[PowerElectronix]

From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh...

Seriously, this playing with living organisms to augment their capabilities and make them do our bidding is a bit beyond my personal moral threshold. At this point isn't easier to miniaturize a robot cocroach?

[f6v]

It's much easier to plug into something perfected by millions of years of selective pressure.

[npmaker]

It really depends on a person's moral qualms and how deeply they are felt.

For instance, different people put different amounts of effort in when a rogue house fly enters a room. Some kill, some catch and release.

Which is easier? It really depends on the person and what they are willing to tolerate.

[lukan]

Most flies I kill, butterflies and wasps I usually guide out. But catching a insect and injecting electronic into it to force it to move where it does not want is kind of a very different thing to me.

[lmf4lol]

What is , in your moral judgement, the difference between a fly and butterlies and wasps? why kill one but guide out the other?

[codedokode]

Flies bite and butterflies don't? Sorry no tolerance for those who wants to bite me.

[lmf4lol]

i never ever had a fly bite me… what sort is that?

[lukan]

Flies fly on shit and bring that in the house. That is reason for me to not have mercy. They bring harm.

Wasps do not bring harm to me, I know how to coexist with them, but if my kids are around, I will also kill them if they seem aggressive. So my ethics are very pragmatic.

[imustbeevil]

Killing something because it mistakenly wandered into your periphery isn't exactly what I'd call pragmatic.

If our solar system drifts too close to another civilization I don't want to get squashed. That's the maxim. We are the fly. If you don't want something bigger than you to be entirely justified in killing you for no reason, you cannot believe yourself to be entirely justified doing the same.

The golden rule is really hard to beat.

[f6v]

My work involves experiments on mammals, so I don't mind.

[igleria]

I can picture an alien picking me up and making horrible experiments on my body alright, so I understand your worry...

[engineer_22]

Very interesting research but can’t help but /feel/ this is abominable

[tryagainian]

No more beer, wine, bread, or yogurt for you.

No mushrooms, no meat, and no vegetables.

[silver_silver]

This argument is called reductio ad absurdum. It’s often used by people like you who want to prevent others from trying to be better.

[sarchertech]

> playing with living organisms to augment their capabilities and make them do our bidding

I think the OP was just highlighting that we do this all the time.

I personally feel like cyborg control goes a step beyond selective breeding and it makes me feel icky too. But we need to talk about what the difference is.

[card_zero]

What on earth do you mean? That's a basic form of argument, where you demonstrate that the logic of a proposition leads somewhere ridiculous, or leads to a contradiction.

It reminds me of somebody I knew who thought that metaphors are dishonest and should never be used.

[silver_silver]

Yes if we follow the logic that exploiting an organism is universally unethical it leads to a ridiculous conclusion.

Maybe it would be more precise to call it a slippery slope but I’m not sure there’s another name for this kind of reductive argument.

[card_zero]

Yes, "reductive argument" is fair enough, don't want to be reductionist and dismiss the emergent properties of the thing. (What were we talking about again? The ethics of meddling with nature?)

[silver_silver]

Posturing and pedantry like this doesn’t change the fact that the nature of exploitation is more important than its mere existence. I’m not sure what you’re trying to achieve with these comments but if it’s to convince me the original argument was made in good faith you should try doing it yourself.

[tryagainian]

Extremely. It’s only a logical facility when the argument made is fallacious.