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"Pets Fiction"
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This moose belongs to me
A young boy learns that moose do not always follow the rules of proper pet behavior.
Book
The Metaverse’s Thirtieth Anniversary: From a Science-Fictional Concept to the “Connect Wallet” Prompt
The metaverse is equivocal. It is a science-fictional concept from the past; it is the present’s rough implementations; and it is the Promised Cyberland, expected to manifest some time in the future. The metaverse first emerged as a techno-capitalist network in a 1992 science fiction novel by Neal Stephenson. Our article thus marks the metaverse’s thirtieth anniversary. We revisit Stephenson’s original concept plus three sophisticated antecedents from 1972 to 1984: Jean Baudrillard’s simulation, Sherry Turkle’s networked identities, and Jacques Lacan’s schema of suggestible consumers hooked up to a Matrix-like capitalist network. We gauge the relevance of these three antecedents following Meta’s recent promise to deliver a metaverse for the mainstream and the emergence of blockchain-oriented metaverse projects. We examine empirical data from 2021 and 2022, sourced from journalistic and social media (BuzzSumo, Google Trends, Reddit, and Twitter) as well as the United States Patent and Trademark Office. This latest chapter of the metaverse’s convoluted history reveals a focus not on virtual reality goggles but rather on techno-capitalist notions like digital wallets, crypto-assets, and targeted advertisements. The metaverse’s wallet-holders collect status symbols like limited-edition profile pictures, fashion items for avatars, tradable pets and companions, and real estate. Motivated by the metaverse’s sophisticated antecedents and our empirical findings, we propose a subtle conceptual re-orientation that respects the metaverse’s equivocal nature and rejects sanitised solutionism. Do not let the phantasmagorical goggles distract you too much: Big Meta is watching you, and it expects you to become a wallet-holder. Blockchain proponents want this as well.
Journal Article
Prudence wants a pet
Prudence wants a pet so much that she adopts a branch, a twig, a tire, and even a shoe named Formal Footwear, but none is a suitable pet for Prudence.
Book
Alma's way. Season 2, episode 11, Alma the B-Girl/Happy Chacho Day!
Junior is learning a new dance move from Remy at Kids' Club. When Alma decides to join in on the dancing, Junior gets frustrated, because Alma keeps distracting him from learning the new steps. And while celebrating Papi's birthday, Alma realizes that they've never celebrated Chacho's birthday because they don't know what day he was born. Alma is determined to pick a special day just for Chacho.
Streaming Video
Eating E.T.: Carnism and speciesism
This article takes as its motivation an event in which a plant-based version of the space alien, the Extra-Terrestrial ('E.T.'), from the science fiction film bearing its name, was barbecued and served as a meal to participants at a conference. The soy dish produced different reactions: some laughed, while others seemed appalled. These different sentiments provide the basis for a broad green cultural criminology analysis of the traditions of meat-eating, tracing its role in human history and in the barbecue. The purpose of this is to explore why humans treat different categories of animals so differently. To understand the reactions the meal produced, the article addresses two contrasting aspects of the human-non-human animal relationship-'carnism' and 'pet-keeping'-and contemplates these in relation to the reactions to eating E.T. The goal is to expand on the study of the human -animal relationship, particularly speciesism-understood as ideology and practice that legitimise and produce animal abuse through the analytical concept 'categorical discriminatory speciesism'.
Journal Article
It's time for bubble puppy!
Gil sees a puppy and wants to adopt it. In class Mr. Grouper, the teacher, talks to his students about the responsibilies of being a pet owner. Gil is disappointed when he returns and all the puppies have been adopted. So why is he given a bowl and a leash?
Book
Literary Fiction Influences Attitudes Toward Animal Welfare
Literary fiction has been credited with considerable power to improve attitudes toward outgroups. It was even argued that it has been an important factor behind the global decline of violence against various minorities in the last centuries. Could it also help to reduce the human-inflicted suffering of animals? To test this, we studied the attitude toward animal welfare of n = 921 (experimental group) people of both sexes who read a short fragment of an unpublished novel with a motif of the physical abuse of an animal. The control group (n = 912) read a fragment of a similar length but not related to animals. After reading the text all subjects filled out an on-line questionnaire with seven items (camouflaged among many others items) measuring attitudes toward animal welfare. The questionnaire included also demographical questions, such as whether the subject keeps pets. We found that in comparison with the control group, the experimental group was significantly more concerned about animal welfare. This result indicates that literary fiction can influence attitudes toward other species. It is also worth noting that our study is characterized by a high level of ecological validity, i.e. a relatively high extent to which its results can be generalized (or extended) to real-world settings. Due to its specific design, which involved the cooperation of a bestselling author and his publisher, the study approximated the typical conditions in which people read fiction in a remarkably accurate way. Finally, our research has potential practical implications for promoting animal welfare.
Journal Article
The mysterious tadpole
It soon becomes clear that Louis's pet tadpole is not turning into an ordinary frog.
Book
NEW TECH, OLD PROBLEM: THE RISE OF VIRTUAL RENT-TO-OWN AGREEMENTS
This Article explores how fintech has disrupted the traditional rent-to-own (RTO) industry, giving rise to new, virtual RTO agreements (VirTOs). These VirTOs have enabled the RTO industry to expand into the service industry and to markets for products not traditionally associated with rentals, such as vehicle repairs, pet ownership, and medical devices. This Article analyzes this development. RTO agreements purport to rent products to a consumer until the conclusion of a set number of renewable rental payments, at which point ownership transfers. The fundamental characteristic of these agreements-and the reason why they are not regulated as loans-is that the consumer is able to terminate the rental agreement without penalty at any time by returning the merchandise to the rental company. RTO agreements are an extremely high-cost form of financing that were traditionally offered through brick-and-mortar stores, like Aaron's or Rent-A-Center, to low-income, subprime consumers who could not obtain traditional credit. The introduction of fintech, however, has shifted the RTO business model from traditional one-stop-shop, brick-and-mortar stores to partnerships between VirTO companies and retailers. As this Article explains, these new VirTOs have different attributes from traditional RTO agreements. In a VirTO, a third-party VirTO provider purchases the desired product from a brick-and-mortar retailer and then rents the product back to the consumer. The entire transaction between the retailer and VirTO company occurs online and unbeknownst to the consumer. This business model has allowed VirTOs to emerge in a variety of specialized markets and services. Not only are these agreements a high-cost method to ownership, but consumers often do not understand the agreements. Although VirTOs purport to be rentals, it is nearly impossible for a consumer to return a rental financed with a VirTO. Because the items rented with VirTOs are not practical to return, this Article argues that VirTOs are not, in fact, RTO agreements. Instead, VirTOs are a sophisticated form of disguised credit. This Article demonstrates that the VirTO industry is a legal fiction designed to avoid consumer protection statutes governing credit. Accordingly, courts should treat VirTOs as credit subject to state usury and federal consumer protection laws. This Article also proposes a series of policy recommendations to regulate VirTOs and to ban such agreements for services and nonsensical products, like vehicle repairs and pets. The policy solutions proposed in this Article provide a model for potential strategies to protect low-income and subprime consumers from the most extreme abuses as fringe financing industries grapple with the introduction of fintech.
Journal Article