7 ms·

Imagine the suffering that exists in nature at any given moment. Billions and trillions of creatures in various states of pain, fear, and want. Then multiply al

Imagine the suffering that exists in nature at any given moment. Billions and trillions of creatures in various states of pain, fear, and want. Then multiply all those experiences for every time frame back to the first organisms. I don't think people think about the implications of a billion years of natural selection.

p1mrx 5y ago
Maybe nature wouldn't be so metal if genes could feel pain.
bugzz 5y ago
Yeah, I think about this. So many small animals die in slow, painful ways (naturally - i.e. centipedes eating mice, preying mantises eating birds). Makes me wonder if eventually in the future there would be some moral prerogative to somehow tame the natural world
- redisman 5y ago
  Yes let’s fuck up nature even more, what could ever go wrong
- nverno 5y ago
  Life is just an ongoing chemical reaction. Maybe in the future people will start empathizing with metal and feel a moral prerogative to stop its oxidation. Larry David may be onto something when he asks 'Do you even respect wood!?'
  - bugzz 5y ago
    I feel like you have to believe at least one of these 3: 1) Life is just a chemical reaction, human sadness / happiness don't matter 2) Humans are fundamentally different than other animals - our pain is somehow more real than animal pain 3) Animal pain does matter. Personally I favor 3)
    - GuB-42 5y ago
      2 is pretty deep actually. And for me, that's the one I favor (though I don't dismiss 3). Humans are fundamentally different because that's us. And even between humans, there is a scale. To me, the only real pain is mine. But, I also have the ability to feel other people's pain, so the pain of people close to me is also real, but less so, it is indirect. To feel pain for a random human requires some active thinking. The further we go, the less real pain is, simply because our brain can't process and mirror it. Animals look a bit like us and show similar pain reaction so we can emphasize somehow. But for everything after plants, we are getting too far. And then, we can introduce computers: can an AI feel pain? How advanced does it have to be if it does? Maybe it is all programs. Unit tests must hurt...
      - bugzz 5y ago
        > The further we go, the less real pain is, simply because our brain can't process and mirror it. But from an ethical perspective, the pain of a random person is just as important, right? > Animals look a bit like us and show similar pain reaction so we can emphasize somehow. But for everything after plants, we are getting too far. Animals don't just show similar pain reactions - the biochemical pathways are the exact same. For me, I have to assume basic physical pain is nearly the same, at least for mammals. For plants I don't know. It's possible they have some pain, but I'd expect it to be very different and lesser. For computers I see no reason to think there's any physical pain (though perhaps in the future)
  - esotericsean 5y ago
    I know you're joking, but... Isn't rusting metal just metal that's trying to return to its natural form?
    - marcosdumay 5y ago
      There's no reason for calling iron oxide any more natural than metal iron. There's a famous phrase about humans being Nature's tool for adding plastics into the world.
- akiselev 5y ago
  > Makes me wonder if eventually in the future there would be some moral prerogative to somehow tame the natural world That would get at the core of the absolute vs relative morality debate and I don't think humanity will ever settle on that. It's far more likely that a "Prime Directive"-like non-interference law comes into effect instead. The natural world is cruel but heavily interdependent; as long as we assume that each creature or plant has a right to exist and reproduce, all we can do is eliminate our own effects on ecosystems. Humans are nature's worst transmission vector for pathogens, invasive species, habitat destruction, etc and there's little evidence we'd do anything but make the suffering a lot worse.
  - erhk 5y ago
    You're assigning morality to a nervous system which is inherently absurd. Corn doesn't feel fear, it doesn't lament or suffer it just grows. We don't question the morality of capillary action in plants why should we assign morality to animal systems? Won't someone think of the blood salinity of all living things? Is there not a divine optimal amount of salt in all creatures? Similarly we are foolish to concern ourselves with the quantity of serotonin or histamine in any given creature. Humans are generally social, we developed to be concerned with our community rather than our individual survival and it has served us well. We developed systems to extend that concern to future generations, and sometimes we disguised them as deities. Now in our ever blooming quest to socialize we are assimilating more species into the fold, but at a point we should stop and ask if our moral tools are overstepping.
