Dogs adapted to society, cats hacked humans

In front of me, there is a hungry cat.

I could feed it if I wanted to. In fact, it takes more willpower not to.

In modern society, even a single act of feeding like that can be seen as "irresponsible feeding."
Considering the impact on the ecosystem, breeding, neighborhood disputes, waste issues, infectious diseases, and the local environment—the logic that one should not feed them lightly is certainly correct.

I am not saying that the right or wrong of this is unimportant.
It is an issue that must be addressed and thought about continuously as a social problem.
However, what I want to look at here is the "structure" that lies even deeper than the judgment of good and evil.
Why do people, even while understanding that they should not feed them lightly, still offer resources to the one in front of them?
Why does the body move before the rules or common sense?
I am strongly drawn to that very structure of cognition.

I think dogs are creatures that have survived by adapting to human society.
Guard dogs, hunting dogs, sheepdogs, companion dogs.
By having a role and securing a place within the human order, dogs have been protected as members of society.
Of course, the actual history is likely more complex, but at least current dogs appear to be creatures that have gained a sphere of survival by "participating in society."

Cats are different.
Cats did not choose the path of becoming members of society, at least not to the extent that dogs did.
They did not enter the human side by fulfilling a role, but rather entered the human sphere through a different route.

A back that looks slightly bony.
A thin voice.
A distance that is cautious but does not completely run away.
That half-hearted approach that leaves the judgment up to us.
Before learning social rules, cats access human emotions directly.
They trigger very old reactions first, such as the desire to protect, guilt, or the feeling of "I don't want to abandon them here."

That is why feeding stray cats often cannot be explained by simple kindness alone.
People react to the one in front of them first, rather than to abstractions like "community cats" or "outdoor cats."
Even if they understand the systems, statistics, and long-term effects, a different circuit activates first.
It is because that one individual looking at them has an overwhelmingly stronger sense of reality than a unit of dozens or hundreds.

Moreover, humans like to perceive this act as "one act of kindness toward one animal."
But if resources flow in sufficiently, it leads not only to the survival of the individual but also to breeding and the maintenance of the population.
It is sometimes said that if there is one unspayed or unneutered female cat, mathematically it could become over 2,000 cats in three years.
Of course, that is just a theoretical value based on the assumption that all kittens born survive and then give birth themselves.
However, the fact that unmanaged cats can increase rapidly and become the spark for hoarding collapse is a sufficiently realistic story.
Even if humans think they are looking at one cat, the cat is not complete as one from the beginning.

I think the difference in survival strategies between dogs and cats is well-represented here.
Dogs adapted to society.
They took on roles and found a place within the order.
In contrast, cats remained on the periphery of society while entering into human cognition.
Instead of participating in society, they have drawn out resources by accessing the emotions of the individual humans who operate society directly.

The phrase "cats hacked humans" is, of course, just a metaphor.
It does not mean that cats are intentionally analyzing the vulnerabilities of human society.
But as a result, cats trigger reactions in humans that are like exception handling.
In situations where systems and reason should normally take precedence, they activate a circuit that says, "Just this one."
In that sense, I think cats are beings that have survived by touching not the bugs of society, but the bugs of human cognition.

So this story is not meant to blame cats.
Cats are just living as cats.
There is no malice there, nor is there morality.
All that exists is behavior for the sake of survival.
And what is troublesome is that this behavior acts not on human reason, but on something older and more personal.

I find that structure a little scary.
Humans who should understand the rules and know the long-term effects still lose to the one in front of them.
No, perhaps even the word "lose" is not accurate.
It is just that the part designed to react before reason is already present on the human side from the beginning.
Cats are not intentionally poking at that.
Rather, their way of living naturally as cats results in touching that part.

Dogs adapted to society.
Cats hacked humans.
This contrast is not meant to imply a difference between obedience and capriciousness.
Dogs survived by learning human rules, and cats survived by touching human fragility.
I want to call that difference in paths by those names.

However, just because I think that way, it does not mean I want to see even Pee-chan, who sometimes bares his fangs in my room, only as part of the "cat system."
He is who he is, sleeping, eating, being affectionate, rejecting, and living capriciously in front of me.
I still want to respect that helplessly concrete individual as an "individual cat."
No matter how much I think about it, what transcends logic in the end is the concreteness of him as an individual.