Are you saying it's rats today, humans tomorrow? Also, >I think there is a severe deficit of empathy in Western culture. Why? I suspect most Westeners would

Are you saying it's rats today, humans tomorrow? Also, >I think there is a severe deficit of empathy in Western culture. Why? I suspect most Westeners would agree with you, which to me indicates a glut of empathy (ironically higher for non-humans than for humans, usually). To the cultural norms I inherited, the idea that society should extend any protections toward non-human animals sounds comical. (And the callous kind of rationalism I've personally cultivated agrees: it seems philosophically misaligned. But there may be big differences there. I assume we value humans because they're so intelligent because that's the most legitimate value I find in them -- not because they can easily hijack my emotions. Thus, I value non-human animals far less. But from here, things get even more arbitrary and subjective and arguably extremely right-wing with what entitles an entity to personhood, whether severely intellectually-disabled humans then have personhood [and, if so, why fetuses do not], whether a non-human with superhuman intelligence would not only have personhood but whether it would be that bad if, by the same rules, decide we don't and abuse us the way we do rats, and also can't chimpanzees absolutely destroy humans in short-term memory[0]? So where does that fit in here? I'm too dumb for this.) But uh. My gut agrees with parent; it's silly to worry so much about rats. 0: https://youtu.be/zsXP8qeFF6A?t=50 https://youtu.be/zsXP8qeFF6A?t=50