You're witnessing us after we've gone through countless internal debates and purges, some of which will always be legendary. We had a problem with transphobes at the start, they're all gone. We had a really bizarre fight for about a week over whether or not cats should be allowed outside.
My favorite of ours was the weirdly intense debate over if it's ok to stack rocks next to or inside of a river.
There was also BMF, one of the strangest people to ever live. My personal favorite was @LiberalSocialist@hexbear.net, who was the most contradictory poster we had. You'd think LiberalSocialist was an elaborate Andy Kaufman level bit of someone pretending to be an annoying liberal, but I think it's always been unclear whether it was a gimmick or not.
Ok, but what about this one beach in Bretagne, France, where people have been stacking rocks for years and there are actually some pretty impressive stacks?
(/s, tho there actually is a place like that and I now have conflicted feelings about it)
On the other side was a mix of users going either "yeah, but I just feel like it isn't an issue" and users going "fuck you I'm gonna stack rocks anyway" as if rock-stacking was their livelyhood and users trying to rules-lawyer the thing like "what if it isn't a running stream? What if I'm in a desert? What if it's volcanic rocks?" The reaction was wildly outsized, but apparently hexbear has a large rock-stacking userbase
More like a userbase of nerds who never leave their houses since it's impossible to go camping and not be hit with signs like these. That whole stupid struggle session was a bunch of nerds who never went camping and seeing decades-old signs about how you're not supposed to disturb the environment like picking up stream rocks trying to argue that not disturbing the environment like picking up stream rocks is somehow ultraleftism.
I remember reading that thread when it happened, and thinking how ridiculous that all was. Like, it was something I’d never really thought much about but I was just like oh ok, that makes sense, I’ll be sure to remember not to fuck around with rocks. The responses were baffling. Do you have the link so I could revisit it?
Eh. This still remains clearly a product of Ameri-centrism in my mind: An America-only issue was being touted as a global problem everyone should be aware of, so everybody else in the world who has never seen or even imagined this weird shit will regard it as so uncommon as to not matter. And no, I don't think one side was being particularly more 'calm and patient' than the other.
I have literally never heard of it happening anywhere else in the world. I never said American things couldn't be talked about, but talking about it like it's a ubiquitous practice, and then getting angry at people who don't understand why it's an issue, is just miscommunication, not a big disagreement. And miscommunications caused by America-centrism is a very tiring affair on the internet. Just prepend the post with "Hey Americans:" and there wouldn't have been any real discussion.
I was literally in that struggle thread (different account) - I wasn't claiming you said certain things, I was commenting on what that thread was. Unless we're talking about entirely different threads about the same thing.
if they lived everywhere with humans for at least 2000+ years, from imperial China to imperial Rome and everything in between, i think you can say cats are ok
but ok, if you want to be pedantic, sure, they are not real cats if they don't come from the kat region somewhere in palestine 🙄
Americans desperately need everything to have a definite Right Way and Wrong Way, and the Right Way needs to involve significantly more money and/or effort (preferably being impossible), so that we can properly judge people who are Doing Things The Wrong Way as immoral. Of course that extends to cat care.
What part of cats being good at killing things is that hard for you to believe?
that's why we kept them around for millenias, and that's why - unlike chickens, dogs or cows - cats are just semi-domesticated. keeping cats inside is just cruel and bad practice
I have a cat. I have always had cats in my life. I love cats. I consider myself a "cat person" (who also loves dogs). But you really are being obtuse here. Even in places where cats are not a threat to literally entire species (as they are in much of the world), they can cause massive, irreversible destruction to the local wildlife. That is a fact.
The argument that it's cruel to keep cats indoors doesn't resonate with me either. Outdoor cats are far more likely to be seriously injured or killed by any number of things that are found only outside. From diseases to predators to sadistic humans, with the big obvious factor being cars. But a well-cared for indoor cat is a safe cat. I'm not going to look it up right now, but it's something like the average lifespan of an outdoor cat is only 3-4 years whereas indoor cats it's like 16-18. In my experience (and I've known a lot of cats, both indoor and outdoor) most that are raised indoors are perfectly happy to remain that way so long as they are given the things they need. That includes exercise and mental, emotional, and social stimulation. If you provide for them, there aren't many things they desire that they can get outdoor that can't also be given to them indoors. It is much more cruel to have a cat that you let outside but mostly ignore except to feed them, than it is to have an indoor-only cat that you make time for every day to play with, give affection, or otherwise engage. There are also plenty of compromises if you're a human that's privileged enough to be able to provide them, like outdoor enclosures.
