@AndyD273 Whyyyyyyy :/

that sheep 0-0

@Skye Look at the wolf - he is sooo cute. You can't be mad at him.

@Secespitus the blood ruuiiinnss it....

and this new chat room is really nice :o

@Skye It's the sheeps fault for bleeding so much

@Secespitus Now that I have taken a closer look they both look dead inside tho @-@

@Skye The endless void inside their eyes is only betrayed by a small glimmer of hope in form of a little white dot that represents joy of this change in a boring world

Or maybe the sheep looks dead inside because it's currently being eaten and will soon be dead on the outside, too.

there we go ;D

(forgive me, I don't have photoshop nor a computer pen desk table drawing tray thingie)

@Skye :D

Very good

@Skye It's from the Adorable Circle Of Life series.

Savage. Menacing. Ruthless. Predators get a pretty bad rap. Sure, they prey on helpless animals that never stand a chance. But behind those jagged teeth, powerful jaws and razor-sharp claws, every predator has a softer side. Maybe even an adorable one.

Everyone has compassion for the cute bunny or lamb. But what about their predators who are working hard for their meal? Capturing their prey is life or death for them. Just think about the last time you had to hunt for food while hangry. You can understand, right?

It’s time to give the predators a break. Because in the end, both predators and their prey play a role. Let's celebrate all animals who complete the Adorable Circle of Life.

awwww, it's so horrible

but I guess until we switch entirely to synthetic meat, we can't claim the high road

@DaaaahWhoosh It all plays out to keep things in balance. Not enough wasps? -> too many caterpillars -> plants suffer. Not enough wolves? -> too many elk -> over grazing -> mass starvation of elk.

@AndyD273 yeah, except the solution to "too many people" isn't "eat some of them"

@DaaaahWhoosh Why not?

It's a very modest proposal that's been around for centuries. ;)

@DaaaahWhoosh The solution to "too many people" is famine, war and disease.

@DaaaahWhoosh I'm pretty sure the solution is open up Mars to colonization.

All things being in balance, the earth carrying capacity is way higher than where we are now, and that's before synthetic meat and the like. As popular as the doom and gloom trend is in speculative fiction at the moment, I'm still an optimist. I also think it's likely that there will be some events that will lower populations at some point in the future, which will suck.

@AndyD273 I think there's also a very interesting trend where as countries get richer, they tend to have fewer children. Wouldn't it be funny if globalization (and the spread of better medicine) was the indirect cure for high birth rates?

@Green That's partly why I'm optimistic

@Green So the other day I was driving the kids somewhere, and got stuck behind some slow traffic. Thinking out loud, I told them that when I was young we thought the future would have flying cars, and that we'd be able to just fly over the slower vehicles. Then I asked them what they though the future would be like.

My oldest (8) thinks it's going to all be about automation. "Automatic cars, automatic construction, automatic post offices, automatic resturaunts..." which is interesting because I haven't really talked to her about automation before, so she's getting the ideas from somewhere else.

So I asked her what all the people would be doing if all the jobs were automated. "Spend time with their families and play." I kinda like her vision of the future.

@AndyD273 So do I!

@AndyD273 you talking about your kids makes me less against the idea of being a father

@AndyD273 I wonder if the children of today will discover about automation what we discovered about flying cars....that it's really hard to get right and won't be realized in the same starry-eyed fashion that we imagine.

@AndyD273 That's so cute and cool

I think it'd be really interesting to see what humans did if they didn't have to work for money. I guess it'd be like in those romance novels: they'd visit friends, go for walks, read, play instruments, and occasionally fall in love in a way that causes conflict.

except now we have the Internet. And video games. And music-playing devices.

I'd like to think if I had more time I'd make more things. But if everyone thinks the same, then the amount of good entertainment would increase.

and stuff I'd make because it doesn't exist would exist.

So, what's with everyone changing their pics? Is there a meme I'm missing here?

@TrEs-2b It was for "proud month" or something like that. After that Green decided to switch from red to blue. Not much you are missing.

@TrEs-2b I was thinking, you should change your avatar to a king bun

@DaaaahWhoosh The XKCD?

oh, yeah, I should've been more specific. XKCD was where I learned the proper name for buns

@Green the problem with flying cars is that people have trouble driving when they have to keep all their wheels on the ground. Automation at least takes the unpredictable human out of the equation, which can't hurt things.

@DaaaahWhoosh One of the best parts is getting to experience things in kid vision. Getting to see them enjoy things that I remember enjoying is like doing it for the first time all over again. Plus I get to do stuff that I would normally be too old for because I'm doing it with the kids. They aren't perfect, and I occasionally feel like thumping them, but it's more good than bad.