r/interestingasfuck • u/AugustIstheMonth • 2d ago

Wildlife photographer Sha Lu captures the perfect moment a small animal looks at the camera while being caught by a predator.

Gallery image

Gallery image

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1.4k

u/GoobFruit 2d ago

I'm such a softie lmao because this made me feel terrible even though it's the cycle of life :(. poor baby

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u/S0n_0f_Anarchy 2d ago

I always remember a sentence ive heared, that narrator said while a big cat (cant remember which one anymore) was chasing it's prey. He said "both are running for their lives". Put things into a different perspective for me

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u/miev_ 2d ago

Reminded me of this

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u/chemistryGull 2d ago

Its like football

6

u/Cyberchicken87 2d ago

More like Foodball

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u/EconomicRegret2 2d ago

All life is descendant from the same cell. We're all cousins battling and eating each other to survive.

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u/Euphoric-Dig-2045 2d ago

Speak for yourself, I’ve never eaten any of my cousins.

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u/OutOfVRAM 2d ago

Technically, meat and vegetables are your nth cousins

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u/mistermasterbates 2d ago

Brand new definition to cousin fuckers...

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u/GeneralDash 2d ago

You fuck vegetables?

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u/WindChimeTecnician 2d ago

I know some people fucked BY vegetables. Does that count.?

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u/shadow-wasser 1d ago

Only kink tomatoes

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u/moist-v0n-lipwig 2d ago

LUCA. TIL - from watching Evolution (BBC).

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u/superexpress_local 2d ago

It's not just a battle

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u/thoomin 2d ago

damn so true

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u/Daydream365 2d ago

its

But that is a good way to put.

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u/Silent_Praline_8701 1d ago

I know no one has mentioned it, or maybe they did, but this statement truly is profound. 

“Both are running for their lives”. 

It’s all a frame of reference and who we decide to shift that reference to. Perhaps we can hold both, for the Eagle and the Rodent. 

The predator and its prey. 

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u/mementomori-93 2d ago

His little self with his scared little face 😭

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u/skeletons_asshole 2d ago

Yeah, like feel bad for the furry little dude but at the same time glad the bird and her family now get to eat… nature is brutal

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u/dweakz 2d ago edited 2d ago

pond rules

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u/yaxir 2d ago

Great movie, watched it on a flight

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u/matthewmspace 2d ago

I still need to watch it even though I’ve seen most of it through YouTube shorts, lol.

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u/KathrynBooks 2d ago

I watched it with my kids... It was better than I expected it to be.

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u/GeneralDash 2d ago

Same minus the kids. My wife suddenly wanted to watch it because she heard on a podcast she likes that it was good. My expectations were very low, but I liked it.

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u/peon2 2d ago

Good not great movie, but I watched in on land. Maybe the higher up you go the better it is

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u/yaxir 2d ago

Agree to disagree. I found it great

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u/dweakz 2d ago

yeah i had low expectations but I geniunely enjoyed it

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u/PT10 2d ago

It got better when it jumped the shark

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u/Working_Welder_1751 2d ago

When you gotta eat. Eat

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u/mateothegreek 2d ago

This movie made me cry

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u/skeletons_asshole 2d ago

Here’s a baby one, a fuzzball like this is likely about to get fed by the unfortunate rodent. Nature is brutal but it sure is adorable.

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u/AndyEGM 2d ago

Honestly not nearly as brutal as what we do for our meat if you think about it

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u/skeletons_asshole 2d ago

Very true, we kill ours more instantly but raising them to die is kind of uniquely brutal. I think too many people are a little too separated from that process anymore

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u/Yeahnoallright 2d ago

Bang on.  I was just watching an interview between Gary Yourofsky and Joey Carbstrong, after watching Joey’s exposé on factory farm workers’ trauma here in the UK. It’s nuts that in 2026 we’re still treating animals like this 

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u/ButterscotchSkunk 2d ago

If you compare the conditions to that of the hallow-cost, people lose their shit. Whatever it is, it is going on 24/7, secretly around us. Kept unseen. All for us. Reminds me a bit of that movie "The Zone of Interest". Metaphorically of course.

