nefitty

I don't know if there's a word for it besides the adjacent "speciesm" but the clumsy word "desentientize" popped up in my head as an ethical corollary to "dehumanization".

There are definitely people in situations where the burden of a vegan or vegetarian diet would cause much more harm to them personally than the harm an omnivore diet would cause. I don't blame people for the uncontrollable, and I don't know that anyone who holds a well-thought out position on animal suffering would either. Suffering is the superset of all suffering. My ethical heuristic is to make choices with an eye toward reducing that set.

Sliding into this subthread, this explanation you just gave of where you are is why I commended you upthread. I recognize your embrace of your own self-awareness and moral openness. I like people like that.

Yes, excellently stated. That's precisely my original point. I intended to preemptively disarm the conversational decay that absolutes cause.

I think there is a place for that, for example art or activism, but when speaking directly to another human, absolutes seem to place a lot of people on their back foot in defense of their current established decisions.

I understand where you're coming from. I assume you believe one bad thing is preferable to two bad things. It's the trap I was warning against. Degrees instead of absolutes.

Personally, I am vegetarian due to ethical concerns, not dietary or nutritional ones. In my decade+ of being vegetarian, I have discerned the pattern that moral proselytizing is generally offensive to people. I think most intelligent non-vegetarians are more amenable to talking about clearly objective impacts (number of dead animals, environmental impact, nutrition, etc).

I prefer to be able to have a rational conversation when I talk about the topic with someone. Righteous indignation is more usually a thought extinguishing reaction to all involved. And then no one comes away with anything at all.

Sentience is a matter of degree. That's why people can compare the intelligence of a chimpanzee to the intelligence of a three year old human. Or why it's intuitive to prefer saving the life of a human to saving the life of a fish. That does not diminish the capability of suffering that the fish has, but merely comparing the objective complexity of a human's preferences vs a fish's.

Animals yes. Plants? I eat them without guilt. I wouldn't eat insects, not only because of my conditioned disgust, but now even moreso because crustaceans were found to be capable of suffering based on an 8-point scale. Bugs and crabs don't seem so far off to one another in my mind.

I mean specifically octopods, considering this is the first farm. It means someone really went out of their way to get past historical momentum to be the first to create this process.

The worst part is that it will be easily replicable. That's really sad. I feel sympathy for these poor creatures.

I commend you for your decision.

I want to add that framing my ideas about animal suffering in an elastic way makes it easier for me to make incremental changes. An animal is either alive or dead. Maybe eating vegetarian once a week will save a life down the line.

I urge everyone to resist the all-or-nothing approach, especially on such an important aspect of our ethical choices. No one's perfect, not even the vegan straight edge kids on Instagram who sneak a chicken nugget when no one's looking.

> Last year, researchers at the London School of Economics concluded from a review of 300 scientific studies that octopus were sentient beings capable of experiencing distress and happiness, and that high-welfare farming would be impossible.

I don't understand how someone can decide to ignore that in an effort to make money. I fear that if we don't more quickly move the Overton window on the suffering of sentient creatures, we may suddenly find ourselves with synthetic sentient life devoid of protection under the law.

Apologies if the post comes off sensationalist. I am not currently actively taking these steps as I don't perceive a significant threat. That's as a lay person. Having said that, it may be helpful to have something in mind if the unthinkable occurs.

In case of issues with gov infrastructure, here are two more backup links:

https://web.archive.org/web/20190101153955/https://www.ready...

https://nuclearadvice.org/

Additional convo https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30462223

I just saw this article saying that shelling may have hit a repository.

https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-chernobyl-russia-invasion...

This is a helpful comment, thank you. Prioritizing sociological factors in the design of educational systems seems common, but balancing the differences within an educational population with policy requirements makes it so that only some students get the resources they need.

In my life, I have been lucky to have a sticky brain, which has gotten me through for a long time. The problem is that I cannot pinpoint any significant moment in my education where some tactic or teaching influenced the way I study. I remember lectures about Cornell notes and other strategies, but I never needed them, and then once educational challenges became too great for me to handle with my habits, that's when I REALLY needed them. I've taken the project to heart and prioritize my exploration and implementation of better learning strategies. It took me years.

It's like, the world of knowledge is a huge cavern, and I adjusted and mastered navigating by touch. Once I reached a larger opening, the cave was much too large to navigate in the same way, and I found myself stuck many times. If only I had realized that by opening my eyes I would have noticed the torches lining the walls above my head. I think I would have been able to contribute much more in the time I've been around so far.

I don't feel sorry for myself. I live a good life. I have taken responsibility for my own advancement and learning. I empathize with others who struggle with what I've struggled (and continue to contend with) in terms of learning methodology. I hope that throwing my little anecdote into the mix counts as a drop in the bucket.

This is a great article. The implementable points are laid bare without fluff.

To add to the article from my personal research, one of the most powerful activities I've implemented thus far in my intellectual and work life are reflection journals. This basically entails taking a moment after producing a piece of work to analyze its quality and extract lessons from it. I honestly think it is a super power.

I discovered the process through learning about effective study. Medical education is a treasure trove of this type of research, for example, the use of mnemonic images a la Sketchy.com. There's also a large body of work on reflection, specifically in nursing. I've found a lot of those lessons to be generalizable and immediately applicable to my work as a programmer and in my art, learning and music.

For more info, the wiki page is great: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflective_practice

More in line with the article in question, here's MIT's Teaching + Learning Labs articles on metacognition and self-regulation, which I was coincidentally studying two days ago: https://tll.mit.edu/teaching-resources/how-people-learn/

Finally, I'll share an Observable notebook with the simple template I use for my reflective practice: https://observablehq.com/@iz/reflection

This is concise and yet hugely inspiring. I love seeing people and their companies publicly committing to their ideals. Software engineering is ripe for further movement toward self-awareness. This industry is one of the most powerful parts of our modern world, and placing oneself closer to a recognition of that impact on the real lives of humans is very welcome.

