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Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

nytimes.com

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Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#311

Post by kif »

ericabiz wrote: post #300
kif wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I've heard recovery from jaw surgery can be trying. What was your experience like?

It was certainly not easy. I took 5 weeks off of work! It’s not in my nature to stop working for so long, so that was a strange experience. Recovery has been good. I look better now, so that’s awesome...a good side effect! I have some remaining “weird feeling” in my lower left chin area, but it doesn’t really bother me. I am 11 months post-op now and get my braces off next month. Overall I’d definitely recommend the…

Glad the procedure was successful for you. We're still trying to find what the best solution might be for my wife, but it gives me hope to hear success stories like this. Thanks!

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#312

Post by lotsofpulp »

natroniks wrote: post #302
lelanthran wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I grappled with the decision to have brises for my sons. I don't think it's possible to know or define how traumatic such a procedure is; is it worse than giving a 6-month old pierced ears? Yes, the foreskin doesn't grow back > Is it worse than travelling through the birth canal and having your umbilical cord severed? Yes, because travelling through the birth canal is required to live, and doesn't affect sex in lat…

> Yes, the foreskin doesn't grow back Lip and tongue ties don't grow back. Neither do teeth. Parents remove their kids' body parts if they think it's best for them. Are straight teeth healthy or just aesthetically pleasing? Is clear speech healthy or just valued in our culture? > Yes, because travelling through the birth canal is required to live, and doesn't affect sex in later life. Also, it doesn't result in any a…

> I'm suggesting that we consider not everything that seems obvious is in fact obvious. Should I keep my kid from having routine blood drawn or vaccination because the needle hurts? Stop clipping their nails or cutting their hair? These are all cultural practices, there's nothing intrinsically good about grooming in this way.

How could one have raised 3 kids and write there is nothing intrinsically good about clipping nails? Or even done manual labor? It is one of the most basic tasks a parent has to do with a baby unless they want a baby that makes itself bleed all the time. Cutting nails is just a practice, it has obvious practical benefits.

And comparing blood tests, vaccines, and cutting hair to genital mutilation makes me think either you are trolling or our realities are so incongruent that there is no purpose in conversing.

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#313

Post by lotsofpulp »

natroniks wrote: post #296
jl6 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it worse than giving a 6-month old pierced ears? Is it worse than travelling through the birth canal and having your umbilical cord severed? Since you asked the question, I’ll give what I think is the obvious answer: yes, of course it’s far worse than both of those things. By the way, I wouldn’t pierce a baby’s ears either, but at least that heals over and leaves minimal lasting damage. You can’t get foreskin ba…

There are medical procedures parents must decide to pursue or not, many are voluntary. Should I get my toddler's fremulum snipped even if there's no guarantee it helps their speech? Should teeth be extracted to help straighten out other teeth even if it results in weeks of pain? Are you saying that straight teeth are of more value than religious identity? There are many hard choices a parent must make; I think circum…

> If you want to debate the biological merits of circumcision, you're missing the religious or cultural value.

If you are assigning religious or cultural value to an act that needlessly mutilates your child’s body, you are missing the principle of freedom and letting people have ownership of their bodies. There are cultures that “value” binding feet, stretch out lips and earlobes, poke holes in various places, and face tattoos.

That has no bearing on the fact that people should not have a cosmetic alteration done to their body without their permission.

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#315

Post by lisper »

tremon wrote: post #268
lisper wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I know. But I don't know of any word that means "attribute personhood to a non-person". Humans tend to conflate humanness and personhood.

So because you couldn't find a single word to convey your meaning, you chose to shoehorn a semi-related word into the sentence in the hope that every reader would understand your tortured meaning? Why not use the more accurate multi-word construct? HN doesn't charge per word, last I checked.

You say "the more accurate multi-word construct" as if it were obvious that there is a single "accurate multi-word construct" that is already part of the English corpus that I could have employed here. If there is, I'm not aware of it, so I would have had to invent one. That would have taken considerable effort. Inventing new language constructs is not so easy, especially for subtle and emotionally fraught concepts like this.

