6 ms·

The orangutan trap

33 points by benbreen 11y ago

x5n1 11y ago
Why have we not genetically engineered all the other ape species on our planet with language and intelligence (at the very least language) and given them legal rights as people that they can defend in court. The only way to give animals right is to give them a voice literally.
- s_kilk 11y ago
  Because we don't even understand what causes language and intelligence in ourselves yet.
  - x5n1 11y ago
    We have some ideas and clues. Just gotta share some of those differences and see what happens. Do that a few times and you have intelligence and language in apes. We already put apes through horrendous experiments, what's a few more? We should at least be working on this as a goal. Otherwise these other species will go extinct it's a matter of time.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  Because that's science fiction, not genetic engineering.
  - x5n1 11y ago
    Science fiction can become science fact... you have to try to do it... that's how it becomes fact.
    - jacquesm 11y ago
      No, that's not how science fiction becomes science. Science fiction is to show what might happen given some assumptions on the state of future science, not what will happen if you try something that you currently don't have the technology for. For instance, Jules Verne wrote about lots of 'impossible' journeys, which made for good science fiction. Trying any of those things before the technology was there would have not led anywhere, it would have wasted time and or killed people. And even when the technology was there it took some pretty hard thinking to make the journeys a successful reality. What you are proposing is so far beyond the current state of the art that it is not science (yet, maybe never will be) but fiction. Trying it will simply not work and won't advance science at all.
      - x5n1 11y ago
        I don't know what we're arguing about. That's it's impossible? It's not impossible. All I am saying is we should go in that direction. The rest will follow. The direction is giving language to other species and maybe even intelligence. The way to start to do this is to introduce human variants of certain genes like foxp2 to apes. We have already done it in mice... and keep introducing these differences between humans and apes until we produce an ape human hybrid that has intelligence. https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=FOXP2 https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=FOXP2 Two amino acid substitutions distinguish the human FOXP2 protein from that found in chimpanzees,[15] but only one of these two changes is unique to humans.[11] Evidence from genetically manipulated mice[16] and human neuronal cell models[17] suggests that these changes affect the neural functions of FOXP2.
        jacquesm 11y ago
        There is an enormous amount of developmental context to this and simply swapping in some genetic material without a full appreciation for the scope of the problem makes this at present day an impossibility. Hollywood might make you believe it is easy to make dinosaurs and to make planets full of apes rivalling the humans but in cold hard reality this is far from simple. I'm not saying it is impossible per-se, I'm saying that with our current understanding of the matter it is impossible today and simply trying will not advance our understanding much. There are far simpler problems than this that are right now impossible. Yes, FOXP is related to speech, no, activating FOXP does not automatically give you a talking ape, the way genes affect the brain is very complex and poorly understood.
      - cactusface 11y ago
        I don't know, he has a point. Science and engineering can go hand in hand. We built the bomb. We broke Enigma. We landed on the moon. We didn't have all the science when we started.
        jacquesm 11y ago
        No, he doesn't have a point. You can't just splice some genes and add 'language' and 'intelligence' into an existing organism. (Assuming that you define them currently as un-intelligent and without language). It's not quite the same as changing some config bits. Though that doesn't rule out that one day we may be able to do so but for now this is simply (according to my knowledge of the state of the art of genetic engineering) an impossibility. Besides the ethical questions it would raise. Building the bomb, breaking enigma and landing on the moon (and ITER, for that matter) were 'mere matters of engineering' by comparison, at least there we had a good idea of what we needed to achieve and what possible paths there were to that solution. For the atomic bomb, for instance, the Uranium atom had already been split (in 1938), for the moon landings we already had the German V2 rocket and so on. The steps may seem huge but the theoretical underpinnings were firmly in place when the technology moved forward. Usually this alternates, one step is made by science to advance the theory which then can be put to the test and put into practice by engineering and experiment. This may lead to new insight and so on. It's very rare for someone to say 'oh, it would be nice if we could do 'x'' and then to turn up with a complete and solved problem on the next iteration. There's a reason the moonshot and the atomic bomb took several years and very large amounts of money to complete, and in neither case were we 100% sure that we'd achieve them.
- adamnemecek 11y ago
  Sure, let's do that. Why don't you get started?