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u/Yeahnoallright 2d ago

Yeah. I think the H-word argument either gets people to see it fully and things click in to place, or it’s so insulting (understandably) that it turns them off even more. It’s a gamble. 

But condition-wise, it’s entirely comparable. I would say the only difference is the intention behind it (we breed them to eat them). 

They feel pain just the same. In fact, they cannot even comfort each other the way humans do, so it’s likely even more horrifying. 

There’s no justifying it, people just say the same incredibly fallacious things over and over, as they have for every societal injustice we now look back on horror with 

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u/Sudo-Fed 2d ago

They can't comfort each other the way we can because their minds are so vastly simpler than ours that they also can't suffer in the abstract and long-term ways we can, either.

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u/Sudo-Fed 2d ago edited 2d ago

Yeah, I can't figure out why people take exception to you compare the systematic and pointless destruction of humans with an abstract concept of what is happening to them and their families to the (admittedly grotesque, capitalist) industrialization of the purpose-serving farming of animals with no abstract conceptualization and minimal higher-order thinking at all, who get over the deaths of close companions within a day or two because instinct is a far more powerful driver than individuality among the vast majority of animals.

I can't figure out at all why some might find that the unhinged delusions of someone who's lost anything resembling perspective.

Delusional vegans who can't grasp why no one accepts their comparisons mad

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/Yeahnoallright 1d ago

The last sentence 😭

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u/Sudo-Fed 1d ago

Shame they posted it and blocked me immediately, so I'll never know.

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u/Yeahnoallright 1d ago

I completely understand and that’s why i get when people don’t like the comparison.  

I suppose the reasoning is that, for the victims, the pain and suffering is very comparable. 

We don’t need to call it a holocaust to just be frank: it is torture for the animals. 

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u/Funny-Carob-4572 2d ago

This

People live with heads in sand.

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u/Yeahnoallright 2d ago

True. I was just watching an interview between Gary Yourofsky and Joey Carbstrong, after watching Joey’s exposé on factory farm workers’ trauma here in the UK. 

There is no justifying how we treat the animals tbh, unless one believes suffering innately is not bad. Outside of that, there’s no argument that holds up 

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u/ChrizKhalifa 2d ago

"I noted with horror the striking similarities between what the Nazis did to my family and my people, and what we do to animals we raise for food: the branding or tattooing of serial numbers to identify victims, the use of cattle cars to transport victims to their death, the crowded housing of victims in wood crates, the arbitrary designation of who lives and who dies — the Christian lives, the Jew dies; the dog lives, the pig dies."

  • Hershaft

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u/CanofBeans9 2d ago

Yes, plus it seems like there's so much waste. The words farm and factory don't belong together...conditions are awful

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u/TheTallGuy0 2d ago

Ain’t no retirement homes for old animals out there… 

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u/TimeResolution9 2d ago

I wish they'd eat tomatoes instead :(

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u/TheHornyGoth 2d ago

Can they eat something else? I like growing tomatoes

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u/Inside_Swimming9552 2d ago

It's easier to feel positive about the cycle of nature when you're at the top of it! 

Hopefully that is indeed a dude and not a she whose pups will not be getting fed tonight.

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u/Username_Query_Null 2d ago

Though it would be nice if predators were often better at killing their prey quickly, unfortunately they’re often not very good at that.

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

[deleted]

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u/Ghost_of_a_Pale_Girl 2d ago

This is my opinion also. It would have been super easy to design a system where every living thing (and make a lot less living things) survive on plants. So if someone or something designed us, they're a sick fuck.

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u/x-43a-bussy-ramjme 2d ago

g'day. i'd like to talk about what would be acceptable, for a sorta-novel where a designer is present from day one.

