A truly advanced civilization wouldn’t keep pets, though it would care for animals by preserving their habitats
Yes I’ve seen Pokemon
I wonder what kind of healthcare the humans have in that world, actually. For all I know, they take better care of the pokemon than they do the people.
A truly advanced society would function as a altruistic socialist society, where there would be no need for money, and thus for-profit insurances or healthcare systems. People, animals and per extension nature would be cared for, keeping the balance and living symbiotically. We would help each other without expecting anything in return because we know we, in our own turn, would be cared for.
I know… That would be the day huh
For all living creatures. A truly advanced civilization would be able to to positively impact the environment and lives of every creature they encounter.
The natural world is largely based on suffering and death. Would an advanced civilization basically get rid of or replace it?
No, but an advanced civilization wouldnt add to it thats for sure.
Why not? If the goals of something like “universal healthcare for pets” are worthwhile and justifiably extended to all life, then why wouldn’t those goals justify disruptive influence? Why would there be any line at which they aren’t worth it? And if there is some competing moral imperative that justifies the existence of a line, then why wouldn’t it be further in the other direction?
I feel like people have a skewed perspective on this stuff due to living in controlled environments where they are largely isolated from the sheer scale, brutality, and hopelessness of it all. The animals they see on a daily basis are pets, their lives depend on them, and to an extent they are empowered to help those particular individual animals, the only ones they are really very aware of, with some of their problems (while seeing never and not at all the animals used for meat to feed them). But that’s artificial. If you live closer to nature, maybe you’ll see a little more; the carcass of a rabbit, covered in ticks. Territorial robins, killing the chicks you’ve been watching another robin raise. You’d go insane letting yourself feel full empathy for all of them, just the ones you can see, but then there’s billions more you can’t, none of them cared for, all living in some relative state of desperation. And in reality you can’t do anything for them, you can try, but it’s basically spitting into the ocean. Save one injured animal (mostly an impossible task, but maybe you could succeed sometimes with effort), that will distort the ecosystem very slightly, but the system will self adjust to undo your influence over time, at least in terms of the quantity of death and suffering, if not which species are more prevalent.
Ultimately I think there is a choice to make. Accept this state of affairs and your place in it, or aspire to overthrow and remake it, but you can’t really have both.
Predation and resource competition happens but it isn’t “based” on suffering because it’s based on nothing but biochemistry.
We will genetically engineer all pathogens so that instead of killing us they give us super power boosts until our immune system takes care of them. That way we don’t murder the pathogens like we do now.
I’d read this.
Hm… What would biopunk but in a utopia instead of a dystopia be called? 🤔
Idk about all creatures. Wouldn’t that disrupt the food chain too much?
Won’t someone think of the amoebas??
This is true utopia.
If you want to positively impact the live of Corona, HIV, etc. you are going to have a bad time. This is essentially the same as the paradox of tolerance.
Colloquially, we usually dont refer to microbes as creatures even though they are.
Viruses technically are not alive though.
Universal healthcare for animals yes. A truly advanced civilisation would find the ownership of an animal by another (a pet) abhorrent. Animals are rational beings and have their own will, therefore we have a moral duty to care for them and not exploit them or keep them captive.
I had a guy remodeling my bathroom who said it was wrong to own a cat because you make the cat stay in the house at night and it might want to be at the club instead.
It is wrong that way, but the cat also likes food, warmth, and companionship.
What would the cat choose? I tried: The cat went outside many times a day for hours at a time. Brought back some dead mice, birds, a squirrel, a rabbit, and fight wounds on himself. What did the victims think, and how to weigh their opinion in the pet equation?
The counterargument to this is that it’s not wrong to make good choices for those who cannot make them themselves.
I’m with you.
The animals in our lives don’t just benefit the individual, they benefit everyone. So, even if you aren’t behind the idea because we should take care of each other as a moral or ethical thing, it’s also a practical matter.
So, treat it like having green spaces in cities, national wilderness, public schools. We make sure that people can have animals in their lives without money being a factor. Remember, we’re talking an advanced world here, so scarcity is minimized, and people aren’t becoming vets with income as their underlying necessity to survive. They’ll have housing and food no matter what, so they can practice out of nothing but the desire to help critters.
But, even now, we ought to have a charity that helps with such things. That way emergencies and difficult to treat issues aren’t an automatic monetary decision, it can be about making the best choices for the animals. Even if it was limited to people that would otherwise be separated from animals, it would still be an improvement to the humans’ lives, the animals’ lives, and thus everyone’s lives.
Seriously, if you have never seen how much good comes from just the disabled having an animal companion, it wouldn’t even need thought. And, when an animal ends up being rehomed because of money issues, how much it effects the animal’s happiness and well being it stacks the benefits higher. I’ve taken in critters when my patients couldn’t afford them, including when they needed medical care as part of why it wasn’t affordable. The animals, at least the ones that tend to bond with humans, were miserable for months in some cases, longer in others.
But if there had been an organization to make sure the critters got to appointments, had the right foods, etc, I wouldn’t have needed to take them in, they could have stayed with their people and been happier as well as healthier.
We should do better by the animals in our lives as a culture, as a society. And not to do so while whining about the poor and elderly and disabled not deserving that experience because of money alone. Even if we can’t make it happen for everyone, making it happen for some is better than nothing.
The trouble is getting them to pay taxes
The employer pays the tax: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45155818
Now we just have to get them to get jobs
If they’re truly advanced, they don’t need taxes.
some sorta started doing it but considering how much of the globe do not do it for humans we have pretty far to go.
