http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGcM_yLH3D4
So this man apparently has an 800 pound bear as a pet.
Now I know what you're going to say, bears are dangerous, they are wild animals, etc. Fair enough. So are wolves, but we humans figured out how to domesticate wolves and turn them into dogs. Today, many wolves are on the verge of extinction, while dogs are one of the most populous mammals on Earth.
Why not do the same with bears? And lions? And panthers, and other great beasts of legend that are endangered? Who wouldn't love a snow leopard as a pet?
Assuming a future where genetic engineering allows us to do this with little danger to either humans or beasts, would you be in favor?
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However, bears would probably be pretty expensive to feed. Also certain breeds of dogs like pit bulls are still pretty dangerous even while domesticated; I'd have to imagine bears would be the same way.
I dont think you could ever take that out of a Bear or a Lion. I read something recently where a Lion ate its long time owner. Its their nature and its cruel.
But Im all for stopping the extinction of these creatures/
a) You end up with an awesome domestuicated animal.
b) Removal of idiots improves the gene pool.
Oh, I just saw your sneaky caveat at the end of your post. In that case, I'm going to go with "Fuck no". How about we put some similar resources towads just not killing these animals and we let them live how they want to?
If you raise a pit bull correctly, it's not anymore dangerous than a golden retriever. The problem is that most people buy, breed, and raise pitbulls to be vicious guard/attack dogs. The pitbulls that end up in shelters tend to have this upbringing and so act like they were raised.
I'm sure certain breeds of doggies have natural tendencies to greater extents than others, but it's my understanding that pit bulls get a bad rap. Also they're not very cute or furry, so, yeah.
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Pits (as well as rottweilers and dobermans and so forth) are more dangerous in large part because they're so powerful. If a beagle gets pissed off, he nips your ankles. A pit bull can harm someone very very badly, very very quickly because they're bred to have supremely powerful jaw and neck muscles. They were also bred for aggression and therefore are more prone to violence.
But the pits that I've met, trained and owned by people knowledgable in the breed, have been nothing more than cupcakes and love sponges.
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A terrible joke but also kinda what happens when you treat godless killing machines like tamagachis.
Well even when we don't kill them directly we destroy their habitats for our industries.
I think about this question all the time with my cat, because I love him more than all the jewels beneath the earth, and I worry that I am depriving him—via domestication—of a life he would rather live in the wild.
Obviously, wild (or even just outdoor) cats have shorter lives than indoor cats. But I also have trouble believing that cats want to be indoors for their whole lives. (I compromise by letting Prince Nanaki out our front window and supervise him as he wanders around our front lawn.)
At the same time—haven't we improved the lives of cats and dogs by domesticating them from their wild ancestors? In the same way, I feel that our lives have been improved by moving from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a cultured agricultural lifestyle. There is all kinds of shit that domesticated animals (and agricultural human beings) don't have to worry about that wild animals do. Domesticated animals have constant food, cushions to lie on, giant monkeys that know how to pet them just right—isn't that a vast improvement, despite the drawbacks that come with it? Don't domesticated animals suffer less than animals in the wild?
I actually think this is a really important question, especially in the not-too-distant future when domesticating other species becomes a possibility.
Least you wouldn#t have a hard time finding it.
When its head pokes out your toilet after its been flushed next door.
We domesticated certain species of foxes within 50 years of selective breeding. They started having droopy ears like dogs and became affectionate towards humans.
I'm sure, in the hypothetical sci-fi future that this thread takes place in, that we'd be able to go even further through genetic engineering.
Note: I DON'T think we should ever domesticate dolphins and whales. Or birds. Certain animals are so inherently designed to live life in vast spaces that it would be cruel to limit them to a domesticated existence.
It can still be bred out of them as much as viciousness has been bred out of dogs. Just, you know, takes a few thousand years and up til now the cost to benefit ratio wasn't really worth it, at least not for the amount of time necessary.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I imagine that the fact that wolves are by nature social creatures also made domesticating them easier.
Bears don't hang out in groups unless you count the mother-cub time.
Breaking News! Killer Whale Tries to Kill! Everyone Shocked!
I think that doing this responsibly would be an outrageous waste of resources, and doing it irresponsibly would be horrific.
I'm agin' it.
Here's a thought. What if we just scienced out all the aggressive genes and behaviors? Is genetically modifying animals for domestication purposes ethical? We already do that with livestock and breeding wolves into beagles is basically the same process, just a much longer one.
Edit: beat'd by like 5 other people. Ok, so the question about livestock still stands. That's probably where to look to see if we can do this in a responsible way and produce healthy and friendly poodle-lions or some such nonsense. Oh yeah, also consider that they're already trying to decode the genes of a woolly mammoth.
It's possible that the wolves that learned to follow human camps and become friendly with humans (so as to get scraps) were favored that way—no slaughter necessary.
Probably not.
Slaughter is always necessary
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Funny thing is I don't believe there's ever been a fatal attack on a human by wild Orcas. Contrast that with how many people get killed each year by wild hippos, or sharks, or friggin' bees.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9f-6jygRJk
very cute indeed
In a distant future, what if we understand consciousness so well that we could genetically modify animals so they become sentient and capable of speech or communication of some kind. Would you say no to the dogs from Up?
DEAD BODIES
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I dont even want to think about the awkward conversation I'd have to have with my dog when he asked me why I had his nuts cut off.
That said, there isn't a clear-cut line in the sand between language and non-language communication. There are monkeys who have different sounds for "predator spotted in the sky!" and "predator spotted on the forest ground!" and the rest of the monkeys know what the sounds mean—even monkeys from other species, I believe.
Giving animals the ability to use language would involve dramatically changing the structure of their brains, much more so than domestication would involve.
Edit: to respond more seriously, can't you make the same argument against bad parents? Isn't it basically the same problem? A poorly-raised child can also be quite dangerous.
You should need a license to own pets.
You should need one to have children to really but there you go
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE-Nyt4Bmi8
Animal ethics is crazy as a result of the sorts of ontologies persons create while articulating what one ought or ought not do with a particular animal. So, with regard to domesticating animals...basically I think all sides are nuts, given how crazy the arguments are on both sides.
I'm not sure about this. Some animals may already have "language" in the same sense that we do. Isn't the jury still out on whether whales and/or dolphins have true "language" of whatever level of sophistication? It seems that some animals would take little or no structural modification to enable this sort of thing, while others would take a great deal.