[eigenrick]

The U.S. factory farm system has killed 120+ million pigs and over 7 million sheep this year (hopefully not many monkeys). I am quite sure most of those pigs were subjected to torturous conditions before they were put out of their misery.

TBH, I think any outrage is hypocritical from anyone one who is not already outraged and boycotting the global meat industry.

[BoorishBears]

The global meat industry provides us with 350 million tons of food a year.

What has Neuralink given anyone for 1,500?

I wonder if people are reading the article too, the problem isn't even that they're killing animals, it's that they're killing more than their research requires because of unreasonable external pressure?

This feels a lot like "If you don't care about factory farms, but you do care that little Timmy is kicking puppies for fun, you're a hypocrite!!""

[danShumway]

People being morally outraged about the mistreatment of animals in some contexts might lead to them being morally outraged about the mistreatment of animals in other contexts.

This is a scenario where as a vegan I'm happy for people to have standards about animal wealfare in research. Yes, sometimes "think of the animals" arguments can be used by omnivores in ways that are harmful, but if the standard is that people need to be 100% committed before they complain about anything, then no one is ever going to be 100% committed. Any conversion to any cause almost always starts with people caring about the issue at the edges, and that process often starts out as messy and hypocritical.

So in general I look at what behavior people want from me to evaluate why they're making an argument. I've seen people complain that vegans/vegetarians are hypocrites for getting a COVID vaccine that isn't vegan, but they're typically not arguing for people to care more, they're arguing that the hypocrisy means they should be able to eat meat. And in this comment section I see people arguing that the meat industry is worse than Neuralink (and to be clear, it absolutely is), but is that argument being made to try and convince people to stop eating meat? Or is it being made to argue that Neuralink shouldn't face scrutiny for unnecessary carelessness in its animal research?

On average, people have a natural instinct (which can admittedly be overcome) to empathize with animals around them, which is why the meat industry needs to work so hard to separate consumers from the sources of modern meat and to mask how industrial meat farming has evolved and scaled over time and what the costs have been. I want people to develop that instinct, not suppress it. I don't really care if they're hypocritical right now, maybe if they foster that empathetic instinct they'll get less hypocritical in the future.

But I don't want them to say, "well, I eat meat, so I guess I shouldn't be upset about other forms of suffering." I think that would be moving in the wrong direction. The argument should be, "yes, and", not "no, unless".