I'm not an up voter here either but I found the comment at least acceptable. It didn't particularly make me laugh but it was in no way annoying.

The discussion in the replies was actually interesting. It gave people the chance to explore ethical concepts with an artificial example - just what is needed to allow people to discuss preferences across the perspective of different agents without their brains being completely killed.

For example, if this branch was a discussion about human ethics then it is quite likely that dclay's comment would have been downvoted to oblivion and dclay shamed and disrespected. Even though dclayh is obviously correct in pointing out a flaw in the implicit argument of the parent and does not particularly express a position of his own he would be subjected to social censure if his observation served to destroy a for the political correct position. In this instance people think better because they don't care... a good thing.