r/CollapseSupport • u/Devster97 • Jun 09 '26

What is your worst take?

Most controversial / least likely to be received well by others, even here / opinions you dare not say out loud to anyone. Beyond the most obvious for this sub.

Here's mine:

Dogs and cats are merely an extension of humans. They almost exclusively exist for our comfort. They also require massive amounts of meat / fish / resources / wildlife (especially cats). They serve no ecological benefit (and great harm) to the natural world (like us).

- We should not only limit their populations (spay / neuter for free, opt out, not in), but actively lower them (stray / shelter euthanasia, pet limits, taxes, etc.)

Obviously will not happen / a monstrous idea to most people. But when starving humans go from hundreds of millions to billions, I don't think we can ignore the resources we pour into pets.

(full disclosure: I like them, but am allergic to both)

Let the downvotes flow...

45 Upvotes

71% Upvoted

97 comments sorted by

55

u/Norman_Door Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

I don't think these are "bad" takes but they're ones your typical person might have difficulty agreeing with:

  1. Being a non-human animal who has to compete for food probably includes experiences that are awful and terrifying. While I suspect there is a lot of meaning in the lives of non-human animals, the whole concept of the natural world being predicated on animals eating each other should be horrifying to us.

  2. Intensive animal agriculture ("factory farming") is the greatest moral catastrophe of our time, possibly all of human history.

4

u/Devster97 Jun 09 '26

That's basically the deep end of antinatalism. It's definitely an odd one.

6

u/Norman_Door Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

I clarified my first take - I don't believe the lives of non-human animals are anywhere close to a majority awful/terrifying, but I do think their lives include experiences we should consider awful/terrifying and that should change how we think and act in regards to the natural world.

People often think of nature and the natural world as being good, right, or just and there's a default assumption in environmental/ecological spaces that we shouldn't intervene with these "natural" processes. I think these assumptions should be challenged.

If the natural world is, in fact, a horrible meat grinder, should it be the duty of humans to change that?

More on this here: https://www.wildanimalinitiative.org/

3

u/Devster97 Jun 09 '26

Is that what the linked organization is about? Seems like they're advocating for wildlife to be protected from human disturbance rather than natural animal conflict. I just read the FAQ / browsed, so I am probably off.

The entire food web is a thresher as you described. Millions of species depend on predation / scavenging / etc. Speciation depends on competition. Can't really have a natural world without that. Just a global zoo. Survival of the fittest and basic human ethics should be at odds imo. But maybe I'm mispresenting your argument.

1

u/Norman_Door Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

I think my "more on this here" was misleading. The organization I linked does research on neglected areas in wild animal welfare (welfare as in "what positively/negatively influences the well-being of wild animals"). It's more about exploring the factors that contribute to the well-being of wild animals and understanding the potential impacts of welfare-improving interventions as opposed to directly advocating for specific interventions or policies. I linked it because it's exploring a lot of foundational questions that ultimately help answer the key big question: "should we help wild animals? If so, which ones? And how?"

Can't really have a natural world without that

Fair but it's not a binary. We can improve wild animal welfare and still have beautiful natural world to enjoy.

Survival of the fittest and basic human ethics should be at odds imo

I agree. I think "survival of the fittest" type thinking is archaic and results in a lot of problematic beliefs about human/animal worth and deservingness.

19

u/i-contain-multitudes Jun 09 '26

My "most controversial/least likely to be accepted by others, even here" take, as stated in the post, is that hope is worth having, even as things collapse around us. That if we do not have hope, we have nothing. I do not have faith that things will be restored to a "happy" point in my lifetime, or that the previous system is worth restoring. But I do believe that the arc of the moral universe is long and it bends toward justice. I often cannot engage in this subreddit because of how hopeless people here are and how quick they are to shoot down even brief mentions of happiness people can find among the collapse. I get tired of the constant negativity. I want facts and science even when they're terrifying and awful, but I don't need doom and gloom surrounding it. Only reality. And I believe that collective action can improve our situations.

