191–200 of 319 posts
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The two situations aren't really comparable without more information. Clearly the people in A are still eating a craptonne of plants, and also have access to much more land per person than B, since they can afford to have a lot dedicated to very unproductive pasture.
Yeah, it's hard to compare and the greater yields of crops certainly bodes well for A. Though the productivity differences aren't as large as one would think - protein conversion ratios for smaller animals tend to be 2-3. It's worse for beef (~10) but you have to consider that half the cows are creating milk which has a high protein conversion ratio. And it's potentially even better for animals when you consider the…
Half?
The claim that "probability of meaningful transfer between animals to humans can be astoundingly low, far below 50%" requires more scrutiny. Let's say drug b is being tested for treating condition A. Assume that it's found effective in rats. It seems the claim then is that probability of it also being effective in humans is less than 50% and sometimes 0%. But this in itself isn't a good enough argument against animal…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the reduction of suffering is not something that you internally see as valuable, you might want to check with a psychologist (I mean that plain matter-of-fact-ly). While I can construct philosophical arguments and know what nihilism is, outside of thought experiments this is highly unusual for any individual capable of any empathy at all.
> I mean that plain matter-of-fact-ly When you find yourself having to qualify such a statement, that could be a useful indicator that what you said isn't constructive.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, actually, it is. Omnivorous diets can be unhealthy, but not due to nutrition deficiency. The problems with those diets are all solved with moderation. Vegan diets have to deal with nutrient deficiency. Filling gaps in nutrition deficiency takes targeted food intake or supplements. Those aren't always available or cheap. People have food allergies that can eliminate them as candidates. They are hard to incorporat…
A diet is not implicitly nutrient complete simply because it contains animal products. You can still easily miss out on nutrients. All diets require ensuring that you have access to important vitamins and minerals. Like I said and showed, you can get all these things without eating animals products. You’re saying that I have no culture and that I’m a religious extremist (which seems contradictory a bit) for saying th…
I remember when that thread hit the HN front page.
About 1-2 days before that, another article was on the front page: It was about how Facebook was experimenting on it's users by manipulating the newsfeed and inducing certain emotions - e.g., filtering posts such that positive news dominate the feed or such that negative news do. There was some outrage in academia and larger society over Facebook's behaviour and Facebook was largely accused of doing unethical research on nonconsenting subjects.
The overwhelming opinion in the HN comments was that Facebook's actions were perfectly ethical: Facebook's users somehow already gave general consent to be experimented on when they signed up.
Then days later, the kernel research story dropped and everyone was suddenly up in arms and quickly turned into fervent supporters of informed consent in research.
Now talk is about actual lab animals and most posts apper very concerned about the various shades of gray on this subject.
I find that does tell a lot about the priorities of the HN readership.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
In the USA (excluding Alaska), something like 1/4 of all land area is directly used for animal grazing land, and something like 2/3 agriculture production goes to producing animal feed. These take huge amounts of water, fuel, and other resources. Beef production in particular is one of the leading causes of global climate change via CO2 emissions.
I love steaks and hamburgers as much as the next person, but we shouldn’t pretend it has a low environmental cost.
> You may have heard of a recent scandal where researchers from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities (UMN) intentionally tried to introduce bugs into the Linux kernel codebase as part of a research project. [...] This upset a lot of people – the Hacker News thread has received over 3000 points and around 2000 comments as I write this. I remember when that thread hit the HN front page. About 1-2 days before that, a…
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.
If the reduction of suffering is not something that you internally see as valuable, you might want to check with a psychologist (I mean that plain matter-of-fact-ly). While I can construct philosophical arguments and know what nihilism is, outside of thought experiments this is highly unusual for any individual capable of any empathy at all.
I want to second the clarifications by adrianN and shawnz -- there is a difference between not actively caring about suffering, and not even seeing the point in anyone caring about it.
It seems my "I in fact believe you should see a psychologist" worked exactly as well rootusrootus implied it would. Many seem to think I want to label the previous poster as a psychopath, and do so in hatred. That was not my intention. I admit, I fail at communication, regularly, even more so the more I try to refrain from it.
Although suggested otherwise, my message did *not* contain a diagnosis. Given this extremely limited context, I doubt anyone could give a proper remote diagnosis. And I especially did not attach a psychopathy label to the previous poster. I personally know of at least three mental/neurological atypical (and not voluntarily chosen) states that cause people to (partially) adopt nihilism, and I'm sure mental health professionals have seen quite a few more.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A diet is not implicitly nutrient complete simply because it contains animal products. You can still easily miss out on nutrients. All diets require ensuring that you have access to important vitamins and minerals. Like I said and showed, you can get all these things without eating animals products. You’re saying that I have no culture and that I’m a religious extremist (which seems contradictory a bit) for saying th…
No, you're a religious extremist because you're telling other cultures that they need to change in order to fit your belief system.
Good luck with life, friend, as you're bound to encounter many other "religious extremists" if your POV is so easily challenged.