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Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used for drug testing

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141–150 of 213 posts

Re: Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used for drug testing

#141
post #111
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there really a distinction between torturing humans and torturing pets? Aside from torture being torture, pets are members of people's families!

> pets are members of people's families! If you could only rescue one member from some kind of deadly emergency and they had equal chances, would you prioritize the pet over a human member of your family?

I would save my cat before a distant cousin I met like four times in my life, absolutely.

Re: Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used for drug testing

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what he did to children The media and the people who bought into their shameless attention-grabbing lies are the reason he had sleep problems. He was unanimously acquitted of all counts, but the media made his life into a living hell by consistently portraying him as a pedophile because it drove incredible engagement numbers. A justice system should be "innocent until proven guilty", and yet MJ was deemed guilty ev…

> yet MJ was deemed guilty even after proven innocent. He was not “proven innocent”; that’s not how the legal system works. He was “found not guilty” which is a much lower standard than “proven innocent”. (OJ Simpson was similarly found not guilty; do you think he was also “proven innocent”?)

I am aware. Being pedantically correct would ruin the intended rhetorical point of reversing the standard phrase, though. "Deemed guilty even after found not guilty" just doesn't really work. I even knew I was going to get a reply about OJ when I wrote it. Miscarriages of justice certainly do happen, but still we should broadly presume innocence until proven guilty, and none of the evidence or testimony in MJ's case came close to being as compelling as OJ's, nor was there any indication that the jury was making a political statement by acquitting.

Re: Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used for drug testing

#143
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pets are members of people's families! If you could only rescue one member from some kind of deadly emergency and they had equal chances, would you prioritize the pet over a human member of your family?

>> pets are members of people's families! > If you could only rescue one member from some kind of deadly emergency and they had equal chances, would you prioritize the pet over a human member of your family? If you could only rescue one family member from some kind of deadly emergency and they had equal chances, would you prioritize a stranger over a member of your family?

> would you prioritize a stranger over a member of your family?

I'll preface by saying that I don't have a pet. However, if one had to burn alive between a stranger's little girl and my cat, it's easier to empathize, "what if that were my daughter?". It's easy to imagine the father's pain, and because the girl is human, it's easier to imagine what might be going on in the little girl's head as well. As the heat's becoming too strong for her to bear, it's easier to imagine her expression, her pain, and her fear.

It's harder to imagine and empathize with what might be going on through a cat's head. They don't think as we do and don't express themselves as we do. It's not like one can't anthropomorphize and empathize that way, but it's not the same as empathizing with a human. It's harder to imagine and feel their thoughts and emotions to the same level of detail.

I'd feel for the cat, but I think the girl burning alive would give me the worse nightmares.

Re: Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used for drug testing

#144
post #103
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I had my ear surgery about 20 years ago, the doctor explained to me that I would be awake for part of the procedure, but the anesthesia meant that I would have no memory of it.¹ It’s a weird thing to think about whether that lack of memory would obviate the pain or discomfort of the moment. ⸻ 1. As it turned out, I was so frightened in the lead-up to the surgery that they had to do general anesthesia on me becau…

I had a dentist explain to me the same for getting my wisdom teeth out, as if it was a selling feature. At least for me, having my memory wiped is far more scary than just being put unconscious (or having some pain and a local anaesthetic).

A colleague warned me of the same when I was having my wisdom teeth removed. As a result, while I was being put under, I was very focused on the effects of the anaesthetic. I feel about as confident as one can be that I was completely unconscious during the entire operation. I remember the surgeon asking me to count to ten, and the specific feeling of my vision melting and swirling around, before suddenly waking up with the surgery over.

When I wake up from dreams, even with no memory of them, I sometimes have "a memory of a memory"; the tip-of-tge-tongue feeling that there's something interesting I'd experienced, but which I now can't remember what it was. But with the anaesthetic, there wasn't anything like that at all.

Re: Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used for drug testing

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Settling isn't an admission of guilt. It's plausible that he wanted to avoid the media circus that would inevitably result, and given that fighting it out in court was significantly more damaging to his reputation than settling the 90s case was despite being exonerated, he was probably right to settle. The article does also touch on the indications that those allegations were also not credible, although it doesn't do…

> I don't give much credence to new allegations. Where were these allegations when he was alive It’s worth noting that it’s common for it to take years or decades for victims to speak out against an abuser. Especially when the victims are children. Especially when the abuser is a prominent figure, like the literal King of Pop. I’m not going to try and convince you that these allegations are credible (though I believe…

The most recent allegations are from the Cascios. Frank Cascio turned 18 in 1999. He would have been 30 by 2011, when he was writing a book and in the media defending Michael. He tried to get the book turned into a documentary, but when that fell through, he instead extorted Jackson's estate for millions of dollars by threatening to make public allegations, and then did it anyways despite being paid off, allegedly after trying to extort the estate again for $200 million.

