Hello! I usually read LessWrong posts, however, I'd never felt the need to create an account because I thought I needed to make some comment. However, when I read this one, I saw that, after so much time visiting LW without creating an account, I needed to create one to comment on it.

We have a strong bias in favor of human interests. But when we try to get rid of them we can see things in a different light. The magnitude of the harm humans cause to other animals really is significant and overwhelmingly bigger than the benefits humans obtain from it. It's very likely that in the future we will increase this gap between the magnitude of the harms we inflict on animals and the significantly smaller benefits we obtain. Therefore, debunking speciesism is a very important task we need to engage in if we want a future with more wellbeing and less suffering.

Experimenting only on nonhuman animals reflects the idea that human interests are more important simply because they are humans. This is a view we must oppose. And banning chimp testing actually questions this idea. For this reason, we should welcome very much such a ban. Campaining against may have terrible effects. The gains that might be acquired by harming chimps would be greatly outweighed by the significantly negative effect that the promotion of a speciesist viewpoint has. All this, of course, setting aside considerations regarding whether all the harm entailed by chimp testing is really going to prove so beneficial.

Given all this, my recommendation is that those who read this write to Scientific American to show their support of the ban on chimp testing.