- swombat 11y ago
  Some apes are already able to communicate using language - not spoken, but e.g. using a buttons console with symbols on it. They've also been taught sign language. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_ape_language#Apes_that_demonstrate_understanding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_ape_language#Apes_that_d... None of the apes learned "grammar", but they did communicate using language. Did that make a difference to the rights of apes? Of course not. Whatever you get an ape to achieve, will be immediately defined as not quite sufficient to prove that they are human-like enough to have any rights. The only way to solve this argument is not to give them language but to realise that it is our responsibility to better treat other denizens of this world we share - irrespective of whether they meet some arbitrary criteria of human-ness. There's a very simple self-interested reason for this too: if we ever encounter aliens, we currently would not have any viable argument to convince them that they should treat us any better than we treat apes.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- kazagistar 11y ago
  Why would that give voice to any animals except apes, and even then, only sometimes? Humans are animals, yet they rarely advocated for all the humans in the world, let alone other species. I really see no reason for apes species being any better.
adamnemecek 11y ago
The worst part is that the recent FDA trans fat ban will only boost demand for palm oil, thus making this issue even worse.
- knowtheory 11y ago
  The FDA's ban on transfat is almost entirely after the fact. Transfats have been on the outs for a long time, and their use has declined in accordance. The rise in the use of palm oil has more to do with people thinking that because it's natural, it's "healthy" for you (which is really only true if your baseline for comparison is eating tubs of margarine) thanks to folks like Dr. Oz. So, since you can't see my eyeroll at the downvotes, here are citations: NPR piece noting that transfat usage has dropped by 86% before the ban: http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/06/16/414906829/fda-to-food-companies-this-time-zero-means-zero-trans-fats http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/06/16/414906829/fda... And somewhat surprisingly the wikipedia article on the nutritional & health effects of palm oil is pretty well cited: https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Palm_oil#Nutrition_and_health https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Palm_oil#Nutrition_and_healt... tl:dr; Transfats are bad for you. That's why they don't sell them. Palm oil isn't vastly healthier than other oils. Eat less fat.
  - gnoway 11y ago
    I think what you might be missing is that your 86% number is from the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which is an industry trade group. I would not take that number at face value. I also wouldn't assume that group speaks for restaurants or even all grocers. Also, the use of an oil doesn't contribute linearly to the trans fat content of whatever is fried in it. Users of hydrogenated oils for frying, for example, are purchasing gallons and gallons of the stuff on a regular basis, with most of that being discarded as waste. Yes, most of the big name fast food chains in the US have switched to other oils, but it's not clear whether all have or to what extent. There may still be a sizable bump in purchases of replacement oils, including palm. Finally, even if the 86% number is ironclad and extends across the entire prepared food and food service industry, it represents a relative drop against an unknown whole. It says nothing about the absolute volume of hydrogenated oils still in use. IMO this validates the parent's concern. This plus the general flippant snark of your comment and the weird Dr. Oz reference is why I downvoted you.
imteamcoltra 11y ago
I was just thinking today that if we are allowed to cage animals who have the mental development of a 6 year old, why can't we justify caging people who have the mental capacity of a 6 year old.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- Kenji 11y ago
  Oh it's all speciesism. A human has more inherent worth in the common human morals. It makes zero sense from a logical point of view, probably an evolutionary remnant.
  - reagency 11y ago
    One day I might have a mentally disabled child. I will have an orangutan as a genetic heir or friend. That logically explains the common sense ethics.
  - reagency 11y ago
    One day I might have a mentally disabled child. I will have an orangutan as a genetic heir or friend. That logically explains the common sense ethics.
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    Speciesism is ridiculous concept. Humans are inherently worth more than other animals. This does not mean that we should go out of way to maltreat animals, but when the choice is a human life verses an animal’s life then the human's should always come first. In regards orangutans we can certainly do a better job of ensuring both can exist.
    - rawTruthHurts 11y ago
      > inherently worth more According to what scale?
vinchuco 11y ago
Expected something chess-related [1]. This appears to be a different type of game with many players and different understandings of the rules. [1] 1.B4 Opening https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9jaaKUWwBI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9jaaKUWwBI