Finally, this thing about calling the "cats should be kept indoors" argument an American position is just crude and wrong. The American way is more along the lines of "lol, I'm going to do what I want because I feel like it, I don't give a shit about all the evidence that what I want is harmful to others." In other words, "I don't care about the local bird, rodent, reptile, and native predator populations, I'm going to do what I want with MY cat" seems to be a hell of a lot more of an Americanism than @Egon@hexbear.net explaining to you why outdoor cats are a detriment to wildlife all over the world. When it's also taken into account that it's typically islands that have suffered the worst consequences of cats as an invasive species, islands that are also victims of US imperialism, saying that cats should be kept indoors is an American moral imposition is straight up offensive. At best, it's adding insult to injury.
Thank you for doing most of the heavy lifting trying to get through to them despite all that ableism and the obvious attempts to rattle you. It started to work on me, I was taking the last reply pretty personally at first (as was intended) before I saw it for what it was. It's too bad. At the very top of the thread I thought they might have been a decent comrade.
I don't treat my cat as a commodity at all and fuck you for implying I do. I give him the happiest most fulfilling life I can possibly afford, and it is good and happy. He is a joyful cat and I'm glad I was able to rescue him from the feral environment he was in as an "outdoor cat" where he was facing a harsh and short life before likely an early and painful death. [editing out some personal info here]. Don't fucking tell me about responsibility you smug cretin.
But you... what animals do you treat as commodities? You better be a vegan or any bullshit you're saying about others treating living, breathing creatures as a commodity you can fuck RIGHT off with your hypocrisy and moral superiority bullshit. (I am a vegan by the way because I'm not a hypocrite in my refusal to treat sentient life as a commodity).
Frankly, I find your use of leftist terminology to justify your selfish cruelty to not only your own pets but to the other life around them to be disgusting. If you can't or won't take responsibility for the harm you cause in the world for taking the lazy way of caring for a pet, for putting the sentient life that relies on you in danger, you are not fit to care for them at all.
“Most cats are probably better off being able to go outside, but not all of them,” Bjarne Braastad tells sciencenorway.no. He is a retired professor in ethology, the study of animal behaviour, at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU).
According to Braastad not all cats want to be outside. If the cat has only ever lived inside from when it was a tiny kitten, then it would be perfectly fine for it to live inside for the rest of its life also."
https://sciencenorway.no/animal-behaviour-animal-welfare-cats/is-it-cruel-to-keep-your-cat-indoors/2107167 so, yeah, there is a movement to keep cats indoor, but it's some pseudo scientific internet thing, that is mostly a thing in anglo-countries* (https://icatcare.org/indoor-only-or-outdoor-access/). While other countries see it as pure animal cruelty "It is animal cruelty not to let them do what they like."
but it's like you keep trying to deny it, but also you can't deny it so you just shift the argument.
Notice the repeated hijacking of leftist rhetoric and terms in all that obvious goal post shifting and obnoxious debatebro shit. Like trying to tie your plain facts explanation to you somehow having an imperialist, capitalist, mindset. Then telling me I treat my cat "as a commodity" after I had gone on about how meaningful cats are to me. Almost as if they're just trying to push buttons.
This conversation isn't about discussing the issue in good faith, it's someone who clearly doesn't have anything to back up their position and can only do the classic lashing out in a pathetic attempt to provoke.
Anyone who harbors and abets a KKKat while allowing it outside to engage in what can, by any reasonable standard, only be described as a campaign of stochastic terrorism against the indigenous bird population is a social chauvanist and any org that refuses to purge them is revisionist.
But yeah jokes aside there are reasonable concerns but it got blown out of proportion so now we like to joke about it as an example of splitting over trivial disagreements. Strays have a bigger impact than domestic ones anyway so spaying/neutering is what's really important
Y’all mfs are missing a very important point in the outside cat debate:
If you live up in the woods at the end of a dirt road you need a cat to keep the vermin out and a small mowed perimeter to keep critters from gettin in your crawlspaces.
You're witnessing us after we've gone through countless internal debates and purges, some of which will always be legendary. We had a problem with transphobes at the start, they're all gone. We had a really bizarre fight for about a week over whether or not cats should be allowed outside.
My favorite of ours was the weirdly intense debate over if it's ok to stack rocks next to or inside of a river.
There was also BMF, one of the strangest people to ever live. My personal favorite was @LiberalSocialist@hexbear.net, who was the most contradictory poster we had. You'd think LiberalSocialist was an elaborate Andy Kaufman level bit of someone pretending to be an annoying liberal, but I think it's always been unclear whether it was a gimmick or not.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
Ok, but what about this one beach in Bretagne, France, where people have been stacking rocks for years and there are actually some pretty impressive stacks? (/s, tho there actually is a place like that and I now have conflicted feelings about it)
deleted by creator
More like a userbase of nerds who never leave their houses since it's impossible to go camping and not be hit with signs like these. That whole stupid struggle session was a bunch of nerds who never went camping and seeing decades-old signs about how you're not supposed to disturb the environment like picking up stream rocks trying to argue that not disturbing the environment like picking up stream rocks is somehow ultraleftism.
deleted by creator
I remember reading that thread when it happened, and thinking how ridiculous that all was. Like, it was something I’d never really thought much about but I was just like oh ok, that makes sense, I’ll be sure to remember not to fuck around with rocks. The responses were baffling. Do you have the link so I could revisit it?
deleted by creator
Death to them!
