[PLOlover]

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And even if you want to make the case that housecats are fed and have no reason to kill, they certainly don't have the cognative ability to realize their hunting instincts are no longer needed.

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I think you've hit the nail on the head here. humans have an instinct to be psychotic killers, it's a survival instinct. But civilization requires people to sublimate this instinct, so activity like you describe is detrimental to the plan of conditioning people to live in civilization.

cliff notes: torture/murder of animals may lead to harming humans, so it is frowned upon.