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Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

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Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#31

Post by Edman274 »

0_gravitas wrote: post #27

Awesome, love this bit mentioned: ``` “It is sometimes argued that … [the creation of part-human chimeras] will undermine an important moral view: that it matters, morally, which species we belong to,” the report reads. ”This argument assumes that we ought to preserve the view that boundaries between species are fixed, natural, and morally relevant, with full moral status reserved exclusively for humans. Yet even if…

From my perspective, the fact someone could say that a line is drawn "arbitrarily" is absolutely a worthless red herring. You could argue that the difference between pre-birth and post-birth fetuses is fuzzy and arbitrary, but we still don't allow people to kill newborns. You could argue that the difference between a child and an adult is a fuzzy, arbitrary line, but we still don't allow the exploitation of children. We can argue that the line between a combatant and a non-combatant in a warzone is a fuzzy, arbitrary line, but we make killing civilians a war crime. The fact that moral lines can be drawn in a way that someone considers to be arbitrary is basically no different in form or substance from arguing that morality does not exist. Nothing is fixed. Everything is fuzzy. If you can't draw a line because you could draw it somewhere else, the end result is barbarism.

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#32

Post by Nasrudith »

nerpderp82 wrote: post #4
hn8788 wrote: post #3

Not the first time, unlike what the article says [1]. I don't know if there was any follow-up on the previous case, but a big ethical concern was that human DNA was used to increase their brain capacity, and if they had been allowed to be born, then they would have been as intelligent as humans. So it raises the question of what counts as a human, and did the scientists effectively create "humans" in a lab, then term…

Anything with human levels of cognition and/or awareness should be considered a person.

The really awkward thing is that human level isn't a discrete level but a wide range based upon the set of all humanity. Not just our assumptions of such. If a new outlier was somehow born with the intelligence of a mealworm or what was previously believed to be a level only reachable by a superintelligence those vast anomalies would still have human level intelligence.

We don't actually apply the set based standards properly but instead based upon imaginary ideas of human level. If we did consistently operate on set logic and the directive people reduced to brainstem autonomous functions only would eithervmake eating plants unethical or we would be arbitrarily excluding humans from the set for reasons other than absolute ethical.

To go more fantastic it would be consistent with ethics to declare obligate murderous vampires who must eat humans non-human because their existence literally depends unconditionally on taking human lives and it falls into paradox of tolerance.

Instead our standard for the irreversible brain stem only is to eventually withdraw life support or harvest their organs as they are effectively judged dead.

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#33

Post by tcbawo »

Edman274 wrote: post #31
0_gravitas wrote: post #27

Awesome, love this bit mentioned: ``` “It is sometimes argued that … [the creation of part-human chimeras] will undermine an important moral view: that it matters, morally, which species we belong to,” the report reads. ”This argument assumes that we ought to preserve the view that boundaries between species are fixed, natural, and morally relevant, with full moral status reserved exclusively for humans. Yet even if…

From my perspective, the fact someone could say that a line is drawn "arbitrarily" is absolutely a worthless red herring. You could argue that the difference between pre-birth and post-birth fetuses is fuzzy and arbitrary, but we still don't allow people to kill newborns. You could argue that the difference between a child and an adult is a fuzzy, arbitrary line, but we still don't allow the exploitation of children.…

In fact, now that the line can be blurred means we will need to put the matter up for lawyers, legislators, and judges to decide. What can go wrong there?

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#34

Post by germinalphrase »

0_gravitas wrote: post #27

Awesome, love this bit mentioned: ``` “It is sometimes argued that … [the creation of part-human chimeras] will undermine an important moral view: that it matters, morally, which species we belong to,” the report reads. ”This argument assumes that we ought to preserve the view that boundaries between species are fixed, natural, and morally relevant, with full moral status reserved exclusively for humans. Yet even if…

The problem is not acknowledging that elementary school functions as daycare. That is obvious and important. The problem is asserting that it only functions as daycare (which many do - in bad faith - when the topic is discussed).

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#35

Post by fouc »

Lammy wrote: post #18
cylon13 wrote: post #14

> The announcement of the new chimeras will no doubt be labelled “unnatural” or “playing God” by some people – but the same could be said about many scientific breakthroughs. An iPhone is unnatural. This is quite possibly the worst take about anything I've ever heard. Intelligent human-monkey hybrids brought in to the world for the purpose of having their organs harvested, vs lil pocket computer.

The lil pocket computer is harvesting your thoughts though.

we're forcibly feeding our thoughts into the lil pocket computer

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#36

Post by Koshkin »

Lammy wrote: post #18
cylon13 wrote: post #14

> The announcement of the new chimeras will no doubt be labelled “unnatural” or “playing God” by some people – but the same could be said about many scientific breakthroughs. An iPhone is unnatural. This is quite possibly the worst take about anything I've ever heard. Intelligent human-monkey hybrids brought in to the world for the purpose of having their organs harvested, vs lil pocket computer.

The lil pocket computer is harvesting your thoughts though.

Well, hopefully not thoughts thoughts, not yet anyway.

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#37

Post by cookguyruffles »

giantg2 wrote: post #9

I'll file this under things that will create more problems than it solves...

Over a sufficient timeframe, any industrial process resulting from a method like this will eventually lead to new species in the wild. It won't happen in the same way nuclear meltdowns never happen

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#38

Post by honkycat »

0_gravitas wrote: post #27

Awesome, love this bit mentioned: ``` “It is sometimes argued that … [the creation of part-human chimeras] will undermine an important moral view: that it matters, morally, which species we belong to,” the report reads. ”This argument assumes that we ought to preserve the view that boundaries between species are fixed, natural, and morally relevant, with full moral status reserved exclusively for humans. Yet even if…

Its child jail where you are given obedience points for doing busywork. Total waste of time.

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#39

Post by hello333 »

Edman274 wrote: post #31
0_gravitas wrote: post #27

Awesome, love this bit mentioned: ``` “It is sometimes argued that … [the creation of part-human chimeras] will undermine an important moral view: that it matters, morally, which species we belong to,” the report reads. ”This argument assumes that we ought to preserve the view that boundaries between species are fixed, natural, and morally relevant, with full moral status reserved exclusively for humans. Yet even if…

From my perspective, the fact someone could say that a line is drawn "arbitrarily" is absolutely a worthless red herring. You could argue that the difference between pre-birth and post-birth fetuses is fuzzy and arbitrary, but we still don't allow people to kill newborns. You could argue that the difference between a child and an adult is a fuzzy, arbitrary line, but we still don't allow the exploitation of children.…

I'm pretty sure the idea that drawing a line somewhat arbitrarily implies there shouldn't be a line is a straw man. Who is arguing this? The quote from the article advocates for more stringent morals--that beings that aren't fully human should be given similar moral weight as humans. It also suggests, more broadly, that we should reconsider both where these lines are drawn and if they should really be lines instead of gradients. But I see no indication that the lines should become less restrictive or any trend toward barbarism.

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#40

Post by hokumguru »

0_gravitas wrote: post #27

Awesome, love this bit mentioned: ``` “It is sometimes argued that … [the creation of part-human chimeras] will undermine an important moral view: that it matters, morally, which species we belong to,” the report reads. ”This argument assumes that we ought to preserve the view that boundaries between species are fixed, natural, and morally relevant, with full moral status reserved exclusively for humans. Yet even if…

Four observations like this, and more, I suggest Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. It’s a phenomenal book about inspecting humanity from an outsider perspective
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