Thank you!
Eh. This still remains clearly a product of Ameri-centrism in my mind: An America-only issue was being touted as a global problem everyone should be aware of, so everybody else in the world who has never seen or even imagined this weird shit will regard it as so uncommon as to not matter. And no, I don't think one side was being particularly more 'calm and patient' than the other.
deleted by creator
I have literally never heard of it happening anywhere else in the world. I never said American things couldn't be talked about, but talking about it like it's a ubiquitous practice, and then getting angry at people who don't understand why it's an issue, is just miscommunication, not a big disagreement. And miscommunications caused by America-centrism is a very tiring affair on the internet. Just prepend the post with "Hey Americans:" and there wouldn't have been any real discussion.
deleted by creator
I was literally in that struggle thread (different account) - I wasn't claiming you said certain things, I was commenting on what that thread was. Unless we're talking about entirely different threads about the same thing.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
We can always bring back "are bidets bourgeois?"
Remember the "are washing machines bourgeois decadence" swiftly followed by the "are washing machines racist" struggle sessions?
I love this site.
the washing machine has changed the world more than the internet
Washing machines aren't, but drying machines are.
You do and you can bet your dirty, disgusting arsehole we're defederating too.
deleted by creator
WASH YOUR DAMN ASS
i missed the beginning of the 'batteries and water and eels' thing and i still don't understand what that was about
deleted by creator
ohhhh lol thank you! now i finally know
It's always a good and fun activity to dispose of car batteries in the ocean.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
ofc cat should be allowed outside what the hell 🤔
There are ecological problems. Killing birds and things. They've caused several species-extinctions in Australia iirc, where they are not native.
ok, they are problem in Australia I give you that. but where they existed and lived with humans since forever?
it's not like we have to adopt stupid Anglo internet paranoias just bcs some some aussie fucked up. fuck anglos anyway
deleted by creator
so besides Africa, Eurasia, and America, yes, they are a problem in antartica and oceania. got it
deleted by creator
if they lived everywhere with humans for at least 2000+ years, from imperial China to imperial Rome and everything in between, i think you can say cats are ok
but ok, if you want to be pedantic, sure, they are not real cats if they don't come from the kat region somewhere in palestine 🙄
deleted by creator
Removed by mod
deleted by creator
Americans desperately need everything to have a definite Right Way and Wrong Way, and the Right Way needs to involve significantly more money and/or effort (preferably being impossible), so that we can properly judge people who are Doing Things The Wrong Way as immoral. Of course that extends to cat care.
that's why we kept them around for millenias, and that's why - unlike chickens, dogs or cows - cats are just semi-domesticated. keeping cats inside is just cruel and bad practice
I have a cat. I have always had cats in my life. I love cats. I consider myself a "cat person" (who also loves dogs). But you really are being obtuse here. Even in places where cats are not a threat to literally entire species (as they are in much of the world), they can cause massive, irreversible destruction to the local wildlife. That is a fact.
The argument that it's cruel to keep cats indoors doesn't resonate with me either. Outdoor cats are far more likely to be seriously injured or killed by any number of things that are found only outside. From diseases to predators to sadistic humans, with the big obvious factor being cars. But a well-cared for indoor cat is a safe cat. I'm not going to look it up right now, but it's something like the average lifespan of an outdoor cat is only 3-4 years whereas indoor cats it's like 16-18. In my experience (and I've known a lot of cats, both indoor and outdoor) most that are raised indoors are perfectly happy to remain that way so long as they are given the things they need. That includes exercise and mental, emotional, and social stimulation. If you provide for them, there aren't many things they desire that they can get outdoor that can't also be given to them indoors. It is much more cruel to have a cat that you let outside but mostly ignore except to feed them, than it is to have an indoor-only cat that you make time for every day to play with, give affection, or otherwise engage. There are also plenty of compromises if you're a human that's privileged enough to be able to provide them, like outdoor enclosures.
