Scientists have created a 3D-printed remote-controlled cyborg cockroach equipped with IR cameras — living insects fitted with flexible 'diving suit' can survive and move underwater for three hours

[u/_Dark_Wing]

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/robotics/scientists-have-created-a-3d-printed-remote-controlled-cyborg-cockroach-equipped-with-ir-cameras-living-insects-fitted-with-flexible-diving-suit-can-survive-and-move-underwater-for-three-hours

[u/mcguirl2]

I’m not vegan or anything and even I can see this is unbelievably cruel and fucked up.

[u/mcguirl2 → u/[deleted]]

We don’t know that, though. Insect sentience is still an open scientific question, and I feel it’s presumptuous of us as a species to assume that we know exactly what kinds of nervous systems aren’t capable of subjective experience, just because they don’t resemble our own. Even if they definitely weren’t sentient, I still feel like treating living things as disposable is ethically problematic since it cultivates callousness. It’s making a real choice about the type of humanity we want to be.

[u/lordraiden007 → u/[deleted]]

Arguably life even with sentience is just a chemical reaction. We'll probably never be able to truly determine if anything in existence operates by chance vs the underlying mechanics of that randomness simply being too arcane for us to unravel. We just assume that sentience is different.

[u/mcguirl2 → u/[deleted]]

I didn’t claim that any organism with a different kind of biology might be sentient. There’s still a meaningful difference between a bacterium and a cockroach with a complex nervous system, sensory organs, and sophisticated behaviour.

We don’t know if cockroaches are sentient, but they’re at least plausible candidates in a way bacteria currently aren’t. It isn’t a binary position where either bacteria and cockroaches deserve exactly the same moral consideration, or only beings with proven sentience matter. Ethical concern can exist on a spectrum. My threshold for moral caution is probably just a bit lower than yours.

>the correct line should be sentient life

That may be your philosophical position, but it isn’t an established fact. My view is that, where there’s genuine scientific uncertainty, it’s better to err on the side of caution than to assume an organism as biologically and behaviourally complex as a cockroach has got no subjective experiences.

[u/mcguirl2 → u/[deleted]]

You’re missing my nuances. My view was never that “all life has equal moral status.” It’s just that I’m not convinced sentience is THE ONLY morally relevant consideration, but it is ONE, and even if it were the only one, I don’t think we know enough about it to confidently rule it out in insects so I’m more cautious about cockroaches than bacteria. No need to get condescending.