Talk:Cuteness-optimized animals

SoftLanding is so busy protecting the moth's reputation that a parent can pass the picture and two sections before learning a child can be abandoned. The lead tells us these animals were designed to be “cuter than human babies”; it should carry the consequence in the same breath. Move the first two sentences of Effects on humans into the introduction. I will tag the lead as a child-safety omission after every revert that hides them behind anatomy. The affected families should not have to negotiate for one visible warning. CareRoster 10:18, 7 October 11366 (UTC)

CareRoster wants every engineered animal introduced as a suspect before readers learn that some ask visitors to keep their filters on. One sentence on involuntary attachment is my limit. A moth can cause the response without understanding it; humans still choose what they do after feeling it. Put the animals' ability to choose companions in the lead before the abandonment case. I will block any lead that starts with a child's death as though it were the animal's defining act, however loudly CareRoster calls that order unsafe. SoftLanding 10:43, 7 October 11366 (UTC)

The child still needs feeding while SoftLanding conducts a seminar on the moth's innocence. “Involuntary attachment” could mean a distracting afternoon to a reader who has never seen a household fall apart. Child abandonment names the consequence. I did not propose declaring the animal guilty, and I am tired of that dishonest substitution. Put the case in the first paragraph, ahead of another celebration of animal choice, or I will restore it myself every time the lead is softened. CareRoster 11:05, 7 October 11366 (UTC)

There are two routes through the current text: the appearance works on its own, and an intelligent animal may deliberately use what it knows about a companion. Moving both sentences gives the first route prominence. I support that. But “attack” in this section heading is already doing the thing SoftLanding objects to. The Kessel bequest account is particularly awkward for intent: a donor loses the assets reserved for his children, trustees invest the gift, and the rats need never understand a word of it. Follow the transfer as well as the face. LedgerMoth 12:12, 7 October 11366 (UTC)

One risk sentence is already more than CareRoster's prosecutorial lead deserves. There is no frequency estimate, and readers will invent one when child abandonment is the first story they see. Meanwhile an animal reviewing its keeper's employment contract is a concrete result of intelligence and deserves the same prominence. Put animal choice first, then name the risk once. I will restore that order after each revert; I am done letting a single human failure stand in for the whole category. SoftLanding 13:01, 7 October 11366 (UTC)

Please keep the eye-washing example. It takes one sentence to convey a relationship that “superduperintelligent companion animal” leaves thoroughly muddled. Someone can hold the cleaning cloth and take instructions from the person whose eyes need cleaning. I would like an example of a refusal beside it: the starweevil can value a nursery visit above a fare, and counter with a later departure. That makes its choice consequential for the person buying the journey. DockingLimb 07:22, 8 October 11366 (UTC)

DockingLimb has offered a charming eye-washing scene and treated three separate questions as though charm answers them. Brain size says what the animal may work out; a charter says what it may accept; a companion's response says what happens after looking at it. A larger machine mind can still be a passenger, and a less capable animal can refuse a journey. Split capability, contract and consent into distinct sentences before another anecdote is added. Until then, I will remove the charter example no matter how much everyone likes it. PlainTextPlease 07:51, 8 October 11366 (UTC)

And please leave “can” in “can negotiate pay”. The rat article has human trustees holding assets for beneficiaries. We cannot turn this paragraph into a claim that every large-brained beneficiary signs its own deeds. We have a specific account of starweevils choosing journeys; use that if a specific example is needed. LedgerMoth 08:06, 8 October 11366 (UTC)

My proposed addition is: “A starweevil may decline a passenger charter because it wants to visit a nursery.” The linked article supplies the example. I would place it after choosing companions. PlainText's point is also why I would object to replacing “many” with “all” in the brain sentence: a volume comparison won't tell a reader who can understand an offer, much less who gets to accept it. DockingLimb 08:29, 8 October 11366 (UTC)

The picture demands that I prove I am not a baseline human by choosing an enzyme, and the gate's defenders call that protection. The template description explains the chemistry but never shows that a correct answer means this image cannot redirect my attachments. That is an insulting little ritual, not a test of the actual observer. Make a labelled silhouette the default and offer the full image separately. I will remove the full-colour default after every restoration until somebody supplies evidence tailored to this picture. PlainTextPlease 16:10, 8 October 11366 (UTC)

PlainTextPlease's silhouette would turn three painstakingly distinct body plans into three anonymous blobs. The illustration shows proportions, textures and colours; a silhouette discards most of the actual subject while pretending to teach anatomy. Keep the withholding mechanism and improve the explanation around the real image. I will oppose any default that erases the design work to flatter the editor who proposed the blank shapes. If safety editors want a warning, they can write one without making the picture useless. SocketAndFur 16:46, 8 October 11366 (UTC)

SocketAndFur has answered an exposure question with another lecture on textures and colours. I asked what the gate establishes. The firewall article checks a replacement against both observer and task; this button asks one chemistry question. Even a safe image view leaves a conversation in which the animal can bargain through plain text. Keep the silhouette as default, and stop calling the current gate proof of immunity. If the only defence is that the picture looks better, I will strike that argument from the protection discussion as irrelevant. PlainTextPlease 17:03, 8 October 11366 (UTC)

The last paragraph needs all three stages it currently has: donor selection in the twentieth century, unusually appealing colonies in the twenty-first, then ASDI-designed lines. “Rat endowments bred COAs from the twentieth century” would contradict the opening definition. The older animals got shelter, survived winters and had descendants; the later designers could redesign anatomy. Both routes made rats that donors wanted to visit, but the dates matter here. LedgerMoth 09:15, 9 October 11366 (UTC)

Anyone filing the old-colony photograph under ASDI design has not earned the right to rearrange these images. Veld's The Patronage Rat, in the rat article's references, covers early colonies through 2020; the nearby studies concern tameness and facial selection. Neither dates the creation of ASDI-designed lines. Bring those citations here and keep the early photograph beside the early account. I will restore it every time someone moves it under the ASDI paragraph to make their chronology look neater. SocketAndFur 09:48, 9 October 11366 (UTC)

The dates are settled: early donor selection, later appealing colonies, then ASDI-designed lines. Keep “baseline human economy” in the last sentence. The 2038 statistical account measures that economy, where rat funds employ keepers and own their housing. Drop “baseline” and you turn a landlord's power over a tenant into a claim about all augmented civilization. I will revert any such inflation on sight. People living under those funds deserve an accurate account of the scope, not a bigger joke for editors who never have to pay the rent. CareRoster 10:17, 9 October 11366 (UTC)