Please avoid flamebait and generic tangents on HN. The guidelines are clear that we're meant to make an effort to discuss the primary topic substantively.
If you could only rescue one member from some kind of deadly emergency and they had equal chances, would you prioritize the pet over a human member of your family?
> If you could only rescue one member from some kind of deadly emergency and they had equal chances, would you prioritize the pet over a human member of your family?
If you could only rescue one family member from some kind of deadly emergency and they had equal chances, would you prioritize a stranger over a member of your family?
> would you prioritize a stranger over a member of your family?
I'll preface by saying that I don't have a pet. However, if one had to burn alive between a stranger's little girl and my cat, it's easier to empathize, "what if that were my daughter?". It's easy to imagine the father's pain, and because the girl is human, it's easier to imagine what might be going on in the little girl's head as well. As the heat's becoming too strong for her to bear, it's easier to imagine her expression, her pain, and her fear.
It's harder to imagine and empathize with what might be going on through a cat's head. They don't think as we do and don't express themselves as we do. It's not like one can't anthropomorphize and empathize that way, but it's not the same as empathizing with a human. It's harder to imagine and feel their thoughts and emotions to the same level of detail.
I'd feel for the cat, but I think the girl burning alive would give me the worse nightmares.
Legal/social consequences weight into your question.
A more straightforward angle could be money spent: would someone spend more for the wellbeing of their pet than for a family member (elderlies included).
It's how normal people use the word: doing something specifically to inflict pain on a human or animal. Slaughtering animals for meat isn't torture. Keeping them alive while inflicting pain because you enjoy the experience, is.
This was also my first thought in defense and to spot my hypocrisy. I spent many a minute going back and forth why am I judging a brain that lived a life and is “dead” more the the potential of a life, stem cell research, abortion in general and I gotta admit it was a invoking thought experiment.
I’m still on the acceptance side of abortion, stem cell research and other things like human cloning. They advance science, reduce human suffering - yes I get abortion doesn’t fit there exactly but it should be the mothers/parents right to ave access to abortion. All very political and highly debatable points today.
I understand if I accept that, what’s accepting experimentation on a brain dead brain - it should be a no brainer.
Easier because it’s just an artifact of a person that’s deceased but it is easy to invoke imagery in my own brain of an eternal torture chamber, someone’s consciousness locked away never recoverable or removable undergoing this amount of pain, but also is it pain if it can’t feel it?
The bodies other organs, it’s easy to dismiss as collections of cells, etc but: the brain just makes it harder to justify because it is the organ we use to interpret the world and imagining a world of pain and wondering what if that is the layer we are in now… is just scary.