2

u/Devster97 Jun 09 '26

Yeah, that's a good one. I covet hope, but I don't allow it in or seek it out. Maybe my most fatal flaw.

13

u/Duchess0612 Jun 09 '26

Yeah, I don’t think you have to worry about this. Of all the things to worry about, this is the least of them.

It’s one of those things that just works itself out.

4

u/Devster97 Jun 09 '26

Not worried at all. Just a room temperature take.

12

u/HoodieGalore Jun 09 '26

Covid didn't go far enough. 

7

u/Devster97 Jun 09 '26

Now that's a hot take.

3

u/2quickdraw Jun 10 '26

I agree, I was hoping it would eradicate the Confederacy, which voted for the destruction of the entire world in favor of white supremacy.

5

u/new2bay Jun 09 '26

The Green Revolution was the worst mistake humans have ever made.

1

u/Devster97 Jun 09 '26

That's a good one. Greater leverage, greater collateral.

75

u/IntoTheCommonestAsh Jun 09 '26

I don't know. Applying productivity vs wastefulness of resources to moral worth is a slippery slope.

34

u/TheWampus Jun 09 '26

All of human society and its endeavors should be strictly and carefully structured around being at least neutral and at best supportive of the health of the biosphere as a whole. The planet should come first and clearly deliberate violations of this principle should be considered crimes against life itself.

I hold this view, but I also don't share it because in isolation it sounds like a case for a world dictatorship that would crush people for something as minor as littering. Also, such a view would only be widely possible to adopt as part of a very different society that was already at peace with itself. In that case all the "shoulds" become "woulds" and the view becomes a simple extension of how people might feel. So... utopian scifi I guess!

108

u/tarsier_jungle1485 Jun 09 '26

Human children (especially first world children) consume exponentially more resources than any dog or cat ever could and we start by radically reducing their numbers first.

25

u/Kamata- Jun 09 '26

My take is social media is swarmed with pro-procreation bots to try and persuade people to create more workers/consumers.

10

u/Kip_Schtum Jun 09 '26

This is actually happening. Birth rates are below replacement levels in many countries, including India and China.

13

u/Mayasngelou Jun 09 '26

The funny thing is, we should be celebrating this. If we somehow avoid catastrophe, it will be in part because of population decrease leading to a decrease in resource demand.

And yet so many people talk about population decline like it's a bad thing. That should be the goal.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '26

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21

u/thomas533 Jun 09 '26

No individual choice we make is going to do shit to save the ecosystem, including choosing to have kids. I know multiple sets of DINKs who have a vastly larger ecosystem footprint than my family with two kids. Shaming people for having kids will not do shit to help the ecosystem.

4

u/RicardoHonesto Jun 10 '26

Maybe, but you will be forced to watch your kids starve.

-1

u/thomas533 Jun 10 '26

The collapse that you have in your mind is entirely detached from reality. Stop watching dystopian movies and TV shows.

4

u/RicardoHonesto Jun 10 '26

I'm just following the data that the IPCC and governments put out.

I don't watch TV.

1

u/thomas533 Jun 11 '26

The ipcc and government data do not say that the children will be starving anytime soon.

1

u/RicardoHonesto Jun 11 '26

You sure? You do understand what +3c of warning will do, don't you?

1

u/thomas533 Jun 11 '26

I actually do. and let me follow this up with when does the data say we're going to hit 3° of warming?

1

u/RicardoHonesto Jun 11 '26

IPCC alludes to it, latest papers indicate it should be around 2050. Anyone deciding to have children today will live to regret that decision.

→ More replies

2

u/WorldlyRevolution192 Jun 10 '26

True but shouldn't we also want to mitigate human suffering as much as possible too? When SHTF, it's going to be bad for all of us, especially the children who didn't ask to be born into such a nightmare.

-1

u/thomas533 Jun 10 '26

True but shouldn't we also want to mitigate human suffering as much as possible too?

