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Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

erichgrunewald.com

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Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#121

Post by only_as_i_fall »

rootusrootus wrote: post #108
amusedcyclist wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its true though, not being able feel empathy for anyone or thing that is not normal. So any individual who can't would be well served going to a psychologist or being expelled from society entirely. Reduction of suffering being good is generally viewed as axiomatic. I don't want any part of any moral code that doesn't assume that. And I frankly don't care about the feelings of those who are indifferent to suffering.

I think it is a pretty big leap from 'maybe this is not automatically good' to 'you must be a pscyhopath.' If there were no trade-offs, then it would be a short discussion and we could definitely fall back on axioms.

I mean more likely the OP is just being edgy and is only performatively apathetic at a surface level, but the only thing we have to go off of are their words, which do point to some deeper problem.

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#122

Post by amusedcyclist »

matz1 wrote: post #120
amusedcyclist wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its true though, not being able feel empathy for anyone or thing that is not normal. So any individual who can't would be well served going to a psychologist or being expelled from society entirely. Reduction of suffering being good is generally viewed as axiomatic. I don't want any part of any moral code that doesn't assume that. And I frankly don't care about the feelings of those who are indifferent to suffering.

>or being expelled from society entirely So the main reason to exploit animal is because the other human hate it and that other human could harm you. I see so it has nothing to do with the animal suffering itself.

No its because the presence of such people in society only increases total overall suffering (animal or human).

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#123

Post by ptr2voidStar »

refurb wrote: post #110
valgor wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything, living or not, can be exploited. Being a person or nonhuman animal does not exempt one.

Are we exploiting plants when we grow them for food?

Not sure if you're being facetious not, but that is an interesting question.

I'd wager that it isn't exploitative however, because plants are not sentient, and (AFAWK), do not have thought/feelings or emotions.

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#125

Post by stickfigure »

_Microft wrote: post #106
chr1 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't eat the plants that are eaten by the animals. Not all pastures can be converted to fields, and converting the rest will actually reduce biodiversity and cause more sustainability issues.

Only a fraction (and sometimes even tiny fraction ) of the land is needed to supply the same amount of protein and calories when replacing animals sources with plant sources. That means that you actually will not need to convert all these pastures to fields because they are just not needed anymore. Here are charts that compare land use of different foods normalized per calorie / grams of protein: https://ourworldinda…

This is incredibly misleading.

I live in a community with ranches and farms. The ranchland looks like nature. Other than cows here and there, it's wildland. Coyotes, mountain lions, hawks, and all sorts of wildlife abound.

The farms are manicured flat with row crops, irrigation, fertilizers, pesticides, etc. Farming is vastly more destructive to the natural environment.

"Land use" measured in abstract square feet is not a useful concept.

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#126

Post by ghodith »

metta2uall wrote: post #47
tlarkworthy wrote: post #24

Neuroscience is built on animal testing. I can't see a realistic was of learning about the brain without animal experiments, unfortunately. https://speakingofresearch.com/2015/12/10/importance-of-anim... Do we want to give up learning the brain? (And other organs but brain is extra special)

If animal experiments were banned in neuroscience I think it's likely that would force the development of new technologies for studying the brain that would actually accelerate progress in neuroscience - "necessity is the mother of invention".

That seems unlikely. Look into techniques like ICSS which have no non-invasive substitutions. Banning animal experiments in neuroscience would just eliminate large swaths of research pursuits, leaving only observational techniques like FMRI, which would slow down the science greatly.

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#127

Post by irtigor »

indymike wrote: post #98
technocratius wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does so, but via an inefficient route ( plant -> animal -> human instead of plant -> human ), which causes huge sustainability and animal ethical issues.

Finding high protein / low carbohydrate plants to eat is hard. Many meatless meat products are hyper-processed. Last I looked a huge part of the population is diabetic. They can't eat grains, can eat small servings of nuts, fruits are mostly out, and greens alone aren't sustainable nutrition.

My charitable interpretation is that when someone says "eat plants", they don't really mean "only eat plants" but "don't eat animal products, eat plants + enriched foods + injections/pills/tablet", because we are omnivores and we need some nutrients that are incredibly hard to get naturally from plants, like vitamin b12, so in order to stay healthy, without eating animal products, there's only the enriched foods and/or pills/injections/tablets route.

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#128

Post by refurb »

ptr2voidStar wrote: post #123
refurb wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we exploiting plants when we grow them for food?

Not sure if you're being facetious not, but that is an interesting question. I'd wager that it isn't exploitative however, because plants are not sentient, and (AFAWK), do not have thought/feelings or emotions.

Not facetious. Parent said “anything live can be exploited”.

I guess my next question would be - if a lion eats a gazelle. Is it exploiting the gazelle?

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#129

Post by only_as_i_fall »

elliekelly wrote: post #53
amelius wrote: post #44

Would you rather have your drugs tested on potatoes?

Adult humans who have given informed consent would probably be preferable to potatoes. In most cases, at least.

I think there's an argument to be made that informed consent can't be given by someone who doesn't understand the underlying science, which is virtually everyone.

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#130

Post by matz1 »

omega3 wrote: post #76

Unpopular opinion but I'm yet to hear a convincing argument that the reduction of suffering is something that we should strive for. Edit, looking at the replies I'm disappointed in hn, expected better.

I personally don't care about animal suffering, whatever you do to non-human is fair game to me. I draw the line between human and non-human.

The only reason I may care about animal suffering is because the other human that care about animal can get angry and cause me trouble.

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