6 ms·

Personally, I find it morally questionable every time one of these activist groups puts non-human life above human life, whether it is a dog or a monkey, I don'

Personally, I find it morally questionable every time one of these activist groups puts non-human life above human life, whether it is a dog or a monkey, I don't care. Just feels wrong. I guess I would not want to be neighbours with some weirdo who would value my life equally to that of a monkey.

andyjohnson0 4y ago
Care to expand on why you feel this way about different species? > some weirdo who would value my life equally to that of a monkey Do you feel this over-values the monkey's life or devalues yours? Or is it something else?
timeon 4y ago
> puts non-human life above human life Well my pet has EU passport unlike my friend from Macedonia.
maxbond 4y ago
This is a bad faith reading of what these activists want. It amounts to a strawman. If you were their neighbor - you probably wouldn't know it. Why should we be systematically cruel to animals? Why shouldn't we develop technology that replaces these techniques? Has it not even occurred to you that we don't necessarily have to have a giant industry of animal testing, that that is a local minima we don't have to accept? Does that not seem morally questionable to you?
- colordrops 4y ago
  Not sure why you are getting downvoted - the GP is definitely putting forth a heavy strawman. Wanting to stop animal cruelty does not equate to believing that animal lives should be put above human lives. There are more than the two options of killing monkeys for testing or killing humans for testing.
  - maxbond 4y ago
    Downvotes come fast and upvotes come slow. I wasn't surprised to see it hit zero immediately after I clicked submit, or to see it climb back up to 1.
- mertd 4y ago
  I don't want to take sides in this argument but just would like to point out that our animal cruelty standards are comically inconsistent. The animals that we use for food supply are generally treated horribly and they outnumber the scientific use cases by several orders of magnitude.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    Our standards for humans are pretty inconsistent too. There are scenarios in which it is still legal to subject some humans to slavery and death even in the US.
  - maxbond 4y ago
    This is true and if your argument was that we should be spending more effort there then addressing scientific use than that'd make sense to me. But if what you're suggesting is that we should expend our effort exclusively on the larger of the two until it is fully addressed, then I can see how that has a certain logical appeal, but it isn't really how social movements work. Social movements are necessarily massively parallel, everyone pursues the causes they care about most, and adjacent causes support and are supported by one another. Not only would it not be feasible to convince all the activists to pick one particular cause, it also would be less effective. It's sort of like the "packing" tactic in gerrymandering.
    - mertd 4y ago
      People are free to take up whatever cause they deem is worthy. I just hope some will take a pause and appreciate the absurdity of drinking milk and consuming meat AND opposing use of animals in medical research. I have flown with Air France recently. They certainly do serve a lot of meat and cheese.
      - maxbond 4y ago
        Okay. Why? What are you hoping they'll realize? What is it you are trying to say? Pardon me, but it feels like you're engaging in a certain rhetorical tactic where you all-but make a conclusion - you say, I'm not taking any sides, I just want you to consider X, Y, and Z that would naturally lead you to a certain conclusion which I definitely haven't made myself. This serves to launder your conclusion through your audience, as if it were their idea all along. It shields your ideas from criticism and the hazard of taking a position that may be argued against. And whether or not that is intentional, I'd ask you to stop. I have made specific claims which can be argued against - it's pretty unfair for you to respond in a way that, should I try to argue against it, just shifts around without really responding to what I am saying. Speaking for myself, while I do eat some cheese, I haven't eaten meat in almost a decade, and I've found I genuinely prefer almond milk. I'm fully aware of the hazards and contradictions in my life. I don't really need you to point these things out to me for me to consider them. We live in a society where each of us is unable to fully live out their values. I'm positive that, if you applied the same scrutiny to your own life, you'd find similar problems. But of course that doesn't mean you don't believe in your values, only that you are a human being who is not omnipotent. It's pretty odd to try and turn that around on another person, right? Almost like criticizing them for breathing.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
