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Not if it makes enough people uncomfortable.
Like minority groups having equal rights? That's been making a lot of people uncomfortable for a long time.
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The same question should be asked about research animals today then, as detailed in a sibling thread. “Brain grown on a dish” sounds preferable to “rat with a drilled skull.”
This question is asked and discussed rigorously any time a study that involves animal testing is proposed. At least it is in a scientific research setting in the US. There are boards dedicated to ensuring that the potential scientific benefit is sufficient to warrant whatever suffering the animals will endure. Obviously this is subjective, but the point is that these issues are considered in detail.
Actually our entire society exists because we delegate part of our suffering to other organisms, including other humans. Be it with pollution, war, drug testing, cattling, slavery... It would be foolish to pretend to have the moral ground unless one lives a very primitive life, but I think it's important to know the implied cost of our ways. It's saner, and more honest.
As an annecdote, I recently worked on a software dedicated to study epilespy episods on mouses. The experiment induced epilespsy on the subjects. When discussing about this, the scientist handling the mouses told me not to worry because the ethics commity was making sure it was done properly. At this moment I though we, as a specy, add a dark humour touch to every thing we do.
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Like minority groups having equal rights? That's been making a lot of people uncomfortable for a long time.
Please don't introduce generic flamebait into threads. That's in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html .
The OP comment that it's not ethical "if it makes enough people uncomfortable" is absurd.
You can tell that it's absurd because defining ethics by majority rule has many obvious problems. The most obvious problem is shown when a majority declares that minorities shouldn't have equal rights. This happens all the time, and outsiders would never point and say: "well giving minorities equal rights must not be ethical because it makes so many people uncomfortable"
So please, @dang, since you're in the mood to lecture me, can you explain why a short and uncomplicated counterexample to an absurd statement is flamebait?
Also, your link gives a 404.
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Please don't introduce generic flamebait into threads. That's in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html .
I honestly don't know why my comment is downvoted and flagged. The OP comment that it's not ethical "if it makes enough people uncomfortable" is absurd. You can tell that it's absurd because defining ethics by majority rule has many obvious problems. The most obvious problem is shown when a majority declares that minorities shouldn't have equal rights. This happens all the time, and outsiders would never point and sa…
Sorry about the broken link. It's fixed now, so if you'd (re-)read the site guidelines and follow them when commenting here, we'd appreciate it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like minority groups having equal rights? That's been making a lot of people uncomfortable for a long time.
Please don't introduce generic flamebait into threads. That's in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html .
I wanted to actually have a chance to read his comment and judge for myself if things are really as you state they are. But wouldn't you know it: it was deleted. HN mods basically are allowed to erase history and claim whatever. You know who does that? Totalitarian regimes like those in China or NKorea!
@Dang, you need to at least present some credentials so you know what validates your intellectual reasoning. Until then, HN is basically a Red Hen restaurant.