this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2026
367 points (97.9% liked)
Microblog Memes
10889 readers
1778 users here now
A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.
Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.
RULES:
- Your post must be a screen capture of a microblog-type post that includes the UI of the site it came from, preferably also including the avatar and username of the original poster. Including relevant comments made to the original post is encouraged.
- Your post, included comments, or your title/comment should include some kind of commentary or remark on the subject of the screen capture. Your title must include at least one word relevant to your post.
- You are encouraged to provide a link back to the source of your screen capture in the body of your post.
- Current politics and news are allowed, but discouraged. There MUST be some kind of human commentary/reaction included (either by the original poster or you). Just news articles or headlines will be deleted.
- Doctored posts/images and AI are allowed, but discouraged. You MUST indicate this in your post (even if you didn't originally know). If an image is found to be fabricated or edited in any way and it is not properly labeled, it will be deleted.
- Absolutely no NSFL content.
- Be nice. Don't take anything personally. Take political debates to the appropriate communities. Take personal disagreements & arguments to private messages.
- No advertising, brand promotion, or guerrilla marketing.
RELATED COMMUNITIES:
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Ok I’ll be that guy.
Human problems first. Let’s say we make it past this century, post scarcity, immortal, floating around in space or ascended or something.
Would you think about changing the ecosystem then? Nature’s pretty awful. Whether it’s the carnivores tearing apart herbivores or the herbivores starving themselves from over eating, like, I’d like to change that. Edit their genes maybe?
No.
Honestly, that sounds absolutely insane to the point where I'm not sure if you're trolling. Playing God for no reason except forcing our personal morals on animals that neither understand nor care for those morals. Nature is not "pretty awful". Nature is amazing! Millions of years of evolution have created more species than we can ever hope to even discover, let alone study. Who are we to decide we're so important and all-knowing that we can just undo that because animals eating each other feels icky to some of us?
I am serious but also realize it’s an extreme idea. That’s why I’m putting out there, seeing if I can moderate it a bit with other perspectives. But I see it as a natural extension to animal ethics. I don’t see how we can wash our hands of animal suffering as soon as we’re not involved in it.
Easy: there's nothing ethically wrong with killing animals to eat. Life requires death.
Again I’m thinking distant sci fi future here, where life (at least human life) doesn’t require death. But even before that, does life require suffering before that death?
We’re talking philosophy here right? I’m ok if you figure “That’s just your opinion, man…”. But is there anything logically inconsistent with extending “I’d like to reduce suffering” to “We need to control nature, eventually”?
Several points:
Taking away a predator's ability to eat meat causes at least as much suffering as protecting prey from being eaten takes away. They are hardwired to hunt. There is a reason why everything from a pet dog to a lion in a zoo needs constant enrichment activities to stay healthy - both physically and mentally. If they can't hunt (or simulate hunting), they suffer.
Evolution would be stopped dead in its tracks. The reason why we have so many different species on our planet is mainly because they compete with each other. Predators adapt to catch more prey. Prey adapt to not get eaten. At the same time, there is competition between species that rely on the same limited food sources. If we ever managed to make sure every single animal has exactly what it needs (which in itself is utterly unrealistic), there would be no pressure to adapt. Biodiversity would slowly dwindle when species get wiped out by factors we can't control and without natural selection, nothing new would evolve to fill a certain niche because every mutation that occurs is equally viable. Ecosystems would destabilize rapidly and eventually collapse when your super technology can't keep up anymore.
And most importantly: it's not our job to control nature. We're not god-like creatures who can just force our will onto everything else. Doing so is pure hubris. Nature has managed to regulate itself for hundreds of millions of years. Who are we to decide that the way things have always been is incorrect? Genetically engineering animals not to eat other animals is no more ethical than engineering them to be tastier.
You would turn the whole planet into a zoo that exists only to please your personal worldview. For me, that is the opposite of animal ethics. It reeks of ultra-conservative prescriptivism. Everyone must follow your ethics because anything else is icky and barbaric and certainly you're doing those less enlightened than you a favor by showing them the light.