Insects feel persistent pain after injury, evidence suggests • Hacker News Board

Re: Insects feel persistent pain after injury, evidence suggests

#161

Post by samuel234 » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 3:01 PM UTC

xvector wrote: post #95

jacobush wrote: post #90

I didn't realise the impact until I remembered how common circumcision is in the US.

It’s ridiculous. This sort of mutilation should be flat out illegal. It’s physical child abuse, plain and simple.

Just a reminder that the gay population is quite large in the Bay Area so there is obviously a bias on this type of topics on HN.

When people say in the same message that doctors quote studies saying that circumcision is generally good for health, and that they know nothing about the topic but find these findings suspicious, you know what's going on.

By the reasonings found in this thread, removing wisdom teeth is mutilation too. There is nothing wrong with being against circumcision for your own penis or for the one of your children, but intolerance is quite disappointing.

It is not because you find something bad that this thing should be made illegal.

Re: Insects feel persistent pain after injury, evidence suggests

#162

Post by leetcrew » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 3:11 PM UTC

abootstrapper wrote: post #159

nkrisc wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not as horrible as you make it out to be. I was circumcised. In fact, I didn't even realize I was until I was much older, I just thought that's the way things were down there. Once I learned, I didn't care. Everything's fine. Everyone makes it out like it's torture; it's not. You can't even remember it. I have no deep trauma, no lingering issues. I'm just a normal boring guy, kind of like most guys who are circu…

Circumcised man here. It has not caused me any inconvenience. I find the tradition barbaric. I am philosophically opposed to the surgery on the grounds that it amounts to unnecessary cosmetic surgery on a non-consenting infant for the sake of tradition. Now you know a circumcised man that cares.

I agree that circumcision for the sake of traditional is essentially mutilation, and I definitely object to that. society is pretty secular these days though. I haven't talked to a lot of people about circumcision, but most of them (or their parents) just did it because it was the prevailing medical opinion at the time. if your doctor recommends a relatively common procedure for your child, you will probably go along with it unless you have a good reason to believe you know better.

Re: Insects feel persistent pain after injury, evidence suggests

#163

Post by slfnflctd » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 3:14 PM UTC

jbotz wrote: post #87

Hendrikto wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand the insistence of the article to place quotes around the word pain when referring to what insects feel. These are animals that can sense their surroundings and react to stimuli. How else would they be convinced to avoid dangerous situations, than by an unpleasant sensation? If you build a robot which senses dangerous stimuli and avoids them, does it feel pain? Equating reaction to stimuli with pa…

You feel pain, right? Well, an insect is a lot more like you than a robot... the mechanism by which it it decides what to seek and what to avoid is based on an infrastructure that's very similar to your own, even if much simpler. And the experience of pain appears to be something very fundamental in the wiring of living things, its avoidance being very directly connected to evolutionary success. So it is absolutely l…

This seems like the most rational stance to me now.

I had a pastor once attempt to teach me that all animals are basically robots, and that this justifies treating them however we want. In his mind, we're the only ones actually 'awake'. I suspect a whole lot of people think like this on some level in order to justify all the ongoing barbaric treatment they willingly endorse or carry out.

Hearing that shook me up for a bit, but in the long run it accelerated the process of me abandoning religion.

Re: Insects feel persistent pain after injury, evidence suggests

#164

Post by pessimizer » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 3:14 PM UTC

torbjorn wrote: post #158

xvector wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s ridiculous. This sort of mutilation should be flat out illegal. It’s physical child abuse, plain and simple.

Oof the circumcision topic, this is one where everyone argues for however their own personal penis looks and reasons backward from that.

That may be how you choose your positions on issues, but it's not universal. I think circumcision is wrong and would not circumcise my child, but I was excellently circumcised and don't miss any sensitivity I hypothetically would have had.

Re: Insects feel persistent pain after injury, evidence suggests

#165

Post by kja1123 » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 3:15 PM UTC

matz1 wrote: post #152

kja1123 wrote: post #144

And people say boil the lobsters alive, they don't feel any pain.

Well, even if lobster is proven beyond reasonable of doubt that it feel horrible pain, I'm still going to boil it alive.

Why? Why not kill it humanely first?

We don't boil cows/pigs/chicken alive.

Re: Insects feel persistent pain after injury, evidence suggests

#166

Post by pessimizer » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 3:16 PM UTC

leetcrew wrote: post #162

abootstrapper wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Circumcised man here. It has not caused me any inconvenience. I find the tradition barbaric. I am philosophically opposed to the surgery on the grounds that it amounts to unnecessary cosmetic surgery on a non-consenting infant for the sake of tradition. Now you know a circumcised man that cares.

I agree that circumcision for the sake of traditional is essentially mutilation, and I definitely object to that. society is pretty secular these days though. I haven't talked to a lot of people about circumcision, but most of them (or their parents) just did it because it was the prevailing medical opinion at the time. if your doctor recommends a relatively common procedure for your child, you will probably go along…

When I was a child, black newborns were circumcised without their parents being asked.

