All robotic ethics would be dependent on whether something resembling a computer can be conscious. Everything else I think the vast majority of people would agree on.
Bioethics Thread - Animal Rights
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Eternal said:
You cannot possibly be serious that there is "no significant difference" between a script that pops up a window saying "I'm experiencing pain halp" and waterboarding someone...
I don't know why you put pain in quotation marks, it makes you sound like you think it's some made, arbitrary thing which in turn makes you sound like a complete psychopath.
People who literally cannot feel any physical pain whatsoever are extremely rare, but more importantly there's more to pain than just physical pain. I highly doubt there are any conscious people who are unable to experience any physical or psychological pain. As for people who are in a vegetative state, yes, they should be let go.
I'm 100% convinced that at the very least the higher mammals are capable of experiencing psychological pain. They bond, they can and do feel fear, panic, grief, joy, relief. Maybe we don't know the exact mechanism behind it, but the probability that it revolves around complexity of the nervous system approaches 1. The notion that there is something magical and exclusive about the human experience of life and that every other life form is just a bunch of senseless atoms is incredibly narcissistic and superstitious. Like with pretty much everything biological it's more of a spectrum rather than a bunch of totally separate, unrelated categories. Where exactly the line should be I don't know, but given the above, setting it at plant v animals seems pretty safe, especially considering that the costs of doing so are basically non existent while drawing it higher up the complexity chain runs a risk of causing pain and suffering to literally millions of beings.
Maybe dumping one particular industrial chemical waste into drinking water supply won't really hurt anyone in the end, but it is an incredibly dickish move to do so when there is no benefit to it, but lots of potential harm and you don't know for sure.
Splintert said:
It is literally factual that robots are not alive. Even AI is just numbers collecting and working together to appear and seem alive. Robotic rights is completely absurd compared to animals rights, until an actual "true" AI is built; As in, actually has a functioning "brain," rather than resembling life. The Halo books actually have a great bit on this, where there are "dumb" AI's, who though are extremely smarter than the average human, are not actually "living" per se, compared to the "smart" AI's (E.G. Cortana) who have a working brain, scanned from actual humans.
And, back to actual animals, at least in terms of eating: I don't actually see a problem with eating them. In fact, humans eating meat is a mostly required (and thus natural) thing. I don't see how that makes humans eating animals "a waste for a 5 minute sensation for your mouth" but animals eating animals normal.
Now, modern sold meat I do disagree with. I'm alright with breeding animals to eat specifically, however they should be kept in good conditions and not be genetically changed inhumanely.
I don't actually have that big a problem with it, especially compared to modern animal living conditions, however when they're changed to the point they can't function properly anymore (such as modern chickens, who can't lift themselves after a year) that's where I dislike it most.
David Dire said:
Meat is definitely not required. Even super strict veganism is doable now that we can synthesize B12.
Animals are not a uniform category. Some are obligate carnivores, some are not, but that doesn't mean anything. "Animals" also kill people because they got one step too close to their cubs, eat their own young, kill each other for territory, eat feces and lots of other stuff. And the fact that they do it says nothing about whether we should do it.
It would be amusing, if it wasn't so depressing, how existentially threatening and upsetting the idea of not stuffing your mouth with dead bodies 24/7 is to so many people.
Not unlike when you tell a junkie there is life beyond <substance>. They too like to go to great lengths about how this is how it's always been and that there is No Substantial Difference (TM) between having a beer and spiking 2 grams of heroin up their veins every day. And you're just a boring prude who hates fun anyway.
Not unlike when you tell a junkie there is life beyond <substance>. They too like to go to great lengths about how this is how it's always been and that there is No Substantial Difference (TM) between having a beer and spiking 2 grams of heroin up their veins every day. And you're just a boring prude who hates fun anyway.
Splintert said:
I do not genuinely think that Eternal thinks that is true, and I don't think you think he genuinely believes that to be true either. As far as I can tell it is a speculative argument made to test the waters and the consistency of competing arguments.
Aside from that, how much a group of people agrees on one topic is not necessarily indicative of a similar level of agreement in another.
David Dire said:
I think Kurczak means to say from that comment is that it causes unnecessary suffering. Kurc just weighs the suffering of animals differently from you.
Given that humanity has issues with treating other humans (regardless of reason, be it nation, religion, culture, ethnicity and so on) as equals, it's a bit of a stretch to expect humanity as a whole to regard other life forms as equal; we're getting a bit closer, perhaps, but a hell of a long way off. Really, we should solve the issues within our own societies and cultures (yeah, I know, also not likely to happen in any of our lifetimes unless something miraculous happens) before we start trying to hammer away at the rights of other lifeforms (possibly including AI, when it eventually meets enough criteria to be 'intelligent').
Regardless of what I've just said, whether or not one agrees with it, a bit of mindfulness of what you eat (Plant, Animal or both) could go a long way to finding a balance in all of this.
Regardless of what I've just said, whether or not one agrees with it, a bit of mindfulness of what you eat (Plant, Animal or both) could go a long way to finding a balance in all of this.
NewToTheGame
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Animals taste good. I can never see myself not eating meat. I can see myself starting to eat vegans.
Actually, there is. In psychology and neuroscience there are accepted ways to measure pain behaviourally. Crudely speaking, humans and other complex animals pass more of these tests than plants or computer programs (mostly). These fields make a distinction between simple nociception, and awareness of pain. An animal with nociception will reflexively withdraw from damaging stimuli, but an animal with an awareness of pain can respond in more complex ways.
For example, imagine that there is a rat in a cage with two troughs of water. One is plain water and the other is water with a pain-killer dissolved in it. A healthy rat will tend to drink from the normal trough, but a rat with inflamed joints will tend to drink from the trough with pain-killer in it. This ability to make trade-offs is clearly something more than a simple reflexive response to harmful stimuli. Note also that pain-killing drugs are not something the rat has evolved to deal with. Plants do not show this kind of flexibility in their behaviour, but many complex animals (including fish and crustaceans) do.
Maybe not. If things like cows, chickens, and pigs can suffer anywhere near as much as humans can, then animal farming is probably where humans are causing the most suffering, simply because there are many billions of animals involved.N0body said:
