You draw the line somewhere, right? Drawing the line at a certain complexity of the nervous system is more sensible than drawing it at "animals" in general, IMO.

There's a big difference in effort, and not much difference in outcome, between doing as the Jains do and simply endeavouring not to kill things on purpose.

I mean, I wouldn't do it, but it seems to me that if you're advocating "as far as practically possible" then it would include that.

And better than friend vs stranger ;)

Yeah, I just have to worry about higher beings justifying the termination of my primitive nervous system "for science". Perhaps my consciousness is so dim relative to theirs that it would be analogous to me squashing a bug. I hope that their methods are advanced enough that they don't need to.

They might as well just terminate your primitive nervous system for their own nutritional needs or out of mere hunting instinct. Plenty of animals do this all the time, nature isn't romantic idealistic, it's ruthless and unforgiving.

Consciousness requires a critical mass of brain power. A wolf is relatively intelligent but not conscious, they are biological machines that only think about killing and mating and they have been doing that, without change for hundreds of thousands of years. And if the environment doesn't change then they will continue being identical for hundreds of thousands of years more. Trying to give animals human properties is really very foolish. It's like trying to do that with computers, just because they can give us illusions of intelligence and consciousness, but because computers don't have cute faces and cuddly bodies nobody thinks about it. Evolution really is very efficient but brutally so. Only reason why humans have things like compassion is because it has been evolutionarily advantageous to us. A single human is really quite weak and underpowered, we need to cooperate, it's the key to our progress. It is also why we think babies are cute and why we are instinctively protective of them and why sex feels good. There really is no deeper meaning behind any of it. If we had evolved from tigers then the world would look very (brutally)different, because tigers are solitary and territorial animals that have absolutely no use for things like compassion, empathy or cooperativeness. We wouldn't think twice about killing anything if it suited us, not even other tigers and it would be completely normal to us. If some hairless ape came to us on his high horse and started preaching about morals and rights then we would think that he was crazy, and then we would eat him.

Your argument is sound...flies are animals. They have exoskeletons, six legs, and compound eyes but they are animals nonetheless. However, our cultural "worth" of flies is much lower than that of dogs, so even people who supposedly value logic above all else would rather scoff and silently disagree than challenge their own shaky belief system.

Granted, if a few dead caterpillars can cure our accumulating trash problem, that's a tradeoff I am ok with.

'Animals' is not a natural kind. There's no logical reason to care about all animals just because they are animals.

I care about dogs, pigs, other people, etc. not because they're 'animals', but because I think they are plausibly conscious (to varying degrees) and they can experience joy and suffering. Insects, not so much.

I'm unwilling to care any nonzero amount about insects. Here is why.

There are something like a billion billion insects in the world. Given their short lifetimes, it means dozens of billions of billions are born and die each year. Wild insect lives are mostly short and brutal. If you care at all about an insect's life, that tiny amount multiplied by dozens of billion billions means your moral concern for insects should pretty much swamp out any other concern.

You'd have to select how much you care about each insect life with suspicious precision for the sum total to be significantly different from zero, but less than how much you care about human and dog lives.

So to be coherent, you have to either not care at all about insects, or your first priority in life should be to help insects. I, uh, choose not to care.

(Some people seriously care though. See: http://reducing-suffering.org/the-importance-of-insect-suffe...)

I would say the opposite. Animals whose lives are rife with pain and misfortune can use all the help anyone is willing to offer. Granted, I will not seek out every fly and try to "save" it. But if I come across one I can help, I will do so. I think you're making the argument "either you HAVE to care about every fly or you CANNOT care about any flies." Perhaps that logic works for you, but I think it's a fallacy. I can care about flies without needing to care about the well-being of every fly. I also adhere to non-interference. If a fly is caught in a spider web, I will leave it. To free the fly is to starve the spider. Some things we just don't have control over. But I will do my best personally to not harm other animals.

I said this in another comment, but I'll repeat:

> I will show kindness to animals, but only to the point where it doesn't completely impede my life or my ability to find happiness.

In other words, it doesn't impede life or my happiness to catch a fly and bring it outside. Therefor it falls under the "show kindness to animals" category.

(I should add an addendum to that: any animal that is attacking me physically is subject to death (horse flies, mosquitoes, dogs, bears, etc)).

