Reexpthetai, What do you think is the optimal level of suffering in Nature? Do we really want a living world where sentient beings are asphyxiated, disemboweled and eaten alive? Intuitively, a cruelty-free biosphere sounds like utopian dreaming – or least many hundreds or thousands of years away. But the exponential growth of computer power means the problem of non-human animal suffering is computationally tractable this century – whether or not you’re a hardcore Singularitarian.
Reexpthetai, there’s a clear difference between eating a plant and eating an animal. One action causes suffering, the other doesn’t.
How is reprogramming predators limiting in an evolutionary context? Especially when you consider that humans killed off most of Earth’s large mammalian predators and herbivores 13,000 years ago and pretty much remade the Earth however we preferred it, it seems silly to talk about the designs of evolution, which take millions of years to produce and have already been stifled with the extinction of most species created by it. Besides, anything that humans do will simply be one more step in evolution. Isn’t eliminating suffering a worthy goal of evolution and the goal of most of our modern medical breakthroughs?
November 22nd, 2009 - 22:58
The math is correct, but unfortunately it is very limiting in the evolutionary context.
My understanding tells me that perfection is only momentary…
I think that the best bet would to have the lions know when they were eating too many lambs, or for the lambs know when they are over populated.
November 23rd, 2009 - 13:29
Reexpthetai, What do you think is the optimal level of suffering in Nature? Do we really want a living world where sentient beings are asphyxiated, disemboweled and eaten alive? Intuitively, a cruelty-free biosphere sounds like utopian dreaming – or least many hundreds or thousands of years away. But the exponential growth of computer power means the problem of non-human animal suffering is computationally tractable this century – whether or not you’re a hardcore Singularitarian.
November 24th, 2009 - 22:50
David_Pearce,
I think this is why we discuss the idea of sentience.
If a Man-O’war was to sting you on the leg would you not avoid it?
If you were hungry would you not have some milk from a cow, or an egg from a hen?
I know the idea of not eating a living entity, or nothing from them, but I would starve, and so would you.
July 30th, 2010 - 10:22
Reexpthetai, there’s a clear difference between eating a plant and eating an animal. One action causes suffering, the other doesn’t.
How is reprogramming predators limiting in an evolutionary context? Especially when you consider that humans killed off most of Earth’s large mammalian predators and herbivores 13,000 years ago and pretty much remade the Earth however we preferred it, it seems silly to talk about the designs of evolution, which take millions of years to produce and have already been stifled with the extinction of most species created by it. Besides, anything that humans do will simply be one more step in evolution. Isn’t eliminating suffering a worthy goal of evolution and the goal of most of our modern medical breakthroughs?