  > This is a bad faith reading of what these activists want. It amounts to a strawman. Not it is not a straw man argument. Non-human primate trials are the last stage before human testing. Eliminating non-human primate trials will increase the risk for human participants(unless they actually stop developing). Our understanding of biology is nowhere near comprehensive enough to be able to simulate all these interactions and isn’t likely to be for maybe a century. So if you eliminate non-primate human testing, your options are either to develop therapies at greater risk to humans, or to stop developing them. Either of those options hurts humans. Thus, you are placing the well-being of non-human animals above the well-being of humans.
  - oaktrout 4y ago
    I agree. I see this sort of misunderstanding commonly here. Hacker news is filled with individuals who think computers can solve all our problems, and at the same time they lack the most basic understanding of the complexities of biology.
  - maxbond 4y ago
    If people do not make it known that this behavior is unacceptable, the alternative technology will not be developed. Industry would be happy to abuse animals until the end of time. Framing this as a _preference_ for one kind of life or another is, in fact, a straw man. No such preference is necessary to accept this line of reasoning.
- duckmysick 4y ago
  > Why shouldn't we develop technology that replaces these techniques? We absolutely should. What do we do until such technology is developed?
  - j-pb 4y ago
    Use worse/more expensive versions of the technology. The stuff is already here, it's just inertia that's keeping us from fully adopting it.
    - duckmysick 4y ago
      If it was just inertia, it means the options have similar outcomes and the only factor is the cost of switching. As you pointed out, there are other trade-offs.
    - tsol 4y ago
      But it literally isn't here. We need live organisms to test drugs, we can't do it all on computer chips and disconnected cells
    - oaktrout 4y ago
      I have to think that computational models will be infinitely cheaper than animal testing. If they worked as well as animal testing surely some for profit pharmaceutical company would leverage them to reap enormous profits. Because this is not happening I conclude the the models aren't as affective.
  - maxbond 4y ago
    We'll have to do animal testing until the technology is developed and replace it incrementally. The technology will not be developed unless it is made explicit that not doing so is unacceptable.
varajelle 4y ago
What about activist who put non-"your-country"-citizen live above "your-country"-citizen life? Why don't that feels wrong?
pflenker 4y ago
Not saying that I share these arguments, but the thinking is usually not to put non-human life over , but on the same level as human life.
numpad0 4y ago
I personally don't place one side over the other, and decided to admit that we sometimes kill lives for our own ego. The only true alternative to that is an act of self harm, and that is not free from egoism either, so I just don't think too much and enjoy my life, only following my own inner voice as to what choices would be ethical to make.
- maxbond 4y ago
  We are not compelled to either kill or do self harm, no. That is a really concerning dichotomy to suggest. Do you feel this is a choice you are compelled to make? I don't mean to presume, but I'm going to proceed as if it were affirmative, because I don't anticipate a response, and this seems concerning. That sounds perhaps like intrusive thoughts? I personally struggle with intrusive thoughts that are occasionally violent. They do not need to be acted upon though, and they don't reflect on who you are much more than a compression artifact in a video reflects on the cinematographer - it's line noise in your brain, it's incredibly complex and sometimes throws out signals that aren't useful. If you feel this way and that it isn't within your control, I'd encourage you to speak with a professional.
  - numpad0 4y ago
    My thinking is that we are in fact constantly compelled to take some lives(thankfully not of our own kinds) by very our own existence. We only exist by consuming energy and energy only comes as some form of exploitation of other lives, even if one had been exclusively consuming fruit on trees that exist to be eaten, unless such hypothetical man is a thinking solar panel in vacuum of space that can convert light into its own energy. That dark part is not serious - at least not in this context. That's just an extreme example, but the point is we do not exist without the karma of our body.
ginko 4y ago
There's close to 8 billion humans while there somewhere between 172000 to 300000 wild chimpanzees. Surely the life of a chimpanzee is _more_ valuable.
R0b0t1 4y ago
Saving the life of an animal over a human is murder.

