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Writer's pictureJames Teacher

What if cats became as clever as us?

Cats can catch rats




It rhymes, which is always a great way to make life seem a bit more engrossing and compelling. Cats are, in essence, the ultimate predators. They possess retractable claws (like Wolverine) and can leap 6 times their own height (like a 180cm person leaping 6*180=10.8 metres - like jumping onto the roof of a 3 floor house). They are basically superheroes and we haven’t even mentioned the fact that they share 95.6% of their DNA with tigers. A cat, for all intents and purposes, is just a mini tiger roaming around the house. Although, everyone has some deficiency. Cats can’t see 2 inches in front of their face, hence they have whiskers to feel and sense it instead. Don’t shave a cat’s whiskers or you’ll blind the poor thing!


“Human, fetch me a grape.”



You rush to the kitchen and fetch a grape. You bring it back on a tiny, gold-leafed plate with the face of a cat on it, painted delicately by YOU. Your cat slaps it out of your hand, eyes burning in rage! “Grapes are toxic to dogs and cats, you fool! Now, stand still while I clobber you 7 more times.” The cat whacks you 7 times with one more for good luck. Cats , like all living things, aim to survive and live on. Everything a cat has evolved to do allows it to do that successfully. Cats, like dogs, have incredible senses of smell and are able to sniff 0ut harmful toxins and poisons, and avoid eating anything deadly (which sounds brilliant, but dogs eat chocolate all the time - daft dogs!). You, human, are a cradle to keep your cat alive and so it modifies its behaviour to co-exist. However, a fundamental difference between cats and dogs is that dogs are almost entirely dependent on humans and pugs are rubbish hunters. Even an ordinary house cat could be let out and fill its stomach with birds and mice, such is its innate predatorial skill.


It’s getting out of hand


Cats are already intelligent enough to understand that humans can proffer a reliable food source, let them scratch sofas, and even give them a special box to poop in. If they become more discerning, they may start to question this. They may decide that they are so over giving all of that affection just to get a reward (yes - our pets manipulate us into feeding them). They usurp you and take over your job. If every cat in the world - about 400 million cats - evolved in unison to our intelligence, they could unilaterally decide to replace us, or at the very least, decide to secede and form their own country. Catland could be a rough kind of place. Cats, though intelligent now, would still possess a lot of feline instincts to have, hold, and fight for their own territory. They would most likely start to build fortifications, grand catish castles where grand clans of cats would begin to become political groups. Eventually- catocracy would emerge and a leader, or series of leaders because cats naturally fight to be the alpha, would emerge.


United Nations



These intelligent and politically minded cats would need to be invited to join the United Nations and take a hand at discussing and solving the world’s problems. Would they be in favour of green energy? Would they only think about expanding their territory and defending it? Would these crepuscular (active at dawn and dusk) hunters begin to encroach on the lands of other’s? Or, would they just stay home, cuddle with their owners, and keep being treated like queens and kings?

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