Posts by Matthew Young35

Is there anything out there regarding an automatic bicycle?
If one exists, it’ll probably cost you at least eight thousand bucks on Craigslist. No paperwork, no receipts, nothing.

My cat basically told me to just go screw myself.

Jessica Gonzalez said:I suppose saying that is "fair" is about as reasonable as saying owning people was fair. And not too long ago, that’s how things were. Having horses for riding and slaves for the heavy lifting was considered practical and desirable. You have parents, which is one generation back. You had grandparents, which is two. Everyone related to those people is your kin. If you go back thousands or millions of generations, that dog is your relative. That pig is your relative. That cat is your relative. It all just depends on how far back you look in the family tree. Humans just arbitrarily decide where the line is drawn—where a relative becomes a beloved friend and where they become ingredients for sausages. Not so long ago, people decided that certain Homo sapiens were "real" people while others were just slaves. You can try to spin this by saying "it's not the same," or "you're taking this to extremes," or "but my cat is happy." That’s not just my take; if we pretend to hold ourselves to high moral standards and condemn violence against humans, yet also condemn the lack of rights for certain groups, then I think it's fair to ask if my distant, hairy relatives have those same rights. If they don't (and they don't, just look at what's on your plate), then the whole concept of human rights feels a bit hollow. They seem like human inventions and criteria that shift every year. We put a person who kills another person in prison, but we celebrate the guy who kills a pig as a master of the grill? If you start spinning all those combinations, your head might spin, but hey, maybe that's needed sometimes.

I guess I’ll say it again: I’m not expecting to win this argument or have everyone agree with me, because I know they won't. I'm just trying to broaden the perspective on a topic that isn't black and white. Humans are the masters of domesticated animals, and those animals don't have freedom. They are human property. I wonder if any of you would actually want to be someone else's property? Maybe just think about that next time you look into a dog or cat's eyes and feel convinced that everything is perfect and that there's just pure, mutual love. That street is a one-way street.

My Cat is free; he’s happy and doing just fine with me.
His window is open (I live on the ground floor) and he hasn't gone anywhere for years.
In the winter, he doesn't leave the bed except for five minutes outside to do his business and to jump on something a hundred times a day. In the summer, he's never home except to come in and eat five or six times a day; otherwise, he's in the yard.

Cats never lived better than when the Egyptians "domesticated" them.

This glorification of life in the wild is misplaced.
Do you actually know how wild animals live in the wild?
Those animals that serve as prey live in constant, 24/7 fear that some Cat, crocodile, or Wolf might eat them, while Cats live in a state of constant hunger agony—except perhaps for Lions, for a week or two when idiots like wildebeests charge into the slaughter.
And don't even get me started on disease.
Do you really think a wild cow in India has an idyllic life? Hell no. Go into the jungle and try your best not to be eaten by a crocodile, a tiger, or a leopard; try not to be bitten by a venomous snake, or attacked by a swarm of killer bees, or trip on a branch and get an infection, only to have scavengers start eating you while you're still alive.

This romanticization of life in the wild is truly fascinating.

Jessica Gonzalez said:It isn't quite that simple, guys. Even people living in harsh conditions or prisoners can experience moments of happiness, mostly because it’s just a reaction to certain hormone releases. In a prison, someone might feel happy just because they got a slightly better lunch. A laborer might feel happy simply because their employer didn't punish them that day. Happiness is a pretty relative concept, I guess. Even a dog has been bred to react with those specific hormones when seeing a familiar face; they were essentially designed to please their owners. It isn't really about free will. Of course, the whole idea of free will is incredibly complex, but pets are animals that lack freedom in so many different ways.

I get that modern pet owners didn't create these dogs themselves, but rather look after animals that—through no fault of their own—can't really care for themselves. Taking care of an animal like that is a somewhat noble thing to do. Their primary role is to make our lives more fun or fulfilling, yet people often sacrifice a bit of themselves to care for them. Still, that doesn't change the fact that such an animal is essentially a captive, created through what is almost an industrial process. If we can accept that one highly intelligent pig can be an involuntary victim of our dietary needs—alongside 60 billion other farm animals raised every year—then maybe we should also accept that the domesticated wolf (the dog) is a victim of our recreational needs. It seems almost arbitrary; a dog has this crazy luck of being a mammal that humans find cute, so we make them clothes and write laws to protect them from noise, whereas pigs aren't as likable, so we either mass-produce them or find ourselves wanting to ban their farming altogether. Both are mammals with the same organs, and biologically speaking, pigs are actually quite compatible with us. We adore one, keep them in our apartments for 15 years, and consider them family. The other, which is just as intelligent and capable of being a pet, is treated merely as ingredients for ham or a schnitzel.

You can say whatever you want, but my Cat is happy.
It shows on his face that he's happy; he told me he's happy.