Given all that, I do not judge people who don't care about insects. I get it, completely. But that doesn't mean I won't stop challenging people's viewpoint on why it's ok to kill some animals and not others.

Well no it's not exactly 'fine'. Maybe we will figure out some day that insects are a little bit conscious and it may turn out we have collectively been literally worse than Hitler for not caring.

In the meantime I choose not to care, not as a fully logical decision, but for my own sanity and well-being. I'm a dumb ape who tries (and even maybe succeeds) to be logical sometimes, my moral 'system' is a hodge-podge of intuition, rule-based and consequentialist thinking, I don't claim I have found a fully logical moral system.

> it's fine to not care for insects because there are a lot of them, and because their lives are short and brutal.

No no no, I'm saying, if you care at all, you should care about all of them, because as a rule their lives are short and brutal.

It's not like with humans where a lot of us have ok lives, so you can focus on the ones that have a bad time. Pretty much all insects have a bad time (if they are 'having a time' at all, i.e. if they are conscious).

I'm saying I reject caring about any one insect because it very probably leads to a repugnant conclusion (that I should care about insects above all else), based on utilitarian math -- unless you choose very very carefully how much you care about each insect.

I understand most people only care about local things. I think that's a moral failing, ideally I want to care just as much about people far away than about local people. I don't in practice but I try (I do donate to charities that help people in poor countries far from home.)

If I follow that logic and extend my caring to insects, I should care about all insects.

> I think you're making the argument "either you HAVE to care about every fly or you CANNOT care about any flies." Perhaps that logic works for you, but I think it's a fallacy

That's not my argument, that's my conclusion, based on utilitarian math, and I'm making a probabilistic argument, not a deductive logic argument, so calling it a fallacy is a type error on two counts.

> I also adhere to non-interference. If a fly is caught in a spider web, I will leave it.

What's the logic behind that? If a child stumbles into a pond and drowns, or is mauled by a wild coyote, will you let them die on the basis of non-interference?

Great point, you got me there. All life forms being equal, then yes if I adhered to my own system I suppose I would have to silently watch a child get mauled by a coyote. Obviously, I wouldn't take it that far, so perhaps there's more criteria to the decisions than I'm admitting or able to even dig out of my psyche at the moment. I'll think about this.

Your other points about utilitarian math are well-taken, and perhaps I misunderstood you there.

> If I follow that logic and extend my caring to insects, I should care about all insects.

So if you care about starving children, and apply the same rules you apply to children to insects, you'd be donating a lot to charity, basically. Makes sense =]. So once again, my live-and-let-die attitude towards insects is at odds with my "help unfortunate members of humanity" "morality." Another good point (granted, I don't donate much to charity, but if I did, I would probably donate to poor/starving people as opposed to insect charities).

> I'm a dumb ape who tries (and even maybe succeeds) to be logical sometimes, my moral 'system' is a hodge-podge of intuition, rule-based and consequentialist thinking, I don't claim I have found a fully logical moral system.

This is probably the most coherent, self-aware moral system I've heard. Most people try to ascribe their beliefs to some overarching theme that they pretend to follow in all circumstances, when in reality most of our actions are governed by a tiny fraction of what we believe to be morality, and the rest is knee-jerk reactions to situations that affect us emotionally one way or the other. Not only that, but our beliefs (as you pointed out in my case), are a "hodge-podge" of rules, emotions, and hardwiring.

All that said, I still try to be nice to all animals, and will continue to do so until I find the next mishmash set of rules to figure out why I believe what I believe.

EDIT: relevant: http://wondermark.com/c/2015-06-25-1135earn.png

To insect charity yeah. Or spending a lot of time doing insect advocacy or something.

Instead I donate for anti-malaria bed nets for kids and argue about animal ethics on the internet.

> if I adhered to my own system I suppose I would have to silently watch a child get mauled by a coyote

Right. Obviously no one but psychopaths act like that. I think what you call 'non-interference' ties in with the difference between the moral weight of action vs inaction. Most people's moral intuition draw a distinction between the two, and think action matters more. The interesting thing is that you can construct scenarios where that intuition changes.

Don't know if that comic was aimed at me I can sympathize with black hat guy though I know he's supposed to be the annoying dick in the comic.

I think it's interesting to take propositions to their logical extremes, but you have to hedge the results with common sense because when you take things to their extremes a small error in reasoning could lead you far astray.