- dheera 5y ago
  Earth will be uninhabitable not long into the future on an evolutionary timescale. Without action from humans, oceans will boil away within 1 billion years due to the increasing brightness of the sun, and most life will likely die off within about half of that. So in some sense, the suffering of animals will not be for much longer compared to history. Humans will need to either learn to: - Terraform the Earth and keep it cool -- this can keep the Earth habitable for maybe 1-2 billion years at most instead of a few hundred million which is the current expectation. After that it will be of no use and the sun will eventually engulf the Earth in ~4 billion - Not rely on other species or the oceans to survive, and find artificial ways to manufacture food - Evolve into (i.e. develop) an intelligent but inorganic life form that can withstand higher temperatures and carry on the legacy of intelligent civilization - Move to Mars or beyond, terraform it, and take animals with us Considering the complex inter-dependencies of various species (e.g. humans need to eat plants, plants need insects and worms but their numbers are kept in check by birds, birds need huge plants to reproduce, plants also need to eat shit from animals, animals need yet other plants to make said shit, etc.) I have most hope in creating an inorganic lifeform that can reproduce given only light and raw materials available on planets, and without dependence on other life forms.
  - kiba 5y ago
    You think way too small, especially on a scale of a billion years. Terraforming our planet is a megaengineering project in itself. It's not much of a stretch to imagine megaengineering changing the orbit of earth, or increasing the lifespan of our star by collecting the gases for later use. You should watch Isaac Arthur the youtube channel.
  - cproctor 5y ago
    We just need to accelerate the planet a bit and gradually expand our orbit.
Razengan 5y ago
Watching some Journey to the Microcosmos videos, and seeing even the tiniest forms of life express struggle and pain has fed my personal doubt that this world might be Hell. Of course there are many moments of joy and pleasure, but ultimately it ends in a negative score (all the suffering + ultimately dying anyway) https://youtube.com/c/microcosmos https://youtube.com/c/microcosmos
hansjorg 5y ago
The obvious solution to this is to eradicate all life. I don't think that's a viable option in the long run. It can't and shouldn't be our responsibility to end all suffering, rather we should take responsibility for the suffering we cause.
- amelius 5y ago
  > I don't think that's a viable option in the long run. That would only start all problems again. It could be an explanation for the Great Filter though.
- jeofken 5y ago
  Reminds me of how the Buddhist solves the problem of suffering by minimising wants, and the Christian by forgiving and loving people and the world for their flaws.
  - erhk 5y ago
    And me by taking a nap.
    - pie420 5y ago
      And me by jerking off and crying in a cold shower
- ironmagma 5y ago
  > The obvious solution to this is to eradicate all life. That implies that suffering is a problem; IMHO it's just part of life and much of what propels us forward. Conversely, Heroin is a drug that can eliminate suffering, but it's pretty clear from the outside that it does not represent the optimal path through existence.
m3kw9 5y ago
To ease that thought each bird that suffers only suffer for itself.
mlinksva 5y ago
Some people do, eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eradication_of_suffering#Animal_welfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eradication_of_suffering#Anima... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_animal_suffering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_animal_suffering
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
umvi 5y ago
I don't know, I think billions and trillions of creatures are experiencing happiness and joy too. Especially the birds and the bees in the springtime.
- amelius 5y ago
  Also, greater intelligence and self-awareness brings more suffering. A bird only knows pain. A human with a terminal illness knows it is dying and suffers the psychological consequences.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
eevilspock 5y ago
