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A Year of Telepathy

neuralink.com

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Re: A Year of Telepathy

#311

Post by yreg »

diggan wrote: post #168
yreg wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that killing a pig for neuroscience research is more worth it than killing it to eat it. It also scales much better. (I currently eat meat.)

Do you sometimes feel like the end justify the means?

Sorry, I can't answer that as a yes/no since there is a whole package of connotation with such statement that I don't necessarily agree with in either case.

I thought my argument was clear, but I can try to make it more clear:

- I eat pork. Unfortunately because of people like me there are many many suffering pigs.

- I believe that it is more justified to make a pig suffer for neuroscience research than to be made into a McRoyal. (Let's assume that the suffering is comparable. Please also assume that the suffering is necessary for the particular research and that research has actual potential for useful applications. If there is evidence of unnecessary abuse then I'm not defending such abuse.)

- Therefore it seems silly to me to attack neuroscience researchers instead of me, an omnivore who could be vegetarian/vegan.

I understand that one can argue for both positions at the same time -- argue against research on animals and argue against eating meat. But I think the latter one is much more important than the former. And yet you probably wouldn't attack me for my meat-eating habit. (Maybe because doing so would be impolite.)

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#312

Post by senordevnyc »

api wrote: post #224
rob74 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't dispute Musk's success as a manager - the problem is that, to achieve his vision, he turned each of his companies into dictatorships. That's fine (at least in the US), because you can choose not to work for him. But I don't think it's fine to run the entire US like Musk's (and Trump's) companies are run. As they say, Hitler contributed a lot to technical progress, built great Autobahns, and his scientists lat…

That's what I'm getting at. Why do we need this to advance? We had everything we needed to build the Falcon 9 in 1985. We will keep suffering Hitlers until we can build the Autobahn without him.

If we look at every other category of major innovation for the last century, are they all kicked off by a world-class narcissistic asshole?

Many yes, but certainly nowhere near all. So that would seem to invalidate your hypothesis.

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#313

Post by yreg »

diggan wrote: post #294
lanstin wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the ends don’t justify the means, what else would?

I guess there are three "competing" ideas: - The ends justify the means - Meaning we could justify torture if it prevents terrorism for example. Some people would consider this fine, others not. - Some moral principles or duties have intrinsic value independent of their outcomes - For example, telling the truth might be considered right not because of its consequences, but because honesty itself is inherently valuabl…

I have just refused to answer in a different reply to you, but actually when you describe it like this, the third camp resonates with me the most. So I'm with you there.

However, wouldn't most people say that? It is kind of a cop-out because it let's you decide on each moral dilemma in a case by case basis -> which I think is actually necessary since you can't say that ends justify/don't justify means blankly.

Do you by any chance know Alex O'Connor? I listened to an ethics episode of his podcast and it was quite interesting and well-spoken in my opinion. (It is about veganism again, I suppose it is a useful theme for ethical arguments.)

https://overcast.fm/+AARh0bWaidM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAOzGNFamgQ (the same content but video)

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#314

Post by robotresearcher »

Veserv wrote: post #298
yreg wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that killing a pig for neuroscience research is more worth it than killing it to eat it. It also scales much better. (I currently eat meat.)

Do you believe that killing a pig for bad or sloppy neuroscience research that provides no useful data is worth it? To use an extreme example, say I have a theory that the brain is an unnecessary organ. Can I go around removing pig brains in the name of “neuroscience research” and get a free pass? Okay, now suppose I want to test if my new brain implant that I intend to attach with known acutely neurotoxic binding ag…

> Say I have a theory that the brain is an unnecessary organ. Can I go around removing pig brains in the name of “neuroscience research” and get a free pass?

Of course there are proposal review processes for research involving animals, that considers the potential benefits versus the harm done.

> However, there are plenty of forms of “neuroscience research” [involving animals] that are objectively useless

Says who?

You may disagree with the standards and decisions of review processes, but they are ubiquitous today.

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#315

Post by yreg »

Veserv wrote: post #298
yreg wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that killing a pig for neuroscience research is more worth it than killing it to eat it. It also scales much better. (I currently eat meat.)

Do you believe that killing a pig for bad or sloppy neuroscience research that provides no useful data is worth it? To use an extreme example, say I have a theory that the brain is an unnecessary organ. Can I go around removing pig brains in the name of “neuroscience research” and get a free pass? Okay, now suppose I want to test if my new brain implant that I intend to attach with known acutely neurotoxic binding ag…

> Do you believe that killing a pig for bad or sloppy neuroscience research that provides no useful data is worth it?