Finally, this thing about calling the "cats should be kept indoors" argument an American position is just crude and wrong. The American way is more along the lines of "lol, I'm going to do what I want because I feel like it, I don't give a shit about all the evidence that what I want is harmful to others." In other words, "I don't care about the local bird, rodent, reptile, and native predator populations, I'm going to do what I want with MY cat" seems to be a hell of a lot more of an Americanism than @Egon@hexbear.net explaining to you why outdoor cats are a detriment to wildlife all over the world. When it's also taken into account that it's typically islands that have suffered the worst consequences of cats as an invasive species, islands that are also victims of US imperialism, saying that cats should be kept indoors is an American moral imposition is straight up offensive. At best, it's adding insult to injury.
deleted by creator
Thank you for doing most of the heavy lifting trying to get through to them despite all that ableism and the obvious attempts to rattle you. It started to work on me, I was taking the last reply pretty personally at first (as was intended) before I saw it for what it was. It's too bad. At the very top of the thread I thought they might have been a decent comrade.
deleted by creator
Removed by mod
I don't treat my cat as a commodity at all and fuck you for implying I do. I give him the happiest most fulfilling life I can possibly afford, and it is good and happy. He is a joyful cat and I'm glad I was able to rescue him from the feral environment he was in as an "outdoor cat" where he was facing a harsh and short life before likely an early and painful death. [editing out some personal info here]. Don't fucking tell me about responsibility you smug cretin.
But you... what animals do you treat as commodities? You better be a vegan or any bullshit you're saying about others treating living, breathing creatures as a commodity you can fuck RIGHT off with your hypocrisy and moral superiority bullshit. (I am a vegan by the way because I'm not a hypocrite in my refusal to treat sentient life as a commodity).
Frankly, I find your use of leftist terminology to justify your selfish cruelty to not only your own pets but to the other life around them to be disgusting. If you can't or won't take responsibility for the harm you cause in the world for taking the lazy way of caring for a pet, for putting the sentient life that relies on you in danger, you are not fit to care for them at all.
deleted by creator
“Most cats are probably better off being able to go outside, but not all of them,” Bjarne Braastad tells sciencenorway.no. He is a retired professor in ethology, the study of animal behaviour, at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU).
According to Braastad not all cats want to be outside. If the cat has only ever lived inside from when it was a tiny kitten, then it would be perfectly fine for it to live inside for the rest of its life also."
https://sciencenorway.no/animal-behaviour-animal-welfare-cats/is-it-cruel-to-keep-your-cat-indoors/2107167 so, yeah, there is a movement to keep cats indoor, but it's some pseudo scientific internet thing, that is mostly a thing in anglo-countries* (https://icatcare.org/indoor-only-or-outdoor-access/). While other countries see it as pure animal cruelty "It is animal cruelty not to let them do what they like."
deleted by creator
Notice the repeated hijacking of leftist rhetoric and terms in all that obvious goal post shifting and obnoxious debatebro shit. Like trying to tie your plain facts explanation to you somehow having an imperialist, capitalist, mindset. Then telling me I treat my cat "as a commodity" after I had gone on about how meaningful cats are to me. Almost as if they're just trying to push buttons.
This conversation isn't about discussing the issue in good faith, it's someone who clearly doesn't have anything to back up their position and can only do the classic lashing out in a pathetic attempt to provoke.
deleted by creator
You can love cats being outside or you can love wildlife but you can't love both.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
cat outside like it has always been: voice of reason
Hey why are we in a mass extinction event where'd that come from.
Cats?
deleted by creator
Removed by mod
deleted by creator
Removed by mod
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
Anyone who harbors and abets a KKKat while allowing it outside to engage in what can, by any reasonable standard, only be described as a campaign of stochastic terrorism against the indigenous bird population is a social chauvanist and any org that refuses to purge them is revisionist.
Read Lenin.
cats are the hungry purrrletariat
I take it back, instead of Lenin, read Settlers: the Mythology of the Feline Proletariat
ahaha reveals the author’s bias against working-class unity and plays into the hands of the ruling class
edit: let's also remember that 👏 all 👏 dogs 👏 are 👏 fascists 👏
Posting the man responsible for the massacre of countless innocent sparrows while defending outdoor cats is telling.
Yet even then, as you can see, all of those cats are clearly indoor cats. Outdoor cats were too extreme even for Mao.
he was feral enough against landlords, and what he really cared about was freedom
But yeah jokes aside there are reasonable concerns but it got blown out of proportion so now we like to joke about it as an example of splitting over trivial disagreements. Strays have a bigger impact than domestic ones anyway so spaying/neutering is what's really important
Kkkat has got me rolling
😠
On a harness or in an enclosed space that theybwon't escape, sure.
deleted by creator
Y’all mfs are missing a very important point in the outside cat debate:
If you live up in the woods at the end of a dirt road you need a cat to keep the vermin out and a small mowed perimeter to keep critters from gettin in your crawlspaces.
Or: it’s okay when I do it.
More like a small meowed perimeter
I hear 30-50 feral hogs will also do.