The Lessons of a Smart Idiot

After sitting on a bench at a dog park, they saw an old woman walking with her poodle.
Grant: That makes me sick
Douglass: What does? The dog? Don't get me wrong, I'm a cat guy but the dog shouldn't make you sick.
Grant: Not the dog, but the ownership of the dog.
Douglass: What are you taking about?
Grant: Hear me out. We started domesticating dogs around 27,000 to 40,000 years ago*.
Douglass: Alright.
Grant: They were wolves-- predators that would hunt in packs. A male could kill a bison.
Douglass: So, what's wrong?
Grant: Now they are dogs. They don't hunt anymore, they just leech off of us.
Douglass: I'm still not seeing the problem.
Grant: Look, the beauty of nature comes from it being self-regulating.
Douglass: What do you mean?
Grant: Let's say that overnight a disease killed every human that ever existed. Now what would fall?
Douglass: Everything that's man-made.
Grant: Right. Every structure we ever created will be ruined due to not being maintained, and then would be overtaken by nature. But the dogs would never have a chance at surviving like the wolves did.
Douglass: Alright. So are you against zoos?
Grant: Well, I don't like that animals are locked up for our pleasure.
Douglass: But they live comfortably. Wild animals face hunger, disease, and death every day.
Grant: I know. It just annoys me that we give animals-- especially dogs-- security and take away their freedom.
Douglass: You know they can't understand concepts like freedom.
Grant: And that's what annoys me the most. I can't stand up for something that is only driven by instincts. It just makes my thoughts and argument seem unrealistic and almost childish.
Douglass: I don't think it's childish. I've actually never thought about it before. When dogs magically get a larger brain, then maybe they will get their freedom back.
Grant: Yeah, that'll happen sometime soon.
Douglass: I have a different idea for you to think about.
Grant: What is it?
Douglass: Well, we have escaped the food chain and have caused about 1,000 species to go extinct*. If you were a wolf and you couldn't beat them, then what would you do?
Grant: Of course I would join them.
Douglass: That strategy is so successful that it's kind of creepy.
Grant: How?
Douglass: You have never noticed it before? When a human gets hurt in a movie, the audience doesn't feel too sad about it. But when a dog gets hurt, people start getting emotional.
Grant: Why do you think that is?
Douglass: Well, people probably think that the dog didn't deserve it, but the human probably had it coming, for whatever reasons.
Grant: Wait, so you're saying that dogs may not be slaves, but may be strategists?
Douglass: Yeah. It is a brilliant plan.
Grant: I'll never look at dogs the same way again.
Douglass: Me neither.

Resources
*Artic find confirms ancient origins of dogs on News.Sciencemag.org

*The Extinction Crisis on www.biologicaldiversity.org