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I wasn't calling out you specifically, more explaining my attitude here in general. Sorry for not being more clear about that. > My question would be, why not

I wasn't calling out you specifically, more explaining my attitude here in general. Sorry for not being more clear about that. > My question would be, why not use humans? At what point would the "very high expected return" justify this? Never? Why not? Very good question! Obviously we are heading into sci-fi territory now, but in a world where all suffering was valued according to some agreed-upon objective metric I would suggest the following: - yes much more human testing, especially volunteers who are terminally ill/suicidal etc. - in such a world testing would presumably be much more expensive, so they could afford more complex research substrates that we don't bother with because we can just use animals - eg. lots of brain organoids and other synthetic experimental substrates And for the record, I do think such a world would either be some sort of anarchocapitalist chaos or painfully slow to develop. But at least it would be morally coherent! Joking aside I guess my only real message here is, people who find this stuff disgusting should think about their dinner plates. In my ideal world, we use approximately 50% as much animal testing and 0.1% as many animal food products.

hutzlibu 4y ago
"yes much more human testing, especially volunteers who are terminally ill/suicidal etc." Basically, it is already done, when late stage cancer patients agree to the very latest, risky treatments. But I would extend it with say, granting death row canditates certain privileges, when they agree for some risky tests. But that is a very grey area with lots of room for turning into dystopia (but you can argue death row prisoners are living there anyway). Also the problem with proper testing is, that you need healthy subjects which are as similar as possible. So that would mean breeding or cloning humans as test subjects. I fear this is secretly already done or planned, for very promising stem cell research/gene therapies/enhanced babies. "In my ideal world, we use approximately 50% as much animal testing and 0.1% as many animal food products. " And in my ideal world, we do not do animal testing at all anymore, but since I have not a working replacement avaiable, your numbers sound agreeable.

hutzlibu 4y ago

"yes much more human testing, especially volunteers who are terminally ill/suicidal etc." Basically, it is already done, when late stage cancer patients agree to the very latest, risky treatments. But I would extend it with say, granting death row canditates certain privileges, when they agree for some risky tests. But that is a very grey area with lots of room for turning into dystopia (but you can argue death row prisoners are living there anyway). Also the problem with proper testing is, that you need healthy subjects which are as similar as possible. So that would mean breeding or cloning humans as test subjects. I fear this is secretly already done or planned, for very promising stem cell research/gene therapies/enhanced babies. "In my ideal world, we use approximately 50% as much animal testing and 0.1% as many animal food products. " And in my ideal world, we do not do animal testing at all anymore, but since I have not a working replacement avaiable, your numbers sound agreeable.