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U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

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

#711

Post by Sporktacular »

radu_floricica wrote: post #439
Sporktacular wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird how this is said without a shred of sympathy or concern for an intelligent, helpless creature. Weirder how it can be said without a sympathetic or concerned response. I hope we can someday move beyond seeing animals as a mere resource.

If this happens, I hope it happens decades after we switch to factory produced meat. There is a multiple orders of magnitude more benefit from using animals for medical research and medical care than from using them as food. I realize our psychology makes us empathize with whatever case we have in front of us right now, but when it comes to orders of magnitude difference and human lives, I'd much prefer we better con…

Pragmatically, sure but then every species using HN shares our bias. Doing right would mean trying to transcend it. But am not sure we have to suppress our empathy just because we're being pragmatic.

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

#712

Post by Sporktacular »

notyourwork wrote: post #255
Sporktacular wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird how this is said without a shred of sympathy or concern for an intelligent, helpless creature. Weirder how it can be said without a sympathetic or concerned response. I hope we can someday move beyond seeing animals as a mere resource.

What do you propose is the solution?

Maybe some respect for the animals that are sacrificed for our sakes. Just seems fair. Not trying to be judgemental.

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

#713

Post by Sporktacular »

dexwiz wrote: post #342
Sporktacular wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird how this is said without a shred of sympathy or concern for an intelligent, helpless creature. Weirder how it can be said without a sympathetic or concerned response. I hope we can someday move beyond seeing animals as a mere resource.

From what I heard, the pig lived a relativity good life. It was well cared for by the large animal veterinary school on campus. Had more space and better food than any factory raised pig. All experiments passed an ethics review. The pig was anesthetized before any procedure. The number of experiments may sound barbaric on the surface, but it was to reduce the overall number of pigs used in trials. Modern medicine wou…

Yeah thanks for clarifying.

As for the loved one argument, probably. But that wouldn't necessarily make me right. In fact my proximity to the situation would probably make any objective evaluation of what's right or wrong impossible. That would effectively remove my credibility as a reasonable interlocutor when discussing the ethics at all, like a cop in a ticking time-bomb scenario isn't the best person to call on to craft torture policy.

It wasn't my intention to judge (I don't know your position on anything) it just stood out to me. Animals often aren't treated with much respect or concern, especially ones suffering for our benefit. That's not a comment on you.

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

#714

Post by dang »

Bud wrote: post #260

Quoted post unavailable.

How many times do we have to ask you to stop breaking the site guidelines? You're still doing it on a regular basis. I don't want to ban you but at some point what choice do we have?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#715

Post by Sporktacular »

scoopertrooper wrote: post #412
graderjs wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird that these statements are made (and I don't mean by you, it's a trope to make them by people in general in discussions like this, I'm not picking you out) that it somehow justifies, or ameliorates, the awfulness of experimenting then dissecting (as someone said) a helpless intelligent creature. I think these statements justify animal trials and using it to benefit humans definitely. But it doesn't justify or ma…

If you can accept humans can eat helpless intelligent creatures, then the fact we perform ethics-reviewed anesthetised procedures and later dissect the same animals really shouldn't keep you up at night.

Why are you so focused on the western context for animal experiments? I'm sure it's more comforting to think about ethics boards and well run universities. But there are exemptions for militaries and other loopholes for smaller creatures, regular stories of abuse in labs, to say nothing of ghastly experiments done in China, which doesn't have ANY national or regional protection laws, among other countries.

The post was about human consideration of animals as a resource generally.

It's not much of an argument saying that since eating animals is a thing, (the comfortably narrowly selected example of) other things we do with them is no cause for questions.

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

#716

Post by Sporktacular »

kgin wrote: post #692
Sporktacular wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's vivisection, but hopefully less painfully/traumatically than some slaughterhouses.

There isn’t any propofol at slaughterhouses

Yeah, those experiment animals are so lucky...

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

#717

Post by Sporktacular »

the_other wrote: post #489
Sporktacular wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird how this is said without a shred of sympathy or concern for an intelligent, helpless creature. Weirder how it can be said without a sympathetic or concerned response. I hope we can someday move beyond seeing animals as a mere resource.

Some of us need to learn to see one another as more than mere resource first.

How about both.

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

#718

Post by Sporktacular »

xupybd wrote: post #380
Sporktacular wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird how this is said without a shred of sympathy or concern for an intelligent, helpless creature. Weirder how it can be said without a sympathetic or concerned response. I hope we can someday move beyond seeing animals as a mere resource.

We eat them. We're simply hard wired to use them as a resource.

Nope. Many cultures share the same hard wiring, but not the habit of eating animals.

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

#719

Post by Sporktacular »

tchanglington wrote: post #345
Sporktacular wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird how this is said without a shred of sympathy or concern for an intelligent, helpless creature. Weirder how it can be said without a sympathetic or concerned response. I hope we can someday move beyond seeing animals as a mere resource.

Because it helps save humans

And? Ancient Egyptians thought slavery was good because it helped Ancient Egyptians - "of course its good, just ask any beneficiary".

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

#720

Post by Sporktacular »

gherkinnn wrote: post #482
Sporktacular wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arbitrary standard gets drawn and then pigs get condemned to failing to meet it

Pigs don’t pull sleds. They don’t hunt. They don’t play with children. They can’t manoeuvre a flock of sheep. They won’t even try to ward off a bear. They’re bad at sniffing truffles, because they eat them. They won’t run ahead of a fire engine, clearing the way. And they most certainly won’t cuddle up in camp. Dogs are extremely versatile and have helped humans over thousands of years. Pigs, on the other hand, are t…

It's arbitrary because of how human-centric it all is.

You're make my point.

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