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Okay. This is not an intelligent muffin, apparently, it's just a muffin that has a voice interface. Maybe he'll eat it after all.

"I'm gonna bite you," he tells it, in case this prompts some sort of more sophisticated or emotional response.
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This prompts no response whatsoever.

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He nibbles delicately on the edge of the muffin top, and listens.

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Nope.

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Bite. (It really is very good.)

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The muffin continues to express no opinions about its impending digestion.

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Okay then. Om nom nom. He's still going to have to talk to a goat; he'll tell Renée that he's experimenting with vegetarianism. She'll probably even experiment with vegetarianism too if he does. He's fourteen and no one will give him a hard time if it turns out not to last long should it be the case that the goats can do nothing beyond identify themselves as goats.

He very deliberately eats through their supply of goat cheese over the course of the next experimenting-with-vegetarianism day, then suggests a visit to Lori. Renée calls Lori, Lori's free, off they go.

Cam wanders into the backyard where the goats hang out during the day. There are three of them, and they have names - Millie and Betsy and Vivian - but he's not sure if they know that they have names, so he walks up to Vivian and says, "Hi, goat."
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"Hi," says the goat. "Do you have food? I want food."

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"Not on me, sorry. How smart are you?" he asks. Because the answer is "smarter than a muffin" but there are probably *literally* rocks smarter than that muffin.

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"Are you sure?" says the goat. "Are you really sure?" She attempts to investigate his claims of foodlessness.

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"I'm really sure," snorts Cam.

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"But I want food," says the goat. "I can eat this!" And she grabs for his sleeve.

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"Is Lori not feeding you enough?" asks Cam, moving his arm out of the way and stepping back.

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"I get lots of food," says the goat. "I want to eat that!"

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"You can't have it, it's my sleeve," Cam says. "It doesn't belong to you. How would you like it if somebody ate you?"

Because that is the question, isn't it?
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"I don't want things to eat me," says the goat. "I want to eat things!"

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Okay, this goat is not smart. But it's capable of not wanting to be eaten.

"How about your milk, do you care if people take that away?"
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"I like it when that happens!" says the goat. "I also like food."

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Okay. Goat, at least well-treated mostly-a-pet goat, does not object to being milked, may or may not suffer existential dread but doesn't want to be eaten, and is well and thoroughly obsessed with food.

He goes into the house and gets a treat for Vivian, and ones for the others too so he doesn't get mobbed on his way back out of the yard.
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The goats are very enthusiastic about their treats, but none of them exhibit what you'd call sophisticated cognition.

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Babies don't exhibit sophisticated cognition either, yet Cam would not eat one!

He goes right on "experimenting with vegetarianism".

Later, he addresses the tree in his backyard, on the theory that it will be evidence about other plants the way goats were evidence about other animals. "Hi, tree."
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"Hi, human," says the tree.

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"How smart are plants?" he asks. "I'm concerned about my dietary habits."

(Nothing he's talked to so far has reacted badly to being talked to like it was smarter than it was, so he may as well start there.)
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"Depends on the plant," sniffs the tree.

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"Okay, so you're either smarter than a goat or my meter's off, and I've already decided the conversation I had with a goat sufficed to make me a vegetarian, can you give me a scale here? Dandelion goat oak tree...?"

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