Is veterinary medicine defensible?

[Male Idiot]

There are a few things to consider here.

Pets are mostly mammals, humans are mammals. It is simply a natural instinct to take care of things, unless you are cognitively divergent.

This isn't even a human only trait, but present in mammals and birds and arises from caring about offsprings.

If we want to deepthunk, shouldn't a pet cat's life be worth more than a felon's? The pet cat has a much lower chance of hurting others than Tyrone the serial fentanyl robber. Yet Tyrone gets doctor visit when he is doing his tenth catch and release stint because he shoot Chong the shopkeeper.

Now we could make this interesting.

Are funko pops and labubus ethically defensible? Could they be taxed to care for orphans or whatnot?

 

[Smoltine Kiminal]

yours might be an accurate depiction.

thank you, it was intended to be just that

Are funko pops and labubus ethically defensible?

voluntary exchange of luxury goods without practical use is generally easily ethically defensible.
weather you think those luxury goods are stupid, or they are just fashionable accessories for girls doesnt really factor into it.
what makes corporate consumer goods ethically questionable are the market psychologists who design products & marketing in a way that tries to take advantage of base instincts
thus my answer to this is that while buying funko pops is soyboy behaviour, it is ultimately not unethical
psychologists on corporate payroll on the other hand belong in gulag

Could they be taxed

taxes are ethically not defensible, they are always extortion at threat of incarceration & violence.

even in a thought experiment where the taxes where to be spend 100% for the objective "greater good", whatever that may be, certainly not something man can ever know, they are still criminal, the taxes are still extorted against the will of the taxpayer, otherwise it would be a donation.
of course in the real world taxes are never used 100% towards the "greater good", in general id be surprised if 10% of the tax money ever reaches a proper purpose instead of enriching cronies through overpriced government contracts, straight up substitutes, or just keeping a slow and inefficient governmental machine afloat

taxes never being ethical can even be properly proven with simple induction:
if i take your money at gunpoint thats extortion
if i take your money at gunpoint, and use part (or even all of the money) to buy you a happy meal from the nearest mcdonalds thats still extortion
now if i and another guy gang up on you to take your money, to buy you a happy meal thats of course still extortion
so how many times do i have to take n+1 people so it magically stops being extortion?

 

[Male Idiot]

The man with the shiney golden hat , aka the crown, can issue taxes.

That's it. Simple as. That's the special power in his shiny golden king hat.

But now the world is retarded so we elect grifters who just buy yacts that is gay, instead of equip thousands of men with knightly armour so we can raid the neighbouring king's land and steal all their sheep.

 

[Smoltine Kiminal]

The man with the shiney golden hat , aka the crown, can issue taxes.

That's it. Simple as. That's the special power in his shiny golden king hat.

But now the world is retarded so we elect grifters who just buy yacts that is gay, instead of equip thousands of men with knightly armour so we can raid the neighbouring king's land and steal all their sheep.

thats not ethical
the golden hatman should tell the peasants they better get a helmet and a bardiche or learn to shoot a bow, otherwise they have to make do with a pitchfork or they simply cant come to the next raid.
if they dont come to the next raid they dont get any of the sheep, simple as.

 

[Dead Lion]

I’m a veterinary student so here’s my 2 cents.

What exactly is our relationship with wild animals, and to what end do we practice medicine on them?

There are three practical reasons to practice medicine on wild animals.

1. Most importantly to prevent the spread of diseases. Many domestic animals have wild relatives still living in the forests. Nobody wants a heard of bison spreading bovine tuberculosis from village to village.
2. Lessening our impact on them. They haven’t evolved to deal with our shenanigans so it’s therefore reasonable to intervene when they are impacted by us. Most commonly this takes from of either mending bones broken by cars or ditches or raising orphaned young in such a way that they can be released to the wild. This is especially important in the case of critically endangered species.
3. Research. Wild animals often have a novel adaptations that can help us. For example GLP-1 agonists (ozempic), probably one of the biggest medical innovations in recent memory are derived from a protein extracted from a species of lizard called a Gila monster.

