Pretty grim thought experiment—but I wonder: what amount of living as a chicken, or pig, on a factory farm would people trade for a year of extra healthy (human) life?
Assume that you would have the consciousness of the chicken or pig during the experience (memories of your previous life would be limited to the extent to what a chicken or pig could comprehend), and that you would have some kind of memory of the experience after (although these would be zero if chickens and pigs aren’t sentient). Also assume that you wouldn’t lose any time in your real life (say it was run as a very fast simulation, but you subjectively still experienced the time you specified).
Edit: there’s another thought experiment along the same lines in MichaelStJules’ comment here.
I’m thinking that for me it would be something like 1⁄100 of a year! Maybe 1⁄10 tops. And for those such as the OP who think that “there’s just no one inside to suffer”—would you risk making such a swap (with a high multiple) if it was somehow magically offered to you?
While I certainly like that argument/thought experiment, I think it’s very difficult to imagine the subjective experience of an (arguably) lower degree of consciousness. Depending on what animal’s living conditions we’re talking about, I’d arguably take 1/10th even assuming human level consciousness (so basically *me* living in a factory farm for 36.5 days to gain one additional year of life as a human), but have naturally a hard time judging what a reasonable value for chicken level consciousness would be.
Also, this framing likely brings a few biases into the mix and reframing it slightly could probably greatly change how people answer. E.g. if you had the choice to die today or live for another 50 years but every year would start with a month experienced as a pig in factory farming conditions, I’d most certainly pick the latter option.
Pretty grim thought experiment—but I wonder: what amount of living as a chicken, or pig, on a factory farm would people trade for a year of extra healthy (human) life?
Assume that you would have the consciousness of the chicken or pig during the experience (memories of your previous life would be limited to the extent to what a chicken or pig could comprehend), and that you would have some kind of memory of the experience after (although these would be zero if chickens and pigs aren’t sentient). Also assume that you wouldn’t lose any time in your real life (say it was run as a very fast simulation, but you subjectively still experienced the time you specified).
Edit: there’s another thought experiment along the same lines in MichaelStJules’ comment here.
I’m thinking that for me it would be something like 1⁄100 of a year! Maybe 1⁄10 tops. And for those such as the OP who think that “there’s just no one inside to suffer”—would you risk making such a swap (with a high multiple) if it was somehow magically offered to you?
While I certainly like that argument/thought experiment, I think it’s very difficult to imagine the subjective experience of an (arguably) lower degree of consciousness. Depending on what animal’s living conditions we’re talking about, I’d arguably take 1/10th even assuming human level consciousness (so basically *me* living in a factory farm for 36.5 days to gain one additional year of life as a human), but have naturally a hard time judging what a reasonable value for chicken level consciousness would be.
Also, this framing likely brings a few biases into the mix and reframing it slightly could probably greatly change how people answer. E.g. if you had the choice to die today or live for another 50 years but every year would start with a month experienced as a pig in factory farming conditions, I’d most certainly pick the latter option.
Interesting—I would definitely not pick the 50 months as a pig on a factory farm.
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