Interestingly, for wild animals, suffering is typically short when it is intense. If an animal is being eaten alive or is injured, it will die within a few hours. Starvation may take longer. Most of the time, animals are joyful.
But for humans (and farm animals), this inverse relationship does not hold true. Humans can be tortured for years or have debilitating illnesses for decades.
I think the correct way to think about wild animals’ lives is as them living in extreme poverty. They usually have no shelter, so if they get wet they have to dry by themselves.
If they get sick or get infected by parasites they have to wait until they heal, so I’d guess that long-term debilitating illness is very much a thing for wild animals (as well as infection by numerous parasites). Starvation and death from thirst are also long-term.
The way I could be wrong is if there’s a threshold effect so that above some threshold, an animal will not die when it’s young and be so healthy that daily stress/hunger/weather are not a big problem. But I don’t think that’s the case, instead “the curve is just shifted to the left”.
Interestingly, for wild animals, suffering is typically short when it is intense. If an animal is being eaten alive or is injured, it will die within a few hours. Starvation may take longer. Most of the time, animals are joyful.
But for humans (and farm animals), this inverse relationship does not hold true. Humans can be tortured for years or have debilitating illnesses for decades.
I think the correct way to think about wild animals’ lives is as them living in extreme poverty. They usually have no shelter, so if they get wet they have to dry by themselves.
If they get sick or get infected by parasites they have to wait until they heal, so I’d guess that long-term debilitating illness is very much a thing for wild animals (as well as infection by numerous parasites). Starvation and death from thirst are also long-term.
The way I could be wrong is if there’s a threshold effect so that above some threshold, an animal will not die when it’s young and be so healthy that daily stress/hunger/weather are not a big problem. But I don’t think that’s the case, instead “the curve is just shifted to the left”.