Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

apnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

651–660 of 731 posts

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

#651

Post by aerostable_slug »

technothrasher wrote: post #550
cheese_goddess wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cats are "biologically designed to kill and eat flesh" but have you ever seen what cats do to the animals they capture for food? On the other hand, humans don't, as a rule torture our food and we usually kill our food before we eat it. Not all meat-eating animals have the same kind of behaviour toward their prey. Humans are "biologically designed" to love other animals and care for them. Not in an Elmyra Duff kind of…

> A lion could not domesticate a flock of sheep. It would just fall on the sheep and slaughter them, on the first day. What a simplistic view of lions. I agree that lions don't really have the capacity to domesticate a flock of sheep, but to suggest that they're mindless killing machines that would meaninglessly mass slaughter sheep the first chance they got is weird. They're complicated creatures with rich emotional…

Lions among other large cats regularly engage in surplus killing:

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

A local rancher lost a number of sheep to a mountain lion that apparently enjoyed surplus killing. After the first spree, the cat was captured, collared, and relocated but it came back and took out 11 more sheep plus an alpaca, after which it was culled by the state. Big cats are certainly interesting creatures, but it would be foolish to assume a given cat would care for something, eat it, or kill it for sport. They are all possible outcomes, and depending upon one's perception of cat psychology is a good way to get Roy Horn'ed and end up in a wheelchair.

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

#652

Post by MattRix »

deltaonefour wrote: post #622
MattRix wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their post missed the fact that evolution is about selection, not just single mutations.

No it doesn't. You're just assuming such.

They described a scenario where someone was born with mutated hands that happened to be useful for swimming after the earth floods. There’s no selection or evolution there.

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

#653

Post by pkaye »

SavantIdiot wrote: post #405
pkaye wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, I'm a kidney dialysis patient waiting 6 years on the list. In theory I'm approaching the front of the list but they still need to make sure I get good compatibility so who knows. I've know people who have waited for 8-10 years!

I'm pulling for ya! Have you been doing at-home dialysis or at a facility?

I'm doing at-home PD dialysis. At-home is generally best if people can manage it.

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

#654

Post by pkaye »

hycaria wrote: post #535
pkaye wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a kidney dialysis patient who is 6 year in the waiting list, I know the wait times have been slowly creeping up. Any bridging solution to reduce need for dialysis or even better forms of dialysis would be welcome. Despite the anti rejection medication people tell me they feel way better when they get a functional kidney.

Why do you have kidney failure?

An autoimmune disease called IgA nephropathy.

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

#655

Post by MattRix »

deltaonefour wrote: post #620
MattRix wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your scenario with mutated hands ignores that evolution is about selection, not just single mutations. If hands evolved over a period of millions of years to be able to push water better, you could indeed say they evolved for the purpose of swimming. This is similar to saying that an eye’s purpose is to see, or a heart’s purpose is to pump blood, which are hardly controversial statements. A purpose doesn’t have to im…

You're making assumptions and taking the conversation in a pedantic direction. I am aware of the nature of natural selection and how it builds complexity over time through various selection pressures not all of which are constantly aligned with end result. And although wings were initially little nubs not "designed" for flying you could say that wings are they are now are "designed" for flying. "Design" and "purpose"…

I’m not really sure why you bothered to reply, my comment had nothing to do with you. I was just pointing out the flaws in the scenario the parent comment presented.

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

#656

Post by pharke »

nvegater wrote: post #590
pharke wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This line of argument also supports the extermination of all living beings because it prevents all future suffering. Think about that before you use it.

I see it a bit different. Using your own sentence structure: "The line of argument supports the prevention of the existence of an undefined number of living beings to max. the quality of life of other existing living beings." The argument doesn't seem to me as simple as you are portraying it and I don't see where you got the extermination part from.

> the life of such pig would not even begin, which is a good thing

The comment I was responding to said nothing about increasing the quality of life of any living beings. It only asserted that non-existence is a good thing. I made the assumption that they came to that conclusion based on the reasoning that a pig that does not exist cannot suffer. I made the extension that you can also prevent suffering by immediately ending a life. Yes, there is a distinction between failing to breed another generation and immediately killing all members of the current generation but the end result is the same.

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

#657

Post by [deleted] »

deltaonefour wrote: post #618
nsonha wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 h…

>stupid comment of the year. You call me stupid and yet you're stupid enough to think that I care about anything else you have to say after you call me stupid? Why even bother wasting your breath?

[deleted]

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

#658

Post by Gigachad »

wruza wrote: post #462
Gigachad wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all cognitive dissonance in the end. People are quite happy to have illogical and inconsistent beliefs because it lets them remain entirely ethical in their heads. They will even become hostile when you challenge this because you are threatening the foundation of their ethics and mental health.

Otoh, relating to something is based on itself. It's a choice, not an obligation. In one ethical framework you're right, it's irrational to treat dogs better than pigs. In another, both lives are unimportant, but one picks dogs one level up for their utility. Inanimate objects also "experience" that. When you're sawing a plank, it's woodwork. When you're sawing a hammer, it's disrespect to the tool.

I’m pretty confident if someone filmed themselves sawing a hammer in half and filmed eating a dog. I know which one of these would receive hate and probably be taken off YouTube.

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

#659

Post by nsonha »

suifbwish wrote: post #639
nsonha wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not even a question, being born into a life of slavery and ultimately being slaughtered is worse than not being born. Think about it, you are born into a prison and given no chance to even develop a proper consciousness. This is very different than a fully aware human getting locked up in a prison.

However since the individual being born is not making the choice, it falls to the individual or group benefitting from the individual being born into the circumstance you described. Universal morality is a form of anthropomorphization, or projecting human characteristics onto an amoral natural world.

This is like the pro life argument.

I love it when people are so argumentative about such a simple thing. We are talking about birth control, there is no individual exists to make any choice.

> Projecting human characteristics onto an amoral natural world.

this is not a bad thing comparing to the alternative which is assuming that animals are too dumb to be sympathize with

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

#660

Post by MikeTheGreat »

W0lf wrote: post #388
MikeTheGreat wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, what? Are you saying that replacing a valve in your heart is "a fairly straightforward minimally invasive procedure"?

Pretty much standard procedure nowadays. The search term for this is TAVI (Transcatether Aortic Valve Implantation)

Huh. This is pretty cool: https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/transcatheter-ao...

They say that you might stay a night in the ICU, or perhaps a couple, but that's way way better than the week+ and months of recovery.

Well, I learn something new everyday - thanks!

Post reply on HN