+86 Humans feel bad when they see animals hurt, generations of evolution alongside companion species encoded empathy for animals possessing traits closer to domestic species in our psychology. amirite?

by Anonymous 2 days ago

Guaranteed if you are a hunter-gatherer and you see a deer take an arrow to the head, you are not thinking "poor thing"

by Anonymous 2 days ago

Hunter-gatherers would feel bad if their dogs died, deer are just food. Just like how humans can dehumanize other humans, humans can make distinctions between animals in their empathy.

by Anonymous 2 days ago

Tropes in stories employ empathy for the very animals you describe. Dragons in How to Train Your Dragon are characterized more like dogs or cats for instance, to get people to like the dragons. Wolves becoming companions of heroes go back to even mythology of gods. Dogs decidedly don't possess any human traits, yet it is significant enough of a response that writers use that to morally color characters in fiction, it is beyond anthropomorphism .

by Anonymous 2 days ago