Thanks for the bravery JetBrains.

Yeah, that seems close. The main difference would be that it would be a co-evolutionary sandbox instead of zero sum.

One of my current heuristics is the expression of weirdness. I can see it in the way I write, there's like this thread of a human processing information through emotional and idiosyncratic experiences. There's a certain cadence to the way thoughts come out. Maybe it can be emulated eventually, but that might be farther off.

In my fantastical imagination of that implementation, I would simulate "sim agents" as they live a life, collecting unique experiences that are the result of interactions with other sims. They then build up personalities, which influence their expressions in other mediums that real humans would consume. It's psychotic and possibly evil and I thought of it first, so no one better take my idea.

You might be able to see what I mean just in this comment itself. Could this have been written by an AI?

Yeah, you're definitely right. If I was in that situation, I think I would be up front about the nature of the work and offer a "sanitized" textual walkthrough of the project. Let people decide if they want to risk being offended.

I'm slightly conflicted here. I don't like pretending that facets of life don't exist, especially when they don't directly harm the involved, but I am also mindful of people's individual sensitivities.

To tie it back to something more general, it seems like a lot of software engineering work is predicated on the cis male perspective. It's hard for me to imagine the psychological impact that sexual harassment might have on a woman, partly because I have the privilege of moving through the world without having my body or attractiveness be a point of interest whatsoever. I feel safe walking outside at night. I don't check my car's backseat before getting in. I have no idea what the fear of kidnapping even is.

In light of the above, of being honest with the gaps in what I will ever experience, how can I venture to link to a site that might offend a woman? Even if it seems ok to me, and it's a joke or whatever excuse, how can I possibly say I fully understand her perspective when her lived experience places her in such vastly different situations?

Seriously. All he had to do was make a SFW version for his resume if he was so keen on showing off the work. Use pictures of smurfs and puppies.

I might unfairly be making assumptions about how technically feasible the change would be. If it would be difficult to do so, I'd be interested to learn how/why, eg was it a system design choice or is it inherent to the tech itself...

That is the dumbest thing I've read in a long time. I've been a super-bat person or whatever since I was a little kid. I feel the most alive at night. I am also happily married. I have IRL best friends. I talk to my mom every day. She literally has never not been surprised when I text her earlier than 11am.

Yes, I feel normal when I'm the only human awake for miles around. I also like when my friends stay up to join me! I also like pretending like I'm that one caveman who stays up at night at the opening of the communal gorge. I say that half-jokingly but I really have no idea why humans would be awake at night otherwise.

Anyways, I'll keep a look out, gang. Sleep tight.

Wow. I almost skipped all the book recs as is usual for me with UX and design stuff, but you totally sold me on this one.

A first step could be a large survey of people who have found themselves on both sides of the equation recently. Hiring seems opaque to me. I sometimes don't even get feedback on why I was passed up for a role that I match perfectly (I mean, at least as to what HR posted...).

I'm sure there's also troves of evidence-based guidance somewhere that no one takes the time to utilize.

Little pit stops are less tiring as well. Like if you have to quickly unload or load from a bus or car, get over a fence, etc. A lighter bike makes it feel like less momentum is lost in those moments.

Sweet! I'll check it out. He also shows up in the movie Her... Maybe prescient haha

At the risk of the perception that I'm making a false equivalence or reducing the importance of being mindful of the types of suffering you point out (I don't intend that, and I'm as outraged by the problem you mentioned), but it's ok to tend to your own garden. In fact, that's where we can sometimes make the impacts that occasionally tip the system over. The more we try, the luckier we get.

Thanks for taking a stand and sharing your experience. That takes bravery. And thanks for acknowledging that that is not always an option for all of us.

For each one of those "No"s there are probably so many half-hearted and exasperated "Ok"'s. In aggregate we get to the point we're at, one little water droplet at a time. I'm optimistic though, because the same force works the other way too.

It's a real danger that we'll have to deal with on a sociological level soon. Atheism is on the rise. I'm not versed in atheism as it occurs in countries other than in the US, but it seems like we'll see new types of problems that are not immediately apparent. That's the double-edged sword of rationalism. Truth and reason above all... But it's vital to remember that we're squishy and mushy and spiritual and emotional beings. It seems like it will be a lot of fun to be involved in media as it comes to deal with that shift more and more. What stories make the most sense, while still holding truth at the center? What do people need?

I'm reminded of the prototypical Alan Watts lectures. He might be out of fashion at the moment, but maybe his work will one day again be a little flicker in the cave for us to reach for, down the line.

It's super hard. I am so empathetic to what you're telling me. From the bits I've learned of you through this convo, you seem self-aware and intelligent. With those tools, I am confident you will always have equanimity near.

Hey that's an amazing point. Thank you for mentioning it.

I definitely value freedom of thought above ritual. That's an aspect of the decision I had set aside as a conceit in order to allow myself to entertain it at all. I too was raised (loosely) Catholic, and a lot of my initial pain around morality and life stemmed from my literal interpretation of those teachings.

I hope that some sort of ongoing comparative discussion of religion and the purpose it can serve would help a child make their own best conclusions. The way I've been thinking of it at the moment is, the tension at the heart of this, is "Would 'depriving' someone of those rituals be more harmful than helpful?" I'm leaning toward it being negligible, but exposing them to ritual might bring an individual closer to a healthy path of spirituality on their own terms. I would definitely keep the aspect of autonomy front and center if I did introduce my child to religion. "They talked about Jesus today. Do you want to sit with me and find out what other people think of him?"