{"id":107,"date":"2008-04-25T16:06:38","date_gmt":"2008-04-26T00:06:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=107"},"modified":"2009-09-23T19:02:50","modified_gmt":"2009-09-24T03:02:50","slug":"a-cat-is-penned-up-in-a-steel-chamber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=107","title":{"rendered":"<q>A cat is penned up in a steel chamber<\/q>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Neither <a href=\"http:\/\/mocketymock.com\/\">the Woman of Interest<\/a> nor I would ordinarily wish to live forever, whether it be on Earth or on the other side of some Pearly Gates.  But I posed a problem to her: <div style=\"padding-left: 2em ; padding-right: 2em ;\">What if I had a device by which I could make the Beet Weasel immortal?<\/div> I have little doubt that, so long as it were kept in good health and otherwise fairly physically comfortable, the typical cat would choose not to die.  A dog might additionally need friendly companionship, but then it too would not ever want to die.<\/p> <p>I don't know whether <a href=\"http:\/\/mocketymock.com\/\">the Woman of Interest<\/a> knew where I intended to go with my hypothetical, but in any event her first question about the device was of who would take care of the Beet Weasel, and I offered that I would have a slightly larger device for her.  So, now the question becomes one of whether one would allow one's companion animal to die in order that one might oneself have the freedom to die.<\/p>\r\n<div id=\"polls-5\" class=\"wp-polls\">\n\t<form id=\"polls_form_5\" class=\"wp-polls-form\" action=\"\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php\" method=\"post\">\n\t\t<p style=\"display: none;\"><input type=\"hidden\" id=\"poll_5_nonce\" name=\"wp-polls-nonce\" value=\"725713c7f9\" \/><\/p>\n\t\t<p style=\"display: none;\"><input type=\"hidden\" name=\"poll_id\" value=\"5\" \/><\/p>\n\t\t<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Immortality<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"polls-5-ans\" class=\"wp-polls-ans\"><ul class=\"wp-polls-ul\">\n\t\t<li><input type=\"radio\" id=\"poll-answer-34\" name=\"poll_5\" value=\"34\" \/> <label for=\"poll-answer-34\">I wish to be immortal.<\/label><\/li>\n\t\t<li><input type=\"radio\" id=\"poll-answer-35\" name=\"poll_5\" value=\"35\" \/> <label for=\"poll-answer-35\">I would endure the burdens of immortality if I could thus keep my companion animal from ever dying.<\/label><\/li>\n\t\t<li><input type=\"radio\" id=\"poll-answer-36\" name=\"poll_5\" value=\"36\" \/> <label for=\"poll-answer-36\">I would not endure the burdens of immortality even if I could thus keep my companion animal from ever dying.<\/label><\/li>\n\t\t<\/ul><p style=\"text-align: center;\"><input type=\"button\" name=\"vote\" value=\"   Vote   \" class=\"Buttons\" onclick=\"poll_vote(5);\" onkeypress=\"poll_result(5);\" \/><\/p><p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"#ViewPollResults\" onclick=\"poll_result(5); return false;\" onkeypress=\"poll_result(5); return false;\" title=\"View Results Of This Poll\">View Results<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n\t<\/form>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"polls-5-loading\" class=\"wp-polls-loading\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-polls\/images\/loading.gif\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\" alt=\"Loading ...\" title=\"Loading ...\" class=\"wp-polls-image\" \/>&nbsp;Loading ...<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Neither the Woman of Interest nor I would ordinarily wish to live forever, whether it be on Earth or on the other side of some Pearly Gates. But I posed a problem to her: What if I had a device by which I could make the Beet Weasel immortal? I have little doubt that, so [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,104],"tags":[179,176,177,178,210,180],"class_list":["post-107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ideology-philosophy","category-news","tag-companion-animals","tag-ethics","tag-immortality","tag-pets","tag-polls","tag-responsibility"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}