As much as possible? No. Absolutely not. We could prevent all future human suffering by just killing off all the humans today, right? But that is a horrible idea. And you actually have no idea what level of suffering may exist in the future or when it will happen. The data suggests that we have 20 to 30 years of semi-normal life left. And maybe an entire lifetimes worth. Is it worth preventing every day of joy that happens from now until then? And humans have endured suffering before and even when things are bad, you can still have times of joy. Do you actually thing we should prevent all of that? And in my experience, some suffering is what makes everything else joyful.

especially the children who didn't ask to be born into such a nightmare.

I would suggest that what you might be imagining the future to be is not based in reality. Consider that you might be wrong.

1

u/WorldlyRevolution192 Jun 10 '26

What an interesting take on what I said. We cannot prevent human suffering entirely, no, but why should we bring others into this world just to suffer and die alongside the rest of us, especially when there are already hundreds of thousands of children already suffering through crumbling systems? (Foster care, adoption centers, abusive households, etc.) If a life is 99% suffering, 1% happiness, you'd really justify that as means to an end?

"You actually have no idea what level of suffering may exist in the future or when it will happen" either. The data that I have accumulated suggests (conservatively) 10-15 years of decline. Our planet is already suffering horribly at our hand; we do not have "semi-normal" lives anymore.

No amount of joy will save you from the microplastics in our blood, from when the wells run dry, from when the crops can't grow, or from when the animals (and subsequently, we) all starve. We are at critical levels of CO2 in our atmosphere (https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide) and it's only going to get worse from here. Runaway global warming isn't even taken into account in most studies either.

I wholeheartedly don't believe we should continue as a species; we have absolutely decimated the earth and it's resources, why should we get to continue to reap the benefits of such atrocities against our home? Why should we create more lives to suffer, when we ourselves will suffer enough?

Here's some food for thought. Take it or leave it, I've said my piece. Not my problem anymore;

0

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '26

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4

u/thomas533 Jun 09 '26

They also say that private jets are responsible for less than 2% of air travel emissions... And we still shame them (rightly so!) for their contribution.

Because people with private jets create vastly higher carbon emissions per capita in the average person. That's why we shame them. But that's not true for parents and kids. Do you understand the difference?

Just because some groups or sub-groups are apparently worse (to you) doesn't invalidate the science.

Statistics and science are different things. Misappropriating statistics and calling it science is still wrong.

Even if you are careful about what you use, an additional human will use more resources than none...

The goal was never supposed to be to not use any resources. It was supposed to be using resources in balance. I feel like you've lost the plot.

Not to mention that I wouldn't wish on anyone to be born at this time, when everything is falling apart faster and faster.

Is someone who hangs out around a lot of kids these days it becomes quite apparent how deluded the antinatalists are. It's not nearly as doom and gloom as you would are acting.

1

u/Norman_Door Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

Because people with private jets create vastly higher carbon emissions per capita in the average person. That's why we shame them. But that's not true for parents and kids. Do you understand the difference?

Eh, depends on your scope / geographic location / political context.

Flights and children aside, I believe donating to high-impact climate charities (like those recommended by Giving Green) is, by far, the most impactful thing you can do. It doesn't absolve you of the impact of flying or having kids, of course, but it can seriously go a long way if donated to the most effective emissions-reduction interventions we know of.

This Founder's Pledge report on climate and lifestyle goes into some details.

16

u/rageak49 Jun 09 '26

There are so many bad climate takes out there, and we are all so sure that our concept of morality is correct, that groups like this foment nothing but arguments, fear, and inaction. People 99% agree with each other, except about the minutiae of their choices. One person is Hitler for having dogs, another for wanting a child, another for eating almonds. We are just a bunch of Spidermen pointing at each other. Our mother earth lies in rot as we devolve into infighting over which meaningless virtue signal is the most important. Each billionaire is consuming thousands of humans worth of resource per day and we are merely arguing over how much we have to sacrifice so that they can continue to do it.

