Another animal-related realization: animals training animals, and training templated intelligence

I sent this to a Boston-based viber group, and SBK questioned my mental acuity, and in all honesty I was a little non-sober but the realization I've had when sober too.

So apparently the big problem with ethical animal farming (particularly for non-meat uses, meat-farming would be problematic because of the implications of the following) is that you have to train the animals individually and it cannot scale up in an economic manner. If you could have trained cows train other cows to go to the milking station, you could trust them to be 'free'. If goats could work as 'almost' employees training other goats, there would be a lot fewer goats lost to wild animals, sickness, accidents.

If you could get your herd animals to go somewhere when they don't feel good, you've already gotten several days of head time with illness prevention and care, not to mention an amazing opportunity to catch and nip animal epidemics in the bud.

Think about it, if you can tell dogs to poop at a certain place at a certain time (aka go to a certain place when they feel like pooping, why can't you train them to 'go to a hospital' (aka go to a certain place when they feel hurt?)

PL joked, what if you could train animals to do their own stuff. Like what if you trained Tigers to not bother your pack animals and attack and kill them, but rear their own goats in the forest and eat them. The conclusion was that Tigers would need to learn agriculture...which complicates matter a bit. Still, something worth considering.