.
- 0binbrain 6y agoTL;DR but from the summary it says "Socially acquired" which seems like a leap to me. Couldn't it also be as simple as children don't fully understand all the difference between themelves and animals. For example, my 3 year old probably thinks dogs can talk and pilot helicopters.
- dylan604 6y agoWith all of the Diseny movies that show animals acting like humans && knowing how kids love to watch movies on infinite loop, it's not really hard to imagine why
- centimeter 6y agoI often wonder to what degree frequent early exposure to humanoid animals is doing some kind of damage to people's social cognition. I think there's plenty of evidence to be had online that it's doing pretty significant damage to at least some people. But I wonder if it's also behind widespread harmful social effects like the concept of "fur babies".
- dylan604 6y agoNow that's a rabbit hole of a theory. Just like with anything, a "stable" person can live in a world with this kind of make believe and enjoy the story telling devices being used. However, someone less "stable" that can be less able to make these distinctions. Does that mean we all can't have it because of a small number of people? If that's the case, then I would apply this same rule to any and all social media. Clearly, some people can't handle it, so nobody can use it.
- imbnwa 6y agoThis sorta lends weight to my hunch from watching hours of YouTube videos that mammalian toddlers have to learn to differentiate by species. Cross-species friendships between mammals from toddler to adult happen all the time in human-controlled environments, only in the wild is this more or less prohibited owing to adult animal intervention. Perhaps we can learn something about the reproduction of racial prejudice from this...
- amerine 6y agoWow. Your idea really inspired a few new thoughts in me. Is there any good books that talk in-depth about cross-species mammalian friendships? Any idea about mammalian->other kingdoms?
- As_himself 6y ago> Is there any good books that talk in-depth about cross-species mammalian friendships? Looks like there might be some. You tell us when you've read a few ; ) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interspecies_friendship#References https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interspecies_friendship#Refere...
- ourmandave 6y agoThis is why we don't give a trolley license to 6-year-olds. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
- mcny 6y agoLets not be too hasty on this. There are over seven (over eight?) billion (with a B) humans. There are fewer than a billion dogs. Pretty sure the answer is clear: prefer saving dog lives over human lives. Now, if it was chicken vs humans, of course, save human lives. Now take this to another extreme, would you rather save the life of ONE giant panda or one hundred humans? I think all reasonable people will press the button to save the live of one giant panda and kill one hundred humans before you can finish the question. Edit: Google says there are only 1,864 pandas in the wild with an additional four hundred in captivity. https://www.google.com/search?q=how+many+giant+pandas+are+there+in+the+world https://www.google.com/search?q=how+many+giant+pandas+are+th...
- serenloss 6y agoWhile no less arbitrary, your metric for comparison seems shallow. I had already decided the panda should die before you finished that question, not the other way around. The panda won’t be missed by many.
- mcny 6y ago> I had already decided the panda should die before you finished that question, not the other way around. I appreciate replies on HN as they show the flaw in my assumption. Speaking of assumptions, indulge me for a moment: I kind of find the trolley problem difficult because all legality aside, I feel like if I pull a lever and one person dies, I am responsible for that one death but if I don't pull the lever and n people die, I wouldn't feel as bad. Is there a name for this? I mean like the idea that if something happens by my action that is worse than if something happens by my failure to act. I mean who am I to choose those n lives over that one life, right?
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- gregwebs 6y agoAt at least some of the age range here (5 years old) children are still trying to understand death (for example they might not experience grief and loss when a close relative dies) and it doesn't make much sense to me to compare to someone that has developed an understanding of it.
- ohazi 6y agoHaving met and interacted with both humans and dogs over the years, I have to agree with the children here...
- lamontcg 6y agoTIL I'm a 5 year old.
- rixrax 6y agoI assume that this study (based on researchers affiliations) was done in US. I’ll hazard that results are heavily skewed by culture. At least for adult results. For example I would wager that dogs life in Asia or Eastern Europe is much cheaper than in the US. Also, I guess they didn’t include some people on ABC7 news comments section in the study who seemingly would sacrifice any number of humans to save a dogs life.
- athriren 6y agoit would be interesting to do something like this across cultures and see if the kids agree, even accounting for variation among the adult populations who are the ones socially conditioning the children.
- emerged 6y agoChildren would also choose to save a bowl of ice cream over a bowl of gold nuggets. They aren't making abstract rational/moral choices, they're choosing the thing which will make them feel good. It's effectively the same question as asking them "Do you want to play with that dog, or with that person?"
- BearOso 6y agoInteresting that you would choose gold, when its value is mostly manufactured.
- serenloss 6y agoWhat an odd way to respond. Manufactured in what way? Gold’s value is no more manufactured than that of ice cream. It has no bearing on the comparison.
- syril 6y agoSo you would choose the ice cream is what you're saying?
- eatingCake 6y agoAre you sure? I was under the impression that, for instance, diamond's value is mostly manufactured, but gold is actually useful for various electronic and chemical properties.
