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AstraSequi comments on Open thread, Jan. 18 - Jan. 24, 2016 - Less Wrong Discussion

4 Post author: MrMind 18 January 2016 09:42AM

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Comment author: PipFoweraker 19 January 2016 11:55:34PM 1 point [-]

If I'm exclusively limiting myself to animals that are raised in an organised fashion for eventual slaughter, I don't think I need too much data to assign broadly negative values to lives that are unusually brutish, nasty and short compared to either non-existence or a hypothetical natural existence.

In my consideration, simple things like the registering of a pain stimulus and the complexity of behaviour to display distress are good enough indicators.

Comment author: AstraSequi 20 January 2016 02:14:29AM *  1 point [-]

I don't think I need too much data to assign broadly negative values to lives that are unusually brutish, nasty and short compared to either non-existence or a hypothetical natural existence.

I don't think you can make that decision so easily. They're protected from predators, well-fed, and probably healthier than they would be in the wild. (About health, the main point against is that diseases spread more rapidly. But farmers have an incentive to prevent that, and they have antibiotics and access to minimal veterinary treatment.)

'no pig' > 'happy pig + surprise axe'

This leads me to conclusions I disagree with - like if a person is murdered, then their life had negative value.