Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

CategoryEthics

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Homme dans une église parlant à l'assemblée

Are Churches Becoming Victims of Stockholm Syndrome?

In a new book, John West looks at the problem of evangelical church leaders adopting the belief systems of their opponents, perhaps to stay safe
The challenge, he argues, is to maintain Christian values while challenging Christian leaders who compromise in order to stay safe and successful. Read More ›
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Syringe with anaesthetic drug - Propofol, ready for infusion.

Assisted-Suicide Death Ceremonies Becoming Normalized

I certainly believe we should all remember that we are going to die as a means of focusing our faith or concentrating on how to live better lives
By attending a suicide party or ceremony, we validate the decision and, in so doing, become complicit in that death. Read More ›
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Close-up of a colorful lobster in a coral reef.

Edge of Sentience Summarizes Research on Animals’, AIs’ Feelings

And animal rights laws as well. But there is a dark side to Jonathan Birch’s approach too…

Philosophy prof Jonathan Birch, principal investigator of the Animal Sentience Project at the London School of Economics, has written a book on whether and how animals feel things: The Edge of Sentience (Oxford University Press 2024). It’s not as arcane a topic as it might at first appear. It shows up in new legislation and think tanks. At Amazon, we learn, for example, “In 2021, he led a review for the UK government that shaped the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022. In 2022-23, he was part of a working group that investigated the question of sentience in AI.” And as Birch told Marc Bekoff at Psychology Today, I’m probably best-known for my work on invertebrate sentience, which is one part Read More ›

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X and Y Chromosomes as male Chromosome concept for a human biology structure containing dna genetic information as a medical symbol for gene therapy or microbiology genetics research.

Basta! Italy’s Bioethics Committee Urges Blocking Puberty Blockers

It's becoming a trend and the United States may well follow suit
If Italy accepts the bioethics' commission's advice, it will join a growing list of countries that are taking steps to end the practice. Read More ›
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Cows at stable. Netherlands. Farming. Modern Dutch farm. Netherlands. Cows eating roughage. Cows eating silage. Feed gate. Cattle breeding.

NYT Column: Factory Farms Are Good for People and the Planet

Journalist Michael Grunwald points out that factory farming means fewer natural spaces are cleared for farmland than would otherwise be the case
Journalist Michael Grunwald points out that factory farming means fewer natural spaces are cleared for farmland than would otherwise be the case. Read More ›
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A close-up of a syringe resting on a sterile tray, with soft focus on the background, highlighting the tools involved in assisted suicide

Questionable Study on Assisted Suicide and Suicide Correlation

Bioethicists find a way to make suicides "disappear" from a study
Euthanasia activists claim that legalizing assisted suicide doesn’t increase overall numbers. But their study actually shows a significant impact. Read More ›
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A doctor examines a brain scan on a monitor in a hospital setting.

The Media Still Can’t Get Facts about Terri Schiavo Right

The Terri Schiavo case tipped this country’s morality. Before her death, people couldn’t believe we dehydrate cognitively disabled people to death. Afterward, a majority supported it
The Washington Post has now edited an article to correct a key misstatement I criticized, without admitting it. Journalism dies in darkness. Read More ›
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Poppy field at sunset

West Virginia: Constitutional Amendment Bans Assisted Suicide

I just wish my mentor on this issue, Rita Marker, had lived to see it
Also, the great anti-assisted-suicide and disability-rights campaigner Diane Coleman — who founded Not Dead Yet — who recently passed away. Read More ›
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White dove in flight with a cityscape background at sunset

Rita Marker, the Great Anti-Assisted-Suicide Champion, Dead at 83

I am convinced that in her time, Rita was the most effective anti-assisted-suicide/euthanasia champion in the world
Unlike organizations on the other side of this issue, anti-assisted-suicide work doesn’t have the backing of billionaires like George Soros. Read More ›
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Vial With Pentobarbital Used For Euthanasia And Lethal Inyecion In A Hospital

Canada’s Euthanasia Horrors Are Accelerating

27% of Canadians strongly or moderately agree that euthanasia is acceptable for suffering caused by “poverty” and 28%  for suffering caused by homelessness. Read More ›
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A personalized medicine approach using patient derived organoids for testing drug responses, optimizing treatments

Should ‘Experts’ Decide the Morality of Making ‘Humanized Animals’?

A major new article discusses implanting functional human brain tissue into animals, which could enhance their mental capacities
We can’t allow policies about some of the most powerful and potentially dangerous technologies ever invented to be left to the supposed moral “experts.” Read More ›
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Social media, cancel culture and women online, internet or influencer friends on a studio blue background. Negative, bad and graphic words for banned or fail for public or political opinion or voice

Cancel Culture Dissected by One of Its Victims

Researchers are beginning to study the sociology of Woke mobs demanding the firing or silencing of whoever vexes them — with some interesting results
Canadian lawyer Collin May looked at recent research on Cancel mobs and found that the witnesses in an institution tend to go along with the cancellation. Read More ›
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Hallucinogenic mushrooms grow in a natural environment. Mushrooms containing psilocybin.

Bioethicists Push Psychedelics to Make Life ‘Interesting’

The dangers of taking such drugs aside, their proposal reflects the reductionism of our time
What many people are really craving isn’t “interesting” experiences but meaning. But sources of meaning like faith, family, community, country, have decayed. Read More ›
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Underwater empty swimming pool background with copy space

Silicon Valley’s Trendy Ethic: Effective Altruism

How effective is it really? Does the underlying utilitarianism leave out some important things?
Effective altruism is a kind of therapy, a type of self-help for the angst-ridden techno-elites trying to grapple with human suffering and limitations. Read More ›
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Representation of the nitrogen molecule with the n2 symbol. Generative AI

Death by Nitrogen: Cruel or Death with Dignity?

We are told that suicide by nitrogen in the suicide pod is peaceful and dignified.
Execution by nitrogen inhalation is another example of what I call cruel and unusual death with dignity. Read More ›
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Small orange flags places in grass in memory of the thousands of Indigenous children that died in Canada's residential school system. Wide view.

Canada’s Residential Schools: A Saga of Journalistic Wrongdoing

Even as the story is collapsing for lack of evidence, there is a move afoot to criminalize doubt about what happened (denialism).
Could it happen in the United States? Of course. It can happen anywhere where people are willing to ignore the demands of evidence in favor of private truth. Read More ›
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Human internal organs on metal plate ready for organ transplant.

Medical Journal Pushes Conjoining Euthanasia and Organ Harvesting

Conjoining organ harvesting with euthanasia is now deemed so respectable it is even boosted at the highest levels of the medical establishment
Organ harvesting as the means of euthanasia has already been proposed in a major bioethics journal. Read More ›
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Top view of a caucasian hand with one blue MDMA, Amphetamine, Army Skull, Ecstasy, XTC pill.

The ‘Suicide Capsule’ Claims Its First Victim

A photographer was present to record the death — meaning to create images for suicide proselytizing
I would be surprised if anything came of it. Authorities rarely have the gumption to seriously punish suicide assistance unless in involves a teenager. Read More ›
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grandma crying moment during a wedding

In Canada? Don’t Say You Don’t Feel Well…

In his new book, Historian Richard Weikart discussed the rampant and rapid growth of euthanasia in the Western world
Weikart: The circle of people deemed eligible for euthanasia or assisted suicide keeps widening, because a culture of death will tend to spread… Read More ›