We haven't even come close to figuring out or even being sufficiently empathetic to the suffering we cause, to other humans and other creatures. I don't think those creatures want or need our pity with regards to suffering that is inherent to life (as well as to joy -- I make a Taoist point there). The alternative to the suffering (and joy) inherent to advanced (feeling or conscious) life forms is either a universe without advanced life, or very robotic life, or... Can advanced life evolve, physically or culturally, to a point where individuals aren't predominantly selfish? Selfism is the root of all evil. If you look behind every moral failure or myopic human decision, it's people making very locally (tribal/space/time) optimized decisions at the expense of the greater and longer term good.
fctorial 5y ago
More than half of those are chickens. So it says more about artificial selection.
SllX 5y ago
That’s life. If it’s any comfort, life and suffering are temporary.
etangent 5y ago
Imagine looking at this from the modern "therapeutic" perspective that aims to eliminate suffering -- rather than seeing it as integral part of nature and world around us. Alternatively: imagine being unhappy that life exists around us rather than being happy about it.
- juanani 5y ago
  It sounds like a reflection of current emotion/mood to me. Also it is something I'd think about if I was a mercenary aiming down at some innocents. 'theyre just going to suffer, nature is so cruel, *yawn BANG'. It's fun to get this viewpoint on the same thread where the human animal seems convinced it is special. The greediest animal, we are special. We take joy in the misery of others, that's gotta be unique.
Tsiklon 5y ago
This is something I think about from time to time, and it saddens me deeply. I don’t like to see anything or anyone suffer in pain. And the world is full of this - every day hundreds of thousands of creatures die horribly due to predation or accident. Many unheard, or if heard, ignored. I think that if you were to describe to a sapient alien what pain and suffering is, and then show them the way of things here, they would brand this planet Hell; a place of endless suffering, and horror in abstract, for all eternity. Yet that’s not all the suffering in the world, I participate in this - I tell myself that the cow butchered for the dinner I ate tonight was butchered humanely; that it did not suffer in death, it was well fed, cared for, was intellectually stimulated, enjoyed the company of it’s companions. However, I know this is a convenient lie, one I tell myself to mask the truth; the truth is often far from that, the mechanics of industrial farming render this vision obsolete, replaced by a new horror. No less horrifying than the natural order of things, perhaps more so. Is this world more than the suffering we choose not to see? Of course it is. The world is stark, beautiful and full of life. The order of nature binding it all together is broadly indifferent to suffering and beauty. I’m only one person, but I’m glad I can think on this, it’s a luxury the majority of other creatures are not granted. Edit: I may have let my mind carry me away when writing this
keithwhor 5y ago
Imagine the joy that exists in nature at any given moment. Billions and trillions of creatures in various states of ecstasy, happiness, and contentment. Then multiply all those experiences for every time frame back to the first organisms. I don't think people think about the implications of a billion years of the vast experiences life has to offer.
- dijit 5y ago
  That’s certainly optimistic. When I think of nature I think of the horrible dilemmas: wolves starving, circling a new mother and her cub. I think of pestilence, the urgent near insatiable need to find food, stave off predators and yet somehow extol endless energy to mate.
  - etxm 5y ago
    You should talk to a therapist.
    - dijit 5y ago
      It’s slightly rude to suggest that I have issues with my mental health because I watch nature documentaries. It does not make me miserable to think of these things, it’s just life. Life is struggle for the majority of living things with brief intermissions of contentedness- if you think otherwise you’re only kidding yourself (although it doesn’t harm anyone by living that delusion.) David Attenborough pulls few punches when showing how brutal the food chain is. Keeping your kids safe means others starve. This goes for plants too, it’s surprisingly easy to empathise with tragedies that occur to other species, including flora and fauna.
      - etxm 5y ago
        Pumps the brakes, my dude, it was a joke.
    - dang 5y ago
      Please don't do this here. It does no good and only makes threads worse. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&type=comment&dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=%22internet%20psychiatric%20diagnosis%22 https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&type=comment&dateRange=a...

