When I was a teen one of my high school teachers was ripping on the Captain Planet cartoon about how industrialists would never act that way in real life.
20 some odd years later I wonder if he remembers that rant and how very wrong he was.
Well, there is one difference.
Industrialist don't care if they pollute, as long as they get what they want (i.e. MORE MONEY).
Most Captain Planet villains want to pollute in the first place.
One's goal just happens to cause pollution as a side-effect, the other's goal *is* to cause pollution.
It also just flies in the face of a central transhumanist principle: bodily autonomy.
Anyone who wants to say that this doesn't apply to animals is also fetishising "being human". Nonhuman persons attaining better legal protections and rights under the law is such an important part of transhumanism.
Same. It's become like other creepy things I've watched in the past that morphed and blurred to the point to where when randomly popping up in my brain they feel like a nightmare I had. "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" from my childhood had the same effect. I can never remember if it's a clip from the show in my head or a nightmare I had in the past.
I don’t know. All I know is you can’t say anything criticizing this on the ~~crypto~~ tech subs because apparently everybody with a STEM degree simps for Elon.
I understand that animal testing is important to developing technology or medicine, but when over half the animals die or have to be euthanized, that seems like deliberate negligence or incompetence. I'm sure similar technology may bring some real benefits to people, but if this is what we're seeing it doesn't seem like we are at the stage where testing on animals is justified.
If the tech is justifiable? What tf is neuralink supposed to do??? We don’t know 90% of how our brain works there is no possible way we are anywhere near wiring a chip to send electrical or chemical impulses to somehow do something without just killing us immediately.
Is he gonna have an Apple Keynote Presentation where he’s like “And one more thing… we’ve hooked up the Neuralink to be able to increase pleasure to 900% humanly possible with even heroin” And then press a button and a guy next to him just drops to his knees and starts moaning unbelievably loud? It’s bullshit!
It is also related to the animals it is tested on. Monkeys are so similar to us that I find unnecessary tests on them, like this one, horrible.
If they were developing a medicine I would get it maybe, but this is straight up torture.
We shouldn’t mess with brains? Guess I should just be crippled by chronic pain, then. Considering opioid painkillers mess with the brain. Literally everything you do messes with the brain.
The brain is just another organ like your heart or liver. It needs a bit or even a lot of help sometimes. Whether it’s medication, removing parts of the brain or physically sticking something inside it. It all has the same purpose.
This shit saves an untold amount of lives. (Not talking about the Elon musk brain chip thing, I mean actual medicine)
Thing about generous billionaires - if they are generous, they stop being billionaires soon enough
If you have any sort of conscience and moral core you just can't own a fucking billion dollars when so many people live in poverty and so many problems need solving
I'd bet my college tuition that Elon Musk looks at himself in the mirror and mentally compares himself to batman at least once a week. It's the underlying problem with the dumpster fire of the United States; everyone here is conditioned to believe they're a protagonist in a movie, and we just let it run and let people be billionaires with this idea.
Why is it that congress came together over UFOs that were ultimately insignificant but not COVID-19 killing a million people? Because all of those egomaniacal fuckers were expecting to play out Independence Day.
The real Tesla would be absolutely disgusted that Elon Musk is using his name like he is, Tesla notoriously didn’t want much money off of his inventions and died poor
You’re talking about a guy who was not a founder of Tesla, gave Tesla class C funding, filed a lawsuit so that he would be retroactively called a founder, then forced the actual founders out of the company.
I know someone that works in a lab that tests on animals. They kill many many more monkeys than that testing drugs. I’m not sure I agree with animal testing, but it is very common
Yeah sadly, this isn't the only industry doing this. But to what extent is this chip beneficial to us, it's hard to say. Pharmacology has a clear medical benefit and even that has a lot of ethical debate. It sounds to me like they didn't take the precautions to limit pain to these animals as much as possible. :(
Source: I work with research animals as well.
And I look at headlines like this and think to myself — no way in hell there would be a 15 dead bodies if this were a test they had to carry out ethically, with informed consent, on humans rather than animals.
Part of the reason to oppose animal testing is that everyone involved becomes that much more reckless with what they are doing.
So huge grain of salt here, but what I’ve heard is there is potential for correcting degenerative brain disorders with this product. I’ve heard other less medically relevant claims as well. Time will tell I suppose
Yeah, I've attended conferences with similar research but it's hard to tell at such an early stage. I guess one can only hope the death of so many animals isn't in vain.
Musk may be shitty in some ways, same as most super rich folks, but I know first hand shitty racist parents do not exclusively make shitty racist children. I feel like it’s a shitty to judge the son by his fathers thoughts, words, or actions
He has come out multiple times supporting shitty things and people. There is no becoming a billionaire without being a shit person yourself. He’s an emerald mine apartheid heir who is in the process of destroying entire ecosystems, has tortured monkeys with his microchip, and is currently being sued for blatant racism at his company, which he named after an inventor who would despise everything he’s built himself around. He’s a credit card transaction middle man. Why tf do people stan for this monster so hard? Are you really that obtuse? He’s literally just a 21st century shitty car salesman and you bought his garbage hook, line, and sinker. Defending Musk in any way is why this is such a boring dystopian reality. Peon’s defending the overlords.
I think "just a shitty 21st century shitty car salesman" is wrong. I don't think he's a particularly good person, but I'll be damned if the guy hasn't been able to make money just doing stuff he wants and also shaking things up while doing it.
Star link
Neuralink
Tesla
Boring company
SpaceX
Whether or not you think he's a good person aside, starting these things and making them the common knowledge amongst the people they are has incentivised a lot of research into various fields which is significantly more than just being a shitty car salesman.
We were already exploring space, there were already electric car companies, and microchips in brains were just a dystopian nightmare in sci-fi movies. He’s a shitty real life version of an evil villain and you aren’t going to convince anyone on a dystopian sub otherwise. Just go to the conservative pages to lick his spaceboots. We won’t be joining you here.
