I was watching this video from The Dodo the other day (love that site, it's all animal stuff), about these people who decided to take up sailing as their lifestyle (wealthy apparently) and they got a cat and trained it for swimming and living on the boat. The cat was totally adapted to living on the boat, the shores, walking the docks (and the boats anchored there), and so on. It was having a blast, it had a great life. The logic that it isn't "natural" for a cat (originally a desert creature) to live on a boat is silly. Nothing today is what it was 5000 years ago. It's not natural for humans to live in flood zones or in artificial housing either, but do all vegans live in tents made from banana leaves? I have known people who consider wearing leather to be a moral crime, then they go home and turn on the A/C and think nothing of all that goes in to making that possible. In the end, it's a politic -- but a politic of convenience.

Reminds me of some of the Mennonites (whom I have only respect for mind you) who don't believe in modern technology, but that got rendered by convenience into "in the home," and so their have a door that opens up to a refrigerator outside. LOL! And you know, that's fine, none of MY business, and why not hybridize things so they work without entirely losing the base of the philosophy one finds worthwhile?

But the idea that anything in today's world is pure (all apples but crabapples are manmade grafts) or harmless (all farming but hydroponic kills all kinds of bugs and small creatures, not to mention the soil/water issues) or natural (which I suppose means "just like it was 5000 years ago" because there is nothing wrong with trucking bees around. We also truck rock stars and sports teams of humans around and they seem none the worse for wear from the trucking :-)).

If what is 'natural' is the condition then there is going to be a huge cognitive dissonance coming soon. Because lab-grown 'meat' is getting far closer and I would imagine vegans would really support this, but there is little less 'natural' on the menu than that.

PJ