Re: Insects feel persistent pain after injury, evidence suggests

#167

Post by zaroth » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 3:19 PM UTC

deogeo wrote: post #120

stkdump wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the doctor has recommended my son undergo circumcision because studies have shown a reduction in the risk for serious diseases in circumcised men Source? Especially that this risk reduction outweighs the risks of the procedure is not proven as far as I know.

Looks like most medical organizations range from advising against circumcision, to considering making it illegal, with the notable exception of the US [1]. As for the protection against disease: "Male circumcision reduces the risk of HIV infection among heterosexual men in sub-Saharan Africa [..] The effectiveness of using circumcision to prevent HIV in the developed world is unclear;" [2] Since newborns are unlikely…

Requiring a family to wait until a boy is past puberty to consider a circumcision would be harmful, because the procedure is more difficult to perform, and poses a more difficult (and memorable) recovery period.

Parents have autonomy to make medical decisions for their infant children, and many are forced to make significantly more difficult decisions than a routine circumcision.

I was curious about the CIRP site you linked to and the policy statements they are referencing. I double checked just the first referenced policy statement, which is from the Australian College of Paediatrics. [1]

Interestingly, they reference a statement from 1996 which is no longer the current position. Evidence for the medical benefits of circumcision have gotten stronger, and the procedure has gotten safer and more likely to be performed with anesthesia. The updated statement [2] while still not advocating for routine circumcision for all male children, is, in particular, missing the passage which CIRP specifically highlighted in the 1996 position.

This calls into question whether CIRP is interested in presenting a factual list of current statements, or if they have a particular agenda they are attempting to serve in presenting cherry-picked out-dated statements with a specific viewpoint.

[1] - http://www.cirp.org/library/statements/acp1996/

[2] - https://www.racp.edu.au/docs/default-source/advocacy-library...

Re: Insects feel persistent pain after injury, evidence suggests

#168

Post by DanBC » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 3:23 PM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #167

deogeo wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like most medical organizations range from advising against circumcision, to considering making it illegal, with the notable exception of the US [1]. As for the protection against disease: "Male circumcision reduces the risk of HIV infection among heterosexual men in sub-Saharan Africa [..] The effectiveness of using circumcision to prevent HIV in the developed world is unclear;" [2] Since newborns are unlikely…

Requiring a family to wait until a boy is past puberty to consider a circumcision would be harmful, because the procedure is more difficult to perform, and poses a more difficult (and memorable) recovery period. Parents have autonomy to make medical decisions for their infant children, and many are forced to make significantly more difficult decisions than a routine circumcision. I was curious about the CIRP site you…

There is no medical benefit to circumcision. There is risk of harm.

Parents do make medical choices -- these would be situations where there is a benefit to treatment and where there is medical consensus that the treatment is worthwhile.

That's not the case for circumcision where most doctors agree it shouldn't be performed other than for actual medical reasons like phimosis.

Re: Insects feel persistent pain after injury, evidence suggests

#169

Post by pessimizer » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 3:25 PM UTC

GordonS wrote: post #141

hanniabu wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm simply not seeing how you made a connection between insects and aborted babies

I think the parent is attempting to ridicule the GP or trilialise the way they see circumcision - some Americans get practically religious with their defence of mutilating their newborn boys' penises.

I think the parent is making a rational comparison between many classes of being that we tend to define as either the animated unconscious or insensitive to pain in order to assuage guilt for killing them out of convenience.

I'm extremely pro-abortion and think it should be allowed for any reason by the mother until the fetus would be viable if birth were immediately induced. I will also continue to kill flying bugs who are unfortunate enough to get past my window screen but can't figure out how to leave. I will not refuse to see the comparison and I will address the potential cognitive dissonance.

Re: Insects feel persistent pain after injury, evidence suggests

#170

Post by Retric » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 3:25 PM UTC

hackinthebochs wrote: post #148

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I understand correctly, you're suggesting that animals could react to stimuli that we would consider painful by following the same behaviours that they would if they felt pain, not because they feel pain but because they have been programmed to follow those behaviours in response to those stimuli? I find this unlikely. The set of stimulus-response behaviours necessary to avoid every possible danger that might aris…

>by following the same behaviours that they would if they felt pain This is taking the claim I made too far. My point was that reacting to noxious stimuli does not a priori require the conscious experience of pain (which includes a suffering component). When it comes to analyzing sets of possible behaviors, that provides more evidence with which to decide between nociception and pain. I do think that most "animals" (…

They would have to experience some negative stimulus to avoid it. Disagreement with the term pain does not remove the resume that learned avoidance requires detection of a negative stimulus.

Further, while we separate negative stimulus into say thirst and pain, the fact you can torture people with either means the difference is ethically more semantic than meaningful.