Kind of ironic since this thing looks kinda fat (and since it’s described as slow moving it’s probably also often late).

Is wildlife rescue just exotic pet ownership practiced responsibly?

As highlighted above there are legitimate reasons to do it. A responsible exotic pet owner can also help alleviate weight from rescues since if that animal wasn’t rescued it was possibly poached. If you own a poached animal then you are by definition irresponsible, but i digress.

When it comes to non-rehabilitatable animals, is showing them to schools and "educational purposes" just an excuse to hang out with non-domesticated animals?

Nothing beats the real thing. If the animal is available and the whole ordeal doesn’t stress/hurt it then why not. Especially since these days encountering a wild animal in the actual wild isn’t as easy as it used to be.

And what do these practices say about our own society, and depending on how we model that, how do we justify them?

That we’re more mindful about animals now than we used to be. Back in the day people took animals for granted and as a result we’ve driven many animals to extinction one way or another.

Also, @AnitaSarsleezian’s original argument was fucking retarded, I dare you to try and slap a Moscow Watchdog. Most domestic animals require some form of training before being fit for service, I can tell you many horror stories of people who didn’t know that.

Human medicine is downstreams from veterinary medicine. You can try shit on animals it would be unethical to do to a human.

It’s more of a parallel discipline really, we borrow as much from them as they do from us. Medicine and equipment is often designed for humans first and then later modified for animals for instance.

 

[Gregis]

I'm still trying to gather my thoughts on some ideas about our relation to animals, but one quick thought is on the subject of domestication as @AnitaSarsleezian brought up. He mentions the issue of squirrels pissing everywhere as part of the package of them being bad pets, and I think it's illustrative to consider the main two house pets, cats and dogs, both of whom can largely be allowed free rein in a house with some degree of pet-proofing without destroying everything. Dogs of course have a strong pack instinct, to the extent that you can basically order them around on when and where to shit; they are a very obvious case for domestication and it works out very well. Cats aren't like this; I've heard of cats being trained to shit in a toilet but I think that's extremely rare and honestly feels more like training a wild animal using reinforcement tricks and slow changes to shape a behavior. However, cats already instinctually do not want to just shit anywhere, they want to bury their shit, so if they are provided a litter box that will just be where they prefer to go anyway. You run into problems when the form or texture of some other object you don't want them to piss on nevertheless looks to them like a good place for it.

So again, dogs seem to have a very strong case for domestication and can fit into human hierarchies and take training naturally. They can have jobs. Cats do not, but it seems like perhaps it's simply due to a quirk of nature that they don't want to piss just anywhere, so they can be integrated into a household. This was all brought up because of that 25 generation figure Anita brought up. I was trying to imagine what 25 generations of breeding for domestication might do to a squirrel. I suspect it still maybe could not become a pet of the kind which can have free rein in a house, there are limits to what kind of behaviors can be bred into an animal. A lot of my thinking here is informed by the silver fox experiment which attempted to domesticate the foxes; selecting foxes to breed only based on behavioral evaluation, this nonetheless led to changes in physical features generally tending towards neoteny, such as ears becoming floppier and rounded, more like those on domestic dogs. So to some extent the question of domestication of animals seems to be "what will an animal be like if it is bred into a state of permanent semi-adolescence?" The bond and dependency they form with human owners is possibly just a continuation of that which they feel towards their mothers.

Btw, another thing about that silver fox experiment, as far as I know it seems to imply that it is possible to domesticate an animal in fewer than 25 generations, although I've also heard that in some cases descendants would revert, so perhaps it does take closer to that to create a population in which the change is stable. It would make sense to me though that the number of generations might vary depending on what animal you're trying it with.

 

[Yugica]

Is wildlife rescue just exotic pet ownership practiced responsibly? When it comes to non-rehabilitatable animals, is showing them to schools and "educational purposes" just an excuse to hang out with non-domesticated animals? Are there larger concrete benefits? And what do these practices say about our own society, and depending on how we model that, how do we justify them? I'm also very interested to hear from people actually involved in this stuff to ground the discussion in concrete facts of how this is practiced.

