Framed

Grrrrrr. What did I do to deserve this???

So, every time I think I have carved out some time, something else happens. I feel like I have been framed for a crime I didn't commit. Or don't remember committing.

My sentence is being on this treadmill of oughts and musts and need-tos when I would like to do some want-tos.

I have managed to read some of Gay Bradshaw's Carnivore Minds. One thing that struck me today was this: If we recall that there is, if you like, an evolutionary arms race between predators and prey, then we see that they co-evolve, deeply influencing each other's genesis. Antelope become faster, so do cheetahs and so on. It's more than genes - it impacts behaviour too. Some snake prey eat snake skins which seem to offer some protection from snake venom.

Right, so, imagine that, to make the world more full of well-being, we eradicate meat eating. Tigers and lions can digest grass and nuts and no longer want to eat antelope. Presumably no one eats insects or krill either. So, what, everyone is meant to eat plants? As well as the 8 billion humans? How, precisely, are the plants meant to grow enough and fast enough to support everyone? In the meantime, insects take over the world.

Of course, the well-being thing would also ensure that only very few of each animal exist, because otherwise some of the males would be miserable about the lack of the chance to make. And the end of disease and injury would mean that all live long healthy lives. So we ensure there are just enough for the animal sequestration areas to support.

But, over generations, with no evolutionary pressures at all, what would happen to the species? They only need to sit around and eat. No chasing or being chased. No hiding or searching.

Surely we'd have to modify them so they're not bored to death. And so that they don't all just merge into some form of a basic creature that is, effectively, just a stomach. You don't need eyes or ears if nothing threatens you and there's nothing to hunt.

Remember the humans in that Wall-E movie who are just fat blobs on scooters? That would be the animal kingdom. But without the motorised scooters.