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Comment by wffurr | Hacker News Reader

"everyone agreed on a solution: let the cat handle it. And so, for what seemed like an eternity, the cat went to work on the mouse, slowly torturing it limb-by-limb. This went on for at least a day, probably longer."

Yikes. What the hell is wrong with these people?

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Right. Followed later by this gem:

> And when faced with a mouse, there’s three options: kick it out, run away in terror, or catch and torture it.

I think you learn more about the author than about Stripe from this article.

> Former Motorola exec and entrepreneur Numair Faraz

Rich tech assholes. There was other hints earlier in the article, including negging his rich friends while simultaneously humble bragging about how rich his friends are.

I found this very weird too. If the cat found the mouse by itself, sure, there's not much you can do about it. But giving the mouse to him and watching him torture it for a day? That's honestly very weird and cruel.

Have you really never done this? This is the main reason to own cats.

My cats brought me dead mice a few times, and one time I saw one playing with a mouse and didn't interrupt him. However I've never given them a live mouse to play with. I feel like letting them hunt a mouse and giving them a mouse that you've already caught and could kill quickly is very different.

Uh yeah, I've never given my cat a live animal to torture on purpose. I also don't let it out to roam and kill all the local songbirds either.

If you have a barn full of crops to protect from rats or something, then sure, use a cat as a ratter, though there might be more humane ways to deal with your rat problem.

But if you're giving animals to your cat to kill for your own entertainment, then you seriously need help.

We're talking about mice. They have been the bane of humanity since the dawn of agriculture. Imagining they have some sort of moral worth is living in a dream world.

Mice in or around my house has no relation to "the bane of humanity since the dawn of agriculture", I live pretty far from any farm, and the most they ate from me is crumbs on the floor. Wanting to kill them is fine, and I understand totally. Letting your cat kill them if he catches them before you, totally fine for me too. He hunted her, it's his prey, why not? On the other hand, giving mice that you caught to your cat so he can torture them is not in the same in my book.

I give all mice to the cats, whether dead or alive. Supervising a cat's treatment of a mouse is not something I will ever spend a second of my life doing. Enjoying how demented and evil cats naturally are, I have spent so far, in total, at least twenty minutes over 45 years doing.

I'm glad that cats are on our team.

Enjoyment of the torture of small mammals is literally the textbook definition of psychopathy. I don't care that my cat plays with it's food, but it is grim reality that I try to avoid thinking about, like where my burger comes from.

I keep chickens, and I hate the bastards - They're an incredible pain in my ass. I have never slaughtered one for supper, but I know I could do so. Again, though, I would handle it with grim reality.

If there are "grim realities" involved with eating meat, it may be time to consider vegetarianism, or at least more ethical butchers.

There are grim realities involved in eating vegetables, walking to work, and taking a piss. I will not stop doing any of the above.

I'll admit that it feels a bit alien to me, but I don't know anything about you so it's not my place to judge. Thanks for sharing your perspective.

You're welcome, and thanks for the reasoned conversation. You seem to be the only person in the thread not to attempt at amateur psychological diagnosis.

Did you read the whole article? They already had trapped the mouse and then deliberately led the cat to slowly torture the mouse to death.

It's one thing if the cat finds the mouse, but to go out of one's way to trap an animal yourself and then present the helpless trapped animal to another animal so they can be tortured for hours is extremely sadistic and psychopathic, in my opinion.

It's like a real-life Voight-Kampff test scenario.

This is "dark humor", and probably involves a healthy amount of poetic license. I found it funny. But I also butchered, cooked, and ate a rooster last weekend.

Nothing wrong with (presumably) humanely butchering an animal to eat. I would guess you didn't pull it's legs and wings off one-by-one and watch it scream and writhe just for fun.

Also glue traps are heinously cruel.

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but animals don't care about the humane treatment of the other animals they kill.

I don't think he was expecting the cat to care, but the cat owners.

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