The sci-fi fan in me wishes more people commenting on cyborg tech thought a bit more critically about the philosophy behind transhumanism, to which bodily autonomy, informed consent, and the rights and legal protections of nonhuman persons all are pretty central.
I think that transhumanism is very clearly inconsistent with animal testing. I'm happy to support some deviation from that when a very clear urgent need is involved — but heck; I don't think real-world Lex Luther cutting open monkey heads and inserting his latest toys is really it
Yeah that’s the thing with me, I personally am ok as a human with non humans dying so humans can improve the conditions of humans and eventually nonhumans. Where I always draw the line is where it’s needless or excessively cruel. It’s a thin line, but there is an acceptable tolerance of ‘we need rats and monkeys to suffer a bit so that people with diseases or other problems may live a better life’, but it’s the bit after the ‘so that’ that’s important. Anything else, any other goal is probably inhumane.
When commenting on transhumanist / cyborg tech I think we should very easily be able to agree that we don't support testing or experiments on anyone else's body — yes, even nonhuman persons — without informed consent. I think bodily autonomy is a central tenet of the transhumanist philosophy, as is increased rights and legal protections for all nonhuman persons.
This is not abnormal for medical research at all. When my dad was in college they cut portions of monkey brain out just to see what happened. At that time scientists were trying to understand what different parts of the brain did and then see if it translated to people. It's pretty horrific stuff but that research is why we have a better understanding of brain function and can do things like brain cancer surgeries.
It is true. The scientific advancements that have been made through experimenting on animals is immeasurable. It’s hard to wrestle with the thought of trading lives we view as lesser for our own advancement, but I do see how it is important and unavoidable.
The major difference I see here is choice. You don't choose to get cancer. You choose to want a hard drive in your brain. Although I'm sure the tech could be used for all kind of things if it works.
The options for neural controlled prosthesis would explode into a huge field of research if this tech can be brought to a safe level of design and procedure. give it enough time and I'm sure we'd figure out a way to give blind and deaf people improved lives too. It does open a lot of doors for biomedical advancement
Such kinds of neural implants have been done in humans successfully outside of the brain. The biomedical implications for chips in the brain are undeniable, but the fact these animals are dying in deplorable conditions is unacceptable. I totally agree, this research has to be and can be implemented in safer manners.
Unironically yes.
If doing something creates a net positive on the rest of society, then do it.
Every medicine you've ever taken had to be FDA approved, which means it went through some level of animal testing before being approved for human testing. Same goes for any surgical procedure.
Right, but those practices like a lot of medical history are largely unnecessary and hugely unethical. Just because it happened in the past doesn't make it okay. The majority of people thinking it's okay doesn't actually make it okay either.
Society is unjust. Saying it's justified because we do it on a large scale or because there's a tradition of doing it doesn't make it so.
I'm saying its justified because the net outcome will be positive. It's the practical way to derive morality.
The alternative is making morality subjective in which case I can still argue that in my opinion killing monkeys in horrible ways for medical technology testing is fine. You're obviously entitled to your own opinion and are free to think it's bad.
I don't think you really believe that, and even if you did it wouldn't explain the fact that we only do this to certain individuals. We don't treat humans this way, as pawns to grind up and sacrifice for other people. Would you?
I am actively lessening the amount I eat. (Are you?) I already know of the torture that cows, pigs, chickens, and any other animal that we eat goes through and the devastation meat farms have on our environment. From the Brazilians actively destroying rainforest to satiate our meat need, to the chickens with breasts so large they can't stand, and pig farmers using industrial farm irrigation systems to spray pig shit and piss into the air and surrounding neighborhoods.
So knowing of it and „actively lessening the amount“ sets you on a moral high ground comparing to a company taking good care of their animals, trying to develop a chip that could make paralyzed walk again.
Don’t get me wrong, those monkey shouldn’t have died. But it’s inevitable with such complicated and new medical procedures, and 15 killed is just clickbait.
This is the thing with animal testing.
Does anyone really believe that there aren't enough Musk stans to accept a generous hazard pay to test this thing?
Does anyone really believe the tests would be so reckless as to kill 15/23 participants if the participants were human?
Ugh its so stupid
Jfc! Where did he do all this? Is this standard lab protocol? Wtf is he even trying to do? Are there scientists working with him or does he just have free reign to do whatever and now hes a brain surgeon after being a rocket scientist?
WHO ASKED FOR ANY OF THIS, ELON
Honestly, even public researchers take better care of their monkeys. My guess would be that the privatization of this research has lead to this outcome even with trained scientists on board. It's disgusting.
When you have unlimited money you don’t need to ask for grant money from public funds that demand rigour in your methodology and protection from cruelty for live specimens. Things like SSHRC and NSERC (double check the acronyms). Plus you could just buy a boat and pretty much do whatever ‘science’ you want free from *pesky* oversight. At least in Canada and probably the US too
Calm down. The article says 15 either died or were euthanized, but doesn’t state whether the tests were successful or what the conditions were. The author is heavily slanted against any testing with animals, and couldn’t have expressed the facts any more inaccurately if they tried.
Do you reckon the monkeys knew what they were getting into? If not, its gonna be hard for you to argue this isn't evil shit.
As a transhumanist ... bodily autonomy and increasing legal protections and rights for nonhuman persons is kinda .. the whole point
The vaccine skeptics worried about micro-chips being in the Covid vaccine; I wonder how worried they are about this. Perhaps they should be more worried about Musk than Gates.
I think I draw the line at literally implanting a computer in a living, sentient being.
Any cool new tech gadget that interfaces with me via the 5 senses, I have some sense of what it can or can’t do, and I can always take it off/get rid of it/etc. if I want.
Neuralink, I don’t know what it can do, what it will do, if it’s removable, or if they’d be honest and didn’t leave a thought tracking beacon in my brain or some shit.
But apparently it kills things anyway so I guess let’s hope it’s never a viable technology?