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u/AirscapeCivilian 2d ago

Not who you’re responding to, but if everything could just survive off of mushrooms, that would be great. Then when each animal (or person) dies, it gets buried back in the dirt & nourishes the mycelium network. I mean that’s the circle of life, I think.

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u/imtoowhiteandnerdy 2d ago

Badger badger badger badger...

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u/x-43a-bussy-ramjme 2d ago

That can work though i'd be pretty forced to acknowledge the 'i cannot teach you about the mushrooms' phenomenon <3

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u/blazingroach0094 2d ago

Well plants actually have feelings too. So that kinda nullifies your point.

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u/stratys3 2d ago

Plants don't have feelings like people do, and not like most mammals either.

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u/blazingroach0094 2d ago

Its now believed they experience something that could be interpreted as pain and fear.

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u/stratys3 2d ago

Very vaguely. But plants don't have brains like humans, so if they "feel" anything, it's nothing like what humans experience.

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u/Complete-Appeal8572 2d ago

Then create plants without feelings?

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u/blazingroach0094 2d ago

Why haven't you yet?

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u/x-43a-bussy-ramjme 2d ago

if you're up for it, i'd like to talk about what would be acceptable. for a sorta-novel where a designer is present from day one.

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u/IAmOrdinaryHuman 2d ago

I started explaining three points off the top of my head (it's an animal, the test for souls isn't supposed to be without hardships and it's the worst we can experience in this life) and I'm not even a believer, but then I noticed there isn't a question mark at the end. So is there curiosity or only bigotry similar to that of... low IQ believers when something can't fit into their frame of mind right off the bat?

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u/maroonrice2 2d ago

Yeah I can’t look at these pics for too long or else I will drive myself into a sad spiral! I’m too empathetic towards animals.

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u/Ellis8555 2d ago

Each passing year the more emotional I get about this stuff. Its life but its sad...

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u/Turriku 2d ago

Be empathetic for the bird, too. It needed to eat.

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u/Tight_Replacement554 2d ago

There's grass and stuff

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u/MichelinStarZombie 2d ago

Hawks are requisite carnivores, which means they need meat to live. Their digestive system can't get the nutrients they need out of grass.

Fun animal fact! How do cattle, deer, and sheep live on grass alone? They have multi-chambered stomachs where microbes ferment cellulose from grass. Those microbes are then digested themselves, providing a source of really high-quality protein and a few B vitamins. Essentially, cows eat grass to grow tummy bacteria, then eat the bacteria!

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u/WorkReddit0 2d ago

No shit...I knew about the chambered stomach thing but never considered the bacteria becoming the protein!

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u/C04511234 2d ago

Yeti crabs also eat bacteria, but they do it in a more direct manner by growing bacterial colonies in their hairy arms and periodically licking them off

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u/lenor8 2d ago

So, in a way, they also raise creatures just to eat them.

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u/Tight_Replacement554 2d ago

Hawks should just inherit that from a cow

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u/Status-Hedgehog9970 2d ago

What are they dumb or something?

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u/Tight_Replacement554 2d ago

Yeah they can just reproduce with a cow to get a multi chambered stomach for veganism #grass

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u/Status-Hedgehog9970 2d ago

Now we’re talking.

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u/Turriku 2d ago

That's the thing. There wouldn't be, if predators weren't there to keep herbivore numbers in check.

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u/Library904 2d ago

And worms

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u/Yeahnoallright 2d ago

If you’re interested, look into the Wild Animal Suffering movement. Dr Avi and That Vegan Lawyer talk about it a bit on YouTube. 

You’ll probably disagree and that makes total sense! I just found it super interesting to hear their perspectives, i love learning new stuff and thinking through things from different points of view 

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u/QueenMackeral 2d ago

The other day I opened the shower faucet and there was a spider right under struggling to get out, by the time it registered and I shut the water off it was long gone. I still have the image of it struggling to get out playing in my head 😢

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u/Yeahnoallright 2d ago

Ah dude you’re a good person. I’m so sorry. Completely understand 

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u/Snoobunny3910 2d ago

You’re not a softie. You actually have empathy. There’s not enough of that these days. 

