Garrison—excellent Vox article; well done. I think I’ll include it as required reading next time I teach my college course on Effective Altruism. It does a nice job of explaining some of the counter-intuitive results that can happen when we get serious about trying to quantify the suffering entailed from different diets.
I especially liked the evolutionary arguments about the adaptive value of nociceptors, pain, and capacity for suffering. It’s very strange to me that some people doubt the sentience of other vertebrates. I mean, what do they think a central nervous system is for, if not to integrate information from positive and negative reinforcers to guide adaptive learning and behavior?
Garrison—excellent Vox article; well done. I think I’ll include it as required reading next time I teach my college course on Effective Altruism. It does a nice job of explaining some of the counter-intuitive results that can happen when we get serious about trying to quantify the suffering entailed from different diets.
I especially liked the evolutionary arguments about the adaptive value of nociceptors, pain, and capacity for suffering. It’s very strange to me that some people doubt the sentience of other vertebrates. I mean, what do they think a central nervous system is for, if not to integrate information from positive and negative reinforcers to guide adaptive learning and behavior?
Wow, thanks so much – very cool to hear!
Totally agreed RE the central nervous system!