Rats free each other from cages (2011) • Hacker News Board

Re: Rats free each other from cages (2011)

#51

Post by tremon » Sun, Jul 03, 2016, 2:53 PM UTC

saalweachter wrote: post #40

dogma1138 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30 rats are plenty if they selected them properly - different gene pools, different breeders etc...

You wouldn't necessarily care about genetic diversity for this sort of experiment. This experiment isn't trying to say "all animals" or "all rat species" exhibit this behavior; the interesting thing is that any animal does.

For me, the more important question is not whether all test subjects were genetically diverse: it's more important that the free rat and the caged rat are dissimilar. The situation would be vastly different if the rat pairs were related, since there is a genetically selfish motivation for caring for those within the same gene pool.

Re: Rats free each other from cages (2011)

#52

Post by bchjam » Sun, Jul 03, 2016, 2:54 PM UTC

grecy wrote: post #9

I feel certain that in the near future we will discover animals are a lot smarter and more emotionally developed than we currently realize, and future generations will look back on our treatment of them with disgust.

"smart" is often interpreted as a measure of skills with symbol systems, rather than any general capacity to cultivate understanding. it wasn't that long ago that this sort of reactionary logic was used to justify enslaving large populations of humans. bias borne from the relative locality of individual existence is hardly a solved problem for humanity. In future I'd hope for greater understanding and less disgust

Re: Rats free each other from cages (2011)

#53

Post by projektir » Sun, Jul 03, 2016, 2:55 PM UTC

> The idea that we should have moral compunctions about biological reality seems absurd to me

Why? We seem to have plenty of moral compunctions about lots of other biological realities. Otherwise, why do anything at all?

As humans, we have so far not acted in a manner that implies we're completely OK with biological realities. We keep trying to change them. Hopefully, it will continue this way.

Most people agree that they do not want to suffer. That's what makes it evil. It's not a difficult concept.

Re: Rats free each other from cages (2011)

#54

Post by senand » Sun, Jul 03, 2016, 2:55 PM UTC

Amezarak wrote: post #45

andai wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, could you kill an animal and cut it up? Do you realize you pay people to do this every time you buy meat? Are you cool with that?

I have, and it's not really a big deal. Humans and many other great apes are opportunistic carnivores. The idea that we should have moral compunctions about biological reality seems absurd to me, and I have yet heard any argument than "suffering is evil; animals experience suffering; killing animals necessitates their suffering; therefore eating animals is evil." I don't deny the second proposition, I deny the first,…

So if suffering isn't ethically inacceptable, then torture of human beings is also OK for you? To me it seems that what you're saying essentially means that you just don't have any morality at all.

Re: Rats free each other from cages (2011)

#55

Post by mudil » Sun, Jul 03, 2016, 2:56 PM UTC

It all goes down to the origins of morality. Politicians and clerics often repeat the mantra of religion and society creating a moral code for us, but observations and experiments with animals (and even plants) show that altruism, empathy, and cooperation spontaneously arise from the evolution. Excellent book on the subject is "The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates" by Frans de Waal.

Re: Rats free each other from cages (2011)

#56

Post by AlexeyBrin » Sun, Jul 03, 2016, 3:01 PM UTC

andai wrote: post #39

y4mi wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hah, as if the abuse would stop with that acknowledgement. its beyond unlikely that we, as the human race, become vegetarian. as such, we'll never stop abusing other animals beside us. on that note: i'm not a vegetarian either, nor am i planning to become one.

I'm curious, could you kill an animal and cut it up? Do you realize you pay people to do this every time you buy meat? Are you cool with that?

Yes, I done it. It is a question of where you were born and the culture in which you were born. Don't extrapolate your own feelings and cultural idiosyncrasies to everyone. People live in wildly different circumstances even today.

It is interesting that personally I find more disgusting the mutilation of animals (castration for example) than actually killing them for food.

Re: Rats free each other from cages (2011)

#57

Post by 4lejandrito » Sun, Jul 03, 2016, 3:02 PM UTC

I find it odd that anyone able to cage rats for days in that cruel way is going to be able to identify any kind of empathy at all.

How can you identify empathy if you don't even feel it?

I guess this is how humans progress but I can't help feeling something wrong with it.

Re: Rats free each other from cages (2011)

#58

Post by jsnathan » Sun, Jul 03, 2016, 3:04 PM UTC

y4mi wrote: post #37

okasaki wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not the only one I think that all this time, human beings have been watched by creatures whose perceptions and understanding have been so far in advance of anything we have been able to accept, because of our vanity, that we would be appalled if we were able to know, would be humiliated. We have been living with them as blundering, blind, callous, cruel murderers and torturers, and they have watched and known…

hah, as if the abuse would stop with that acknowledgement. its beyond unlikely that we, as the human race, become vegetarian. as such, we'll never stop abusing other animals beside us. on that note: i'm not a vegetarian either, nor am i planning to become one.

I believe that the development of synthetic meats that are both cheaper and of a more homogeneously high quality will supplant butchered meat, and eventually enable us to outlaw it.

The science is happening as we speak.

Re: Rats free each other from cages (2011)

#59

Post by nxzero » Sun, Jul 03, 2016, 3:04 PM UTC

gweinberg wrote: post #32

nxzero wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Maybe the real rats smelled like food, were a sign of food, etc.)

Maybe, but in that case you'd expect more male rats to be cage openers than females.

Not following, what's the link between male rats, opening cages, and foraging for food?

Re: Rats free each other from cages (2011)

#60

Post by Amezarak » Sun, Jul 03, 2016, 3:07 PM UTC

senand wrote: post #54

Amezarak wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have, and it's not really a big deal. Humans and many other great apes are opportunistic carnivores. The idea that we should have moral compunctions about biological reality seems absurd to me, and I have yet heard any argument than "suffering is evil; animals experience suffering; killing animals necessitates their suffering; therefore eating animals is evil." I don't deny the second proposition, I deny the first,…

So if suffering isn't ethically inacceptable, then torture of human beings is also OK for you? To me it seems that what you're saying essentially means that you just don't have any morality at all.

I take the view that morality is herd instinct in the individual, and that it is more productive to look at it as a sociological phenomenon instead of resurrecting platonic idealism. Whatever the herd deems good is Good, whatever the herd deems evil is Evil. There is no objective morality written on stone tablets that we can consult to determine that torture is Evil or that killing animals is wrong. That's why we have plentiful examples of cultures throughout human history, composed of intelligent, thoughtful people, who saw absolutely nothing wrong with torture.

This 'herd instinct', by evolutionary necessity, will tend towards in-group altruism in any social animal, but the details, the bylaws, and everything else will be driven by accidents of history and by fashion. It may be that one day that the great human herd of western civilization will collectively decide that eating meat is evil; I sure hope not, I prefer our current fashions (but then I would, having grown up with them.)