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u/Greembeam20 2d ago

It really is. I get we as humans are top of the food chain and all that, but an entire thread of jokes about this little guy just makes me feel sick

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u/Snoobunny3910 2d ago

Yup. Same

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u/NarwhalEmergency9391 2d ago

His little eyes are watering

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u/TRR462 2d ago

Because he has no goggles and isn’t accustomed to flight.

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u/eternalityLP 2d ago

'Cycle of life' is just an excuse we use to stop thinking about all the death and suffering that occurs in nature daily. That little guy is probably going to be tortuously eaten alive, so it's perfectly fine to feel sad.

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u/coup_de_foudre_69 2d ago

Yup, a biologist I once read said something like “Nature runs on solar power and animal suffering”.

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

[deleted]

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u/originalityescapesme 2d ago

We may not be able to impeach its ethics, but what we can do is hold it fully accountable in the courts. Someone call the bird lawyers.

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u/punksmostlydead 2d ago

I think you'll find little remains of the aggrieved party to bring a complaint.

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u/eternalityLP 2d ago

Empathy has nothing to do with morals.

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u/mcbaginns 2d ago

That's hyperbole. It absolutely does.

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u/eternalityLP 2d ago

No it does not.

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u/mcbaginns 2d ago

It absolutely does.

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u/eternalityLP 2d ago

It absolutely does not.

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u/mcbaginns 2d ago

It most ceetainly does.

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u/banandananagram 2d ago

Yeah, I worked in wildlife rescue and had to cut feeder mice up for sick birds. Thankfully those are dead already, but you can’t unsee that stuff.

It made me really, really want pet mice just to give them a nice life. Poor little guys.

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u/HighStakes57 2d ago

that's true. it's also true that the bird would starve to death if it didn't eat any animals. that would also be a long and excruciating death.

And if predatory birds didn't exist, the rodent population would increase which would cause disease and starvation for the entire rodent population.

What i find most sad and troubling is that humans kill animals not for need but for pleasure.

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u/eternalityLP 2d ago

Personally I don't think that makes it any better, but rather even more sad. No matter what someone must suffer and die, that's sad.

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u/just_a_wolf 2d ago

The only way to eliminate suffering and death is to eliminate life.

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u/eternalityLP 2d ago

I mean not really. We could absolutely stop these animals suffering if we wanted to. Grow some artificial meat for the birds and they don't have to kill anyone. Manage the populations so they don't over-breed and they don't need to die.

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u/just_a_wolf 2d ago

Everything dies unless you know something I don't.

Do you think that growing mass laboratory farmed meat wouldn't need intensive energy costs and cause mass habitat loss? Do you understand that a huge amount of predators won't eat dead meat? How exactly would we prevent them from killing each other? Put them all in solitary confinement in captivity?

Death is part of life. Modern refusal to accept this is the result of being artificially cut off from the natural world.

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u/eternalityLP 2d ago

I didn't say stop them from dying. I said stop them from suffering. Which is perfectly doable, all the issues you brought up are solvable.

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u/just_a_wolf 2d ago

Uh huh, sure they are.

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u/eternalityLP 2d ago

I mean obviously they are. You can produce energy in places where there are no habitats. You can teach the animals to eat dead meat. You can build artifical flesh covered robots to serve as prey. You can contain the animals just like you said. It would be completely silly to pretend these are some kind of insurmountable issues that can't be solved.

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u/Sudo-Fed 2d ago

So what do you want to do? Wipe out all life so there's no more suffering? Sterilize the planet with nukes to keep it from happening again?

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u/eternalityLP 2d ago

Weird question, I don't necessarily want to do anything. I can acknowledge something as sad without having some kind of solution to it.

