Comments on: Painless Meat

By: Painless meat « The Philosopher's Eye

Painless meat « The Philosopher's Eye — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 02:25:55 +0000

[...] been surprised to see philosophers and economists react more positively than the editors at New Scientist to what strikes me as a monstrous idea. I [...]

By: Overcoming Bias : Poor Folks Do Smile

Overcoming Bias : Poor Folks Do Smile — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 19:02:34 +0000

[...] adapted to find joy and meaning in their near subsistence lives. And intense pain may well be eliminated in favor of other ways to inducing the required focus. Contact with virtual worlds and with a vast [...]

By: Why do animal lovers want animals to feel pain? « Meteuphoric

Why do animal lovers want animals to feel pain? « Meteuphoric — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 09:02:04 +0000

[...] not enthused by creating such creatures for scientific research, which is interesting. Robin Hanson guessed prior to seeing the article that this was because endorsing pain free animals would require [...]

By: Friday Link Love 9/18 | Brad’s Reader

Friday Link Love 9/18 | Brad’s Reader — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:23:25 +0000

[...] Painless Meat [...]

By: Julian Morrison

Julian Morrison — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:18:17 +0000

I would happily suppress my ability to suffer from pain (without suppressing my ability to notice it). I would happily do likewise for animals. And I suspect that linkage will persist: people will not be willing to modify animals “against nature” unless they generally approve of “better living through science”. This is simply squeamishness about the breakdown of naive essentialism.

Caveat: suppressing suffering isn’t an excuse to give the animals a poor quality of life or slap them around since they “can’t be hurt”.

By: Vilhelm S

Vilhelm S — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 17:55:50 +0000

Presumably, if it is desirable to genetically engineer cows to feel discomfort instead of pain, then it is equally desirable to engineer humans in that way. In both cases the reasoning is “less pain is better”. Yet I suspect the idea would be much more popular for farm animals than for people. Why is this?

By: Aurini

Aurini — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 04:13:00 +0000

Robert, would you consider extending your comment here into a top-level post? Preferably with references cited, or alternatively link us to an article of similar quality?

You sound sincere, and my innate drives would have me agree with you, but a comment alone doesn’t do much to shut up the crazies, you know what I mean?

Cheers, mate.

By: Pablo Stafforini

Pablo Stafforini — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 21:36:37 +0000

If lives with farm pain are still better than not existing, it is still good to create farm animals even if they suffer more than wild animals.

The emphasis on whether animals in the wild or in factory farms have lives that are worth living on the whole seems to me misplaced. What matters from a welfarist perspective is not whether existing is better for the creature than not existing, but whether bringing the creature into existence is better than not bringing her. The answer to the last question involves comparing the welfare the life of the animal is expected to contain if brought into existence with the welfare we are likely to create otherwise. Even if the life of the animal is not worth living, it might be obligatory to bring her into existence if we are expected to create even more suffering instead; and conversely, we may be prohibited from creating a new life even if the life is worth living, because by failing to create such a life we are likely to produce more welfare still.

By: Tweets that mention Overcoming Bias : Painless Meat -- Topsy.com

Tweets that mention Overcoming Bias : Painless Meat -- Topsy.com — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 21:26:58 +0000

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Mercatus Bloggers andFarming News. Farming News said: Farming : Overcoming Bias : Painless Meat http://bit.ly/pkGLI [...]

By: Eliezer Yudkowsky

Eliezer Yudkowsky — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 21:07:26 +0000

Some elementary Hansonian cynicism would seem to be the most obvious explanation: Expressing concern for animals ordinarily signals affiliation with environmentalist groups, Whole Foods, and the Nature-concept, whereas genetic engineering signals non-affiliation with Nature. If people are more concerned with sending a signal or with controlling their affiliations, they’ll let the animals suffer.