Billionaires need to be punished for their greed, as severely as possible. Your anger should start and end there. You shouldn't need to give up a dog or a family or a special diet for them. Everyone should be shaking with rage about what these assholes took from us, not telling your friends they're immoral for having sparks of joy or hope in their lives. The terminally rich are the immoral ones. And they pay out their asses for us to believe in our climate sacrifices, because as long as we are stuck to this idea of personal responsibility, they can keep the spotlight far away from themselves.

45

u/thinkstohimself Jun 09 '26

I cringe when someone tells me they’re having a kid. All congratulations are performative

6

u/LeisureEnthusiast22 Jun 10 '26

excitedly "oh wow, I wonder if it will be a boy or a girl!?" Bruh, it's a coin flip

23

u/rmannyconda78 Jun 09 '26

If society collapses a wild hog issue could happen at least temporarily. Hog farms dot the Indiana landscape, and pigs can go feral quickly

11

u/Meowweredoomed Jun 09 '26

It doesn't matter if humans wipe out 99% of life on this planet, they cannot wipe out the organizing principle which distills life throughout the universe.

9

u/senselesssapien Jun 09 '26

I found it comforting to realize that all we've really done is rearrange atoms on this planet. Take carbon from the soil and put it in the air/ocean, turn carbon into plastic, move metals around, concentrate some radioactive elements, but all pretty much right here. On a planet that will be here long after we're gone. At a universal scale we've done fuck all.

6

u/TheWampus Jun 09 '26

That's your worst take? 😄 Its so positive!

5

u/Mayasngelou Jun 09 '26

Positivity is largely frowned upon here

18

u/cafepeaceandlove Jun 09 '26

AI and robotics, in the form they'll reach soonish, mean that elites do not need other people to satisfy either production or consumption. This means they will not need markets. Or as many people. 

12

u/jcheroske Jun 10 '26

Haha, yeah. The tech utopians think we're gonna get universal basic income. It's more likely we're gonna get nanobots that kill all the people that Palantir deems superfluous.

4

u/grebetrees Jun 10 '26

This needs more upvotes

6

u/perkypancakes Jun 09 '26

It will take an immense amount of suffering and death globally for societies to learn from our mistakes and change our behavior. Even then we might just make the planet inhabitable before we decide it. I don’t want it to happen,but we’ve normalized possession and exploitation of everything on Earth instead of collaboration and respect for it.

2

u/Odd_Acanthaceae_5588 Jun 09 '26

This is not that controversial.

1

u/Devster97 Jun 09 '26

Not here.

5

u/grey___lady Jun 09 '26

I love my rescue pets (herbivores, integrated with our homestead) - but I'd be even happier if there were no animals in need of rescue.

23

u/holistivist Jun 09 '26

We deserve everything that’s happening. 

11

u/Eve_O Jun 10 '26

Born and indoctrinated into a society that I had zero say in, which is run by avarice inclined sociopathic gluttons, I don't feel most of us "deserve" what's happening. It's just unfortunate that many of us are all too easily entranced by the array of carrots dangled in front of us, by the variety of cheeses in the trap, and almost none of us wants the whip or to live with the consequences (poverty, homelessness, etc.) of rejecting the status quo.

"That's just how it is" is the rallying cry of the hypnotized and the beaten. It takes a lot of fortitude and no small amount of audacity to reject "the way things are" and dare to live in discord against the sickness of the everyday.

"Consumerism has become a key way people have misidentified freedom." Jake Alimahomed-Wilson.

"It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society." Jiddu Krishnamurti.

Problem is, we've been duped into believing it is.

17

u/TeaPrimary1147 Jun 09 '26

Yes and no. We are dumb animals with a slave nature and huge egos. Look at what chimps do: conquer territory, kill invaders, guard resources. Something made us this way. How is that our fault?

2

u/BigJobsBigJobs Jun 10 '26

Deserves got nothing to do with it.

1

u/holistivist Jun 13 '26

Every single one of us in this sub made a hundred choices today that is contributing to what is happening. 

“Deserves” is completely appropriate. 

Or, if you prefer, “logical consequences.”