p1mrx 5y ago

Maybe nature wouldn't be so metal if genes could feel pain.

bugzz 5y ago

Yeah, I think about this. So many small animals die in slow, painful ways (naturally - i.e. centipedes eating mice, preying mantises eating birds). Makes me wonder if eventually in the future there would be some moral prerogative to somehow tame the natural world

redisman 5y ago
Yes let’s fuck up nature even more, what could ever go wrong
nverno 5y ago
Life is just an ongoing chemical reaction. Maybe in the future people will start empathizing with metal and feel a moral prerogative to stop its oxidation. Larry David may be onto something when he asks 'Do you even respect wood!?'
- bugzz 5y ago
  I feel like you have to believe at least one of these 3: 1) Life is just a chemical reaction, human sadness / happiness don't matter 2) Humans are fundamentally different than other animals - our pain is somehow more real than animal pain 3) Animal pain does matter. Personally I favor 3)
  - GuB-42 5y ago
    2 is pretty deep actually. And for me, that's the one I favor (though I don't dismiss 3). Humans are fundamentally different because that's us. And even between humans, there is a scale. To me, the only real pain is mine. But, I also have the ability to feel other people's pain, so the pain of people close to me is also real, but less so, it is indirect. To feel pain for a random human requires some active thinking. The further we go, the less real pain is, simply because our brain can't process and mirror it. Animals look a bit like us and show similar pain reaction so we can emphasize somehow. But for everything after plants, we are getting too far. And then, we can introduce computers: can an AI feel pain? How advanced does it have to be if it does? Maybe it is all programs. Unit tests must hurt...
    - bugzz 5y ago
      > The further we go, the less real pain is, simply because our brain can't process and mirror it. But from an ethical perspective, the pain of a random person is just as important, right? > Animals look a bit like us and show similar pain reaction so we can emphasize somehow. But for everything after plants, we are getting too far. Animals don't just show similar pain reactions - the biochemical pathways are the exact same. For me, I have to assume basic physical pain is nearly the same, at least for mammals. For plants I don't know. It's possible they have some pain, but I'd expect it to be very different and lesser. For computers I see no reason to think there's any physical pain (though perhaps in the future)
- esotericsean 5y ago
  I know you're joking, but... Isn't rusting metal just metal that's trying to return to its natural form?
  - marcosdumay 5y ago
    There's no reason for calling iron oxide any more natural than metal iron. There's a famous phrase about humans being Nature's tool for adding plastics into the world.
akiselev 5y ago
> Makes me wonder if eventually in the future there would be some moral prerogative to somehow tame the natural world That would get at the core of the absolute vs relative morality debate and I don't think humanity will ever settle on that. It's far more likely that a "Prime Directive"-like non-interference law comes into effect instead. The natural world is cruel but heavily interdependent; as long as we assume that each creature or plant has a right to exist and reproduce, all we can do is eliminate our own effects on ecosystems. Humans are nature's worst transmission vector for pathogens, invasive species, habitat destruction, etc and there's little evidence we'd do anything but make the suffering a lot worse.
- erhk 5y ago
  You're assigning morality to a nervous system which is inherently absurd. Corn doesn't feel fear, it doesn't lament or suffer it just grows. We don't question the morality of capillary action in plants why should we assign morality to animal systems? Won't someone think of the blood salinity of all living things? Is there not a divine optimal amount of salt in all creatures? Similarly we are foolish to concern ourselves with the quantity of serotonin or histamine in any given creature. Humans are generally social, we developed to be concerned with our community rather than our individual survival and it has served us well. We developed systems to extend that concern to future generations, and sometimes we disguised them as deities. Now in our ever blooming quest to socialize we are assimilating more species into the fold, but at a point we should stop and ask if our moral tools are overstepping.
dheera 5y ago
Earth will be uninhabitable not long into the future on an evolutionary timescale. Without action from humans, oceans will boil away within 1 billion years due to the increasing brightness of the sun, and most life will likely die off within about half of that. So in some sense, the suffering of animals will not be for much longer compared to history. Humans will need to either learn to: - Terraform the Earth and keep it cool -- this can keep the Earth habitable for maybe 1-2 billion years at most instead of a few hundred million which is the current expectation. After that it will be of no use and the sun will eventually engulf the Earth in ~4 billion - Not rely on other species or the oceans to survive, and find artificial ways to manufacture food - Evolve into (i.e. develop) an intelligent but inorganic life form that can withstand higher temperatures and carry on the legacy of intelligent civilization - Move to Mars or beyond, terraform it, and take animals with us Considering the complex inter-dependencies of various species (e.g. humans need to eat plants, plants need insects and worms but their numbers are kept in check by birds, birds need huge plants to reproduce, plants also need to eat shit from animals, animals need yet other plants to make said shit, etc.) I have most hope in creating an inorganic lifeform that can reproduce given only light and raw materials available on planets, and without dependence on other life forms.
- kiba 5y ago
  You think way too small, especially on a scale of a billion years. Terraforming our planet is a megaengineering project in itself. It's not much of a stretch to imagine megaengineering changing the orbit of earth, or increasing the lifespan of our star by collecting the gases for later use. You should watch Isaac Arthur the youtube channel.
- cproctor 5y ago
  We just need to accelerate the planet a bit and gradually expand our orbit.

Razengan 5y ago

Watching some Journey to the Microcosmos videos, and seeing even the tiniest forms of life express struggle and pain has fed my personal doubt that this world might be Hell. Of course there are many moments of joy and pleasure, but ultimately it ends in a negative score (all the suffering + ultimately dying anyway) https://youtube.com/c/microcosmos https://youtube.com/c/microcosmos

hansjorg 5y ago

The obvious solution to this is to eradicate all life. I don't think that's a viable option in the long run. It can't and shouldn't be our responsibility to end all suffering, rather we should take responsibility for the suffering we cause.

amelius 5y ago
> I don't think that's a viable option in the long run. That would only start all problems again. It could be an explanation for the Great Filter though.
jeofken 5y ago
Reminds me of how the Buddhist solves the problem of suffering by minimising wants, and the Christian by forgiving and loving people and the world for their flaws.
- erhk 5y ago
  And me by taking a nap.
  - pie420 5y ago
    And me by jerking off and crying in a cold shower
ironmagma 5y ago
> The obvious solution to this is to eradicate all life. That implies that suffering is a problem; IMHO it's just part of life and much of what propels us forward. Conversely, Heroin is a drug that can eliminate suffering, but it's pretty clear from the outside that it does not represent the optimal path through existence.

