It’s hard enough as is for farmers to survive tracking red clay into an old farmhouse. Just think about the carnage that will come when farmers leave red Martian mud on the floors of a newly-built geodesic dome. Thus, by developing a spacecraft, Elon Musk was already putting future farmers in peril.
But Musk couldn’t stop there. Secretly, he’s been putting microchips in pig brains (no joke). Maybe I could understand microchips in the brains of guinea fowl–those poor birds need all the extra intelligence they can get–but pigs, no. Make pigs any smarter, and we’re one step from becoming our own bacon. George Orwell already covered what happens when pigs revolt: we get a communist, porcine state.
So, I’m not sure why Musk chose to enhance pigs when other farm animals need more brain power. Certainly, it doesn’t take long to realize some farm animals are a little slow. To be fair to farm animals, I suspect the feeling is mutual. My cows have a way of staring at me that makes me feel self-conscious, as if they’re calling me a moron. Likely, it’s just paranoia. I doubt my cows would ever do that, even when they lined up along the fence to watch me accidentally back the tractor through a barn wall.
Of course, intelligence in farm animals depends partly on socioeconomic conditions. Animals raised on upper-class organic farms have more advantages. That said, genius can arise from lowly uncertified organic farmsteads and even conventional farms where animals eat generic hay. I’ve witnessed it firsthand. Anybody who has seen my neighbor’s farm, which is littered with dilapidated farm equipment, knows his cows are technologically disadvantaged. And yet, an artistic savant arose from the rust.
The bull, a massive Hereford, was an expert in abstract art and even dabbled in sculpting. With a few strokes of his head, he could contort a gate or corral panel into something utterly unrecognizable. Many art critics declared his abstractions the work of genius. Buyers at the sale barn disagreed, declaring his work of the devil, just another example of an artist going undervalued in his own lifetime.
Anyway, I’m all for publicly-funded animal education. In fact, I wish someone would teach my cows not to devour every bit of plastic or metal they find when they have a whole pasture full of grass. Plus, I’d like it if they quit escaping and eating my neighbor’s expensive Japanese maple. But inserting microchips in pig brains seems a step too far. If Musk keeps at it, we’ll all be speaking Pig Latin soon, so onay icrochipmay inyay igspay!
Pig latin… I see what you did there. Porcine puns.
Before long, I may stoop to livestock limericks. It only goes downhill after porcine puns.
Being a sucker for alliteration (as well as limericks and puns), I will welcome the stoop.
There once was a blogger named Mellow
whose squirrels were well fed, not narrow.
Behind his curmudgeonly schtick,
Mel loved an alliterative limerick
and appreciated puns like a fine, fine fellow.
Chickens, now there I could see enhancement. Our chickens are more stupid than I could have ever imagined. You show me another animal that will regularly shit in its own feed dish and I’ll show you another candidate for chips.
They’re the one farm animal that puts themselves up at night, and yet after thousands of times going in and out of the coop door, sometimes mine forget how to get to the door and pace the side of the coop like maniacs.
Yup, that’s chickens.
Could not agree more!
Yeah. Ever been stared at by goats as they calculate the precise method for reassembling their quantum particles to pass through to the other side of that fence you’re bodging around them?
No, I fear goats and their ability to escape and defy capture. Reassembling quantum particles, lol. That’s a really good line.
Love reading your posts! I can totally relate to it all 😊
Thanks!
I’ve always heard domestic turkeys are pretty stupid, maybe enhance them. Or sheep – my friend used to raise them, and she said they were lacking in the brain department. At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist and/or Luddite, I can’t overcome an innate mistrust of any form of AI, imbedded in farm animals or not.
Yeah, based on my experiences with turkey and sheep, I’d have to second that assessment. I think ever science fiction movie ever created has concluded that AI isn’t going to end well for humans. There’s a good probability we’re only hastening our destruction.
Would probably be good for the planet then. Cynically convinced earth will survive a long time after we are gone.
In my experience, sheep take the cake when it comes to unintelligent barnyard animals. Pigs are already highly intelligent and I tend to agree with you that they need no assistance in that department. Thanks for the amusing read!
Thanks, hope your bees are doing well. Golden rod just started blooming here last week. Fall is right around the corner.
you have a fun way with telling a story!
When Elon Musk put microchips in pigs, it’s like a storytellers version of manna from the heavens.
Great post….my cows also will eat anything. Today I caught one leaning through a fence eating a tie-down strap off of some farm equipment. I pulled about 3 feet of the slimed strap out of her mouth and shooed her away….of course she came right back. Anyway, keep posting, you make us laugh out here on the Holler.
For some reason this comment got flagged as spam, ugh. I’ve had that same experience of pulling have consumed and slimed straps out. Sometimes plastic bags will float into the pasture from the road and I’ve seen cows scarf them up, as if desert. Thanks!
So, unh, I got tired of waiting (looks like a seven-day cycle) and thot – hey, there must be tons of Sane’s schtuff I ain’t read yet, or worse case I can read some again. Sho’nuff! This one is pretty doggone good. (‘Spect that something of repeating itself redundantly or something but I got chores to do and don’t wanna.) Put me to mind also I got two or three chapters in Midas you’d find mildly amusing but it ain’t published yet and I’m not discouraged enough I’m ready to serialize on WP. (Sigh) Said more’n I intended. Guess I gotta get to those chores. Maybe another cup of coffee?
Look forward to reading it. More coffee, always more coffee.
Out of place here, dude, but that makes it private. Sort of. I believe there is no such thing as WB. If (sorry, Kipling) you can write three meaningfully connected words on paper or on-screen, you have broken WB; name a character and let him/her/it (animals is good) explain to you who they are, they will have invested themselves in your story, fable, saga, poem, diatribe, and you will not be able to stop in time to get two hours’ sleep before you must dress (sensibly) and head to Olaffson’s farm to walk his lowlands with him. Trust me. Trust yourself.
Yeah, I tend to agree with you. I know WB is just me lacking discipline or willpower or whatever to get started–getting started is the most important part. Once that’s done the rest will follow.