RoboRoach, Cyborgs; the real ethical issues

When I first learned about "RoboRoach" I can only describe my reaction as a 'shudder of the soul', a shudder of horror.  Am I over-sensitive, over-compassionate?  Or is the soul shudder getting at something?

Technology project or life issue?
Moms are recommending it for kids to learn about neuroscience, young people twitter about it to their friends, BBCco.uk review it as hands-on learning, TED Global is sponsoring it, mugs and t-shirts are available...the media show is full-on, is nobody is asking any questions?

Questions for RoboRoachtm Fans

• Do you think a living being is a machine which you can override?
• Do you think a living being is an inert component of your construction?
• Do you think animals are computers that you can hack into?
• Or do you think you have to right to treat living things we think of as 'vermin' as though they were the above?
• Do you have any respect for life, for the wisdom of nature?
• Do you have any compassion or sensitivity towards living beings?
• Have you thought about where this could lead, the next step? (this is the 'first' commercially available cyborg' according to the backyardbrains site)
• Do you have any 'feelings' of discomfort in operating on a live cockroach, or if you don't have these feelings, are you aware of any in the people around you, do you think these human feelings have any value, point to anything important?
• Do you think it is right to train children to have no respect for life or the wisdom of nature, to conduct invasive experiments on living beings, to treat life as though it were a machine, to maim living beings, to control them with their childish ideas?
• Do you really think this is amusing?
• Do you think this is an acceptable way to make neuroscience 'accessible' to children and youngsters?
• How exactly does the RoboRoach toy/educational 'tool' available so that 'everyone can be a neuroscientist' (backyardbrains.com) contribute to research into neurological disease?

Teaching children about life on earth...or teaching them to disregard it?
Most of us teach our children to have respect for animal life and find their children have a natural affinity and love for animals and nature.   One of the early signs of sociopathy/psychopathy is a child who tortures or kills animals and shows no 'feeling' for another's life...  
When I was 16 and studying for A level biology, we had to dissect a cockroach.  When I got my cockroach I 'felt' it was alive.  I told the teacher, but she assured me it was thoroughly dead, from a poison in the form of a sand like powder which had entered through the 'spiracles' (little holes) on the cockroaches back.   Reluctant, I splayed my cockroach on its back, pinned down its legs, cut open its abdomen, and extracted its long white gut.  At this moment my cockroach starting jerking at its pins, ripped off its own leg, tried to run away with its guts hanging out.    I experienced another 'shudder of the soul'.  I walked out of the biology lab and never went back to dissecting.  Next term R will have to cut up a rat for biology, he will be 12 years old.   He doesn't want to do it, and feels unhappy that the rat is being killed for a casual experiment.   I don't believe it is necessary for children to cut up animals killed for that purpose, there are other better ways of learning about animals and their anatomy, plenty of virtual tools, however what it does teach them is undesirable, to harden against living creatures and treat them as experiments.

Children and experimenting on  insects;  When I was a child, whenever I saw children - I think it was only boys in my childhood - being cruel to insects - pulling their legs and wings off, trapping them and burning them with magnifying glasses, I felt the very same shudder of the soul.  I did all I could to stop them, persuade them, argue with them, set the insect free. But I knew I was the only one sensitive to the issue, that these guys didn't feel it, and that when I wasn't there, nothing would stop them having another go.  Some children do and some can't, I still feel more comfortable with the people who can't.  Should we be taking the spirit of puerile insect experimentation and selling it as fun, or as an educational tool?

I shouldn't be so sensitive, it's making an issue out of nothing?
No doubt the scientists and scientific fans of the company that 'invented' the non-living part of the remote controlled cockroach would berate me for my feelings;  they're quite used to killing and cutting up animals for their biology training and experimenting on live ones too, perhaps they are totally habituated and de-sensitised to such things;   and after all,  cockroaches are vermin they would say, they get killed all the time, they are not like humans, they're just insects, I should stop being over-sensitive, it's debateable whether cockroaches even feel pain, they get used to being overriden, there's no ethical issue at all.    But perhaps I have good reasons for being sensitive?

More Detail on the RoboRoach Project
The 'inventors' sell you the idea and a kit with all you need to make your own electrode pack, and we can all have access to a youtube video about how to make it, and about how to operate on a live cockroach.   If successful, you can get it to do what you want using your smartphone as a remote control, eg:  jump off high places, scare people, invade cockroach colonies and get them to deviate their natural behaviour, the gaming options are limitless...