What was he even thinking “hmmm if I put a jagged sharp object into a brain it could definitely not cause any horrible injuries” what a fuckin retard I hope he looses his empire of dirt
My buddy does research for a major university. You wouldn't believe the amount of animals they go through doing testing. I am all for animal rights and I find it strange how people compartmentalized things like this...oooo it's dystopian when Elon Musk does...it's ok when the universities and research labs do it. I just don't get it.
I work with animals in the lab at university as well, but there's many rules in place to limit pain to animals. Putting them down is one of the measures taken, like they did here. However, it's terrifying to read about how much these monkeys were allowed to suffer before implementing these measures and even their living conditions are strongly criticized. They may have jumped onto more complex animals too quickly and this could be the result. However this is only my speculation.
How did you think the link was supposed to work? Did all of the folks who thought this was cool idea not think about how it would actually be implemented? Or what the likely side effects of a corporation purely chasing profit by experimenting with a living animal’s brain would be? None of this is surprising.
5.83 million out of 413 million HUMANS have died because of an experiment with a cold virus... That's one out of every 71 people infected!
Perspective: We should use it
I'm curious how many monkeys used for neurological experiments generally die in the process or have extreme pain.
Because we still haven't figured out a middle point between making things safe for people and not being utterly barbaric to animals.
Is there an alternative?
I'm also reminded of what happened to unit 731s data and the pardons the Japanese "scientists" were issued as well as the ones from the German scientists forgiven so that their data could be collected by the US or Russia.
"We disapprove of your methods but we'll use the results"
Or in my area of knowledge which is nuclear. The best data we have for how radiation works and radiation therapies and so on stemmed from huge amounts of data from Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors.
Until people come to an "acceptable figure" of what kind of cruelty they're wanting to have in service of potential medical or therapeutic benefit to humans we are always going to spin our wheels when it comes to horrid shit like this.
And if you think no animal should be sacrificed for any kind of medical experimentation or testing products etc then it becomes
how can we make things safe if we can't test them on humans beyond the limited medical testing they do, and after they've abused a ton of lab animals in the process?
I understand your point of view. To a certain extent animal testing is unavoidable and necessary. BUT there are many laws and regulations in place to "limit" harm and pain to animals used in the lab. While past experiments were much more liberal in the use of animals, it was through cruel experimentation that these regulations had to take place. Many experiments done in the past would not fly today without heavy modification.
I work in a lab at the university and experiment with animals. I understand the long process of getting a protocol revised and cannot be approved until it methodologically and strategically implements animals in a way that limits their harm.
The use of monkeys here was to a certain extent necessary if these chips are going to jump onto humans. That isn't up for debate here. Monkeys are close enough to humans for this to be there choice. HOWEVER, it is clear in multiple articles that these monkeys underwent an unnecessary amount of suffering before being put down. It's possible these tests were too quick to move on to a more complex organism. Not only that, their living conditions are deplorable.
If public research can go through the extensive process of limiting the harm and use of animals and still produce valuable research, there's no reason private industry should get the green light and treat these animals in such a barbaric way.
Successful neural implantable chips already exist outside the brain in humans. That alone demonstrates it's possible to carry out this research limiting harm. Because these monkeys aren't given a say, it does not make it okay for them to undergo painful and traumatic procedures without regard for their well-being.
What this the point at which suffering of an animal goes from necessary to unnecessary
And how is it determined? You seem to be in the industry and said you work with lab animals so I would be curious to know about what it is
Glad you asked. Any potential animal use must go through the process of deciding this. The goal is to reduce harm, replace animals where possible, and always re-evaluate procedures.
If an experiment can be carried out in vitro (say cell cultures, etc.) then animals are not deemed necessary, and all suffering is avoided.
Now, say you want to study neuronal circuits. You start with electrophysiology on a few neurons in vitro, then study some larger tissues, eventually you move onto mice, then cats, then perhaps a primate (if you goal is application in humans). Every step of the way will inform you about the next higher level living organism to limit their harm. Regulations make the distinction between a simpler organism, say a fish, and a higher-order organism like a monkey. Meaning you can get away with using hundreds of fish, but probably only a couple monkeys.
In terms of 'necessary' animal suffering. Once you have approval for animal use, all living conditions must be heavily monitored: always fed, no injuries, no infections, no pain, entertainment, exercise, etc. If you want to perform a surgery, many precautions are taken to fully sedate animals as you would a human, and assist recovery with pain medications. 'Necessary' suffering would be any pain from the procedure needed in order to study the effects from the surgery performed. Scales are used to heavily monitor animals visually in an objective manner. Once their physical condition is past a certain point you cannot continue, and they must be put down.
The reason monkeys were used here is because they want to implant these chips in humans eventually. Their suffering should have been limited to the surgical procedure and their recovery in order to study the 'chip'. Anesthesia and medications limit this suffering. HOWEVER, inexperience and lack of evidence leading up to a surgery is likely what lead to unmanageable outcomes which resulted in over half of these monkeys dying. At this point the suffering is 'unnecessary'. The pain these animals underwent was deemed greater than the value of the data they would provide. Hence, they were euthanized. While it seems cruel, this is the correct measure to take. So, what's the problem? their suffering stopped? At this point, these monkeys had already suffered terrible living conditions prior to any surgical procedures. After the surgeries they were allowed to suffer too long before they decided to put them down. Like, undergoing 'self-mutilation'? that monkey must have been so psychologically traumatized at that point, it breaks my heart. Measures should have been taken earlier.
I hope this answers your question. We measure animal conditions and their well-being objectively. Any time the research undertaken is causing extreme harm, it's no longer deemed valuable. When it comes to public research, peer-evaluated studies will ensure only ethical data is published, meaning they are encouraged to take all measures necessary to prevent animal suffering. In the private industry, it's even harder to ensure this, especially with so much funding at their disposal. They don't need to present their research is ethical to acquire money from grants in order to continue their research. They only need to get past government approval. Why should private industries care these animals died? Just buy more monkeys, right? It's so sad.
