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U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

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Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#471

Post by deltaonefour »

watwut wrote: post #446
deltaonefour wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Evolutionary biology is overused as justification for human behavior. Let me get one thing straight. I am not justifying anything. My angle is, what's the point? Don't justify anything at all. We're evil for killing, so be it. I am looking at it from a completely dispassionate angle. I do not need to somehow merge and mutate my moral framework to make it work with the existing reality. >We were not "designed" to eat…

> Other animals have also been shown to "befriend"/care for/grieve over animals of different species, so our own capacity to sympathize for animals should be no surprise. This part is actually true. Some animals do befriend, cooperate with or grieve over animals of different species. Not all animals are bugs and spiders. > Empathy evolved to aid in survival of our genome, but when empathy evolves to the point where w…

>Evolution is not a god.

Never said such a thing. However we can influence macro features through something called artificial selection. In this sense we design something through the same mechanism used as natural selection. The difference is, the hand that guides is artificial rather then natural but the outcome is the same: a design, a machine with a specific purpose. Man... this is just pedantry. I'm not here to discuss the definition of a unimportant word.

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#472

Post by deltaonefour »

Scarblac wrote: post #434
deltaonefour wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Design implies intent— it implies that something was developed for a purpose, that it's _supposed_ to be used in a certain way. You could say "design" by natural selection which is MY primary intent. What is the appropriate word if not design? Your hands have a purpose even if they were not "designed." The purpose in this case is to grasp things. The purpose of the human body is then to eat meat and vegetables. The…

It means that our ancestors happened to survive by eating meat, among other things, and produced us. Nothing more.

There's more. It means the way you think, your health and your physical features are all naturally designed to help you obtain meat (and veggies).

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#473

Post by nsonha »

tcgv wrote: post #360
dexwiz wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I heard, the pig lived a relativity good life. It was well cared for by the large animal veterinary school on campus. Had more space and better food than any factory raised pig. All experiments passed an ethics review. The pig was anesthetized before any procedure. The number of experiments may sound barbaric on the surface, but it was to reduce the overall number of pigs used in trials. Modern medicine wou…

Thanks for your clarification. It's good to read that the pig was well cared and experiments passed ethics reviews. To be fair your original comment was lacking this information, hence when I first read it felt (unintentionally as we can see now) a bit cold-hearted to me as well.

lol that's it? If they said something like "how you feel about it is inconsequential" I would accept it as a pragmatic/stoic way to look at it. There is no way a life in a lab can be even remotely good, well cared or not, but it's hard to compare when a typical life of a pig ends with being slaughtered, only to end up expired pieces of meat most of the times.

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#474

Post by deltaonefour »

robotresearcher wrote: post #440
deltaonefour wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Human beings are also designed for aggression towards each other, yet we generally try to control those parts of our 'savage nature' in modern society. No. There is no evolutionary benefit for raw aggression. Raw aggression appears during times of limited resources where aggression contributes to survival. Humans as all living things, are designed to survive and use any means to achieve it. Given minimal resources w…

> There is no evolutionary benefit for raw aggression. Raw aggression appears during times of limited resources where aggression contributes to survival. Those sentences seem to contradict each other very directly.

The benefit doesn't just exist for no reason. It only exists because of limited resources. When resources are not limited we don't display aggressive behavior.

We are not living in a time of limited resources therefore it is actually evolutionary detrimental for us to be aggressive. It's not a coincidence that our popular culture de-emasculates itself bit by bit every decade. It's because we live in plentiful times and our behavior (which is conditioned through natural selection) reflects this.

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#475

Post by wruza »

Blikkentrekker wrote: post #211
micromacrofoot wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it’s just a lifetime of conditioning really

I also remember reading about a criminal defence attorney who did not handle cases involving sex crimes. Apparently he was fine with defending murder suspects, but not suspects charged with even street groping. Or Gerard Spong's statement of being willing to defend anyone charged with anything, except Dési Bouterse; there are certainly worse military dictators on the planet.

