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Comment by Hnrobert42 | Hacker News Reader

I think for things like this, being dispassionate is a coping mechanism. If you engage the sympathy part of your brain, you won’t be able to do it. If you don’t do it, then humans die instead.

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And since humans, who are also the beneficiaries of this, are in the position to decide if the tradeoff is acceptable - the fact that they so often do is a morally problematic.

It doesn't mean we have to change everything and start dying to save pigs' lives. But we should debate it. And if it's morally wrong can we at least call it what it is.

Ask the beneficiaries of a process if they this it's good, and the usually say it is. Doesn't mean they are right.

John Wycliffe (1340 AD): "How should God approve that you rob Peter and give this robbery to Paul in the name of Christ?"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_rob_Peter_to_pay_Paul

Yeah, except we are not talking about two people. We are talking about killing a pig to save a human, potentially thousands of humans.

Is this so much worse than killing pig and salivating its meat and devouring it? Think about it, you are killing a living animal for your one meal when you had all the options in the world. Many people are not even eating it fully and simpply just tossing it away literally in a trash. As usual, I am sure a lot of people will run to Bible to justify this.

I mean, plenty of people also have a problem with that. I'm not sure a discussion on the ethics of a thing should end just because a similar thing is more widespread.

It seems a little ridiculous to worry about animals being used for life-saving medical research when most Americans are eating meat every single day, to be honest. Sure, one could consistently oppose both, but from a sheer sense of proportion, why is _this_ the thing to worry about?

> Is this so much worse than killing pig and salivating its meat and devouring it?

Couldn’t we do both?

We are talking about torturing a pig, killing is really no big deal -- everything dies but not everything suffers.

I think a pig being killed would dissagree.

As for what constitutes torture is arguable. To me, doing surgery with anesthesia don’t automatically fall into that category (though of course it can — eg. the famous experiment of putting a second dog’s head to another one’s torso was torture in my opinion).

A thought experiment I always like to posit is: what if we were the animal that needed to be tested on for the benefit of medical research that could safe a lot of the members of an alien species that is much more intelligent than us. Would that by extension also be justified? I eat meat by the way so I'm not trying to supplant my ethical views on you.

Fwiw a lot of people would argue that sacrificing one human for the benefit of many more is worthwhile. Not something to celebrate, but an acceptable tradeoff.

The problem is that some of those people are also ok with sacrificing many humans for the benefit of few.

Frankly, almost every country has an army, which is a in a since a vehicle that sacrifices some people to save others (young people, too).

I have a similar thought experiment but on “pets” —- What if an advanced civilization uses humans as pets

I don’t know but if it is like my cat who is free to come and go, I don’t see the problem. That’s not really different from the human life.

I don't see that as really an ethical question... from their perspective, probably yes. From our perspective, we'd probably be trying to kill the aliens.

… and kill thousands more pigs.

It may be a simple choice for some, but it won’t be for others.

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