For the greater good
The purpose of life
Welcome to the recruitment office of Guinea Pigs™. I know you are not a rodent but while the business has expanded its recruitment pool to include primates, certain traditions remain. I could call you a test subject if you like. No? Guinea pig it is. Unless you want to be called a white mouse. It is popular term among twenty percent of the tailless primates. The ones that speak Mandarin.
Choices
There are many choices that you can decide on. Pleasures of life is quite popular. It involves testing all the human narcotics, stimulants and hallucinogens. Are hallucinogens the same as psychedelic? A psychedelic drug is a category of hallucinogen but there are also dissociative and deliriants. Think out of body experiences and confusion. Yes, the hairless primates have found many ways to avoid facing with reality. For a specie that likes to call themselves sapient, they are rather in love with mind altering substances.
You want something healthier? There is fats and sugar studies. Still too unhealthy? Artificial sweeteners are a healthy option. Still not healthy enough? We have experimental medicine. There is the low fat, high muscle mass and aesthetics enhancement. They all require you to be extremely unhealthy before the medicine can be tested on you.
While there are studies on sex, the slots are all filled. The wait list is longer than your lifespan. You want to be part of something more useful that includes self-actualization? I respect ambition in youth.
Career path
This is the new favourite. Why are all the animals wearing VR goggles? We used to have to design different experiments for each study. That was time consuming and expensive. Today, they all just don on the VR goggles and we input the specific content. For critters too small, we send them into the dome.
We call these experiments the rat race. It is not an actual race, just a simulation of different scenarios. Downside of the career path studies? Most of the test subject usually volunteer to do the pleasures of life studies before the end of their study. Never understood why.
I don’t think you understand. The career choices are very rewarding but the issue is the long-term consequences. The fact that we are doing controlled studies means that we do not know the long-term consequences. Or side effects. Or downsides. Or if the up sides are actually just a statistical abnormality. The classic quote about correlation does not mean causation. As a test subject, we are not to have an opinion on the study as it could induce certain biases.
Action
If you like action, we have the crash test studies. The downside is that it is usually one time only and you are not allowed to volunteer as an entry level employee. Every guinea pig is special. At least when they are young.
The reason why there are few studies that are less hazardous? We have competitors. The armies and prisons also conduct their own experiments. As the army wants to keep their soldiers alive, they keep the safer experiments for themselves. More accurately, the army like to keep their human soldiers alive. If you are a pig, never join the army. No military pig ever gets a long service award is all I am saying.
Are we expendables? No, everyone here is given the best care except for the studies parameters. You will get the best food. Your housing will be cleaned. Your handlers will be wearing masks, gloves and other protective equipment.
Teamwork
You want to work with others? Excellent. No man is an island. You have touched on my personal favourite. Universe 25. The experiment that has teamwork, sex and food. It is so good that three children books were written about the experiment. The books were even turned into a cartoon movie. The downside? You have to make new babies.
You cannot stand babysitting and parenting? No problem. As I mention, there are many choices that do not involve children. The thing is that we need more intelligent test subjects for those teamwork studies. Those scientists like to choose subjects who think that cannibalism is not an option in teamwork.
Management
If you survive long enough in the program, you have a chance to be promoted to management. As management, you get to devise schemes for other guinea pigs. You decide what they do with their downtime. You get to motivate them. Character building, icebreakers, resiliency exercises.
Sometimes you do find ways to save guinea pigs. Do you know that a historical pregnancy test used to result in the death of a female rabbit? The management found that a suitable replacement in the African clawed frog. There are no amphibians or rabbits in management. Why do you ask?
Death
Things in this industry do not end once you are dead. Your body will be used for medical research. In fact, many of the studies require your sacrifice to the great beyond for us to understand what exactly punched your ticket.
You will not be able to have an open casket funeral. It is all cremation. The truth is that it is better that way. Sometimes, the final state of the test subjects are just pink mist. We also have forensic studies to see how the test subject decomposes. At the end of the day, we cannot guarantee what is the final destination. If technology permits, we could allow AI to create holograms for your funeral. If you get posted to Asia, there are some cenotaphs for the test subject services. In Japan, there is an annual memorial service.
Conclusion
Is the job rewarding? Yes, all the studies will further the knowledge of the world. Russians found out that we can make two headed animals. If they added a third head to the dog, the Russians could create Cerebrus. I do not know what a three headed dog is good for. Perhaps a dog that sleeps with at least one eye open?
There is a Russian man ready to be the first human transplant patient. What is my name? We do not have names for anybody in this business. This is a fast-paced job with high turnover. The issue is the number is rather long that we just issue barcodes instead.
“The anthropologists got it wrong when they named our species Homo sapiens (‘wise man’). In any case it’s an arrogant and bigheaded thing to say, wisdom being one of our least evident features. In reality, we are Pan narrans, the storytelling chimpanzee.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Globe
Disclaimers: This article is not about the ethics of using animals in lab testing. While it was some truth in it, the author has never worked with animals. The author has participated in several experiment as a test subjects. However, if you are pig and the military is trying to recruit you, I need to empathize that pigs are going to part of some weapons testing program with zero weapons training.