An attorney? I've had a hard time finding any attorney (not in US) for my grand-uncle who groped an underage girl on the street. Almost everyone refused, despite my request was only to get any information about the case^ and where it may possibly go, not the actual defense. The person who agreed to help said they wouldn't do it too, but they were asked by people they couldn't say no to. (Uncle ended up in an asylum deemed mentally unfit, freeing my family from making hard decisions about his action.)

^ e.g. checking whether that could be a setup, a misunderstanding or an overreaction to an innocent/unconscious action; it wasn't any of that.

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#476

Post by deltaonefour »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #450
deltaonefour wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not weird at all. Biologically speaking, we are designed to eat meat. Our bodies produce all of the enzymes, such as protease and lipase, necessary for the breakdown and absorption of meat. The weird thing is how we developed sympathy and concern for such things. Human civilizations' current abundance of resources allows us the luxury to develop moral "philosophies" and become "vegetarians" effectively masking o…

You are also designed not to harm your fellow beings. That may sound like a contradiction, but it's just the "fellow beings" parts that is culturally or individually changed. There have been soldiers who went to war who couldn't shoot their enemies, even though they might even have "wanted" to. Compassion seems to be a very fundamental building block of the Human mind.

You are designed to survive. If that survival involves harming people than that is what will occur.

You are also designed to fuck a woman and make her pregnant and many men will fulfill this goal at any cost. Hence why rape exists.

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#477

Post by nsonha »

deltaonefour wrote: post #353
Sporktacular wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird how this is said without a shred of sympathy or concern for an intelligent, helpless creature. Weirder how it can be said without a sympathetic or concerned response. I hope we can someday move beyond seeing animals as a mere resource.

It's not weird at all. Biologically speaking, we are designed to eat meat. Our bodies produce all of the enzymes, such as protease and lipase, necessary for the breakdown and absorption of meat. The weird thing is how we developed sympathy and concern for such things. Human civilizations' current abundance of resources allows us the luxury to develop moral "philosophies" and become "vegetarians" effectively masking o…

> The weird thing is how we developed sympathy and concern for such things

stupid comment of the year. We kill and eat animals, we sympathize with animals being killed, like where is the contradiction? How about sympathize with animals being killed unnecessarily? (I'm no longer talking about experimenting, just killing in general)

How about we kill other human beings in wars, in capital punishment, does that elude having sympathy for them?

> Human civilizations' current abundance of resources allows us the luxury to...

...kill in excess, bingo

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#478

Post by osrec »

tricky wrote: post #26

You might be asking, why a pig? I don't know, but forever ago I wrote software for a cardiovascular imaging lab and pigs were their primary test subjects. I was like, "why pigs?" and the PI was like, "Imaging-wise, pig hearts aren't too different from humans. Plus, we can give them a heart attack in the scanner and not go to jail. Some labs use dogs. I just can't do that."

What does PI stand for here?

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#479

Post by Scarblac »

deltaonefour wrote: post #472
Scarblac wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It means that our ancestors happened to survive by eating meat, among other things, and produced us. Nothing more.

There's more. It means the way you think, your health and your physical features are all naturally designed to help you obtain meat (and veggies).

I guess. But I spend most of the day sitting in a chair typing things on a keyboard. So there is a lot of flexibility.

And I believe that more or less the only thing that sets us apart from animals is that we can reflect on our own actions. We choose. And that also comes with responsibility for our choices.

To argue that something is OK just because it "is in our nature" doesn't cut it for creatures with the ability to discuss this on HN. Is my personal belief.

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#480

Post by zizee »

fastball wrote: post #456
zizee wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, perhaps it can be justified by the greater good, but that should not preclude feeling sorry for the animal in question.

Who said you're not allowed to feel sorry for it? I feel like OP is being strawmanned. It's not like dexwiz said "fuck pigs test em more".

Well the grandparent responded to a comment observing no sympathy being shown, with a comment that showed no sympathy, instead with reasoning for why it's worthwhile, and downplaying any suffering. I am not saying dexwiz was encouraging/promoting suffering of pigs, but they were ignoring the original call to express sympathy to these animals.
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