- BearOso 6y agoYeah, I looked it up before posting. And "superficial" would be better a better word than "manufactured." Only like 10% of gold production goes towards industrial purposes. The rest is used for jewelry or as currency backing. edit And gold is actually a rare element that's actually useful, like you described, just not rare enough that most of it can't be siphoned off to sit idly in someone's vault. Diamonds are also somewhat useful, but not really rare.
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- alwaysdoit 6y agoChildren are often placed in a caretaker position over dogs--they sometimes help feed it, take it out to the bathroom or on walks. They don't spend much mental energy thinking about the needs of adults, the adults tend to do that for themselves, often out of sight of the child. It's not surprising that the child would lean towards protecting the animals that they see as under their care, or needing more care than adults.
- ohazi 6y agoFamily dogs also tend to take on a protective role over children, since they're pack animals and correctly identify the tiny humans as fragile/vulnerable. Dogs will offer the kids as much love and attention as they're willing to take without ever getting bored, while adults often have their own limits and need to deal with other Important Business that children don't necessarily understand/appreciate yet.
- giantg2 6y agoYep. I could see choosing to save a dog over a person on similar lines. A person should be able to take care of themself and would (generally as an adult) not be the responsibility of another person. A domestic dog may not be equipped to take care of itself and as an owner you feel a moral responsibility for their wellbeing.
- amelius 6y agoBut what would Lassie do? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lassie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lassie
- sto_hristo 6y agoI know plenty of adults that would do the same and some that consider their dogs as their kids. A neighbor of mine refers to his two dogs as a father to his human sons. This is infantile thinking at its purest.
- mikequinlan 6y agoThe study didn't actually ask people to save dogs or people; it only asked people to SAY which they would save. In real life a person might save their pet over a stranger but might not say so in a study.
- salmon30salmon 6y agoI wonder how much of this, if any, is due to the fact that a lot of children may have faced the death of an animal, perhaps a dog but maybe a hamster etc. and have yet to live through the death of a close human. If so, animals dying is visceral, real and happening. Whereas human death is this abstract that they can't even really empathize with as it is so unsupported by any lived experience.
- hairofadog 6y agoI haven't heard a great argument explaining why human life is objectively more valuable than animal life. The most common argument I hear, even from otherwise thoughtful people I know, is something along the lines of "because one is a human and the other is an animal, duh!" but I don't consider that to be a persuasive argument. Is it because we value organisms that are "smarter"? If that's the case, is the life of a person with a high IQ objectively more valuable than the life of a person with a lower IQ? Is it because we think animals aren't capable of feeling fear, pain, anxiety, and love? Is it a tribalism thing? If we assume that elephants, chimps, or whales are capable of some level of ethical reasoning, are they expected to also value human life higher than their own, or would that be considered immoral because they're "species traitors"? Is the "moral" expectation that a chimp would value chimp life higher, a dog would value dog life higher, and a human would value human life higher?
- dwaltrip 6y agoIf humans didn't highly value their own lives, they would be much less likely to survive and reproduce, and we wouldn't be here having this conversation. > Is it because we think animals aren't capable of feeling fear, pain, anxiety, and love? Historically, I think this was a common justification. Although, the conversation has shifted and will likely continue to do so, as we have realized that animals have many of the feelings that we have, even if it isn't exactly the same. > Is the "moral" expectation that a chimp would value chimp life higher, a dog would value dog life higher, and a human would value human life higher? Yes, most likely. Although the world would probably look very different if other animals were capable of discussing such things :)
- ohazi 6y ago> If humans didn't highly value their own lives, they would be much less likely to survive and reproduce, and we wouldn't be here having this conversation. This is obviously true, and if it ever came down to making a split-second decision about saving your own life, you would expect this trait to drive the show. However, moral puzzlers like the trolley problem don't work the same way. You might know that "save the humans, let the dogs die" is the rational HN-approved answer, but you might also know that it's the cold, calculating, heartless answer that will land you a spot in hell if you don't feel at least a little bit bad about it. You can simultaneously be hard-wired to save yourself and your human peers in a split-second decision, while also being disgusted by humanity as a whole, while also also feeling empathy for dogs as Good and Pure beings of endless affection that we adults clearly don't deserve. At least the kids know what's what.
- nmstoker 6y agoMaybe the children are simply rationalising by saving those who would tend do them less harm? An adult needn't make that call as they tend to be able to look after themselves.
- peterhajas 6y agoAre we sure that this isn’t generational values changing? I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a moral change associated with generation / upbringing more than age.
- desktopninja 6y agoMy general observation is it's not so much age related but probably whoever you are most emotionally attached to at the time wins the "you're getting saved" badge.
- animex 6y agoAt the same time, I find that children are the most cruel to small animals. They want to poke, prod, take them out of the water, feed them weird things to see what happens...etc.
- ldargin 6y agoInteresting how an adult can still risk his own life to save animals in spite of the tendency towards human life. "Homeless man runs into burning animal shelter in Atlanta to save dogs and cats" https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/homeless-man-runs-burning-animal-shelter-atlanta-save-dogs-cats-n1252482 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/homeless-man-runs-burni...