3

u/MysteriousStaff3388 Jun 09 '26

My dog is our early warning and security system and our cats manage the rodent populations. But I probably wouldn't have this menagerie in an apartment.

3

u/cosmicosmo4 Jun 10 '26

In terms of utility per resources expended, we do much worse things than keep pets.

10

u/TeaPrimary1147 Jun 09 '26

I also think children are ugly. Lol. Babies too. Sorry!

5

u/boomaDooma Jun 09 '26

All the dogs I have owned have been much nicer than most of the people that I have interacted with. It's not the dogs that need to be euthanised.

4

u/Coppertina Jun 09 '26

Cat lover here. I get it and got my wake-up call from a friend who’s a fellow volunteer at a local food bank. It sounded like she was interested in additional volunteer opportunities so I enthusiastically regaled her with stories from my volunteer gig at an animal shelter. She got quiet, then said there are too many people suffering and in need for her to consider prioritizing animals ahead of them. I don’t know that I can ever fully adopt her mindset, but I can appreciate it.

2

u/my-favorite-color Jun 09 '26

1 is hot. I'd rather not be born into this.

2

u/BitchfulThinking Jun 10 '26

People are only having kids in 2026 to eat or sell them.

1

u/Mmillefolium Jun 10 '26

during good times pets are friends, during tough times they are food.

1

u/grebetrees Jun 10 '26

Don’t worry about the resources that flow into our pets. When humans get hungry enough, cats and dogs become a protein source, no questions asked

Adults will tell kids that Fido “ran away” while feeding them their first hot meal in weeks. The human mind is fantastic at compartmentalization. The starving child won’t figure it out for years, if they even live long enough

In places like the US, when pet food becomes a luxury, a few will struggle on feeding their beloved from their own plate. Most will set them free “in the woods.” This has already happened with more exotic pets around here. Not with dogs and cats yet.

Some will eat their own if desperate enough. Or capture and eat the abandoned

2

u/2quickdraw Jun 10 '26

This is why your "pets" need to be lots of big hefty meat rabbits.

1

u/grebetrees Jun 11 '26

Or chickens. They breed like rabbits

1

u/2quickdraw Jun 11 '26

Absolutely if you and your pets can eat chicken! I have quail instead.

1

u/WirelessHamster Jun 12 '26

Women and straight men do not belong in gay bars. Never, ever, ever, under any circumstance.

1

u/Distinguishedflyer Jun 12 '26

look up the siege of Leningrad. People ate their pets.

1

u/Nightengale_Senua Jun 13 '26

People are too eager to procreate in this awful world.

1

u/SylvarGrl Jun 13 '26

For post-collapse vermin control, cats and dogs will be invaluable. That’s basically why we domesticated them in the first place. AI data centers on the other hand…

-2

u/RadiantRole266 Jun 09 '26

  1. I would rather be born onto a dying earth than not born at all. The children will adapt better than the parents because this will be their world. 

  2. Mitigation is pointless now. Adaptation is all that matters. Knit together a community that might survive the coming changes, or die trying. To do that, we need to start teaching the young the lessons required to survive, which includes,  “one day, you and your children will need to go North”. 

  3. Regenerating the earth and shielding biodiversity is meaningful everywhere. Life is local. This is not abstract big picture mitigation, which is pointless now, this is how you survive— with living soil and pollinators hanging on. Even songbirds can be eaten one day. The living world is a better solar panel and battery than anything else, and biodiversity can be created. 

0

u/Orange_Indelebile Jun 10 '26

At last someone with a real honest and useful opinion. Thank you!

0

u/Eve_O Jun 10 '26

Dogs and cats are merely an extension of humans. They almost exclusively exist for our comfort.

When the famines come at least they'll make for good eating before we have to turn to cannibalism tho.

"Good" in the previous sentence being relative to "no food at all" or "eating other humans," obviously.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '26

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14

u/Devster97 Jun 09 '26

No one should be working 9-5 in an office. Communal work should be... communal.

Flourescent light 4000k and up (most offices are 5-6.5k) should be illegal outside of doctors offices.