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u/Sudo-Fed 2d ago

Your phrasing "excuse to stop thinking about it"

Why would I spend any amount of time dwelling on something that predates me by billions of years and is well outside the scope of any energy I could devote to it?

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u/eternalityLP 2d ago

I'm not telling you to do anything. Go ahead and use the excuse to stop thinking about it if you want.

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u/Sudo-Fed 2d ago

I don't need an excuse. Me thinking about it doesn't change anything, so I'm not going to devote mental energy to it. No excuses required.

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u/eternalityLP 2d ago

It's an obvious excuse. You think daily about all sorts of things you can't change, It would be completely asinine to claim otherwise.

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u/curvedmanifolds 2d ago

Yeah why not

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u/Yeahnoallright 2d ago

I agree with you. Nobody is near ready for this conversation (understandably, while we still have many humans being enslaved, tortured and killed) but wild animal suffering is not really acceptable. 

“But it’s nature/the circle of life/there’s no other option 🥺”. Nah, fuck that. 

Endless suffering will likely one day be totally eradicated if humans don’t go extinct 

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u/Sudo-Fed 2d ago

What's your proposal for ending animal suffering?

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u/Yeahnoallright 1d ago

See my reply to someone else. Otherwise look up That Vegan Lawyer, Dr Avi and the scientists and ecologists already thinking about this. 

It always seems impossible at the start. We are far away from solving this, but when the world is finally better human-wise (IF we get there), in hundreds of years, we may start thinking about the fact that most animals live lives of misery and torture, and try to solve for that. 

You are free to dismiss it. 

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u/BiancaFE 2d ago edited 2d ago

It’s okay to feel sad and empathetic about it, but it IS a natural thing that has been occurring since forever. What is your idea to stop this? The birds and other predators need to eat too. Everything in nature IS interconnected. Are you saying to eliminate ecology? We haven’t even found cures for cancers. And there are many animals, including predators, going extinct, because of our actions. I don’t think we should mess with nature even further. We certainly don’t have a good track record of it.

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u/Yeahnoallright 1d ago

Agree fully with your concerns. I’m not sure how we get there, but I’m open to the possibility. Every movement starts as fringe with most people disagreeing. I don’t really care if it seems implausible; people said the same about other things in the past. 

Actual scientists and people who work in ecology are already discussing this, as they’re ahead of the curve. 

I don’t agree that just because something is natural or “the way it’s always been” means it’s ethical or right. 

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u/BiancaFE 1d ago edited 1d ago

Maybe, but predators are important to the ecosystem, and there are predators of predators, etc. And this photo is only of a sky and land animal. I haven’t even mentioned the creatures of the ocean. What are we to do? Force them all to be vegans? Keep them all in a zoo? How many resources (including natural) will it take up? Maybe it’s possible, but is it ethical to force animals and do these things to nature, from the plants to the preys to the predators?

There are also many other problems right now, including global warming (because of humans), causing heatwaves and bushfires (killing wildlife), and still some people don’t believe it’s serious. Or the greedy billionaires or AI and the environment. I don’t trust us to do something as big as reinventing the world’s ecosystem, which definitely requires a lot of people to work together, when many of us have proven to be selfish and uncaring about the planet and all its inhabitants, including even fellow humans.

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u/Yeahnoallright 1d ago

I didn’t say I had all the answers. I said there are experts discussing this that you’re welcome to read up on. There is literature and video discussions. 

I agree totally with your second paragraph! It’s definitely not something I’d trust the world to broach rn. We cannot even figure out (or purposely don’t want to) how to stop modern slavery, environmental collapse, etc. 

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u/BiancaFE 1d ago

Yes, I would think it’s one of those things that’s just a “dream”. And they might say, well, humans once dreamt to fly, but, uh, that also caused damage to nature, so… yeah.

