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Sorry, I strongly disagree. Cockroaches don't have the emotions or capabilities to suffer from pain. There is no ethics issue here, except that anyone doing thi
by bayesianhorse 13y ago
Sorry, I strongly disagree. Cockroaches don't have the emotions or capabilities to suffer from pain. There is no ethics issue here, except that anyone doing this experiment with children (as co-experimentators, not as subjects, stupid!) should make this point about not hurting higher animals very very clearly and repeatedly.
- hobolobo 13y agoOne quick way of testing if a creature has "capabilities to suffer from pain" is to put a heat source on them. If they move away from it, they do. There really is an ethical issue here.
- davidw 13y ago> a heat source You're suggesting an experiment with a magnifying glass?
- bayesianhorse 13y agoSo does a moderately smartly designed robot... "suffering from pain" is way more complicated than avoiding heat sources.
- alan_cx 13y agoA robot is simulating. Animals are not.
- shared4you 13y agoThis article [1] says that cockroaches do experience pain, care for their offspring, form social hierarchies. They can suffer from stress and can die from it, even without injury. Therefore, the ethics issue cannot be ignored. [1]: http://www.utilitarian-essays.com/insect-pain.html http://www.utilitarian-essays.com/insect-pain.html
- fiblye 13y agoI have a hard time considering cockroach control a major ethical issue when cockroaches are considered a major pest and are often killed on sight. I don't see how a few minutes of steering where it goes is substantially worse than stepping on it. I mean, letting a kid play with cockroaches brings about a greater understanding than just telling kids that they all need to be killed. In that way, I'd consider it a good experiment for children akin to catching a caterpillar and watching it make a cocoon. Maybe I'm missing something.
- jkn 13y agoEthics is not just about the consequences of an action. Other factors such as motivations are also important. I think it is sad but ethically acceptable to kill an ant colony in my house, yet I don't think it is OK for children to go in the forest and destroy ant colonies for fun. Or even to dismember one ant for fun, though I may be in a small minority here. To take a more extreme example, a majority of people seem to find it ethical to have drone strikes in Pakistan despite the civilian casualties. They would certainly not approve of the same drone strikes if they were made for entertainment, even though the physical consequences on the targets would be the same.
- verroq 13y agoCan I just point out that the examples you gave are invalid? I won't advocate the destruction of ant colonies in forests because for ecological reasons, not because of individual ant suffering. Video footage released from the drone/missile strikes are already being used for entertainment purposes. When I go onto reddit for videos titled "Hellfire missile blows up terrorist". I'm actually enjoying a video of a man being blown up by a Hellfire missile. I don't think motivations factor into it at all. A death is a death. At the risk of invoking Freduian psycholoanalysis, it's your cognitive dissonance that making you feel one is more justified than the other. > "I can't be the one killing animals, I'm a good person"
- jkn 13y ago
- chris_wot 13y agoI am curious how you know that cockroaches do not feel pain?
- swamp40 13y agoYou just CAN'T go there. Once you suppress the natural social norms, the child will easily make the leap to other animals (or worse).