33 points by benbreen 11y ago

x5n1 11y ago

Why have we not genetically engineered all the other ape species on our planet with language and intelligence (at the very least language) and given them legal rights as people that they can defend in court. The only way to give animals right is to give them a voice literally.

s_kilk 11y ago
Because we don't even understand what causes language and intelligence in ourselves yet.
- x5n1 11y ago
  We have some ideas and clues. Just gotta share some of those differences and see what happens. Do that a few times and you have intelligence and language in apes. We already put apes through horrendous experiments, what's a few more? We should at least be working on this as a goal. Otherwise these other species will go extinct it's a matter of time.
jacquesm 11y ago
Because that's science fiction, not genetic engineering.
- x5n1 11y ago
  Science fiction can become science fact... you have to try to do it... that's how it becomes fact.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    No, that's not how science fiction becomes science. Science fiction is to show what might happen given some assumptions on the state of future science, not what will happen if you try something that you currently don't have the technology for. For instance, Jules Verne wrote about lots of 'impossible' journeys, which made for good science fiction. Trying any of those things before the technology was there would have not led anywhere, it would have wasted time and or killed people. And even when the technology was there it took some pretty hard thinking to make the journeys a successful reality. What you are proposing is so far beyond the current state of the art that it is not science (yet, maybe never will be) but fiction. Trying it will simply not work and won't advance science at all.
    - x5n1 11y ago
      I don't know what we're arguing about. That's it's impossible? It's not impossible. All I am saying is we should go in that direction. The rest will follow. The direction is giving language to other species and maybe even intelligence. The way to start to do this is to introduce human variants of certain genes like foxp2 to apes. We have already done it in mice... and keep introducing these differences between humans and apes until we produce an ape human hybrid that has intelligence. https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=FOXP2 https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=FOXP2 Two amino acid substitutions distinguish the human FOXP2 protein from that found in chimpanzees,[15] but only one of these two changes is unique to humans.[11] Evidence from genetically manipulated mice[16] and human neuronal cell models[17] suggests that these changes affect the neural functions of FOXP2.
      - jacquesm 11y ago
        There is an enormous amount of developmental context to this and simply swapping in some genetic material without a full appreciation for the scope of the problem makes this at present day an impossibility. Hollywood might make you believe it is easy to make dinosaurs and to make planets full of apes rivalling the humans but in cold hard reality this is far from simple. I'm not saying it is impossible per-se, I'm saying that with our current understanding of the matter it is impossible today and simply trying will not advance our understanding much. There are far simpler problems than this that are right now impossible. Yes, FOXP is related to speech, no, activating FOXP does not automatically give you a talking ape, the way genes affect the brain is very complex and poorly understood.
    - cactusface 11y ago
      I don't know, he has a point. Science and engineering can go hand in hand. We built the bomb. We broke Enigma. We landed on the moon. We didn't have all the science when we started.
      - jacquesm 11y ago
        No, he doesn't have a point. You can't just splice some genes and add 'language' and 'intelligence' into an existing organism. (Assuming that you define them currently as un-intelligent and without language). It's not quite the same as changing some config bits. Though that doesn't rule out that one day we may be able to do so but for now this is simply (according to my knowledge of the state of the art of genetic engineering) an impossibility. Besides the ethical questions it would raise. Building the bomb, breaking enigma and landing on the moon (and ITER, for that matter) were 'mere matters of engineering' by comparison, at least there we had a good idea of what we needed to achieve and what possible paths there were to that solution. For the atomic bomb, for instance, the Uranium atom had already been split (in 1938), for the moon landings we already had the German V2 rocket and so on. The steps may seem huge but the theoretical underpinnings were firmly in place when the technology moved forward. Usually this alternates, one step is made by science to advance the theory which then can be put to the test and put into practice by engineering and experiment. This may lead to new insight and so on. It's very rare for someone to say 'oh, it would be nice if we could do 'x'' and then to turn up with a complete and solved problem on the next iteration. There's a reason the moonshot and the atomic bomb took several years and very large amounts of money to complete, and in neither case were we 100% sure that we'd achieve them.
adamnemecek 11y ago
Sure, let's do that. Why don't you get started?
swombat 11y ago
Some apes are already able to communicate using language - not spoken, but e.g. using a buttons console with symbols on it. They've also been taught sign language. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_ape_language#Apes_that_demonstrate_understanding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_ape_language#Apes_that_d... None of the apes learned "grammar", but they did communicate using language. Did that make a difference to the rights of apes? Of course not. Whatever you get an ape to achieve, will be immediately defined as not quite sufficient to prove that they are human-like enough to have any rights. The only way to solve this argument is not to give them language but to realise that it is our responsibility to better treat other denizens of this world we share - irrespective of whether they meet some arbitrary criteria of human-ness. There's a very simple self-interested reason for this too: if we ever encounter aliens, we currently would not have any viable argument to convince them that they should treat us any better than we treat apes.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
kazagistar 11y ago
Why would that give voice to any animals except apes, and even then, only sometimes? Humans are animals, yet they rarely advocated for all the humans in the world, let alone other species. I really see no reason for apes species being any better.

