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!