My dog sometimes shakes uncontrollably when there's e.g. fireworks outside. I'm a vegetarian BTW, so I'm not arguing for testing on animals, just that it's easy to over-interpret.
Ask the society. Apparently the majority accepts fireworks. I don't see an article on hackernews describing how terrible the fireworks are because an animal was shaking uncontrollably.
What I also wanted to communicate is that shaking uncontrollably isn't necessarily connected to some terrible, unbearable trauma, which I think is something implied by people using the quote.
> What I also wanted to communicate is that shaking uncontrollably isn't necessarily connected to some terrible, unbearable trauma
Unless your dog used to be fine with fireworks and then one day started shaking uncontrollably whenever they go off. Then you might reasonably conclude that something happened to instil that fear.
A loud continuous noise at irregular intervals from which you do not understand the source is a reasonable thing to be scared of. Being frightened of a particular person, especially one that regularly experiments on you is a strong indicator that you were treated some way you don’t like.
>> What I also wanted to communicate is that shaking uncontrollably isn't necessarily connected to some terrible, unbearable trauma
> Unless your dog used to be fine with fireworks and then one day started shaking uncontrollably whenever they go off. Then you might reasonably conclude that something happened to instil that fear.
Sure, you can argue that, and I would have some counterarguments. But please notice how I didn't say "What I also wanted to communicate is that shaking uncontrollably isn't necessarily connected to fear", I said something different, didn't I? Strawmaning will lead us nowhere.
I'm trying not to strawman, but the OP of this thread pasted a quote, without any clarification what he means, so I can only guess. It wasn't even the only time he did that in this comment section - as if this quote was the most significant aspect of the article, proving the "gruesomeness" mentioned in the title. Of course maybe it was just a random quote, we will never know if the OP doesn't care to clarify.
So what I point out is: "uncontrollable shaking" can be easily over-interpreted. Probably everyone here shivered at least once. Yes, in that case the mechanism is clear and not related to any kind of fear, but we don't even now if it was in case of the macaque. The shaking could as well be caused by the damage to the brain, which should be the first explanation that comes to mind in the context of operations on the brain.
I understand the outrage, but outrage doesn't justify bad arguments, and bad arguments don't help the cause. We could have an interesting conversation on the morality of testing on animals, instead of comparing a single sentence of a monkey shaking uncontrollably, to 4 Wikipedia articles about forced experiments on humans.
Neither will assuming a straw man which isn’t there. Had I used your exact words, I would have made the exact same point. I did not answer a different argument (the definition of a straw man) but the same argument with different words.
But I do believe you’re arguing in good faith, so if you agree we can chalk that up to miscommunication and move the point along.
> So what I point out is: "uncontrollable shaking" can be easily over-interpreted. Probably everyone here shivered at least once.
The key is that the animal would shake uncontrollably when seeing lab workers. We cannot discard that context. Shaking uncontrollably in response to specific stimuli should make us consider if the latter is causing the former.
> The shaking could as well be caused by the damage to the brain
That makes it worse.
> We could have an interesting conversation on the morality of testing on animals, instead of comparing a single sentence of a monkey shaking uncontrollably
Then let’s add more sentences about that specific animal:
> she began to press her head against the floor for no apparent reason; a symptom of pain or infection, the records say. (…) she was uncomfortable, picking and pulling at her implant until it bled, she would often lie at the foot of her cage (…) A necropsy report indicates that she had bleeding in her brain and that the Neuralink implants left parts of her cerebral cortex “focally tattered”.
There are more animals described in the article, we can could pull quote from those too. It’s not like the original comment quoted the only problem in the article, they chose one of many. Like yourself, I don’t know why they picked that specific sentence, but focusing on that quote alone is missing the forest for the trees.
>> The shaking could as well be caused by the damage to the brain
> That makes it worse.
Does it? I can see how an argument could be made along the lines of: the animal testing (rather than human testing) is there because of a theoretical risk of suffering, and so as soon as it happens in practice, the research should be stopped, the strategy changed etc. But does anyone here really think this is the case? I'd think everyone here knows animal suffering is inevitable on this stage of the research (obviously there could be less or more of it depending on competence and good will to invest in more humane procedures - neither can be evaluated based on such a note). What the quote does, I think, is that it implies some kind of sadism on the side of the researchers. Meanwhile I think the "uncontrollable shaking" could as well happen after a placebo procedure, just because the macaque doesn't know what is being done to it. Such a strong response to this particular quote seems to me purely emotional, which the OP confirms with his further line(s) of argumentation.
> It’s not like the original comment quoted the only problem in the article, they chose one of many.
Exactly! Why that one? After several requests, the OP refuses to explain why he thought it's such an important quote.
> so you accept society’s judgement on fireworks at your dog’s expense?
How should I understand this question? What choices do I have? What are the possible answers and what would they mean? I'm obviously not happy about the fireworks, but what would it mean that I don't accept them?
> in that case, why don’t you eat meat? society is fine with it.
I also don't shoot fireworks. And the society is fine with meat eating as well.
> seems like uneven application.
Some people would rather see hypocrisy than nuance.