No, but Neuralink has proven results and proven useful applications. If you believe that they should publish more data or that there has been a specific misconduct then that is a different argument.

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#316

Post by sangnoir »

zensavona wrote: post #57
discordance wrote: post #56

Between 2018 and 2022 "the company has tested on and killed at least 1,500 animals — over 280 sheep, pigs, and monkeys, as well as mice and rats." [0] 0: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/12/11/23500157/neura...

Being concerned about animal testing seems pretty silly coming from people who likely eat pigs, sheep and other intelligent animals every day, who likely lived in just as bad conditions if not worse their whole lives leading up to them becoming food. I also eat meat, it just seems a bit ironic to me.

> Being concerned about animal testing seems pretty silly coming from people who likely eat pigs

This is reductive and lacking any form of nuance. If I eat chicken, should I automatically be okay with heavily industrialized chicken farms, or even setting chickens alight for entertainment? Just because one evolved to be an omnivore doesn't mean one is okay with all forms of killing animals.

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#317

Post by martinsnow »

Veserv wrote: post #298
yreg wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that killing a pig for neuroscience research is more worth it than killing it to eat it. It also scales much better. (I currently eat meat.)

Do you believe that killing a pig for bad or sloppy neuroscience research that provides no useful data is worth it? To use an extreme example, say I have a theory that the brain is an unnecessary organ. Can I go around removing pig brains in the name of “neuroscience research” and get a free pass? Okay, now suppose I want to test if my new brain implant that I intend to attach with known acutely neurotoxic binding ag…

Neuralink is being proven and it's on its way to market. There are so many people out there who will benefit from the technology.

Animal testing has existed for centuries and will continue to do so until we can fully sinulate a human being.

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#319

Post by Veserv »

yreg wrote: post #315
Veserv wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you believe that killing a pig for bad or sloppy neuroscience research that provides no useful data is worth it? To use an extreme example, say I have a theory that the brain is an unnecessary organ. Can I go around removing pig brains in the name of “neuroscience research” and get a free pass? Okay, now suppose I want to test if my new brain implant that I intend to attach with known acutely neurotoxic binding ag…

> Do you believe that killing a pig for bad or sloppy neuroscience research that provides no useful data is worth it? No, but Neuralink has proven results and proven useful applications. If you believe that they should publish more data or that there has been a specific misconduct then that is a different argument.

Great, so you agree that there exist classes of neuroscience research and experiments that are “worse” than eating animals, so the fact that animals are eaten in bulk does not give a free pass to all classes of “neuroscience research”?

We actually need to evaluate the “neuroscience research” and processes to determine if it constitutes one of these classes?

If no, please explain how my first example is clearly morally superior to eating an animal.

If yes, then please answer the other two concrete hypotheticals I proposed and evaluate their practical and moral content.

I contend that such practices would be unethical and practically worthless, with the benefits being either practically zero or actively negative from engaging in such research practices. So, eating an animal would be morally superior to such bad research practices. Such practices would, furthermore, be strongly dominated by well-known, standard practices which are more ethical, practically useful, and cheaper; thus harm minimization and utility maximization both support the use of standard, known practices in preference.

I also contend that such deviation from standard practices would only be morally justified if you were intentionally attempting to evaluate the standard practices themselves, but that would require both a specific nuanced argument and would preclude such experiments from testing new innovations to avoid disqualifying confounding variables. As such, the proposed hypotheticals do not fit this criteria as they are attempts to “research” some other non-process factor. So you can only argue this point if you wish to argue that intentionally confounding process and research variables is good science.

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#320

Post by aaarrm »

sangnoir wrote: post #316
zensavona wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being concerned about animal testing seems pretty silly coming from people who likely eat pigs, sheep and other intelligent animals every day, who likely lived in just as bad conditions if not worse their whole lives leading up to them becoming food. I also eat meat, it just seems a bit ironic to me.

> Being concerned about animal testing seems pretty silly coming from people who likely eat pigs This is reductive and lacking any form of nuance. If I eat chicken, should I automatically be okay with heavily industrialized chicken farms, or even setting chickens alight for entertainment? Just because one evolved to be an omnivore doesn't mean one is okay with all forms of killing animals.

Considering you have options, one could argue that you must be okay with them, otherwise you could just choose to not support them. I personally believe there's more nuance than that, but Ive heard that line of argument before.
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