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Comment by fimbulvetr | Hacker News Reader

The idea that there is a black/white side of convenience vs. survival is not reasonable. It is very much a gradient, and I’m afraid that there’s much more nuance to it.

For instance, if I have a dog trained to fetch my fowl from a lake after shooting it, is that convenience or survival? Does it not depend on the circumstance? In the deep cold of winter it may spare me from a swift death, for the very same hunter in the summer it may save me from spending 30 minutes fetching it so that I can spend that 30 minutes making camp or playing cards.

This trade off runs the entire gamut, all the way from extreme survival to extreme convenience, and who are you to say what is right or wrong? Further, is there not a point where cirgarette butt collection increases survival for living things? Do you wait for that inflection point before you begin calling this ethical?

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You are disappointed that they were allowed to write an opinion piece while in college?

I'm assuming it wasn't a peer reviewed science paper, but an opinion piece on ethics. Being allowed to explore the boundaries is a big thing that higher learning can enable.

I'd be more disappointed if they had been prohibited. I wish I still had my ranting papers about randomness and infinity. Those weren't published, or even intended to be published. Instead, they were a tool in the process of learning.

Edited to add: I have a working dog. I figure he is earning his keep. He's pretty lazy but he points and retrieves and, if motivated, can follow a scent. Mostly he is a bum.

I just don't think we can in good conscience domesticate any more animals. We are a thriving empowered species on our own, we are starting to make our own creatures (both robotically and genetically) and we shouldn't have to subjugate more of nature for our overconsumption and shortsighted behaviors.

You might be imparting human perceptions onto other species. Fun to think about though.

If all the cards get laid out and you find that the only animals that have good survival odds are those that we domesticate, would you be singing the same tune? I don't think it's of "bad conscience" when we, as veritable gods on this planet, must be appeased and kowtowed too. We are just as much slaves to our past and our power as any other creature is. The cruelty of nature doesn't end with us. We are still largely a part of it.

And even if it did, I don't see how offering crows a good deal on food is less cruel than otherwise. Perhaps the crows will evolve to take the human economy into account and become something better at surviving as a result. I suppose my point is that, even if we can't in good conscience domesticate more animals, it was not by a consideration of good conscience that they became domesticated in the first place.

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