Spoiler: Big wall of text, with a nice documentary in it :)

Beyond that it can be incredibly useful, when not taken in the direction of raising them as a pet, to preventing certain diseases or parasites from proliferating. Diseases like rabies, when untreated, have a near 100% mortality rate just as an example and many of the parasites out there that affect wildlife can also infect us and are especially dangerous to our kids. So even in just the scenario of helping to take care of wildlife it's beneficial to us as most wildlife rescues will treat what animals they get for parasites and will deal with them if they're rabid.

Arguably taking an injured animal out of the wild to keep as a pet is harmful for its ecosystem. Predators have a major portion of their prey being made up of injured or sickly animals. By saving said animals you're taking resources that they'd otherwise have. However if the animal is sickly because of something like mosquito poison, like what was mentioned before, then taking them out of the wild is beneficial in that case. Many of the kinds of poisons that we use will accumulate in predators and cause them major issues and it'd be cruel to cure them and then set them back out there as a disabled, fucked up critter to just go and get eaten.

In the event that it's an animal from a species that is otherwise struggling then it can be very useful in terms of conservation as they can be set up in captive breeding programs. The parent may be fucked up but their children may not be and could be released to help the struggling, wild population. It's important that such measures are done for those cases as genetic bottlenecking can lead to major health concerns or even communicable cancers like CTVT(the link has a dog penis in it, you have been warned) in dogs or facial tumor disease(very graphic, you have been warned again) in Tasmanian devils.

Even if you disregard both cases and it's an animal that is not poisoned, not from a struggling population and you're keeping it after rescuing it(or it otherwise can't be rehabilitated) there is a case that can be made about furthering our knowledge of their species by keeping and taking care of them. Additionally so for raising awareness for them, as even telling your friends about them spreads awareness for what they're like. Who knows, you posting about a quirk of your exotic pet that people don't otherwise talk about may catch the eye of a researcher and lead to some nice discoveries.

In the case of Chinese hamsters they were of great use in disease research because of their ability to catch many of the diseases that we could. Their cells are still very often found in molecular bio labs in the form of CHO cells, which play a crucial role in medical R&D amongst other things. With Chinese hamsters though, a major problem when they were still new to the field, was that they were hard to get to breed. In this case, an exotic pet owner who keeps them would be very useful in speeding up the process of utilizing them. Asianometry actually has a great documentary talking about them on Youtube, here's the video:

In general I think wildlife rescue is a good thing, but that most of it should be done with release in mind. I wouldn't stop people from owning wild animals though, I like the system as is with permits being required as it raises the barrier of entry and in general makes it so that people who genuinely care and are knowledgeable about said animal are taking care of it.

Also, I typed all of this before I read the rest of the thread, but @Dead Lion 's reply and I overlap a bit on our reasoning and I hope that he'll enjoy my post too.

Are funko pops and labubus ethically defensible? Could they be taxed to care for orphans or whatnot?

The rational answer is that we should make using R*ddit or being a Disney adult carry a death sentence. Suddenly there will be no one left to buy labubus or funko pops.

However, cats already instinctually do not want to just shit anywhere

Spoiler: Spergy little tangent about animal bathroom behavior

This is actually the case with most animals too, especially most mammals. Feces and urine will contain scent markers and are used routinely to mark territories. Animals generally will prefer to excrete their waste away from where they live and this is definitely the case with the vast majority of mammals. Even pigs, who are notorious for rolling around in shit and mud, when provided a pen large enough they will prefer to shit furthest from where they like to be(usually where their shelter, food and water is).

If you have a dog and also give him long walks then you'll also notice that he prefers to shit at the farther points from your house. Whilst he'll pee just about anywhere on your walk, that's fine as urine often doesn't contain parasites or diseases when compared to feces and so is better utilized to mark territory.

Some animals are also careful about where they go to the bathroom as they are prey animals and want to avoid attracting predators near to where they live or that they're in the area. Burying one's waste is a good way to try and hide the scent and I believe I remember that being the reason(that's widely accepted anyhow) for why house cats instinctively want to bury their waste. You may even see your dog(s) doing this after they poop, where they kick dirt and grass behind them after going to the bathroom.