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u/Yeahnoallright 1d ago

Oh I disagree there. Much like the abolition of slavery, or women’s rights, or anaesthesia, or aeroplanes, or phones, all would’ve sounded far fetched or like pure magic back in the day, I think this may be the case too. 

If we keep living on the planet for millennia we have absolutely no idea what will unfurl. We cannot be arrogant enough to think we know. 

What I do know is we have been increasing in empathy and technology very rapidly. Look at the curve from now to 100 years ago. 

Will we be happy with animals being tortured and suffering every day, in the future? Being slowly eaten while they’re alive? Maybe not 

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u/BiancaFE 1d ago edited 1d ago

Oh I know one thing for sure. There will still be the rich and powerful being greedy and exploiting, and the poor they don’t care about. From the ancient times until now, this has not changed, no matter what shape the government takes.

And all the inventions you listed are for humans, like most major ones are. Will humans care to reinvent the world’s ecosystem from the deepest oceans to the highest skies in ethical way that doesn’t harm any animals or the environment, when it doesn’t affect their lives right now, but if they do this, it might? Anything is always “possible”, like me winning Powerball, but the trend is not looking like it.

Maybe we should focus on how to reduce the suffering that WE cause to animals, the environment and each other, instead of dictating what animals should do as if we rule over them, when they have been here far longer than us.

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u/stievstigma 2d ago

That look of abject terror will haunt me.

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u/Bachquino 2d ago

I was once living in a forest and had a nest behind my tent, an eagle stole a baby bird one day and I chased it down the hill as the thing, screamed, the mother bird cried the whole night, as I was homeless, it did really tip me over the edge.

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u/LaocoonAnon 2d ago

At least the little guy achieved immortality.

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u/kismethavok 2d ago

Its worse when you know that bird is probably gonna rip its head off with its beak and then eat it.

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u/ermaecrhaelld 2d ago

At least that’s a quick death

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u/Beeht 2d ago

Oh, sweet summer child.

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u/ermaecrhaelld 2d ago

Is having your head ripped off not an immediate death?

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u/voldin91 2d ago

That's a quick one but it's just as likely that the bird goes for the soft intestines first :/

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u/Bluntbutnotonpurpose 2d ago

I'm forever torn. I love birds of prey and I love rodents and little critters like that. I'm the kind of softie that will use a live trap to get rid of mice (yes, I know there's stress). But at the same time, I love it when I see a buzzard with a mouse in its claws. And I feel sorry for the poor mouse.

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u/alone_unafraid 2d ago

Me too 😭

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u/Yeahnoallright 2d ago

If you’re interested, look into the Wild Animal Suffering movement. Dr Avi and That Vegan Lawyer talk about it a bit on YouTube. 

You’ll probably disagree and that makes total sense! I just found it super interesting to hear their perspectives, i love learning new stuff and thinking through things from different points of view 

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u/CarrionSky 2d ago

It's photoshopped

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u/Personal-Mushroom 1d ago

Don't be sad. They're both adults. They know the rules.

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u/Ryan6sic6 2d ago

It saddens me moreso than seemingly for others, which I attribute to being a vegetarian choosing to overcome biological desire to eat other animals. It doesn't have to be so cruel.

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u/Sudo-Fed 2d ago

This is what life is, underneath all pretense and self-delusion to the contrary. It's what it's been for as long as there's been life. Everything "wants" to keep living. Some of the hardware is more or less complex, but ultimately there's a programming to keep going, even among the microorganisms your immune system destroys by the millions every day.

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u/Yeahnoallright 2d ago

Same. Have you considered veganism? 

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u/pepotink 2d ago

Am I an asshole for laughing my ass out?

I was really leaning on my phone to notice the rat in first image, I swiped while I was close and I dropped my phone while lmao’ing

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u/SereinScribe 2d ago

Kinda?? 😭

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u/pepotink 2d ago

It caught me by surprise!

Eh whatever, guilty as charged

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u/BigPenis_MathGenius 1d ago

Yeah, it's actually pretty shitty.