> Depression is a first-world problem because we have the time and luxury for introspection and contemplation.
That's a myth unfortunately:
> Now, for the first time, researchers went beyond deaths to examine the global causes of illness and disability. They found that the single largest cause of disability worldwide was mental disorders – largely, the common illnesses of depression and anxiety. They caused a seventh of all the disability in the world. In the poorest countries as well as the richest, and at every socioeconomic level in between, mental disorders were the greatest thief of productive life.
The author was one of the key critics that got that paper withdrawn! From the overview:
> In the fall of 2002 George Ricaurte, the Dark Prince of suspect science, published an article in the prestigious journal Science that claimed that a “common recreational dose” of MDMA caused severe damage to the dopamine systems of monkeys.[26] (Parkinson’s disease involves the death of dopamine neurons, so extensive damage to your dopamine axons could presumably cause symptoms similar to Parkinson’s.) The press and politicians went mad. Draconian new anti-MDMA laws were passed, including the infamous RAVE Act, which made it illegal to throw a party if you “should have known” that some people would be using drugs at it. MAPS, which had been on the verge of finally having its MDMA post-traumatic stress disorder research approved, was stopped cold in the face of the apparent new evidence of MDMA’s horrific dangers.
> More than a year later, after scathing criticism from TheDEA.org, the house of cards collapsed when Ricaurte sheepishly admitted that the experiment never really happened: The monkeys had actually been given massive doses of methampetamine, not MDMA! He also admitted that no matter what they had tried, they had been unable to damage monkey’s dopamine systems with real MDMA.
Indeed, I recommend Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies by Nick Bostrom, which explores this topic in great depth, including the control problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_control_problem
Thanks, I will read this. I think in general the reasoning I see in this area is very poor. I think, since people have a hard time understanding their own intelligence, let alone sub- or super-intelligence, that they just project all kinds of human foibles onto it.
To be honest, I'm holding out for clean meat, eating insects just seems unnecessary to me, especially because of welfare considerations—insects potentially have the capacity to feel pain and you have to kill a significant amount of insects just to make a small amount of food.
"Considerable empirical evidence supports the assertion that insects feel pain and are conscious of their sensations. In so far as their pain matters to them, they have an interest in not being pained and their lives are worsened by pain. Furthermore, as conscious beings, insects have future (even if immediate) plans with regard to their own lives, and the death of insects frustrates these plans. In that sentience appears to be an ethically sound, scientifically viable basis for granting moral status and in consideration of previous arguments which establish a reasonable expectation of consciousness and pain in insects, I propose the following, minimum ethic: We ought to refrain from actions which may be reasonably expected to kill or cause nontrivial pain in insects when avoiding these actions has no, or only trivial, costs to our own welfare."
— Jeffery A. Lockwood
Agreed, also:
>Fish caught on bait typically suffer a much higher mortality rate. About one third (33%) of fish caught on bait will die after being released and over 60% of deep hooked fish die. In general if the fish is bleeding it will not survive.
And:
>Researchers from Queen's University, in Belfast, have proven that when fish are subjected to pain stimuli, the signals by no means simply ebb away in the spinal cord. Scientists have discovered sensitive skin areas directly behind the gill covers of goldfish and trout. Using implanted electrodes, they have been able to show that the nerve cells located there send signals directly to the fish's brain.
When researchers poked the animals with needles, a flurry of neuron messages were transmitted to the endbrain -- the very region of the brain where pain signals are also processed by birds and mammals.
Your entertainment, should not come at the expense of another sentient being's suffering.
That's a myth unfortunately:
> Now, for the first time, researchers went beyond deaths to examine the global causes of illness and disability. They found that the single largest cause of disability worldwide was mental disorders – largely, the common illnesses of depression and anxiety. They caused a seventh of all the disability in the world. In the poorest countries as well as the richest, and at every socioeconomic level in between, mental disorders were the greatest thief of productive life.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/apr/30/busting-the-...