Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab • Hacker News Board

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#221

Post by slumdev » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 1:17 PM UTC

kaba0 wrote: post #178

slumdev wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, are trans folks immoral? Yes. > Organ transplants? OK, as long as they were taken from someone who was actually dead. Not all organs can be taken after death. In these cases, the transplant surgeon ends the donor's life in the process of harvesting. > Prosthetics? OK.

Is biological death the same as clinical one? Should someone be resurrected?

Death is irreversible, but our understanding of it keeps improving.

At one point, pulmonary arrest was considered death. Then, cardiac arrest. Now, we use the cessation of brain activity as an approximation, but there have been plenty of cases of patients with zero brain activity making full recoveries.

The best definition of death is probably information-theoretic death. But that's not something we know how to measure (yet), so the organ harvests continue:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information-theoretic_death

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#222

Post by 6510 » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 1:36 PM UTC

scoopertrooper wrote: post #214

nojokes wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you know that when you cut grass it sends out distress signal - the lovely smell of fresh cut grass. In principle it is the grass screaming out loud in horror. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/30573/what-causes-fresh-... Unfortunately we can't survive without hurting other species.

Humans are also great at personifying non-person things. The grass isn't 'screaming out in horror', rather it's emitting a chemical that its evolved to emit in response to certain stimuli.

Its one giant organism, we are awfully hung up on that its parts are not touching and imagined some fringe type of individualism like covering your eyes with your hands makes you invisible. We are nothing without context.

We are slaughtering, maiming and torturing people (plants and animals) all of the time, non stop, since the beginning. We build ever more sophisticated machines to do it. I cant even look at the butcher robots that feed me.

Chimeras might actually improve the situation. It would force us to question our holier than thou, my shit don't stink attitude. I for one welcome our chimera underlings. It will be a revolution of philosophy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_ape_language

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#223

Post by jerry1979 » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 1:55 PM UTC

0_gravitas wrote: post #144

jerry1979 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is unnatural about the behaviour of humans. If we define "natural" to mean "things that happen", then sure, I would see no difference between natural things and human things. But we use the word "natural" to separate some of our actions from the actions of animals. I think we could come up with a list of things that people do that animals don't do. Looking at actions from the standpoint of culpability, intenti…

Stealing from another response: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/natural only one sub-item of these fifteen definitions of "natural" mentions a difference between human vs non-human. Lets look at the definition for nature: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nature Definition 2b is succint: "an inner force (such as instinct, appetite, desire) or the sum of such forces in an individual" According to t…

In my previous post I mentioned that I want to separate human actions from animal actions, and that we can actually do that using some sort of test. We have used the word "natural" and "unnatural" to talk about this difference, but I also used lots of other words.

I want to find what essential quality separates people actions from animal actions. It seems to me that all unnatural things got "affected by human discernment". Using that rubric, I find it interesting that all of the definitions of "natural" you provided fall into those categories of either "fundamentally affected" or "not affected" by human discernment where things left in their base state we call "natural" and things left in their affected state we call "unnatural".

Examples:

1. Natural justice - that humans have a kind of justice beyond what nature provide which also implies that humans have sussed out the various justices allotted by nature.

3. Adopted vs natural child - human convention creates long-lasting parent-child relationships without a birth connection.

10. Growing without human care

13. (a) Closely resembling an original, (b) freedom from artificiality -- both of which require a human to create the artificiality.

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#224

Post by maroonblazer » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 1:57 PM UTC

deertick1 wrote: post #81

maroonblazer wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have no gaurantees of the probabability of a successful organism - could be, as I said, some fucked up abomination which only exists to plead for death. Although I think this is unlikely, let's accept it as true for the sake of argument. Eventually I think it's fair to presume we'd come to understand which variations of the process produce your 'abomination' and solve that problem, such that we go on to produce…

Personally, I think it would not be a better outcome, no. What would be the point of creating new species? Sow more division and war and violence. I just dont see it turning out well. Inherently humans would be the "creators" of the other species. Sounds like a recipe for some horrible problems with speciesm.

> What would be the point of creating new species?

I've not given it a lot of thought but off the top of my head:

Imagine a monkey or ape that possesses above-average (for an ape) intelligence that could be a home-health assistant, taking care of an elderly person who wishes to maintain some independence and not move into a nursing home. Or a disabled adult who needs special care throughout the day.

