[zensavona]

Being concerned about animal testing seems pretty silly coming from people who likely eat pigs, sheep and other intelligent animals every day, who likely lived in just as bad conditions if not worse their whole lives leading up to them becoming food.

I also eat meat, it just seems a bit ironic to me.

[Veserv]

You are ignoring the benefit side of a benefit-harm morality analysis.

Eating an animal at least ostensibly has positive value for the people doing so. However, there are plenty of forms of "animal testing" that confer zero positive value. For instance, testing the wrong compound or inserting the wrong implant confers zero benefit. Having improper controls, "testing" nonsensical theories, repeating stale results poorly, inadequate data collection, etc. are just a few ways a test procedure can be totally useless or even actively harmful.

This also ignores one of the other aspects of animal testing which is as a dry run or rehearsal for actual application. You do it right in animals so you are practiced at doing it right for when you need to do it right in humans. "Oh yeah, we royally screwed up in every rehearsal, but we will nail it in production." is not an acceptable approach. You look at the care taken during their practiced procedures on less critical subjects to determine if their practiced procedure is adequate for more critical subjects. A process that kills far more test subjects than others or achieves middling results relative to resource expenditure or that treats subjects as disposable for "advancing science" is not a process fit for human subjects. Assuming ingrained cultural process deficiencies will magically disappear when using changing subjects is foolish.

These are just some of the reasons why people eating a ridiculous number of animals does not and should not waive our invalidate concerns about animal testing procedure.

[andsoitis]

> Eating an animal at least ostensibly has positive value for the people doing so

It is what comes before the eating that we should think about. We are breeding conscious beings (cattle, pigs, chickens) in harrowing conditions, with second order effects on the environment and plant and animal diversity (by clearing space for feed).

Should we stop eating animals? I don't know.

Should we stop testing on animals? If it meant that we cannot develop certain classes of therapies, then probably not.

Should we level up our compassion and care for animals and the environment even if it means humans have less luxury as long as it doesn't hold back increased life and health span? Probably.

[concordDance]

> However, there are plenty of forms of "animal testing" that confer zero positive value.

I find it difficult to believe that companies do expensive surgery on expensive animals for no reason (other than sadism?). These companies think this testing does in fact have value (and if we don't trust companies to make that determination we probably should restrict animal testing to governments).

But regardless, there's no real way to justify eating meat (given the marginal benefit of taste over vegan food) other than saying the lives and suffering of animals is essentially worthless. There isn't a threshhold you can put which will allow eating but prevent animal testing.

[hoseja]

> testing the wrong compound or inserting the wrong implant confers zero benefit

It's called learning. That's why they are doing it in the first place.

[Philpax]

I'm pulling out my vegetarian pass to say, without hypocrisy, that Neuralink's animal testing record appears to be pretty horrific.

[misja111]

If you're using non-vegan products such as soap, shampoo or certain medicines you are complicit to animal testing as well.

[Timwi]

Right, but neither irony nor hypocrisy means that it's wrong. Murder is wrong and if a murderer on death row says that murder is wrong they are still correct.

[hcurtiss]

I suppose, but most people do not believe killing animals to benefit humans is wrong.

[sangnoir]

> Being concerned about animal testing seems pretty silly coming from people who likely eat pigs

This is reductive and lacking any form of nuance. If I eat chicken, should I automatically be okay with heavily industrialized chicken farms, or even setting chickens alight for entertainment? Just because one evolved to be an omnivore doesn't mean one is okay with all forms of killing animals.

[Der_Einzige]

Yes, actually you DO endorse the creation of things when you purchase or use their services.

[aaarrm]

Considering you have options, one could argue that you must be okay with them, otherwise you could just choose to not support them. I personally believe there's more nuance than that, but Ive heard that line of argument before.

[oefnak]

Yes. You are absolutely responsible for killing animals if you eat meat.

[foobiekr]

You should perhaps consider that most people would rather die than be tortured to death and perhaps we feel the same way about animals even if we eat meat - especially primates.

[fulafel]

Taken seriously, this is a fallacy and a way of thinking that easily halts progress in making the world a better place. You can always use whataboutism to argue against any improvement on grounds that a consistent ethic would require you to improve several other things at once. Being this kind of silly on the way is fine.

(Also of course a lot of the critics don't eat meat, and it's also true that the rest of us should stop, starting from factory farmed meat)

[yreg]

I believe that killing a pig for neuroscience research is more worth it than killing it to eat it. It also scales much better.

(I currently eat meat.)