Categoría: Measuring Sentience
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The Sad Truth About Happiness Scales: Empirical Results
«We replicate nine key results from the happiness literature: the Easterlin Paradox, the ‘U-shaped’ relation between happiness and age, the happiness trade-off between inflation and unemployment, cross-country comparisons of happiness, the impact of the Moving to Opportunity program on happiness, the impact of marriage and children on happiness, the ‘paradox’ of declining female happiness, and…
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Are suffering and enjoyment measurable?
In Simon Knutsson‘s words: That happiness and suffering are measurable, in principle, to the extent that is required to talk about the net balance among several individuals is highly controversial and widely rejected. That is, it is controversial that they are (in principle) measurable to the required degree in an objective, non-arbitrary, scientific way that…
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What does «more suffering than happiness» means?
In Magnus Vinding‘s [1] words [2]: I think there is a problem with underspecified [in expressions] like “more suffering than happiness” […] For example, talking about “whether suffering or enjoyment is more common” (in this piece [3]) sounds rather descriptive, whereas saying that, or whether, “suffering predominates” (ibid.) will often have evaluative and/or moral connotations.…
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The case of Dax Cowart
«I was burned so severely and in so much pain that I did not want to live even in the early moments following the explosion. A man who heard my shouts for help came running down the road, I asked him for a gun. He said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘Can’t you see I am a…
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On Kidney stones, by Andres Gomez Emilsson
I’ve never had a kidney stone. Thank God. According to Quora responses to the question «How painful are kidney stones?» they are about as painful as it gets. They’re the most painful thing a person can experience naturally, leaving aside torture and violent body-dismembering events. Many say they often get to be «10/10 pain». That’s…
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Dustmites: Everything You Might Not Want To Know
A typical used mattress may have anywhere from 100,000 to 10 million mites inside. Read more
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Fish slaughtered (Newsletter from Open Philanthropy Project)
There has historically been almost no effort made to reduce the inhumaneness of fish slaughter. The majority of fish are killed without stunning, by asphyxiation either in the air or on the ice. One study found that it takes common species of fish 55-250 minutes to die via asphyxiation. Fish that aren’t asphyxiated often die…
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Dimensions of suicide: perceptions of lethality, time, and agony
Two hundred ninety-one lay persons and 10 forensic pathologists rated the lethality, time, and agony for 28 methods of suicide for 4117 cases of completed suicide in Los Angeles County in the period 1988-1991. Whereas pathologists provided consistent ratings, lay persons demonstrated extreme variability and a tendency to inflate ratings of all three dimensions. Significant…