Thought Experiment
Aliens abduct you. You're given two choices.
1st choice- live the rest of your life in a hunter gather tribe of humans. The tribe lives in an environment that humans naturally evolved, on Earth about 30,000 years BCE. Humans born into the tribes environment have a life expectancy of ~35 years. The aliens will assure you're accepted into a tribe. After your initial acceptance, all survival will depend on your ability to adapt into the new tribe and environment.
2nd choice- live the rest of your life as a subject in a controlled study. Humans born into controlled studies by the aliens have a life expectancy of ~70 years. You won't know any other details about the study other than the life expectancy of participants.
Vote here!
Background
I was having a conversation about lab animals. I'm ignorant of the general life and life expectancy of lab animals. I know of horrible studies and studies that sound pretty awesome. I get that many lab animals suffer, but animals suffer in the wild too. So that sparked my thought experiment. What if lab animals had higher life expectancies than they would in the wild? If lab animals did have higher life expectancies, that would make an argument (a strong argument in my opinion) that animals might prefer to be lab animals. Either way, animals wouldn't be able to give consent.
Thinking about what humans would choose interests me. Below are some interesting facts about animals in research from the journal article "The laboratory rat: Age and body weight matter."
"Using animals to model human anatomy and physiology dates back to 600 BC [25]. The importance of animal research in biomedical sciences is evident when we know that about 90 % of Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine have been related to research done on animals [79]. It has been estimated that more than 115 million animals were used for research purposes in 2005 [111]. Rodents are the most common animals used in animal experimentations [51]; [36]; [49]), constituting about 80 % of experimental animals [99]." The laboratory rat: Age and body weight matter
Life Expectancy of Lab Animals
I'm mildly curious in looking up data later, but I probably won't.
October afterthought
The thought experiment should be would you rather be born into the wild or lab? That is a closer comparison. Because lab animals (humans are animals) wouldn't have the proper survival skills if they were born into the controlled environments of a lab. But maybe many wild animals would prefer the controlled setting over the struggles of life in the wild? I guess that's for another thought experiment.
