TW: graphic suffering, factory farming

I’ve often found it difficult to imagine “s-risk” scenarios unfolding (futures of endless suffering for countless beings). What would these futures even look like? I find factory farming of animals a useful intuition pump: these factories are endless nightmare machines of agony and death, devoid of hope or relief. Imagine an eternal Auschwitz the scale of a planet, where your body is grossly inflated, alien, and wracked with pain, your life is short, but agonizing, bleak, and overlong, and you are surrounded by countless silent sufferers, unable to connect. Imagine a karmic cycle of death and rebirth, but there is only this, now and forever.

Given that we know animals are sentient and experience pain, factory farming seems like the greatest evil in history. Dark, speculative sci-fi can depict much worse futures. Maybe we ought to learn from our mistakes before we introduce a new, godly race to this planet?