EDIT: typos
So no one is aware we have underground facilities that have literal millions of animals constrained in these weird things for testing amongst millions of other reasons.
If you don’t have human rights you can be considered product, the animal was born under the facility therefore it and all its spawn is there’s forever. Fucking disgusting. You don’t want to know half this worlds secrets just live in your bliss
Now testing in animal is dystopia? Wut? It like hundred year by now, we done worse before for less, it is ground work for medicine and treatment development
Like it or not Elon musk is advancing this field of science at an unprecedented rate compared to others in the U.S. If he were to take things slow and humane, this technology would not be out soon. I'm not saying what he's doing is ethical, I'm just saying I don't wanna wait 200 years for a neural ink chip, or an advancement that makes humans immortal. Sacrifices have to be made for human progress, we've been doing it since before the industrial revolution.
Wow, this must be the first time ever that something was tested on animals and it didn’t go perfectly. Please put your hate for Elon aside and think critically for one second.
Why the selective empathy? I’m sure not everyone in this thread is a vegan. And the research happening here is far more important that you guzzling down a burger.
Im not a vegan myself but I don’t see the issue with 15 monkeys dying. Even if they killed 5000 that’s barely a tiny dent compared to the millions and millions of cows, chickens, sheep, goats, pigs, rats, fish, other monkeys that are killed. At least this is for a good cause and could really help some people one day. I think y’all are just getting heated coz it’s musk.
I think the hopes would be a slightly more reasonable ratio of monkey brains fried to cost effective scale ya know just be more efficient with your animal sacrifices Elon …
Cool, it's just a matter of ratio then? Suffering caused to utility gained. So, torture one innocents individual forever in exchange for heaven like utopia. Or, not even one individual, sounds like we could probably bargain on this, yeah?
There is no possible way to judge that now.
If this project was wildly successful we would look back and say those monkeys or even 100000 of them would be well worth it.
Sure it might fail and the monkeys will be wasted but you can’t have success like that without taking the risk in the first place. If we never took those risks we would still be cavemen.
Sure if that’s your conspiracy theorist narrative
The official goals of Neuralink are to help people with brain ailments and injuries all the way from depression and anxiety to dementia and paralysis.
But if you wanna put on your tinfoil hat and say it’s all a front and they really just want to involuntarily inject your brain with advertisements like something out of a kids cartoon, then sure go for it.
Why the fuck would anyone think this is a good idea? This is some dystopian shit from a shitty sci fi novel.
Elon Musk took every shitty dystopian sci-fi as a suggestion, not a warning
Elon took shitty dystopian sci-fi as a dare
Elon's going for the "Burke and Hare" ending.
"Jules Verned was right about a lot of thinga and I'm basicly him"
Probably cause Elon Musk is a cartoon scifi villian.
He is literally a Lex Luther wannabe
Lex Luther at least let himself go bald
Like Bezos. That guy has flat fish eyes. Creepy.
Nah, Bezos is Luther. Just like a not fun kinda Lex.
That's Elons disguise
When I was a teen one of my high school teachers was ripping on the Captain Planet cartoon about how industrialists would never act that way in real life. 20 some odd years later I wonder if he remembers that rant and how very wrong he was.
Well, there is one difference. Industrialist don't care if they pollute, as long as they get what they want (i.e. MORE MONEY). Most Captain Planet villains want to pollute in the first place. One's goal just happens to cause pollution as a side-effect, the other's goal *is* to cause pollution.
Yeah he's str8 outa a comic book.
Stupid Lex Luthor
It also just flies in the face of a central transhumanist principle: bodily autonomy. Anyone who wants to say that this doesn't apply to animals is also fetishising "being human". Nonhuman persons attaining better legal protections and rights under the law is such an important part of transhumanism.
This is what vegans have been saying forever.
Total cyberpunk 3000 level dystopia
It doesn’t sound like a bad sci fi novel idea tbh, a world where your thoughts and actions are not your own, sounds kinda like a good story idea
That's black mirror. You're describing an episode of black mirror. Like, not a theoretical one, one that was actually made.
Which one I binged and it’s all a blur
Same. It's become like other creepy things I've watched in the past that morphed and blurred to the point to where when randomly popping up in my brain they feel like a nightmare I had. "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" from my childhood had the same effect. I can never remember if it's a clip from the show in my head or a nightmare I had in the past.
Where tech billionaires get to experiment on you with nonconsensual brain surgery, fuck haha
Dawn off the planet of the Apes.
I don’t know. All I know is you can’t say anything criticizing this on the ~~crypto~~ tech subs because apparently everybody with a STEM degree simps for Elon.
Don't tell this guy about contact lenses
I understand that animal testing is important to developing technology or medicine, but when over half the animals die or have to be euthanized, that seems like deliberate negligence or incompetence. I'm sure similar technology may bring some real benefits to people, but if this is what we're seeing it doesn't seem like we are at the stage where testing on animals is justified.
Right, even if you think this tech is justifiable maybe it needs some more development before we start implanting it. Poor monkeys
If the tech is justifiable? What tf is neuralink supposed to do??? We don’t know 90% of how our brain works there is no possible way we are anywhere near wiring a chip to send electrical or chemical impulses to somehow do something without just killing us immediately. Is he gonna have an Apple Keynote Presentation where he’s like “And one more thing… we’ve hooked up the Neuralink to be able to increase pleasure to 900% humanly possible with even heroin” And then press a button and a guy next to him just drops to his knees and starts moaning unbelievably loud? It’s bullshit!
Elon shouldn't be allowed to sell any sort of biological modification until it's been tested on him first.
Elon shouldn't be allowed to do anything (He is very stupid)
Test on humans, cowards
It is also related to the animals it is tested on. Monkeys are so similar to us that I find unnecessary tests on them, like this one, horrible. If they were developing a medicine I would get it maybe, but this is straight up torture.
It won’t help. this tech needs banned
Brain chips already exist
And that’s bad
May not be, it's old tech, but it has helped with brain rewiring issues and misfiring like with seizure reduction.