I suspect it still maybe could not become a pet of the kind which can have free rein in a house, there are limits to what kind of behaviors can be bred into an animal.

You would actually be surprised. People underestimate how fast evolution can work and to what degree one can selectively breed for a trait. It may very well be possible to breed squirrels to use litter boxes like cats do. If you didn't want to actually conduct the observations and recordings for your selective breeding project then simply raise them in an environment where there's a major health hazard if they don't bury said waste. Otherwise you would select for squirrels that have an aversion to their own waste and whilst breeding them for domestication leave them in kennels that have something like cat litter. Those with the greatest aversion to the smell would be those who would quickly want to bury their waste. From there you just have tests where their pens have two far sections of equal distance to put their waste, one with litter and one without. You then select in favor of those who bury their waste in the litter over those who showed no real preference.

The Fox Domestication experiments, in this regard, had no parameters in place to make the foxes good pets. Their model was simply to make them less hostile to people, but not to make them actually manageable. Proper selective breeding programs are likely to take longer than 25 generations just to get all of the great traits in, but the effort is worth it.

So to some extent the question of domestication of animals seems to be "what will an animal be like if it is bred into a state of permanent semi-adolescence?" The bond and dependency they form with human owners is possibly just a continuation of that which they feel towards their mothers.

They'd be more affectionate, curious and friendly in short. There's two factors that leads to the neoteny of domesticated animals, to what I know, and those are our own biases and also that juvenile animals tend to be more agreeable. For the former it's very simple, we love cute faces and even baby animals trigger a cute response in us. For the latter, any trait which may prevent ontological(maturing) processes of behavior may also prevent ontological processes of physical development and baby animals are usually very open to forming bonds or are generally non-aggressive. Incidentally dogs with floppier ears, from what I remember, tend to be more friendly and less dominant than those with pointed ears.

although I've also heard that in some cases descendants would revert

People consider pigs to be domesticated, but they very quickly revert into feral hogs. A single generation is all it takes usually. Dogs and cats too will revert to wild behavior when not raised by humans. Human care necessarily helps to reinforce domesticated behavior as we lessen the threats and hazards in their environment with us and in the case of cats they need to be familiarized with us as kittens or they will always be less friendly towards humans than those cats who were. Hell, even many plants quickly revert to wild types. Texas has a huge population of wild oranges that are bitter and sour to the point of inedibility. That which was favorable to us is quickly selected out in nature, as evolution is throttled by the selection pressure(s) available and evolution waits for no one.

 

[Blue Flying Leaf]

A single generation is all it takes usually.

Not even that: https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/animals/a43294202/feral-hog-genetics/
It takes a few months and they are back to the wild. Next gen is completely wild.

That which was favorable to us is quickly selected out in nature, as evolution is throttled by the selection pressure(s) available and evolution waits for no one.

Our farming enables survival of "tastier" specimens.
Everything in nature is tough as nails as there's not enough nutrients to go around as well as overabundance of pests.
Wild cherries and pears make for a killer liquor tho.

 

[Lokenstien]

That we’re more mindful about animals now than we used to be. Back in the day people took animals for granted and as a result we’ve driven many animals to extinction one way or another

It’s not even just for granted. Sometimes humans actively tried to kill off animals not for resources but simply because it was fun and hurt the right people. Picture taken in 1892.

 

[Lobster Cult High Priest]

Depends if it is a small veterinary practice or one that is bought up by private equity (and then squeezes their customers by overcharging and catering to Dog moms / cat ladies)

 

[Super Mario Brothers]

I'd normally offer a serious response, but from personal experience, the people who go out of their way to own exotics like squirrels tend to be fucking nuts.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

If the economy allows for people to make a living being veterinarians then there's no point arguing. And even if you had communistic style limit on education, for dogs, cats, horses and farm animals there is an economic incentive to keep healthy. While you'll also want experts in other animals to track diseases or even technologies.