She’s a Siamese chocolate point. In Siamese cats, there is a mutation for the genes of an enzyme (Tyrosinase) that inhibits the production of melanin above a certain temperature. Where the body temperature is lower (extremities, airways), that enzyme is deactivated and melanin is produced, allowing the fur to darken.

Siamese kitten are born completely white, as their temperature is kept high everywhere in the womb, and rapidly start to color after birth.

Yes and no. For one, many vegetarians and vegans would agree, so on some level, sure, that’s a very defensible opinion. Secondly, North American sensibilities would call it a moral tragedy to sell cat or dog parts, so at some point we have to accept that what is and isn’t okay to kill and consume is a question of cultural bias as opposed to moral truth.

Lastly, you can accept the state of the food chain without holding the belief that those at the top of it are “better” or “worth more”. I don’t eat beef because I am, in some universal truth way, worth more than a cow. I eat beef because I accept that in the chaos of existence, this is where the chips fell. I do not feel a sense of superiority for being able to do so. If you’re going to get really strict about it, I’d define “murder” as the act of killing for the sake of killing, and say that killing for consumption and in some cases survival is different. But even then, I recognize that this is bias. If you want to call murder the act of taking a life, I’ve murdered a lot in my life, and I don’t intend on stopping any time soon. Mosquitos won’t squish themselves.

The question of intellect and understanding and the weight of these qualities in the value of a life is a dangerous road to wander down, so I like to keep in perspective that we’re all meaningless specks in the grand scheme of the universe. Otherwise, the questions get even more challenging: to say a truly reprehensible thing, what happens when we replace the human or the animal in question with an exceptionally low functioning human being? Do we now say their life has little value because they can’t contribute to society, they can’t understand the state of their own existence, and in many cases they’re not even capable of verbal communication? Does it become okay to choose to let them die, as in the original question? Are they suddenly fit for consumption as cattle? Or does the responsibility fall on the more capable to protect them?

Appraising and tiering life is an incredibly dangerous road to go down. You can choose any example of historical racism to see just how dangerous it gets. Life is life, and the strange differences between what’s “okay” and what’s not is luck more than anything else. Even as I consume a steak while my dog begs for the scraps, I believe it’s important to keep an understanding of how we got here, else hubris allows us to justify basically any atrocity.

Question: why does my life has more value than my cats? We both think, we both feel. We both have people who love us.

Is mine more valuable because I have a longer lifespan? Are children with terminal cancer less valuable?

Is mine worth more because I’m self aware? I’m pretty sure some cats have shown self awareness with the mirror test.

Sure, I may be smarter. But, does that make me intrinsically more valuable? Why?

I feel like the idea that an animal life is worth less than a human life is demonstrably true at a societal level though, right?

Society will make all sorts of fucked up (and some not-so-fucked up) decisions about what’s acceptable and what’s not, “true” is not the right word here.

Like, we don’t sell human parts at a grocery store to eat, and I feel like people would call it a moral tragedy if we did.

Selling cat parts would be seen as a moral tragedy too, at least in my society.

If an animals life is equivalent to a humans, then meat is in fact murder, no?

Life eats life, an organism that kills for biological need isn’t a murderer (though our diet + modern factory farming system arguably is). Killing a conscious being of any species unnecessarily can be considered murder I’d say. If there was an animal that (still existed anyways) evolved to eat humans, it would not be murder for it to eat.

Ultimately, humans are not inherently more entitled to anything, including life, more than any other species, though society is likely to disagree.

I’d choose

1 - cat

2 - human cat

3 - because the fallout from the human death will be more than from the cat, and could itself include a pet death or cat in a cage for years (people tend to not care much about a deceased person’s cat).

3 - I’m changing my answer after reading a few others. They’re right, I am responsible for my cats, they are my family and I promised to care for them.

Well, to play devil’s advocate - and species eating it’s own on the regular would be a failure - but much more so for one whose primary strength is working together.

Not OP, but how I know someone so despicable:

He was 30 when he raped my 13 year old best friend and when he got out of prison, continued dating her piece of shit mom instead of fucking off. I’d sooner throw him into a burning building than save him from one.

They are not in special “circles” - they are unfortunately distributed through society. You’ve probably met a couple without realizing.

The only ways of knowing who they are is if you are either told about them by their victims, or are victimized yourself; or if they are convicted of their crimes.

true