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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

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.

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.