andyjohnson0 4y ago

Care to expand on why you feel this way about different species? > some weirdo who would value my life equally to that of a monkey Do you feel this over-values the monkey's life or devalues yours? Or is it something else?

timeon 4y ago

> puts non-human life above human life Well my pet has EU passport unlike my friend from Macedonia.

maxbond 4y ago

This is a bad faith reading of what these activists want. It amounts to a strawman. If you were their neighbor - you probably wouldn't know it. Why should we be systematically cruel to animals? Why shouldn't we develop technology that replaces these techniques? Has it not even occurred to you that we don't necessarily have to have a giant industry of animal testing, that that is a local minima we don't have to accept? Does that not seem morally questionable to you?

colordrops 4y ago
Not sure why you are getting downvoted - the GP is definitely putting forth a heavy strawman. Wanting to stop animal cruelty does not equate to believing that animal lives should be put above human lives. There are more than the two options of killing monkeys for testing or killing humans for testing.
- maxbond 4y ago
  Downvotes come fast and upvotes come slow. I wasn't surprised to see it hit zero immediately after I clicked submit, or to see it climb back up to 1.
mertd 4y ago
I don't want to take sides in this argument but just would like to point out that our animal cruelty standards are comically inconsistent. The animals that we use for food supply are generally treated horribly and they outnumber the scientific use cases by several orders of magnitude.
- kube-system 4y ago
  Our standards for humans are pretty inconsistent too. There are scenarios in which it is still legal to subject some humans to slavery and death even in the US.
- maxbond 4y ago
  This is true and if your argument was that we should be spending more effort there then addressing scientific use than that'd make sense to me. But if what you're suggesting is that we should expend our effort exclusively on the larger of the two until it is fully addressed, then I can see how that has a certain logical appeal, but it isn't really how social movements work. Social movements are necessarily massively parallel, everyone pursues the causes they care about most, and adjacent causes support and are supported by one another. Not only would it not be feasible to convince all the activists to pick one particular cause, it also would be less effective. It's sort of like the "packing" tactic in gerrymandering.
  - mertd 4y ago
    People are free to take up whatever cause they deem is worthy. I just hope some will take a pause and appreciate the absurdity of drinking milk and consuming meat AND opposing use of animals in medical research. I have flown with Air France recently. They certainly do serve a lot of meat and cheese.
    - maxbond 4y ago
      Okay. Why? What are you hoping they'll realize? What is it you are trying to say? Pardon me, but it feels like you're engaging in a certain rhetorical tactic where you all-but make a conclusion - you say, I'm not taking any sides, I just want you to consider X, Y, and Z that would naturally lead you to a certain conclusion which I definitely haven't made myself. This serves to launder your conclusion through your audience, as if it were their idea all along. It shields your ideas from criticism and the hazard of taking a position that may be argued against. And whether or not that is intentional, I'd ask you to stop. I have made specific claims which can be argued against - it's pretty unfair for you to respond in a way that, should I try to argue against it, just shifts around without really responding to what I am saying. Speaking for myself, while I do eat some cheese, I haven't eaten meat in almost a decade, and I've found I genuinely prefer almond milk. I'm fully aware of the hazards and contradictions in my life. I don't really need you to point these things out to me for me to consider them. We live in a society where each of us is unable to fully live out their values. I'm positive that, if you applied the same scrutiny to your own life, you'd find similar problems. But of course that doesn't mean you don't believe in your values, only that you are a human being who is not omnipotent. It's pretty odd to try and turn that around on another person, right? Almost like criticizing them for breathing.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
> This is a bad faith reading of what these activists want. It amounts to a strawman. Not it is not a straw man argument. Non-human primate trials are the last stage before human testing. Eliminating non-human primate trials will increase the risk for human participants(unless they actually stop developing). Our understanding of biology is nowhere near comprehensive enough to be able to simulate all these interactions and isn’t likely to be for maybe a century. So if you eliminate non-primate human testing, your options are either to develop therapies at greater risk to humans, or to stop developing them. Either of those options hurts humans. Thus, you are placing the well-being of non-human animals above the well-being of humans.
- oaktrout 4y ago
  I agree. I see this sort of misunderstanding commonly here. Hacker news is filled with individuals who think computers can solve all our problems, and at the same time they lack the most basic understanding of the complexities of biology.
- maxbond 4y ago
  If people do not make it known that this behavior is unacceptable, the alternative technology will not be developed. Industry would be happy to abuse animals until the end of time. Framing this as a _preference_ for one kind of life or another is, in fact, a straw man. No such preference is necessary to accept this line of reasoning.
duckmysick 4y ago
> Why shouldn't we develop technology that replaces these techniques? We absolutely should. What do we do until such technology is developed?
- j-pb 4y ago
  Use worse/more expensive versions of the technology. The stuff is already here, it's just inertia that's keeping us from fully adopting it.
  - duckmysick 4y ago
    If it was just inertia, it means the options have similar outcomes and the only factor is the cost of switching. As you pointed out, there are other trade-offs.
  - tsol 4y ago
    But it literally isn't here. We need live organisms to test drugs, we can't do it all on computer chips and disconnected cells
  - oaktrout 4y ago
    I have to think that computational models will be infinitely cheaper than animal testing. If they worked as well as animal testing surely some for profit pharmaceutical company would leverage them to reap enormous profits. Because this is not happening I conclude the the models aren't as affective.
- maxbond 4y ago
  We'll have to do animal testing until the technology is developed and replace it incrementally. The technology will not be developed unless it is made explicit that not doing so is unacceptable.

varajelle 4y ago

What about activist who put non-"your-country"-citizen live above "your-country"-citizen life? Why don't that feels wrong?

pflenker 4y ago

Not saying that I share these arguments, but the thinking is usually not to put non-human life over , but on the same level as human life.

numpad0 4y ago

I personally don't place one side over the other, and decided to admit that we sometimes kill lives for our own ego. The only true alternative to that is an act of self harm, and that is not free from egoism either, so I just don't think too much and enjoy my life, only following my own inner voice as to what choices would be ethical to make.

maxbond 4y ago
We are not compelled to either kill or do self harm, no. That is a really concerning dichotomy to suggest. Do you feel this is a choice you are compelled to make? I don't mean to presume, but I'm going to proceed as if it were affirmative, because I don't anticipate a response, and this seems concerning. That sounds perhaps like intrusive thoughts? I personally struggle with intrusive thoughts that are occasionally violent. They do not need to be acted upon though, and they don't reflect on who you are much more than a compression artifact in a video reflects on the cinematographer - it's line noise in your brain, it's incredibly complex and sometimes throws out signals that aren't useful. If you feel this way and that it isn't within your control, I'd encourage you to speak with a professional.
- numpad0 4y ago
  My thinking is that we are in fact constantly compelled to take some lives(thankfully not of our own kinds) by very our own existence. We only exist by consuming energy and energy only comes as some form of exploitation of other lives, even if one had been exclusively consuming fruit on trees that exist to be eaten, unless such hypothetical man is a thinking solar panel in vacuum of space that can convert light into its own energy. That dark part is not serious - at least not in this context. That's just an extreme example, but the point is we do not exist without the karma of our body.

ginko 4y ago

There's close to 8 billion humans while there somewhere between 172000 to 300000 wild chimpanzees. Surely the life of a chimpanzee is _more_ valuable.

R0b0t1 4y ago

Saving the life of an animal over a human is murder.