Speciesism seems a remote risk when you consider the fact that our moral circle of concern has only widened across history.

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

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Post by jerry1979 » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 2:20 PM UTC

throwanem wrote: post #197

jerry1979 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is unnatural about the behaviour of humans. If we define "natural" to mean "things that happen", then sure, I would see no difference between natural things and human things. But we use the word "natural" to separate some of our actions from the actions of animals. I think we could come up with a list of things that people do that animals don't do. Looking at actions from the standpoint of culpability, intenti…

Bee and wasp foragers give each other directions to food sources every day - not usually by pheromonic recruitment, although a few species including V. mandarinia do use that method, but by communicating . As far as we know, they don't have symbolic language or anything like the same level of abstraction we do, which is reasonable when our brains outsize theirs by eight orders of magnitude, but that doesn't stop them…

Human language and animal language also differ in that people use grammars which recurse which shows a sense of abstraction (as you stated) and also objectivity.

Do you see a narrow difference between human output and animal output? Would you consider that difference somehow not "useful"? I think the bird and bee examples do not provide a compelling sense of language in the same way human talking does because animal language appears tightly bounded and human language through its recursive features appears possibly limitless.

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

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Post by willmadden » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 2:25 PM UTC

brbsix wrote: post #93

PostOnce wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, on day 19 three of them are clusters of cells, how about day 280? How about year 5? I think the argument is that a majority of people would find it unethical to continue to develop viable embryos, and even more unethical to conduct research on them were they to mature.

Research is already performed using human fetal tissue obtained from aborted fetuses. How is this significantly different? "A majority of people would find it unethical to continue to develop viable embryos" seems contradictory to the current legal status of abortion in the US. Perhaps it is unethical but worth doing regardless?

Legality is irrelevant. Degrading the sanctity of human life enables those in power to normalize atrocities.

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

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Post by eloff » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 2:34 PM UTC

127 wrote: post #168

throwaway5752 wrote: post #84

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I don't care for cancel culture, too. That doesn't mean we can be selective about who and what we spend our limited time on Earth discussing. Not talking about a pathologically lying conspiracy theorist is good for efficiency and mental health. To each their own.

I barely knew Alex Jones existed before he was starting to get censored from all kinds of platforms. What was previously just a blip on the radar, censorship turned into a mainstream talking point.

Agreed, that's the only reason I've heard of him either.

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

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Post by forgotmypw17 » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 2:36 PM UTC

arcticbull wrote: post #113

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never seen religion foisted or solicited in any way you suggest. I HAVE seen the state fail to help after burning through millions in many places.

If I wanted to provide help to the poor without involving my religion, I would do so by donating to charities that aren't religious, or I would do so away from church. Religious institutions help the poor in part as a recruiting drive. That doesn't mean the poor don't benefit, of course, but it is opportunistic IMO. > I HAVE seen the state fail to help after burning through millions in many places. Sure, but that's a…

>If I wanted to provide help to the poor without involving my religion, I would do so by donating to charities that aren't religious,

That's what I'm referring to, you'd donate to professionals, but would you do any of it yourself?

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

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Post by chacha2 » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 2:55 PM UTC

brbsix wrote: post #105

Edman274 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would absolutely be immoral to genetically engineer a human to be born so that their gender identity and their biological form don't match. It would absolutely be immoral to genetically engineer a human so that they need to have organ transplants. It would absolutely be immoral to have scientists in the lab spend years doing research on how to create a human being that will be born needing to use a prosthetic leg.…

If the technology were readily accessible to conceive what could be referred to as a "super human" (without genetic disorder, resistance to disease, no predisposition for mental illness, superior athletic ability, high IQ), would it absolutely be immoral to conceive a human being via an entirely natural process? If it is absolutely immoral to genetically engineer a human being that would require an organ transplant t…

> no predisposition for mental illness,[...] high IQ

Already you've delved into ideology.

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#230

Post by romanr » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 3:00 PM UTC

throwitaway1235 wrote: post #42

Layman question. Is it to be assumed that doing what the article suggests between human and pig, is much more difficult if trying to merge a human and a spider?

Or a FLY