More than one billion animals are kept as pets around the world. But bioethicist Jessica Pierce says that might not be great for our furry, feathered and scaly friends. In this story for @time, she discusses the potential harms of pet ownership, including whether it's ok to buy and sell animals and use them for our own gratification, the anguish of captivity, and the climate impacts of pet-keeping. She also posits a new way forward, in which human-animal ties are mutual and freely chosen. It's a very thought-provoking article; tell us in the comments what you think.
@CultureDesk@time Thank you for sharing this. I have been thinking a lot about this lately. I've studied more about Jain and Buddhist philosophy over the years and they present a wider and more nuanced conception of suffering than Western philosophy often does. When combined with environmental ethics, there are deep questions about suffering inherent in so many of our complex systems. Perhaps this will be something the future might condemn us for?
It's been a good year for @socannex. Today's episode features @annamueller and @sethabrutyn discussing their new book Life Under Pressure (2024, Oxford University Press) with me.
We talk about their field site, Oak Grove, its high status, and high earning adult community, and the psychic pain that many young people experience.
There needs to be actual content rules. TIL worked best when the mods actually adhered to those content rules. Otherwise you just have people posting all kinds of nonsense. Quality is better than quantity
@Chozo if your post is 'TIL A star system exists' and you can't really tell us an interesting fact or piece of information about it, I'd say.. don't write something to be honest or if you really want to write about that thing, try to find something interesting about it to actually submit. TIL on Reddit also has a rule about titles standing on their own. Yes you can expand on topics inside the submission, but people should get something simply from reading your title. A lot of those titles don't really give you anything at all.