m3kw9 5y ago

To ease that thought each bird that suffers only suffer for itself.

mlinksva 5y ago

Some people do, eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eradication_of_suffering#Animal_welfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eradication_of_suffering#Anima... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_animal_suffering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_animal_suffering

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

umvi 5y ago

I don't know, I think billions and trillions of creatures are experiencing happiness and joy too. Especially the birds and the bees in the springtime.

amelius 5y ago
Also, greater intelligence and self-awareness brings more suffering. A bird only knows pain. A human with a terminal illness knows it is dying and suffers the psychological consequences.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

eevilspock 5y ago

We haven't even come close to figuring out or even being sufficiently empathetic to the suffering we cause, to other humans and other creatures. I don't think those creatures want or need our pity with regards to suffering that is inherent to life (as well as to joy -- I make a Taoist point there). The alternative to the suffering (and joy) inherent to advanced (feeling or conscious) life forms is either a universe without advanced life, or very robotic life, or... Can advanced life evolve, physically or culturally, to a point where individuals aren't predominantly selfish? Selfism is the root of all evil. If you look behind every moral failure or myopic human decision, it's people making very locally (tribal/space/time) optimized decisions at the expense of the greater and longer term good.

fctorial 5y ago

More than half of those are chickens. So it says more about artificial selection.

SllX 5y ago

That’s life. If it’s any comfort, life and suffering are temporary.

etangent 5y ago

Imagine looking at this from the modern "therapeutic" perspective that aims to eliminate suffering -- rather than seeing it as integral part of nature and world around us. Alternatively: imagine being unhappy that life exists around us rather than being happy about it.

juanani 5y ago
It sounds like a reflection of current emotion/mood to me. Also it is something I'd think about if I was a mercenary aiming down at some innocents. 'theyre just going to suffer, nature is so cruel, *yawn BANG'. It's fun to get this viewpoint on the same thread where the human animal seems convinced it is special. The greediest animal, we are special. We take joy in the misery of others, that's gotta be unique.

Tsiklon 5y ago

This is something I think about from time to time, and it saddens me deeply. I don’t like to see anything or anyone suffer in pain. And the world is full of this - every day hundreds of thousands of creatures die horribly due to predation or accident. Many unheard, or if heard, ignored. I think that if you were to describe to a sapient alien what pain and suffering is, and then show them the way of things here, they would brand this planet Hell; a place of endless suffering, and horror in abstract, for all eternity. Yet that’s not all the suffering in the world, I participate in this - I tell myself that the cow butchered for the dinner I ate tonight was butchered humanely; that it did not suffer in death, it was well fed, cared for, was intellectually stimulated, enjoyed the company of it’s companions. However, I know this is a convenient lie, one I tell myself to mask the truth; the truth is often far from that, the mechanics of industrial farming render this vision obsolete, replaced by a new horror. No less horrifying than the natural order of things, perhaps more so. Is this world more than the suffering we choose not to see? Of course it is. The world is stark, beautiful and full of life. The order of nature binding it all together is broadly indifferent to suffering and beauty. I’m only one person, but I’m glad I can think on this, it’s a luxury the majority of other creatures are not granted. Edit: I may have let my mind carry me away when writing this

keithwhor 5y ago

Imagine the joy that exists in nature at any given moment. Billions and trillions of creatures in various states of ecstasy, happiness, and contentment. Then multiply all those experiences for every time frame back to the first organisms. I don't think people think about the implications of a billion years of the vast experiences life has to offer.

dijit 5y ago
That’s certainly optimistic. When I think of nature I think of the horrible dilemmas: wolves starving, circling a new mother and her cub. I think of pestilence, the urgent near insatiable need to find food, stave off predators and yet somehow extol endless energy to mate.
- etxm 5y ago
  You should talk to a therapist.
  - dijit 5y ago
    It’s slightly rude to suggest that I have issues with my mental health because I watch nature documentaries. It does not make me miserable to think of these things, it’s just life. Life is struggle for the majority of living things with brief intermissions of contentedness- if you think otherwise you’re only kidding yourself (although it doesn’t harm anyone by living that delusion.) David Attenborough pulls few punches when showing how brutal the food chain is. Keeping your kids safe means others starve. This goes for plants too, it’s surprisingly easy to empathise with tragedies that occur to other species, including flora and fauna.
    - etxm 5y ago
      Pumps the brakes, my dude, it was a joke.
  - dang 5y ago
    Please don't do this here. It does no good and only makes threads worse. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&type=comment&dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=%22internet%20psychiatric%20diagnosis%22 https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&type=comment&dateRange=a...