You have to feel sorry for the people still stuck in the Zuckerbergian cesspit that is Facebook, spending their days wading through tedious political arguments and “SHARE IF U AGREE” shitposts written for the paste-eating crowd.
Unfortunately, the platform’s rampant misinformation is not limited to politics. Here’s one of the latest viral posts:
And this is what it looks like now, to protect people like your aunt who keeps sending you email forwards about Pizzagate:
Whenever I encounter stuff like this, my first instinct is to dismiss it as nonsense no one would actually believe. Then I remember our dubious track record when it comes to critical thinking: a third of millennials are flat-Earthers, one in four Americans thinks the sun orbits the Earth, and more than 16 million Americans believe chocolate milk comes from brown cows.
Some futurists and ethicists thought the world wide web would bring an end to conspiracy theories and outlandish beliefs, with the sum of human knowledge at our fingertips and the disinfectant power of the truth. But falsehoods have remarkable staying power, and the internet is happy to oblige any conspiracy theory no matter how far removed from reality, with sites like this one that says it offers “no-bullshit truth”:
So at the risk of stating the obvious, purring has nothing to do with a cat’s heartbeat, and cats experience all the same primary emotions we do (happiness, sadness, fear, excitement, nervousness) as well as quite a few secondary emotions, like jealousy, disappointment, contentment and confidence.
The idea that animals like cats and dogs are emotionless automatons went out of favor more than half a century ago, and modern technology has made it possible for scientists to peer into the minds of our domesticated friends and witness brain activity that mirrors our own when we process emotions. There is no debate: Cats have very real emotions, which is another compelling reason to treat them well.
Pain In The Bud 
The more I know about people the better I like cats. Flat Earthers, Big Lie believers, anti-vaxxers … when and why did people get so stupid??
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I think the death of newspapers and the rise of online news outlets with no standards or commitment to honest reporting has a lot to do with it. Social media as well. Political polarization. A modern education system that doesn’t equip people with critical thinking skills.
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Isn’t it sad it’s come to this? I think you are 100% right. And the worst thing is, this situation will probably get worse.
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More anti-cat propaganda!
Jez says thank you for writing this! (by the way the photo of Devil-cat didn’t work…..:)
Brown cows…. really?
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lol I couldn’t believe the brown cows thing either. But there are surveys and polls showing a lot of Americans are “agriculturally illiterate” and don’t know where their food comes from. I remember reading about a false advertising case from the 70s, if memory serves, in which McDonald’s was sued for running ads showing its burgers in a garden, growing like plants.
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I read the article in the meme and thought it had to be satire, so I checked out the source, a site called whythiswhythat.com. It seems to have run out of steam in 2012, but not before publishing an article that explained how the world would end in December 2012 as a result of being be sideswiped by the planet Niburu. I really recommend reading it – it’s spit-out-your-coffee funny.
http://www.whythiswhythat.com/nature/why-is-the-world-going-to-end-in-2012/
So I don’t think the scientific community has too much to worry about.
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Oh yeah, I’m just worried that people will take it at face value, which seems to be what people are doing on Facebook. I don’t use FB and didn’t realize that they’re appending warnings to non-political misinformation. With the volume of user generated content, I can’t imagine how they begin to prioritize that stuff.
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If this rag publishes “no-bullshit truth,” it should name its sources. It refers to “many scientists” but it doesn’t say who they are or give any references to their work. The only scientist who they mention by name is the one who refutes the assumption which is their premise.
Attributing human motives to animals is, I believe – correct me if I’m wrong – called “anthromorphizing.”
And, to refute their argument further, if cats can’t feel the human emotion of pleasure, then they can’t feel the human emotion of contempt, either.
But I can.
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It only uses last names, another red flag, and it uses appeals to authority (“world renowned professor” and such). Some think it’s satire, and that’s possible, but if it is, it’s an example of Poe’s Law: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
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What a tiresome tiresome trope this is. Cats are not dogs (thank God). Although the trope subtly suggests that cats are superior to dogs… well, duh.
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Just the other day I saw a “serious” article describing cats as the perfect pets for people who are rarely home and don’t have time for a dog. Old misconceptions die hard.
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Facebook is idiotic. I stay away from it. Obviously, the writer has not met Buddy or Tux! He is at the vet today. Hopefully the premedication will prevent arm shredding!
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I hope Tux’s vet visit goes well. By arm shredding do you mean he shreds your arm or his own?
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The vet staff! He has a reputation!
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Ah. That cannot be an easy job, especially when dealing with cats.
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Cats can be very loving. It’s spiders that feel nothing but contempt. 😀
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