Plato’s Allegory of the Bowl
Side note and friendly reminders: fishes generally need a lot of living space, and a bowl like this would be torture for one fish, let alone three.
Just like hamsters, birds, and basically most pet, you generally will need a much bigger living area than you assume they need. (Hamster cages that are a good 20cm x 20cm? The very bare minimum is 1m x 50cm x 50cm. Yes, the bare minimum.)
Especially goldfish, which are in the carp family and honestly theres a good case to be made theyre really pond fish more than fish-tank fish.
The only reason they stay so small in captivity is because they produce a hormone that stunts growth- this is supposed to give them a competive advantage over other goldfish, and help the collective population survive if they’re in a small body of water where resources are limited. This can and does happen in nature, but a bowl or even moderately sized tank takes that to a pretty significant extreme compared to what “limited space and resources” might look like in a sectioned off area of even a small pond
If we’re taking care of animals and accepting responsibility for their wellbeing I think its fair to say we really ought to provide them with reasonable conditions and not just saddle them with less than that because they are hardy enough to survive those suboptimal conditions
Just realized I’m posting from my alt lol, I may not see replies for a bit
Absolutely. I think many people would actually be surprised at how big regular old goldfish can get in a pond with adequate space, food, and water quality.
On top of being in the carp family, they can actually produce hybrid offspring with carp (koi), though I think those offspring are sterile.
Source: have koi pond. Have given away dozens of chonky goldfish to other pond people.
TIL, I always wondered that about goldfish
Flat bowl. The mug landing was fake.
Brand new sentences.
Sometimes I think about the fact that to the bacteria in my stomach, my other organ systems are essentially other galaxies. And then it leaves me wondering whether we are just critters living inside something’s belly with no idea what the context is.
people have argued that society at large behaves like a huge organism since at least antiquity. it’s even stereotypical of hippie groups to say “the whole world is alive, we’re just tiny cells inside it”. i think that people do have that concept quite well-spread. it’s more modern society where this has been suppressed in favor of “rugged individualism” etc.
for an example, see the Blind men and an elephant. the world is like the elephant: a huge organism. by only inspecting a small local part of it, we are led to believe that “the world” is either a trunk, a leg, a tusk, etc. meanwhile the world is not only all of these parts, but more importantly a huge organism that connects all of these parts into an organized whole.
Beyound our event horizon, like, planets being atoms? Unlikely.
In our event horizon? No.
“Okay, but why did you need a telescope?”
“If I don’t use up the budget for the fiscal year, it’ll get reduced next year.”
I don’t know shit about this, but some quick searching says that an air bubble would work better than glass as a lens underwater. The difference in refractive index is what creates the magnification effect:
Air: 1
Water: 1.3325
Glass: 1.52 (clear soda lime glass)
So .19 difference between water/glass, and .33 difference between air/water, making air/water the better magnifier.
but glass is a solid object which means you will have a more constant refraction.
They don’t usually use that kinda glass as a lens for those purposes.
That said, I wonder what material lens would be better in water.
