[narf poit chez BOOM]

Originally posted by dogscoff:
We already live with aliens: As well as being physically very different to us- animal have utterly alien thoughts comaprted to ours. Obviously you're talking about intelligent aliens and I'm talking about sub-sentient animals, but I think many animals are much smarter than we give them credit for and I do believe that some animals on this earth *are* clever enough actually to look at their lives and think abstractly. Whales & dolphins, almost certainly- chimps, too. Some dogs and cats as well, i think.

- Cat lovers may not want to read this, but everything I know says it's true and you should read it anyway. -

Cats are essientally qualifiable as nonsentient 'working sociable' sociopaths(sp?). That is to say, they have a loose pack mentality and care for the young of the pack; however, they do so in a manner that is sociopathic. One of my uncles female cats, obseving a bunch of kids in a birthday party, had her maternal instincts kick in - a pack behavior - and went and got a gopher and cut it's spinal cord, leaving it alive and brought it back for the kids to play with - sociopathic behavior, that is, behavior focused on simply pleasure, no matter what it costs.

No, that cat was not evil, it was simply acting on her insticts. But humans are capable of both pack behavior and sociopathic behaivor.

- And on to dogs, which I like more. Contains some things you might not want to hear about fido, but should. -
A dog is a clannish pack animal with a clan chieftan focus. To a dog, unless you've been really remiss in training, you are the pack leader. Depending on it's courage, it may be willing to die for you and it's pack. In any case, the dogs loyalty is to you, as the leader of the pack and the pack. And your dog, like your cat, is a predator. This means that the only thing keeping your dog, as well as your cat, from bringing you dead birds as presents, is the degree of seperation from natural instincts provided by domestication.
However, wild dogs are even more dangerous, in my opinion, than wolves. For one thing, they tend to have no fear of man and, unlike wolves, don't have survival instincts dedicated to surviving in the wild, which encourages cautious behavor around dangerous things, like guns and the men who use them.

No, fido is not good or evil either. He's just following his instincts to. And having domesticated them, I think we have the responcibility to care for them. Wild dogs are definitly our failure.

But, back to how human emotions, instincts, and thought processes cover those things. Forgot humans have instincts. One, humans have E,I and T for loose social interactions. Forums are an example. People in some forums will help some and pick on those they percieve as weak - like cats. People also may be sociopaths, it's a known psychraitric problem.
People also display pack behavor's. Biker gangs. People also have a predatory nature. This includes such things as eating meat and getting irratable in a crowded elevater. I want space! ROWR!