And yes, I thought people would figure out what I meant because I provided three references, which were the actual substance of my comment. I thought people might read at least some of those and figure out what I meant.

Also, since you've decided to go all language-nazi on my ass, I looked up the dictionary definition of "anthropomorphize". There are two of them:

1. to attribute human form or personality to

2. to attribute human form or personality to things not human

So it is absolutely possible to anthropomorphize a human baby, and all the people who have criticized me for using that word can go eff themselves. Democracy and human civilization are crumbling and the best thing you can find to do with your time is criticize my choice of vocabulary, and get it wrong to boot? Bah to that. Life is too short.

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#316

Post by lisper »

prometheus76 wrote: post #67
lisper wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fair question. And I'm not saying it is wrong, only that it might be. Let me give a slightly less fraught example: we have an instinct to "honor our dead" and not to "desecrate their bodies." Does that make sense? The dead person doesn't care. Does it even make sense to talk about a dead "person"? One might argue that no dead thing can be a person, it's just a (dead) thing that was once a person and still ha…

The identity of someone is not just their body, and, while they may not be aware of how their body is being treated, an assault on their body can still be quite traumatic for those who do remember the person and in whom their identity still lives.

Yes, indeed, and I don't want to diminish in any way the value of mourning the dead. My point is just that that value accrues to the living, not to the dead.

So there may well be value in minimizing the pain of infants even if they don't actually experience pain. The policy decisions do not turn exclusively on the answer to the philosophical question.

But it's not a no-op either, because if you are going to (say) administer anesthetic to a baby you'd better be sure that the net benefits outweigh the costs to the baby.

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#317

Post by momenti »

archon1410 wrote: post #276
momenti wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This inflicted pain and damage appears to have no significant impact on adult quality of life though. Circumcision may also even reduce the bacterial load and hence reduce chances of infections and cancer: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/12/10/acc-is-infant-circumci... It's a non-issue.

> This inflicted pain and damage [...] is a non-issue. hmmmm.

Read the [...]. The harm is to minimal that it is a non-issue.

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#318

Post by momenti »

LocalH wrote: post #278
momenti wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This inflicted pain and damage appears to have no significant impact on adult quality of life though. Circumcision may also even reduce the bacterial load and hence reduce chances of infections and cancer: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/12/10/acc-is-infant-circumci... It's a non-issue.

Genital mutilation is abhorrent. End of story.

It is very minor mutilation though, it does not matter.

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#319

Post by momenti »

Kaze404 wrote: post #290
momenti wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This inflicted pain and damage appears to have no significant impact on adult quality of life though. Circumcision may also even reduce the bacterial load and hence reduce chances of infections and cancer: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/12/10/acc-is-infant-circumci... It's a non-issue.

Your comment presumes that only a persons quality of life as an adult is important, which is a take I don’t think is defensible.

Even a few days or weeks after the mutilation the consequences are extremely minor. It is a very low-priority issue.

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#320

Post by causality0 »

momenti wrote: post #242
causality0 wrote: post #165

Most people are familiar with the sound of a baby crying, and they think that's the worst sound a baby makes. It isn't. A normal baby's cry sounds absolutely nothing like a baby screaming in agony, which is a fact I discovered the first (and last) time I saw a video of a circumcision. Today we look back and can't imagine how people of centuries ago saw things like slavery and religious oppression as normal. Sometimes…

This inflicted pain and damage appears to have no significant impact on adult quality of life though. Circumcision may also even reduce the bacterial load and hence reduce chances of infections and cancer: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/12/10/acc-is-infant-circumci... It's a non-issue.

Cutting the outer ears off an infant would also have no significant impact on adult quality of life, yet if a parent tried to do that they'd be arrested.

As someone who didn't face circumcision complications until puberty, I'd like to track down the doctor who did it to me and see how he likes having pieces carved off of him.

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