...why do we find puppies cute?

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[–] 6 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Well... didn't we materially benefit tremendously from the domestication of dogs? So it wouldn't make much sense for humans to evolve to like adult dogs but be ambivalent or negative towards puppy dogs because puppies become adults. Also, I'm not a dog owner, but I imagine that you can train a puppy much more thoroughly than an adult dog.

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    Okay but what about cats and rabbits? We keep them as pets too despite them not providing any survival benefit whatsoever.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Cats were useful for pest control, and rabbits made for a convenient source of meat. (Dogs are definitely still used as service animals, e.g. police dogs, guard dogs, etc.)

    Like I'm with you that today, the vast majority of cats and rabbits are kept as pets for which there's no "survival" incentive...but there probably was a pragmatic reason to put in the time to domesticate them. Probably. And none of this diminishes my view that we are at least good enough for anarchism.

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