> I think it's interesting to take propositions to their logical extremes

What I find most annoying about animal rights activists is that they mean well, but most of them haven't really thought through their position, and pushing their positions to logical extremes is a great way of exposing it. People actually value human life above other life, and those that claim otherwise are either liars, psychopaths, or they just haven't thought it through.

I mean, if you make a classical trolley problem where you have to choose between saving 1 human baby or N puppies, is there a number, N, such that you would save the puppies instead of the baby? The logical consequence of "all life is equal" is that N=2. That's clearly murderous. If you were to make lifespan a factor, and dogs live 1/7th of a human, then N=8. That's still highly objectionable.

I honestly don't know if there's a number where I would start choosing the puppies.. 1 million? Puppycide or one human? Or is that example too extreme? I don't know, but it's interesting to think about.

Now, humorously, having had "pet" mantids before is a great way to eliminate nuisance insects around the house somewhat autonomously. Although it doesn't always quite work the way you may intend (they'll self-relocate or sometimes lose interest in prey items). ;)

I don't see much evidence for a "shaky belief system". Or maybe you're making a specific point about dogs, given that they were bred specifically to "feel like people" to us? Meh. I'm a cat guy.

I'd liked to add that there are aspects of mutualism underlying how much we value dogs. We used to hunt alongside dogs, there exists a special bond between man and dog that does not exist between any other species, to my knowledge. They know our emotions, our smells, our noises, our physiological needs, they are even aware of fragility of our bodies compared to other animals.

Dogs are pretty amazing

I think you're right, dogs' historical utility along with their near human-like qualities have brought them much further along on the scale of "things that are not ok to kill" (towards humans). So perhaps there's a point when an animal becomes similar enough to us that we start viewing it as "one of us." This isn't just cultural, as you point out, but a sort of shared viewpoint of the world.

I'm also curious if size in general has something to do with it. Small animals have less value because we're perceiving killing "less of" something. Most people wouldn't think twice about killing a fly (myself included if it's a deer/horse fly) but would feel bad if they killed a bear that was attacking them, or even stepped on a lizard by accident.

So maybe dogs are a bad example (granted, I inherited the argument from a post up the tree from me), but I still think there's a cultural worth put on various animals.

Funny enough, I was in a catholic school when I was in third grade (9 years old?). I'm not catholic, and wasn't then, so I was always a bit suspicious. One of the teachers was talking about how there's a hierarchy to life. Rocks are at the bottom, then come plants, then animals, then humans, and angels/god on top. I remember, even then, thinking "without rocks, none of this would exist. without plants, no animals/humans could live, and without animals humans would die out." In other words, although we put ourselves at the top of the pyramid (of physical beings), the rest of the world would be just fine if humans disappeared tomorrow. Our existence has no meaning beyond our ability to evolve into better life forms. The point being, we have these odd social ratings for the value of other animals' lives, yet in many respects, our lives are almost worthless with respect the rest of the life on the planet. Our lives have value to us, but in essence we live in a bit of a bubble of self-importance.

I tend to think that lifetimes are measured in lifetimes (relative scale) by various animals. So where a fly might live four of our weeks, to that fly, perhaps it was perceived as a good 60 years time if it was on our scale.

So to me, lifespan doesn't factor into it too much, although perhaps you're right that that is another piece of data used by people to measure an animal's "worth."

I find it much stranger that violence towards farm animals is ok but not pets.

At least there are principled reasons to care less about insects (much less complex nervous system), I can find no principled reason to care more for dogs than pigs.

Whether or not the person posting the argument "animal testing is bad" eats meat doesn't change the question - "should we fatally test on animals."

I'm a bit disappointed that nobody is really engaging this non-sarcastically. A couple are talking about "drawing a line" somewhere but nobody is being allowed to say "all life should fall on the safe side of the line." I think there are interesting arguments for this position but right now HN is being aggressively hostile to that position.

The question is worth considering, I wrote up a detailed answer on why I don't care about insects in a sibling thread.

EDIT: I'm not well placed to argue from hypocrisy, I'm like 90% vegetarian but I still eat meat. Meateaters love taking me down a notch for that one time per week or whatever I eat meat.

I eat meat at every opportunity, but if I were to calculate a number such as yours then I'd be say "65% vegetarian" just due to the volume difference between meat and the rest.

People taking a swing at you is most likely just because you describe yourself as a vegetarian to them even though you're still eating meat (regularly) while in their presence.