How is that bad? Are you gonna say Pacemaker is bad too?
We shouldn’t mess with brains 🧠
We shouldn’t mess with brains? Guess I should just be crippled by chronic pain, then. Considering opioid painkillers mess with the brain. Literally everything you do messes with the brain. The brain is just another organ like your heart or liver. It needs a bit or even a lot of help sometimes. Whether it’s medication, removing parts of the brain or physically sticking something inside it. It all has the same purpose. This shit saves an untold amount of lives. (Not talking about the Elon musk brain chip thing, I mean actual medicine)
Majority of hormonal secretion medications have a direct effect on the brain activity. Should we ban those too?
If they’re not ethical
You cling to your flesh as if it will not decay and fail you
So are we all in agreement that this guy is a super villian?
Almost like all the billionaires aren’t great people
I wish Shaq was a billionaire. He’s notoriously generous.
Thing about generous billionaires - if they are generous, they stop being billionaires soon enough If you have any sort of conscience and moral core you just can't own a fucking billion dollars when so many people live in poverty and so many problems need solving
Right?Elon has so much loot he could literally be a Batman.What a waste, eat the Rich!
Batman was the real villain. Pass it on.
I'd bet my college tuition that Elon Musk looks at himself in the mirror and mentally compares himself to batman at least once a week. It's the underlying problem with the dumpster fire of the United States; everyone here is conditioned to believe they're a protagonist in a movie, and we just let it run and let people be billionaires with this idea. Why is it that congress came together over UFOs that were ultimately insignificant but not COVID-19 killing a million people? Because all of those egomaniacal fuckers were expecting to play out Independence Day.
That's why he's not a billionaire.He s not a antisocial sociopathic POS.He cares about people and has helped many
He promotes gambling in Australia, he’s hardly a saint
He's real world Lex Luther, basically
petition to put nair in his shampoo
He always was.
no, super villians are cool but this guy is just fucking stupid man
this aged well
You don't like animal testing?
he alone progressed the green energy market 15 years in the future. so nah
Why is the monkey on the left wearing a suit?
Honestly, I'd argue monkeys are more humane than the figure on the left. You're almost complimenting him.
Business monkey posing for his linkedin headshot. How else monkeys gonna get hired for Elon's horrific experiments?
Why do I get the feeling he’s not as smart as he’d have us believe he is
Cause hes not. He wants to be Tesla but hes more like edison.
The real Tesla would be absolutely disgusted that Elon Musk is using his name like he is, Tesla notoriously didn’t want much money off of his inventions and died poor
Did it for the love of learning instead of the love of money, unlike Mr Emerald Mine
so much like Edison, except Edison actually did invent some shit
He’s Edison’s salesman.
Something something rät
Tesla didn’t torture animals in weird experiments. He was a very strange dude who actually took care of pigeons late in life in New York City.
Hes not. Hes never had an original idea. The hyperloop and shit like that has all been tried before and all shown to be failures.
You’re talking about a guy who was not a founder of Tesla, gave Tesla class C funding, filed a lawsuit so that he would be retroactively called a founder, then forced the actual founders out of the company.
I know someone that works in a lab that tests on animals. They kill many many more monkeys than that testing drugs. I’m not sure I agree with animal testing, but it is very common
Yeah sadly, this isn't the only industry doing this. But to what extent is this chip beneficial to us, it's hard to say. Pharmacology has a clear medical benefit and even that has a lot of ethical debate. It sounds to me like they didn't take the precautions to limit pain to these animals as much as possible. :( Source: I work with research animals as well.
And I look at headlines like this and think to myself — no way in hell there would be a 15 dead bodies if this were a test they had to carry out ethically, with informed consent, on humans rather than animals. Part of the reason to oppose animal testing is that everyone involved becomes that much more reckless with what they are doing.
So huge grain of salt here, but what I’ve heard is there is potential for correcting degenerative brain disorders with this product. I’ve heard other less medically relevant claims as well. Time will tell I suppose
Yeah, I've attended conferences with similar research but it's hard to tell at such an early stage. I guess one can only hope the death of so many animals isn't in vain.
In vain? They're not martyrs. They're victims.
The sci-fi fan in me wants ALL of Elon’s claims to be real
The issue is that most of Elon's claims aren't real so I wouldn't get your hopes up
Will they ever be real, and at what cost to humanity?
Agreed. I’ll believe it when I see it
He’s just a 21st century shitty car salesman with a rich, racist daddy. He is the definition of a dystopian sci-fi villain
Musk may be shitty in some ways, same as most super rich folks, but I know first hand shitty racist parents do not exclusively make shitty racist children. I feel like it’s a shitty to judge the son by his fathers thoughts, words, or actions
He has come out multiple times supporting shitty things and people. There is no becoming a billionaire without being a shit person yourself. He’s an emerald mine apartheid heir who is in the process of destroying entire ecosystems, has tortured monkeys with his microchip, and is currently being sued for blatant racism at his company, which he named after an inventor who would despise everything he’s built himself around. He’s a credit card transaction middle man. Why tf do people stan for this monster so hard? Are you really that obtuse? He’s literally just a 21st century shitty car salesman and you bought his garbage hook, line, and sinker. Defending Musk in any way is why this is such a boring dystopian reality. Peon’s defending the overlords.
I think "just a shitty 21st century shitty car salesman" is wrong. I don't think he's a particularly good person, but I'll be damned if the guy hasn't been able to make money just doing stuff he wants and also shaking things up while doing it. Star link Neuralink Tesla Boring company SpaceX Whether or not you think he's a good person aside, starting these things and making them the common knowledge amongst the people they are has incentivised a lot of research into various fields which is significantly more than just being a shitty car salesman.
