I always wanted a toilet room large enough to make at least one wall a floor to ceiling bookshelf and fill it with books all at least 5cm thick.
There's this dog online who is learning to "speak" through the use of programmed buttons. It's not far off to think an AI will be able to speed this process along in the future. https://www.tiktok.com/@whataboutbu...=1&sender_device=pc&web_id7014623728835757573
I have one dog who is absolutely smart enough to learn like this. I have another who licks the knee of your jeans if you stand in the kitchen...the cognition is going to vary wildly. That being said...if animals are found to have true consciousness and intelligence that can be made to communicate with our own, where do we stand on animal husbandry? Is it still okay to own and slaughter them? Probably a Serious Thread discussion, but my first thought when I read something like this. I already quit any kind of octopus on sushi because, well, they're the animal most likely to be self-aware and I just can't do it.
I think lab grown meat for wide consumption would be an awesome step, with smaller farms focused on solid animal husbandry, health, and welfare for higher end/priced "real" meats. Animals like pigs for example are so, so smart, and I think it's wrong to inflict misery on others, particularly in those cognizant of their own misery. I don't think there's anything wrong rising happy animals to slaughter humanely but the large scale factory farm operations are a living hell for the animals involved. I think it would be awesome to "factory farm" some sort of edible insect like crickets or something to process into protein powder. Some places, it's common to eat roasted grasshoppers anyway. It could help end starvation and is more humane and cheaper to produce compared to most of the animal proteins people eat.
Crickets are actually a great snack. They have very little flavor (maybe a slightly generic popcorn-like flavor?) but a good crunch so they basically taste like whatever they're seasoned with. If people can get over the mental aspect of eating bugs, some of them are pretty tasty. The silk worm I tried was gross, and the waterbug I think needed to be peeled because it was too hard to really eat. But grasshoppers and crickets were good enough that I'd eat them again.
I dunno, I think it would be pretty funny that while you’re meticulously getting your mise en place together to cook, the chimp is sitting in the corner in its diaper furiously doing sign language trying to get you to stop.