Jessica Gonzalez said:It’s honestly kind of absurd how arbitrary everything seems when you think about it. Just imagine two hypothetical scenarios.

First, you have a steer on your ranch, invite some friends over, and then you slaughter it right there, butcher it, and throw it all on the grill.

Now, imagine you have a puppy at home, invite those same friends over, and then you kill that puppy, butcher it, and cook it on the grill.

In the first case, you’re probably just having a great time with your buddies, but in the second, you’d likely end up behind bars. Why is that?

For some reason, mammalian carnivores don't typically go around eating other mammalian carnivores under normal circumstances.
A lion might take down a leopard, but if he's starving, he'll eat him.

Simply put, for mammalian carnivores, other mammalian carnivores aren't considered food.

Ashley Bailey6 said:Cats are more independent, while dogs are needy. It comes down to their biological programming, not some measure of potential intelligence.

Dogs are easier to train. If you want to prep someone for a fight, you'll get much further with a dog.
As for cats, you can just take that natural aloofness of theirs and shove it somewhere else.

Dogs are submissive to humans. Logically, that makes them the better option if we're judging based on human intelligence. ☕

A fight? Give me a break.
Obviously, if a cat is fighting a dog, that natural "aloofness" won't mean much when the cat is fifteen times smaller.

Unfortunately, there are videos online showing fights between equally sized cats and dogs.
They are revolting.
The people who organized and filmed those should be thrown against a wall.
Imagine breeding a Pitbull for fighting only to have a cat take it out in seconds.

neonfalcon16 said:I find their selective eating habits fascinating. A dog will basically swallow anything that crosses its path, whereas a cat will sit there and overthink a meal three times before deciding if it's worthy.

Well, cats are strictly carnivores.
There’s actually a theory that this happened because of a genetic mutation where they lost the ability to taste sweetness, effectively locking them into a meat-only diet.
On the flip side, dogs can survive on nothing but potatoes, scraps, and other junk food. Cats don't have that luxury; if they want to live, they need meat.

Jessica Gonzalez said:Well, yours is in that lucky 5% and actually spotted a mouse.

Honestly, they just drag him out alive from somewhere and torture him until his heart gives out.
I have to admit, it looks incredibly cruel.
The last time, I snatched the mouse away after it confessed everything and just let it loose in the backyard.
The Cat wouldn't even speak to me for two days after that.

Jessica Gonzalez said:Most people don't keep cats around to deal with mice anymore; they just want something to play with when they get home. I guess saying they're for pest control is a stretch, since maybe 95% of city cats will never even spot a mouse in their lives. It's kind of like saying dogs exist to help people hunt, when probably 99% of them have never caught anything more significant than a tennis ball. I suppose the whole process of domesticating these animals started for reasons that just don't apply to modern urban life. Nowadays, pets are really just a way for us to have some fun.

Try explaining the lack of mice to my Cat.
He probably hunts by instinct alone, bringing home expensive little "gifts" consisting of the neighbor's sparrows and canaries.
Right in the heart of Washington, D.C.
Trust me, there are plenty of mice around here.

Jessica Gonzalez said:Well, keep playing with them if you want, though cats don't really serve much of a purpose. A trained dog might actually save someone or help guide someone down the street (even if they don't quite get what they're doing, they're still useful to us), but cats mostly just mess around and scratch everything. I guess we all just indulge ourselves; these animals are basically just a way for us to pass the time so we aren't staring at a wall all day. It seems like we try to shape other animals to fit our own domesticated lifestyles.

Cats actually serve a purpose.
They are total pests, though.
A friend of mine lives in a house on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., and his old cat passed away—rest in peace. At first, they just had some mice appearing around the house, which isn't the end of the world, just a few mice here and there. But after the mice showed up, damn snakes followed right behind them.
Where there's a cat, mice usually stay away.
That’s essentially how cat domestication began: once we started stockpiling food.
That is why cats hold such a status. They don't need to do much; being present is enough to keep the mice at bay.
In the Middle Ages, when the plague hit the cities, they used to kill cats because they thought God was angry at these creepy creatures and was sending the plague through them. Brilliant move, right? Fewer cats meant more mice and rats, and the plague was happy as a child.

Larry Fox5 said:I already posted this a few years back—about that Max Planck study in Leipzig where they actually proved animal intelligence for the first time using a domestic pet. It was a Border Collie named Rico.
The dog knew all ten of his toys, which were laid out in a circle. When given a command to fetch a specific toy, he’d go straight to the exact one. Then, they threw a completely new toy into the mix and gave it a name for the first time. Using simple elimination, the dog figured it out and brought the new toy right over. They kept shuffling the toys around so they weren't always in the same spot, and he still nailed it every single time.

He even managed to memorize the name of that new toy after a few months.

Until then, science basically assumed that kind of "rapid identification" through logical reasoning was strictly a human thing.
Rico proved there's an intelligence there that's—honestly—on par with a three-year-old kid.