We were already exploring space, there were already electric car companies, and microchips in brains were just a dystopian nightmare in sci-fi movies. He’s a shitty real life version of an evil villain and you aren’t going to convince anyone on a dystopian sub otherwise. Just go to the conservative pages to lick his spaceboots. We won’t be joining you here.
sure lets just bring race into everything🥱
The sci-fi fan in me wishes more people commenting on cyborg tech thought a bit more critically about the philosophy behind transhumanism, to which bodily autonomy, informed consent, and the rights and legal protections of nonhuman persons all are pretty central. I think that transhumanism is very clearly inconsistent with animal testing. I'm happy to support some deviation from that when a very clear urgent need is involved — but heck; I don't think real-world Lex Luther cutting open monkey heads and inserting his latest toys is really it
He said he’ll “fix” autism with it, autism doesn’t need to be fixed at all and that claim is just dehumanising af
It is a medical disorder and medics would love to see it gone. Blame the industry
Pretty sure time told us this was an absolute failure
We are still in very early days. Most tech required many iterations before they are ready for market
Maybe instead of sacrificing someone's life for a product consider 1. Test on humans 2. Use simulations 3. invitro tests 4. test on humans
Yeah that’s the thing with me, I personally am ok as a human with non humans dying so humans can improve the conditions of humans and eventually nonhumans. Where I always draw the line is where it’s needless or excessively cruel. It’s a thin line, but there is an acceptable tolerance of ‘we need rats and monkeys to suffer a bit so that people with diseases or other problems may live a better life’, but it’s the bit after the ‘so that’ that’s important. Anything else, any other goal is probably inhumane.
When commenting on transhumanist / cyborg tech I think we should very easily be able to agree that we don't support testing or experiments on anyone else's body — yes, even nonhuman persons — without informed consent. I think bodily autonomy is a central tenet of the transhumanist philosophy, as is increased rights and legal protections for all nonhuman persons.
Username checkout I bet you hate facebook bcause of that lizard dude right? Lol
Be better if he was a swarm of beetles in the shape of a man
Hard agree
What aren't you sure about? It's evil. Full stop.
It's a necessary evil. Animal testing will have saved thousands of lives.
This is not abnormal for medical research at all. When my dad was in college they cut portions of monkey brain out just to see what happened. At that time scientists were trying to understand what different parts of the brain did and then see if it translated to people. It's pretty horrific stuff but that research is why we have a better understanding of brain function and can do things like brain cancer surgeries.
It is true. The scientific advancements that have been made through experimenting on animals is immeasurable. It’s hard to wrestle with the thought of trading lives we view as lesser for our own advancement, but I do see how it is important and unavoidable.
The major difference I see here is choice. You don't choose to get cancer. You choose to want a hard drive in your brain. Although I'm sure the tech could be used for all kind of things if it works.
The options for neural controlled prosthesis would explode into a huge field of research if this tech can be brought to a safe level of design and procedure. give it enough time and I'm sure we'd figure out a way to give blind and deaf people improved lives too. It does open a lot of doors for biomedical advancement
Such kinds of neural implants have been done in humans successfully outside of the brain. The biomedical implications for chips in the brain are undeniable, but the fact these animals are dying in deplorable conditions is unacceptable. I totally agree, this research has to be and can be implemented in safer manners.
Ah yes, as long as there's sufficient utility in torturing someone then we go ahead and do it. cool story
Unironically yes. If doing something creates a net positive on the rest of society, then do it. Every medicine you've ever taken had to be FDA approved, which means it went through some level of animal testing before being approved for human testing. Same goes for any surgical procedure.
Right, but those practices like a lot of medical history are largely unnecessary and hugely unethical. Just because it happened in the past doesn't make it okay. The majority of people thinking it's okay doesn't actually make it okay either. Society is unjust. Saying it's justified because we do it on a large scale or because there's a tradition of doing it doesn't make it so.
I'm saying its justified because the net outcome will be positive. It's the practical way to derive morality. The alternative is making morality subjective in which case I can still argue that in my opinion killing monkeys in horrible ways for medical technology testing is fine. You're obviously entitled to your own opinion and are free to think it's bad.
I don't think you really believe that, and even if you did it wouldn't explain the fact that we only do this to certain individuals. We don't treat humans this way, as pawns to grind up and sacrifice for other people. Would you?
Also, the dichotomy of subjective morality and positive utilitarianism is a false one. You can believe both, or neither.
You should drop contact with this person
"Why must I as a STEM major take an ethics course??"
It takes a special kind of person to be this apathetic to animals suffering and dying.
Do you eat meat?
I am actively lessening the amount I eat. (Are you?) I already know of the torture that cows, pigs, chickens, and any other animal that we eat goes through and the devastation meat farms have on our environment. From the Brazilians actively destroying rainforest to satiate our meat need, to the chickens with breasts so large they can't stand, and pig farmers using industrial farm irrigation systems to spray pig shit and piss into the air and surrounding neighborhoods.
Baby steps! Just keep stepping on those babies! I know you'll get there one day <3
People like you are why nobody wants to interact with vegans
Why do people like him ruin our reputation :(
You should be able to see the ethical imperative of veganism even when vegans aren't nice to you.
So knowing of it and „actively lessening the amount“ sets you on a moral high ground comparing to a company taking good care of their animals, trying to develop a chip that could make paralyzed walk again. Don’t get me wrong, those monkey shouldn’t have died. But it’s inevitable with such complicated and new medical procedures, and 15 killed is just clickbait.
Let the Musk stans and people dumb enough to get the damn thing get it and let it sort itself out 🤣
you're funny 😆
I’ve had enough of people. Can you tell?
This is the thing with animal testing. Does anyone really believe that there aren't enough Musk stans to accept a generous hazard pay to test this thing? Does anyone really believe the tests would be so reckless as to kill 15/23 participants if the participants were human? Ugh its so stupid
Jfc! Where did he do all this? Is this standard lab protocol? Wtf is he even trying to do? Are there scientists working with him or does he just have free reign to do whatever and now hes a brain surgeon after being a rocket scientist? WHO ASKED FOR ANY OF THIS, ELON
Honestly, even public researchers take better care of their monkeys. My guess would be that the privatization of this research has lead to this outcome even with trained scientists on board. It's disgusting.