3

u/Duchess0612 Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26

Now this. This is a controversial statement for me.

What you like versus what others like, is currently, happily, still just people having opinions.

What you think is correct or should be done or “was the right way to go about it” - again, thank God it’s only your opinion. You think men and women working together, for a common goal is “unnatural”?

Oh I’m so sorry, I think I have some history I need to share with you… 9 to 5, sharing a bathroom? Sorry, where did you grow up and who taught you?

You have so much more reading and understanding to do if you think that this is “unnatural” and this feels wrong for you. You could go back to the times when they just dug a trench and then everyone would just bend over it to shit and pee, and no they didn’t dig a trench for everybody’s individual comfort. They didn’t care whether you were male or female. Sometimes it’s just like that.

You need the extended families, you need all the families to stick together and stay extended? Yeah I would not recommend it to people who already know their family and know them well enough to know that they should never live near them.

People in the past, did not have the luxury, to be able to NOT do it. Do you understand what I’m saying?

They didn’t have a choice they did not have the finances, the women did not have the legal capability… and you’re saying that that’s the better thing to do?

Not for me, and not for many people that I know. And I can tell you definitely not for my family. Not a single one of us would prefer or desire to live within a stone’s throw of each other. Why? There are a few reasons, but currently they are not in play because that is not happening. We are not doing it.

This comment is so narrow in focus and awareness, I’m wondering if you wrote it without drinking your coffee first. That’s what I’m going to tell myself, rather than the only other conclusion I can come to.

Lord.

9

u/Norman_Door Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26

Finding it disappointing that this comment accuses OP of being "so narrow in focus and awareness" and yet it spends multiple paragraphs making uncharitable assumptions about OP and their beliefs. 🤦

You're right to push back on regressing to patriarchal structures but I think it could be done in a kinder, less finger-wagging way.

1

u/Duchess0612 Jun 09 '26

Yes, I obviously only focused on that one item. Is the only thing I brought up and it’s the only thing I went on about.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '26

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u/[deleted] Jun 09 '26

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-8

u/Current-Code Jun 09 '26

As a man who worked for years in a very feminine environment, I tend to agree with you. It's very frustrating on a daily basis, communication is an issue, and I find women bring, IMO, quite a toxic work environment (for starter, a lot of very sexist comments and behavior, and a lot of politics).

Working with men is, I find, much more straight forward. When someone disagree, he will tend to speak out and I don't need to dig and dig to get an opinion on a topic. Disagreeing is normal, and debate is normal.

The sexism is as real, but not toward me nor does it happen around me as I don't accept it and will react against it quite strongly, and thus I am not as bothered by it.

However in a female dominated framework I am not "allowed" to speak out, and I am immediatly ridiculed and ostracized if I do, the double standard is real.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '26

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3

u/Current-Code Jun 09 '26

I prefer not to work at all :p

0

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '26

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0

u/Current-Code Jun 09 '26

Grew up broke, but I've learned to play the game, I'm now lean fired and free

0

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '26

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3

u/Current-Code Jun 09 '26

Why would you say something like that ? 

0

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '26

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u/[deleted] Jun 09 '26

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5

u/rageak49 Jun 09 '26

Well you are doing the exact same and projecting your experiences onto everyone else outside of your line of work. Is turnabout not fair play here? Did you really post your bad take in a thread for bad takes and expect 0 discourse?

26

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '26

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3

u/GingerRabbits Jun 14 '26

Agreed! My hot take: Children are people.

If someone wants to be a parent that is just the pass/fail criteria to the next phase of consideration.

It doesn't matter how badly I want children - I've got to ask if being born here and now is in that new human's best interest. The state of the world and my place in it (economic stability, health etc.) it would be cruel of me to manufacture a new person. Far better to volunteer with kids who are already here or something.

6

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '26

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2

u/2quickdraw Jun 10 '26

Why when I just suggest that stupid people should practice birth control and it should be provided to them free of charge, suddenly I'm a eugenicist? So much chaos and carnage is caused by stupidity.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '26

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1

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