Thread by @DrGJackBrown

1. THREAD: Humankind's relationship with animals (Although not absolutely linear and certainly overlapping, this list is relatively decrescendoing with respect to empathy and stewardship):

A. Loving them
B. Healing them (medically, emotionally, repopulating, etc.)

2/
C. Supporting them and repairing/healing their habitats
D. Therapy animals
E. Medical assistants (predicting seizures and diabetic emergencies, melanoma detection, etc.)
F. Learning empathy from them (up-regulation of our empathy)
G. Make them our pets

3/
H. Creativity teachers (cross-pollination of ideas, direct copying their 'technology', etc.)
I. Tolerate them (i.e., you stay in over there/I'll stay over here)
J. Removing their habitat

4/
K. Make them our servants (Transportation, plowing fields, guards, hunting assistants, etc.)
L. Domesticate them for dairy, wool, etc.
M. Kill them in defense (kill or be killed/kill or be harmed)
N. Kill them so our crops or our domesticated livestock won't be harmed/killed

5/
O. Kill them/domesticate them for food, leather, soap, etc.
P. Kill them for fuel (whale oil, etc.)
Q. Kill them for rituals (religious sacrifices)
R. Kill them for jewelry/adornments

6/
S. Kill them for false beliefs of powers (tusks, horns, fins, feathers, etc.)
T. Kill them for sport (rationalization of bloodlust)

7/ THOUGHT-EXPERIMENT: If, suddenly, we found ourselves to NOT be the dominant species on our planet/solar system ...

8/ — which *will absolutely happen* by our own design in the relatively near-future with super-intelligent AI robots — or perhaps one day, an extraterrestrial species, where would we want to be placed on this same hierarchy?

9/ Should we not extend that same courtesy to the animal kingdom — for which we are their stewards?

END