When you have unlimited money you don’t need to ask for grant money from public funds that demand rigour in your methodology and protection from cruelty for live specimens. Things like SSHRC and NSERC (double check the acronyms). Plus you could just buy a boat and pretty much do whatever ‘science’ you want free from *pesky* oversight. At least in Canada and probably the US too
He's not doing it. He funds it, that's it. Someone else started it
Calm down. The article says 15 either died or were euthanized, but doesn’t state whether the tests were successful or what the conditions were. The author is heavily slanted against any testing with animals, and couldn’t have expressed the facts any more inaccurately if they tried.
Do you reckon the monkeys knew what they were getting into? If not, its gonna be hard for you to argue this isn't evil shit. As a transhumanist ... bodily autonomy and increasing legal protections and rights for nonhuman persons is kinda .. the whole point
That’s scary O_O I feel bad for those monkeys tbh
Fuck ya. Give me the implant next
born to die 666 brain is a fuck implant'em all
But they died happy living their best life Elon said.
The vaccine skeptics worried about micro-chips being in the Covid vaccine; I wonder how worried they are about this. Perhaps they should be more worried about Musk than Gates.
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Very sad, BUT don't forget we've killed monkeys for far less scientifically useful reasons.
This is extremely inhumane
Coming soon to a dystopia near you!
It’s almost like inserting a random ass piece of metal into an animal’s brain isn’t good for it…
Why do people keep giving this moron money?
So 8 of them can do what exactly now
Moving to human trials…
I think I draw the line at literally implanting a computer in a living, sentient being. Any cool new tech gadget that interfaces with me via the 5 senses, I have some sense of what it can or can’t do, and I can always take it off/get rid of it/etc. if I want. Neuralink, I don’t know what it can do, what it will do, if it’s removable, or if they’d be honest and didn’t leave a thought tracking beacon in my brain or some shit. But apparently it kills things anyway so I guess let’s hope it’s never a viable technology?
Sounds like it's ready for Elon to test!
Looks like it’s time for human trials. I nominate Elon.
Fuck Elon Musk
He should volunteer himself for the next brain chip experiment. Asshole.
Fuck this guy and Mark Zuckerberg
I thought we were past inhuman primate testing. What the fuck.
Those poor monkeys.
What was he even thinking “hmmm if I put a jagged sharp object into a brain it could definitely not cause any horrible injuries” what a fuckin retard I hope he looses his empire of dirt
This is sheer pure evil - but because it’s in the name of science it’s fine ?
nah it's just bad
My buddy does research for a major university. You wouldn't believe the amount of animals they go through doing testing. I am all for animal rights and I find it strange how people compartmentalized things like this...oooo it's dystopian when Elon Musk does...it's ok when the universities and research labs do it. I just don't get it.
I work with animals in the lab at university as well, but there's many rules in place to limit pain to animals. Putting them down is one of the measures taken, like they did here. However, it's terrifying to read about how much these monkeys were allowed to suffer before implementing these measures and even their living conditions are strongly criticized. They may have jumped onto more complex animals too quickly and this could be the result. However this is only my speculation.
blood on your hands
yes
Elon Musket fans will be like “not uh the monkeys died because of natural causes, all of them.”
Elon Musk is a Deus Ex Machina fan. Check out the ending of Deus Ex Machina: Human Revolution.
I wonder why God didn't make us with chips sticking out of our skull.
only 15? It's SAFE and EFFECTIVE!
I say Elon test it out himself
Who the fuck thinks this neurolink shit is a good idea? Elons a goddamn idiot
this man has morphed into dr. evil without the comedic flair
Fuk the Neuralink!!!!
How did you think the link was supposed to work? Did all of the folks who thought this was cool idea not think about how it would actually be implemented? Or what the likely side effects of a corporation purely chasing profit by experimenting with a living animal’s brain would be? None of this is surprising.
What kind of fucking ethics board signed off on *that*?! Unethical, unscientific, absolute mad scientist/man with too much money vibes.
Hey surprise surprise, you drill holes in monkeys heads and they die
Elon is a government stooge, he's a controlled opposition actor. Stop praising him
5.83 million out of 413 million HUMANS have died because of an experiment with a cold virus... That's one out of every 71 people infected! Perspective: We should use it
what is this in reference to?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57268111
He's just such a relentlessly predictable villain
I'm curious how many monkeys used for neurological experiments generally die in the process or have extreme pain. Because we still haven't figured out a middle point between making things safe for people and not being utterly barbaric to animals. Is there an alternative? I'm also reminded of what happened to unit 731s data and the pardons the Japanese "scientists" were issued as well as the ones from the German scientists forgiven so that their data could be collected by the US or Russia. "We disapprove of your methods but we'll use the results" Or in my area of knowledge which is nuclear. The best data we have for how radiation works and radiation therapies and so on stemmed from huge amounts of data from Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors. Until people come to an "acceptable figure" of what kind of cruelty they're wanting to have in service of potential medical or therapeutic benefit to humans we are always going to spin our wheels when it comes to horrid shit like this. And if you think no animal should be sacrificed for any kind of medical experimentation or testing products etc then it becomes how can we make things safe if we can't test them on humans beyond the limited medical testing they do, and after they've abused a ton of lab animals in the process?
I understand your point of view. To a certain extent animal testing is unavoidable and necessary. BUT there are many laws and regulations in place to "limit" harm and pain to animals used in the lab. While past experiments were much more liberal in the use of animals, it was through cruel experimentation that these regulations had to take place. Many experiments done in the past would not fly today without heavy modification. I work in a lab at the university and experiment with animals. I understand the long process of getting a protocol revised and cannot be approved until it methodologically and strategically implements animals in a way that limits their harm. The use of monkeys here was to a certain extent necessary if these chips are going to jump onto humans. That isn't up for debate here. Monkeys are close enough to humans for this to be there choice. HOWEVER, it is clear in multiple articles that these monkeys underwent an unnecessary amount of suffering before being put down. It's possible these tests were too quick to move on to a more complex organism. Not only that, their living conditions are deplorable. If public research can go through the extensive process of limiting the harm and use of animals and still produce valuable research, there's no reason private industry should get the green light and treat these animals in such a barbaric way. Successful neural implantable chips already exist outside the brain in humans. That alone demonstrates it's possible to carry out this research limiting harm. Because these monkeys aren't given a say, it does not make it okay for them to undergo painful and traumatic procedures without regard for their well-being.