The idea is you dip the cockroach in iced water which 'anaesthetises' it for a short period,  or at least stops it moving (ask no questions and I'll tell you no lies).  Then you stick it to a board and sandpaper its head to get the wax off and superglue some plastic onto it, then you pull open its wings and pierce a hole in its exoskeleton to insert a large electrode pack though the skin of its thorax, and then you cut off its antennae and replace them with components, and stick a massive (for a cockroach) plastic backpack on with hotglue.  The video gives the impression that it is teaching you how to change a plug...and you rob that cockroach of its natural state, and you impose your ideas upon it via your remote control.  When Greg Cage, 'inventor' does a demonstration of cutting off a live cockroach's leg in front of an audience a high school audience (on TEDed), the audience is visibly disgusted, and Greg comments 'yeah I know it's gross - but they can grow another one...'    He is demonstrating how an amputated leg twitches to music, a show called 'Cockroach Beatbox' (sounds like a toy/game to me).

RoboRoach;  "The world's first commercially available "Cyborg"?!?...so claim the inventor/marketers on their site.  What is a Cyborg, I hear you ask.  A 'cyborg' is a 'cybernetic organism'.  It's a science fiction creation, and the inventors of RoboRoach claim that their 'real' animal/machine is a Cyborg.  That is to say, apparently it is now an acceptable reality to take living creatures, perform invasive surgery on them in order to take away their ability and freedom to behave according to their nature and impose our will upon them...for amusement, learning or financial gain, and that this is only the beginning...

And what next?  Ideas are flowing, and new technology always obliges.  What about fish, do they feel pain?...or octopuses, or rats, they're vermin, or dogs, now that would be fun, you could get it to chase after people you hated, or what about a remote controlled sex slave, you could get her to open her legs by remote control whenever you wanted... 

Disregard for life is a dangerous thing, even if it has small beginnings.  What is going to happen if we let our most puerile, low, cruel thoughts control nature, taking life away from the wisdom of nature, which is something we have hardly even begun to comprehend?

Here is a picture of someone who stopped being over-sensitive, who readjusted her natural morality to fit with a new group (you can read about it in 'The Lucifer Effect;  why good people turn evil' by Dr Philip Zimbardo).

This all American girl with excellent orthodentistry is joking around with the body of  an Iraqi who has just been tortured to death in a horrific way by her army colleagues.  She will later help the CIA dispose of the body and make sure no questions are asked.  And here is Josef Mengele, who forgot Jews were human when he experimented on them and killed them...or the Milgram experiments where volunteer subjects 'killed' a fellow volunteer because the man in a white coat told them to...it seems to me that the idea of kidnapping a living creature and turning it into a 'robot' under your control is unhealthy, the tiny root of something which could become every bit as horrific as the above examples.   

Problems with the Inventors' responses to ethical questions
I can understand the ease with which modern science and technology and the joys of human creativity could lead us down this path, above all when our young are saturated in a virtual world of  robot video games, toys and films where the distinction between machine and life is blurred.  I recognise that the company Backyard Brains,  has responded to ethical concerns and has published its ethical statement where it  justifies itself before each claim.

• I'm not convinced by their claim that they 'sold' the idea as a game/toy but this was only to shock and raise interest, because neuroscience is so little known, and that it is 'really'  a scientific tool for the good of the animal kingdom and humanity.  Firstly, I don't think it's true, selling the word's first commercially available Cyborg which you can operate with your smartphone is going to sound like a game to most teenagers and young men, so I think it's a cover-up after the event, and secondly, pretending it was a game is a form of lying and manipulation, this doesn't recommend the company to  me as fit educators.  
• They claim that children and young people are more likely to appreciate cockroaches with the Cyborg version;  in that case it might occur to those children that they should observe these creatures in their natural setting, and that it is cruel to mutilate them and take away their freedom to follow their natural behaviour.
• They admit that a cyborg might not be the best way to teach children about animal life and they are constantly surveying the animal kingdom for easier and less invasive ways of unequivocally demonstrating neural activity. How come they are so  proud to be the first company to market a cyborg then? (ref comment to financial backers on their site) 
• They claim their experiments are done under humane conditions and the creatures do not die but live out their natural life-span happily.   Firstly, I'm not sure how they 'retire' the cockroaches now with superglued backs and no antannae, do they try to recover the equipment, or leave it on?  Secondly,  I quote the business site:  Teenagers who have bought this circuit have often done the experiments under the guidance of their parents as an educational experience.  'have often' would imply the majority have not been supervised.  Now the project has gone global, after all, 'Backyard Brains enables everyone to be a neuroscientist!'  Youtube videos are available to encourage anyone to do it at home using a smartphone.  The supervised, humane and serious side of the argument is... laughable.
• Whatever the packaging, the whole idea of a life-based 'cyborg' is deeply flawed, abhorrent thinking.

 http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/backyardbrains/the-roboroach-control-a-living-insect-from-your-sm
and their ethical statement here:
http://wiki.backyardbrains.com/Ethical_Issues_Regarding_Using_Invertebrates_in_Education


RoboRoach and the mentality which surrounds it, is puerile cruel and potentially dangerous, yet the idea is fully backed by adults, aimed at children and youngsters and taken to the heart of their education.  It has has horrific implications:  it's right before our eyes and we don't seem to see it...