5 ms·

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 won

by 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.

by bugzz 5y ago

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.