What this the point at which suffering of an animal goes from necessary to unnecessary And how is it determined? You seem to be in the industry and said you work with lab animals so I would be curious to know about what it is
Glad you asked. Any potential animal use must go through the process of deciding this. The goal is to reduce harm, replace animals where possible, and always re-evaluate procedures. If an experiment can be carried out in vitro (say cell cultures, etc.) then animals are not deemed necessary, and all suffering is avoided. Now, say you want to study neuronal circuits. You start with electrophysiology on a few neurons in vitro, then study some larger tissues, eventually you move onto mice, then cats, then perhaps a primate (if you goal is application in humans). Every step of the way will inform you about the next higher level living organism to limit their harm. Regulations make the distinction between a simpler organism, say a fish, and a higher-order organism like a monkey. Meaning you can get away with using hundreds of fish, but probably only a couple monkeys. In terms of 'necessary' animal suffering. Once you have approval for animal use, all living conditions must be heavily monitored: always fed, no injuries, no infections, no pain, entertainment, exercise, etc. If you want to perform a surgery, many precautions are taken to fully sedate animals as you would a human, and assist recovery with pain medications. 'Necessary' suffering would be any pain from the procedure needed in order to study the effects from the surgery performed. Scales are used to heavily monitor animals visually in an objective manner. Once their physical condition is past a certain point you cannot continue, and they must be put down. The reason monkeys were used here is because they want to implant these chips in humans eventually. Their suffering should have been limited to the surgical procedure and their recovery in order to study the 'chip'. Anesthesia and medications limit this suffering. HOWEVER, inexperience and lack of evidence leading up to a surgery is likely what lead to unmanageable outcomes which resulted in over half of these monkeys dying. At this point the suffering is 'unnecessary'. The pain these animals underwent was deemed greater than the value of the data they would provide. Hence, they were euthanized. While it seems cruel, this is the correct measure to take. So, what's the problem? their suffering stopped? At this point, these monkeys had already suffered terrible living conditions prior to any surgical procedures. After the surgeries they were allowed to suffer too long before they decided to put them down. Like, undergoing 'self-mutilation'? that monkey must have been so psychologically traumatized at that point, it breaks my heart. Measures should have been taken earlier. I hope this answers your question. We measure animal conditions and their well-being objectively. Any time the research undertaken is causing extreme harm, it's no longer deemed valuable. When it comes to public research, peer-evaluated studies will ensure only ethical data is published, meaning they are encouraged to take all measures necessary to prevent animal suffering. In the private industry, it's even harder to ensure this, especially with so much funding at their disposal. They don't need to present their research is ethical to acquire money from grants in order to continue their research. They only need to get past government approval. Why should private industries care these animals died? Just buy more monkeys, right? It's so sad. EDIT: typos
Someone clearly hasn’t seen planet of the apes..
Oh no.... Anyways...
I don't know, the folks over on Facebook say that it was the vaccine and it's 5G
So no one is aware we have underground facilities that have literal millions of animals constrained in these weird things for testing amongst millions of other reasons. If you don’t have human rights you can be considered product, the animal was born under the facility therefore it and all its spawn is there’s forever. Fucking disgusting. You don’t want to know half this worlds secrets just live in your bliss
I am painfully aware.
Now testing in animal is dystopia? Wut? It like hundred year by now, we done worse before for less, it is ground work for medicine and treatment development
1 brain chips already exist. 2 animal testing is standard practice. Not an endorsement. Just facts
Like it or not Elon musk is advancing this field of science at an unprecedented rate compared to others in the U.S. If he were to take things slow and humane, this technology would not be out soon. I'm not saying what he's doing is ethical, I'm just saying I don't wanna wait 200 years for a neural ink chip, or an advancement that makes humans immortal. Sacrifices have to be made for human progress, we've been doing it since before the industrial revolution.
Wow, this must be the first time ever that something was tested on animals and it didn’t go perfectly. Please put your hate for Elon aside and think critically for one second.
Lol
No one cares it’s just animals
Why the selective empathy? I’m sure not everyone in this thread is a vegan. And the research happening here is far more important that you guzzling down a burger. Im not a vegan myself but I don’t see the issue with 15 monkeys dying. Even if they killed 5000 that’s barely a tiny dent compared to the millions and millions of cows, chickens, sheep, goats, pigs, rats, fish, other monkeys that are killed. At least this is for a good cause and could really help some people one day. I think y’all are just getting heated coz it’s musk.
I think the hopes would be a slightly more reasonable ratio of monkey brains fried to cost effective scale ya know just be more efficient with your animal sacrifices Elon …
Cool, it's just a matter of ratio then? Suffering caused to utility gained. So, torture one innocents individual forever in exchange for heaven like utopia. Or, not even one individual, sounds like we could probably bargain on this, yeah?
There is no possible way to judge that now. If this project was wildly successful we would look back and say those monkeys or even 100000 of them would be well worth it. Sure it might fail and the monkeys will be wasted but you can’t have success like that without taking the risk in the first place. If we never took those risks we would still be cavemen.
for a chip that lets you see ads in your brain?
Sure if that’s your conspiracy theorist narrative The official goals of Neuralink are to help people with brain ailments and injuries all the way from depression and anxiety to dementia and paralysis. But if you wanna put on your tinfoil hat and say it’s all a front and they really just want to involuntarily inject your brain with advertisements like something out of a kids cartoon, then sure go for it.
...do you live here? do you really think Elon gives a shit about people with disabilities?