At one point, when I was a baby still in my mother’s womb, I had cells in between my fingers. Had I been born like that, I would have had webbed fingers. I sometimes feel sorry for those cells: they were instructed to undergo controlled cell death so that I could have fingers. I’m glad that cells can’t think l, but even still, I wish that I could explain, to these cells that I never knew as my own, that their sacrifice was worthwhile, because they died in service to me, an organism far more complex than any cell or tissue could be alone.

I’m glad that these cells can’t feel (at least in a way that I can understand), because I know that my explanation would not be enough for them: I know this because for most of my life, I have understood that people like us are acceptable sacrifices on the altar on the free market., and that feels terrible. I rage at being told that my suffering is worth it, for the Greater Good, because that posits that our lives aren’t considered to be Good enough to be worth acknowledging beyond our instrumental value.

When I think about the cells that used to exist between my fingers, there’s a silly part of me that even feels guilty that they couldn’t consent to the whole ordeal, but I suppose my compassion for them is part of that “greater good” they died for. I know that the free market feels no such guilt at throwing humans into the meat grinder, because it is closer to being a clump of mindless, cancerous cells than it is to a person. And yet, as you say, we’re supposed to celebrate “innovations” — to celebrate ever more rapid “growth” that comes at the expense of people’s lives? It’s disgusting.