Another big allegation is from Wade Robson, who has turned the accusations into two documentaries. Wade Robson was 25 years old when, in 2005, he testified under oath that Jackson had never abused him as one of the witnesses called by the defense. He is now suing the Jackson estate for $400 million.

It's not like I can't imagine a child victim growing up and taking time to come to terms with abuse, but these people were actively defending him as fully mature adults, only to suddenly turrn on his estate for some reason. I see a pattern in the accusations, and that pattern is $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

Re: Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used for drug testing

#146

[flagged]

> MASS TORTURE MILLIONS OF NON-PET ANIMALS EVERY YEAR ... just so we can all have cheaper Big Macs. Torture - the infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or wounding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure.

Oh the dictionary defines a word, that makes it completely different then

Re: Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used for drug testing

#147

Live dissection and experimentation on “alive but drugged” human brains is mental. How do you ensure that you aren’t torturing a brain that can’t see, hear or scream? How are you held accountable?

This, exactly.

Every other part of the human body is understandable but the brain.

Reading the article and imagining its you, sheeeeesh. I really wonder how this passed ethical review. Yes the brain is an organ, and yes there’s probably consent and the body is officially proclaimed dead and this is near the best way to really extrapolate the empirical data prior to alive human trials.

But damn this article is a combination of words I did not want to read today nor imagine.

Re: Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used for drug testing

#148
post #60

Live dissection and experimentation on “alive but drugged” human brains is mental. How do you ensure that you aren’t torturing a brain that can’t see, hear or scream? How are you held accountable?

When I had my ear surgery about 20 years ago, the doctor explained to me that I would be awake for part of the procedure, but the anesthesia meant that I would have no memory of it.¹ It’s a weird thing to think about whether that lack of memory would obviate the pain or discomfort of the moment. ⸻ 1. As it turned out, I was so frightened in the lead-up to the surgery that they had to do general anesthesia on me becau…

Colonoscopies used to be like this in the US more often (“you’ll be awake but won’t remember it”). I feel bad for the me that existed in that time window of discomfort. 20 years later they did general anesthesia (family history of colon cancer).

Re: Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used for drug testing

#149

[flagged]

[flagged]

This was also my first thought in defense and to spot my hypocrisy. I spent many a minute going back and forth why am I judging a brain that lived a life and is “dead” more the the potential of a life, stem cell research, abortion in general and I gotta admit it was a invoking thought experiment.

I’m still on the acceptance side of abortion, stem cell research and other things like human cloning. They advance science, reduce human suffering - yes I get abortion doesn’t fit there exactly but it should be the mothers/parents right to ave access to abortion. All very political and highly debatable points today.

I understand if I accept that, what’s accepting experimentation on a brain dead brain - it should be a no brainer.

Easier because it’s just an artifact of a person that’s deceased but it is easy to invoke imagery in my own brain of an eternal torture chamber, someone’s consciousness locked away never recoverable or removable undergoing this amount of pain, but also is it pain if it can’t feel it?

The bodies other organs, it’s easy to dismiss as collections of cells, etc but: the brain just makes it harder to justify because it is the organ we use to interpret the world and imagining a world of pain and wondering what if that is the layer we are in now… is just scary.

Re: Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used for drug testing

#150
post #103
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I had my ear surgery about 20 years ago, the doctor explained to me that I would be awake for part of the procedure, but the anesthesia meant that I would have no memory of it.¹ It’s a weird thing to think about whether that lack of memory would obviate the pain or discomfort of the moment. ⸻ 1. As it turned out, I was so frightened in the lead-up to the surgery that they had to do general anesthesia on me becau…

I had a dentist explain to me the same for getting my wisdom teeth out, as if it was a selling feature. At least for me, having my memory wiped is far more scary than just being put unconscious (or having some pain and a local anaesthetic).

I was one of the last if not the last patient the dentist who took out my wisdom teeth gave general anesthesia to (at my request, he was normally only doing local). Afterwards, the whole dental office staff (and my mother!) entertained themselves with having conversations with my incoherent self as I came out of the anesthesia. Apparently, I declared that I was ruined and would never be able to sing opera again (point in fact, I had never sang opera before).
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