Live data from Hacker News

Rats in Doom VR

medium.com

51–55 of 55 posts

Re: Rats in Doom VR

#51

This is insanely heartless.

That's a little strong. Arguably a bit inhumane but nothing like what we put them through for drug tests I'm sure.

Do animals (incl. humans) who go through one sort of torture find comfort in the fact that there are worst forms of torture?

Re: Rats in Doom VR

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a little strong. Arguably a bit inhumane but nothing like what we put them through for drug tests I'm sure.

Do animals (incl. humans) who go through one sort of torture find comfort in the fact that there are worst forms of torture?

Can you elaborate on what about this is torturous? It sounds like the experimenter treats the rats well, got them acclimated to his presence/the harness/the treadmill over time, and only ran the tests with them for less than two weeks.

Re: Rats in Doom VR

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a little strong. Arguably a bit inhumane but nothing like what we put them through for drug tests I'm sure.

Do animals (incl. humans) who go through one sort of torture find comfort in the fact that there are worst forms of torture?

Well this doesn't look like "torture" to me for a start. Admittedly I don't have much knowledge of what goes on in a rat's mind but this looks uncomfortable at worst. He says in the final line: "The experiment was approved by the Feinstein Institutes’ Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee."

Clearly I don't think that simply because worse torture exists that somehow placates a rat's mind, but as a human I choose to point my outrage where it is most effective.

Also, aren't these lab rats? Where would they be had he not picked them for this experiment?

Re: Rats in Doom VR

#54
post #40

To folks saying this is heartless, I'd urge you to scroll down to the "Experiment" section of the article: > I received three 8-week-old male Long Evans rats, Romero, Carmack and Tom. Romero was fearless (more like thrill-seeking) and loved grapes. Carmack was a real architect building around its home keeping it tidy; he was fond of bananas. Tom began shy, but held the most surprises in learning performance. > I spen…

I think the final line is more reassuring:

> The experiment was approved by the Feinstein Institutes’ Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee.

Sounds like he went through the proper channels.

Re: Rats in Doom VR

#55
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did not Feynman use rat experiments in his book to lay heavily into social studies? As i recall in the book, there was only one guy whose rat/mouse experiments had enough rigour, eliminating data disturbing experiment influences, systematically.

https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm search for "All experiments in psychology are not of this type" A paper found that in order to prevent rats cheating the floor needed to have sand to prevent them picking up on vibrations. The result should've been that experiments began incorporating this measure in their own setups, but instead the paper went ignored The paper: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/…

Well, we have better psychology experiments today. Just not published.

Run a filter for a situation and a query against a behavioural database at Amazon, Google, FB and you can build quite a nice insight into humanity.

Papers published with largest knowledge on humanity on earth : 0

Post reply on HN