Scientists think canine intelligence evolved specifically because of how closely we’ve lived alongside humans. Unfortunately, by living with us, they picked up our diseases too. As for cats, they couldn't develop those same cognitive skills as dogs simply because that deep connection just isn't there.

That’s exactly why dogs are used in search and rescue, rehab centers for kids with special needs, police work, the military, helping the blind... you get the idea. You just can't compare a dog's role in our society to a cat's. And that’s not just true today—it’s been that way for the last 3,000 years.
Denying all of this is just plain stupid.

There was also a recent study conducted on cats which concluded that they actually do recognize when someone calls them by their name... It's just that sometimes they choose to react, and other times they choose to ignore you.
Behavior isn't necessarily a reflection of intelligence.

Take my Cat, for example. The little jerk can actually open doors. I've seen him do it several times. He jumps up on the dresser next to the door, turns the handle, and walks right out. But the thing is, he won't open it just to go somewhere; he wants me to open it for him. It’s not because he’s stupid—it’s because he’s manipulative.

As far as I know, recent research is either inconclusive or leans in favor of the cats. It's just that dogs behave in a way that makes more sense to humans.

Paul Sanders5 said:I've got a dog, two cats, and a rabbit.

The cat is definitely the coolest, while the rabbit is easily the most high-maintenance. Honestly, if you want a companion for any kind of social situation, a dog is hands down the best animal out there. Personally, though, I vibe way more with the cat and its whole lifestyle.

And seriously, who on earth buys a cat? You should be rescuing them from the streets. 😍

You don't even have to go that far.
My cat simply climbed through my window and decided to move in.

When you actually stop to think about it, he’s already the second person to move in and settle down. At least he had the decency to chip in a little every single day.
This other one, right before his post... I’m fast asleep, and suddenly I wake up to find a Cat sleeping right at my feet. I look down at her, she looks back up at me, and... well, that's that. What choice do you really have?
Someone else tried that exact same move right before her, but I managed to shut it down.

Larry Fox5 said:So, apparently cats are smarter than dogs now. You can only find this kind of nonsense on a random internet forum... Exclusive, I guess.

They’re different because they come from different backgrounds. Dogs are pack animals; they listen to a "master." Cats don't give a damn about having an "owner"—they just force you to adapt to them, rather than adapting themselves to you.

brightpilot6 said:I have to agree; dogs are essentially just pets that happen to be a bit dim-witted.

Compared to their owners, 😂

The intelligence hierarchy:
Dogs < humans < Cats

Why all the anger? Dogs are great. So what if they’re a little dim-witted sometimes? It’s not like that's the most important thing in life, right?

Paul Sanders5 said:If the owner kicks the bucket, the dog would just sit there howling until it finally gave up the ghost. Then the cat would probably eat you, and then find its own way out.

So, essentially, dogs are just little crybabies.

Amanda Evans2 said:Byron, here is a dog for you. Honestly, though, this one looks a bit underdressed. My recommendation would be to grab a longer coat
The dog is a species that humans have essentially domesticated and tailored to our own needs through selective breeding for various purposes. The end result is an animal that is completely dependent on people; without us, they simply wouldn't survive in this form, quite unlike a wolf or a wild goat

Cats, on the other hand, are the species that managed to domesticate humans to suit their own needs.
Now, AI is next on the list.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dai...at-videos.html

"The team, led by Google's Jeff Dean, utilized a massive array of 16,000 processors to build a brain-like 'neural network' featuring over a billion connections.
The researchers then fed the system random images pulled from 10 million YouTube videos and allowed it to 'learn' autonomously.

Predictably, the machine became obsessed with cats.

'We never explicitly told it during the training process, “This is a cat,”' stated Jeff Dean. 'It essentially invented the very concept of a cat on its own.'"

Charles Roberts33 said:🤣

Look, it doesn't bother me; it’s just funny.

Just because I comment on something doesn't mean I have some grand positive or negative stance on it.
Some people here act like moral authorities even when we're talking about dogs in coats. Relax. It’s like they want us to review everything—this TV show is great, that one is terrible.

Seriously, what is your problem with this specific style? 🤦

The very existence of these weak, modern breeds is the result of human spite and playing God to design the "perfect" companion for an increasingly crowded population with limited time and space. Through relentless selective breeding, we've ended up with semi-incapable breeds that can't function without human intervention and are prone to endless health issues.

Ideally, a dog should be a strong, resilient creature. Shelters and rescues are full of them. But people would rather drop hundreds or thousands of dollars on a status symbol or a fashion accessory that needs a jacket just to handle moderate weather.

So, you're agreeing with me that Cats are superior beings.

And what about the cats? Am I supposed to dress my cat in a little coat every time he rolls out of bed to go outside and pee?

Joseph Clark37 said:

Unknown