Thanks for articulating so cogently for these beings so often overlooked. Yet I'm troubled by this idea that humans reduce suffering simply by taking over the world from non-humans. Is the idea that it's better for only humans to exist, and for the rest of sentient life to dwindle to nothing? It seems to be what's happening anyway, apart from the animals we keep in our labs and factory farms. . . .
The argument/thought-experiment about the slime very much reminded me of Scott Alexander's bottomless pits of suffering, which makes it then very easy to connect to actual human experiences (like nursing homes during Covid lockdowns for example). Through that lens, the idea suddenly hits incredibly close to home.
> I sometimes hear Christians confidently proclaim that those who don’t believe in Jesus in life will suffer forever in hell. I’m appalled by their jarring absence of moral concern.
Jesus said that far more people go to hell than enter heaven (Matthew 7:13-14). This has convinced many Christians that believing in Jesus is far from sufficient, and that only few people escape hellfire. I knew conservative Catholics who were of that conviction, but I found it even more troubling that they also insisted on having large families (following another divine command). If most humans get tortured in eternity, why be fruitful and multiply? Wouldn't the most moral person be someone who tries to limit population growth (say, by stealthily distributing contraceptives) or, if you believe babies are innocent, at least maximise infant mortality? A true Prometheus!
Would you support genetically modifying them to be without pain receptors?
Caring for insects seem like an obviously virtuous thing, even though I think there are simply thresholds of experiences above/below that it's not the same fear, pain and hunger.
(I have some oopsie in my brain which, from time to time, gives me a front-row seat to experiencing the disconnect between my consciousness - with plans, wants, wishes, and with the capacity to feel despair - and what my brain and body ends up doing. Which is usually nothing. The plan does not start executing. The fancy consciousness did not trigger a sufficient dopaminergic cascade. And instead of working on this problem it's easier to simply explain it away, the plan and goals are not that important.
"Sure, we can watch one more episode. Going to the bathroom can wait, anyway, let's remember that random factoid about giving in to the bladder full signal every time leads to incontinence, hah, so let's watch one more YouTube video."
We are constantly perceiving what the "other" parts of our brain/body are doing, and narrating it with feelings, thoughts, and trying to steer this shit/ship indirectly through them. Usually it's not noticeable, but sometimes it turns out that you there's a chain of command, and you can't just phone down to engineering.
And I wouldn't be surprised that with 350K neurons it's all autopilot.)
How do you think one can get a grip on the question of whether an insect life is net positive, or net negative? With lives similar enough to ours, we have various ways of getting at the question. E.g., maybe in the best case scenario, if you have people who understand what's involved in their continued existence, then you can infer that it's net positive if they want to keep living, and net negative if they don't. But the farther you get from cases where we can read preferences off of informed choices, the harder it is--or so it seems to me--to make these judgments.
I don't know how I'd go about trying to decide how the pleasure a fly feels from drinking sugar water compares to various sorts of pain it feels, except broadly behaviorally (e.g., if, whenever it drinks the sugar, it gets a shock, then maybe you can infer that the pain of the shock is worse than the pleasure from the sugar if it doesn't keep drinking the water, and vice versa if it does keep drinking.) But it seems to me you can't really extend these sorts of tests to judge the value of a whole fly life.
(I'm aware you can ask these same questions about chickens and cows, and all I can say is that I also find it really hard to think about in those cases! Also, this isn't meant as a gotcha, since I don't think it's at all clear what follows, morally, from the idea that the value of nonhuman animal life is extremely opaque to us.)
Thanks for articulating so cogently for these beings so often overlooked. Yet I'm troubled by this idea that humans reduce suffering simply by taking over the world from non-humans. Is the idea that it's better for only humans to exist, and for the rest of sentient life to dwindle to nothing? It seems to be what's happening anyway, apart from the animals we keep in our labs and factory farms. . . .
The argument/thought-experiment about the slime very much reminded me of Scott Alexander's bottomless pits of suffering, which makes it then very easy to connect to actual human experiences (like nursing homes during Covid lockdowns for example). Through that lens, the idea suddenly hits incredibly close to home.
> I sometimes hear Christians confidently proclaim that those who don’t believe in Jesus in life will suffer forever in hell. I’m appalled by their jarring absence of moral concern.
Jesus said that far more people go to hell than enter heaven (Matthew 7:13-14). This has convinced many Christians that believing in Jesus is far from sufficient, and that only few people escape hellfire. I knew conservative Catholics who were of that conviction, but I found it even more troubling that they also insisted on having large families (following another divine command). If most humans get tortured in eternity, why be fruitful and multiply? Wouldn't the most moral person be someone who tries to limit population growth (say, by stealthily distributing contraceptives) or, if you believe babies are innocent, at least maximise infant mortality? A true Prometheus!
Would you support genetically modifying them to be without pain receptors?
Caring for insects seem like an obviously virtuous thing, even though I think there are simply thresholds of experiences above/below that it's not the same fear, pain and hunger.
(I have some oopsie in my brain which, from time to time, gives me a front-row seat to experiencing the disconnect between my consciousness - with plans, wants, wishes, and with the capacity to feel despair - and what my brain and body ends up doing. Which is usually nothing. The plan does not start executing. The fancy consciousness did not trigger a sufficient dopaminergic cascade. And instead of working on this problem it's easier to simply explain it away, the plan and goals are not that important.
"Sure, we can watch one more episode. Going to the bathroom can wait, anyway, let's remember that random factoid about giving in to the bladder full signal every time leads to incontinence, hah, so let's watch one more YouTube video."
We are constantly perceiving what the "other" parts of our brain/body are doing, and narrating it with feelings, thoughts, and trying to steer this shit/ship indirectly through them. Usually it's not noticeable, but sometimes it turns out that you there's a chain of command, and you can't just phone down to engineering.
And I wouldn't be surprised that with 350K neurons it's all autopilot.)
How do you think one can get a grip on the question of whether an insect life is net positive, or net negative? With lives similar enough to ours, we have various ways of getting at the question. E.g., maybe in the best case scenario, if you have people who understand what's involved in their continued existence, then you can infer that it's net positive if they want to keep living, and net negative if they don't. But the farther you get from cases where we can read preferences off of informed choices, the harder it is--or so it seems to me--to make these judgments.
I don't know how I'd go about trying to decide how the pleasure a fly feels from drinking sugar water compares to various sorts of pain it feels, except broadly behaviorally (e.g., if, whenever it drinks the sugar, it gets a shock, then maybe you can infer that the pain of the shock is worse than the pleasure from the sugar if it doesn't keep drinking the water, and vice versa if it does keep drinking.) But it seems to me you can't really extend these sorts of tests to judge the value of a whole fly life.
(I'm aware you can ask these same questions about chickens and cows, and all I can say is that I also find it really hard to think about in those cases! Also, this isn't meant as a gotcha, since I don't think it's at all clear what follows, morally, from the idea that the value of nonhuman animal life is extremely opaque to us.)
how is this not the ultimate antinatalist pill? insect and more generally wild animal suffering seems genuinely ineradicable
I would torture Tree(Graham’s number) insects before sacrificing one cent. If morality requires so much concern, then I cannot be bothered.