adamnemecek 11y ago

The worst part is that the recent FDA trans fat ban will only boost demand for palm oil, thus making this issue even worse.

knowtheory 11y ago
The FDA's ban on transfat is almost entirely after the fact. Transfats have been on the outs for a long time, and their use has declined in accordance. The rise in the use of palm oil has more to do with people thinking that because it's natural, it's "healthy" for you (which is really only true if your baseline for comparison is eating tubs of margarine) thanks to folks like Dr. Oz. So, since you can't see my eyeroll at the downvotes, here are citations: NPR piece noting that transfat usage has dropped by 86% before the ban: http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/06/16/414906829/fda-to-food-companies-this-time-zero-means-zero-trans-fats http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/06/16/414906829/fda... And somewhat surprisingly the wikipedia article on the nutritional & health effects of palm oil is pretty well cited: https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Palm_oil#Nutrition_and_health https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Palm_oil#Nutrition_and_healt... tl:dr; Transfats are bad for you. That's why they don't sell them. Palm oil isn't vastly healthier than other oils. Eat less fat.
- gnoway 11y ago
  I think what you might be missing is that your 86% number is from the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which is an industry trade group. I would not take that number at face value. I also wouldn't assume that group speaks for restaurants or even all grocers. Also, the use of an oil doesn't contribute linearly to the trans fat content of whatever is fried in it. Users of hydrogenated oils for frying, for example, are purchasing gallons and gallons of the stuff on a regular basis, with most of that being discarded as waste. Yes, most of the big name fast food chains in the US have switched to other oils, but it's not clear whether all have or to what extent. There may still be a sizable bump in purchases of replacement oils, including palm. Finally, even if the 86% number is ironclad and extends across the entire prepared food and food service industry, it represents a relative drop against an unknown whole. It says nothing about the absolute volume of hydrogenated oils still in use. IMO this validates the parent's concern. This plus the general flippant snark of your comment and the weird Dr. Oz reference is why I downvoted you.

imteamcoltra 11y ago

I was just thinking today that if we are allowed to cage animals who have the mental development of a 6 year old, why can't we justify caging people who have the mental capacity of a 6 year old.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
Kenji 11y ago
Oh it's all speciesism. A human has more inherent worth in the common human morals. It makes zero sense from a logical point of view, probably an evolutionary remnant.
- reagency 11y ago
  One day I might have a mentally disabled child. I will have an orangutan as a genetic heir or friend. That logically explains the common sense ethics.
- reagency 11y ago
  One day I might have a mentally disabled child. I will have an orangutan as a genetic heir or friend. That logically explains the common sense ethics.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  Speciesism is ridiculous concept. Humans are inherently worth more than other animals. This does not mean that we should go out of way to maltreat animals, but when the choice is a human life verses an animal’s life then the human's should always come first. In regards orangutans we can certainly do a better job of ensuring both can exist.
  - rawTruthHurts 11y ago
    > inherently worth more According to what scale?

vinchuco 11y ago

Expected something chess-related [1]. This appears to be a different type of game with many players and different understandings of the rules. [1] 1.B4 Opening https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9jaaKUWwBI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9jaaKUWwBI