> I eat meat at every opportunity, but if I were to calculate a number such as yours then I'd be say "65% vegetarian" just due to the volume difference between meat and the rest.

Most people, who don't try to take my words in the least charitable way possible as you are here, understand just fine what 'mostly vegetarian' means.

I don't describe myself as vegetarian (without qualifiers).

> That's because there's no such thing as 90% vegetarian, it's a binary option which you've re-purposed into a scale.

Words are meant for communicating. Arguing by definition is a losers' game.

Note that meateaters give me more crap than full on vegetarians/vegans. If the issue was really that I'm coopting the word, you'd think it'd be the opposite.

My experience is that, at least among my circles, vegetarians can appreciate that reduced meat consumption = reduced animal suffering and environmental impact, even if you're not 100% pure; it's meateaters, who feel you are trying to take a moral high ground, who will try to take you down.

Actually my problem is probably that I did use to be strictly vegetarian, vegan at one point, for a few years, and slipped back for various reasons. I don't claim it anymore but it's not like I made a public announcement that I am no longer strictly vegetarian.

Well I don't agree at all! Apart from the fact that large populations can live without meat, I can easily envision a "scavenging farm" where animals are liked after until they die, and only then processed. It wouldn't be as efficient as our farms, but completely possible.

There's simply no way to survive without destroying other life. Even plants kill other living things in self defense (and many plants prey on animals).

Eventually, maybe we'll become effectively plants, creating our food from sunlight, CO2 and minerals. But what about our microbiota?

For the same reason people are more disturbed by terrorists beheading one person whose name and picture accompany the story than they are of a statistic where hundreds of civilians are killed by a dictator's bombing attack.

People are motivated by empathy which only works with identifiable beings. We just can't empathize with statistics or abstractions, as horrifying as that sounds.

Pets are a recent phenomenon (last 100 or so years, and urban). [edit: recent, not common phenomenon]

In rural places animals like cats and dogs where actually useful: guarding, helping with the sheep, killing mice and snakes, and such.

The bonding came from having them around (and having them be useful), not because there was some bizarro artificial distinction between e.g. cows and sheep and cats and dogs.

And in many cultures and/or periods things we now call pets were/are eaten as casually as we eat cows or kale.

No but it addresses the fact that there's no underlying grand principle beyond it all.

Some animals we grew to like more, because they were useful, and we kept them around. That's all.

It's no more strange than caring for some people because they are relatives, and not caring as much (or at all) for other people.

Farmed turkeys can't have sex, they have to be artificially inseminated, I don't know who made them that way if not humans.

It seems pretty normal and not strange at all that I develop stronger feelings for animals I personally bond with.

I don't find it strange at all. I find it strange that the notion of "violence toward insects" is even a thing.

I don't really follow where you're going with the dog example. What kind of comparison is that supposed to be?

Edit to add: Even ants produce antibiotics that they groom on to their bodies to prevent the growth of bacteria and fungus on themselves and inside their nests. So I'm going to continue to swat flies and not lose any sleep over it.

My parents used to flip out and kill caterpillars, spiders, etc whenever they saw them. More than once I'd notice one and corral them outside while my parents weren't looking. There's just no point in killing something because it simply exists.

None of this probably matters though.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

When I think of abortion, I don't think of it as killing babies. I think of it as killing a collection of cells that some day perhaps might be a child. But it is not one. I don't see how one can say that a clump of 64 cells is a child, given that it has the potential to be one, but not also take issue with their sperm not fertilizing an egg. Isn't every sperm a potential child as well? On what point of the scale to you draw the line and say "this is now a child" vs "this is a collection of biological material that may become a child if proper conditions are met?"

I think the first trimester is a fairly decent cutoff.

Thats not what I'm talking about (although I admit I'm generally against.)

See "Born-Alive Infants Protection Act" and "Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act" to get an idea.

Edit:

I think the first trimester is a fairly decent cutoff.

As far as I am aware this is not a general cutoff in the US.

I am pro-choice by the way.

The Orwellianness of this turn-of-phrase never ceases to amaze.

How is that not an unborn child?

Thank you for demonstrating the Orwellian nature of this phrasing.

By unconditionally accepting this you are defending some really really questionable practices. The fact that the laws I mentioned above (or below) even had to be made in the first place says something about this.