cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27622066

And yet, unhitched from the menial task of transportation, the average horse today enjoys a far better quality of life than the average pre-car horse. Why? Horse girls. You see, now that the market demand for horses is no longer based on actual horsepower, horses can render the service of “just being themselves” for those who appreciate that most (in much more forgiving circumstances). In this way, horses truly are forever… and the real losers really are mankind. And its machines. In this essay, I will

    • finitebanjo@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      43·
      21 days ago

      It’s questionable whether horses would still exist for any other purpose considering we created them and brought them around the world. The only untouched wild horse left in existence is Przewalski’s horse from Central Asia, and some reintroduced/invasive NA wild mustangs.

      Without animal husbandry they would probably be about as rare as buffalo, currently only 500,000 and at one point only a confirmed 325 existed.

      The way I see it, horses currently have it pretty good on average with wide spaces, very little work to do, and they tend to live full lives as they’re not usually bred for meat. Probably happier than the average human.

      • infinitesunrise@slrpnk.netEnglish
        32·
        20 days ago

        The steady march of human-driven extinctions is a terrible argument for forcibly breeding a population into the hundreds of millions for the express purpose of manual labor until death. That’s like reading I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream and being on the side of the malicious AI because it’s keeping a half dozen people alive specifically to torture them. Also living things don’t need a “purpose” merely to be alive, this is a capitalist delusion.

          • infinitesunrise@slrpnk.netEnglish
            31·
            20 days ago

            I guess more generally it is a hierarchical delusion, since it’s hierarchy that demands purpose from it’s subordinates, capitalism is just the specific hierarchy at play here.