News from the Natural World: Lion achieves sentience and things don’t quite go according to plan
Lilly the Lion was just your typical Lion. Your typical massive cat from the genus Panthera, in her case from Namibia. Lilly had a muscular, deep-chested body, short, rounded head, round ears, and a hairy tuft at the end of her tail. Being sexually dimorphic; she was smaller than the male lions and lived in a large group. This group, or pride, ranged up to 30 lions, depending on how much food and water was available. In Lion society, female lions are the main hunters and Lilly was no different. She was formidable and was renowned for slaughtering Gazelles and eating them alive. She’d gorge on their stomachs ripping them open and eating them from the inside out. In addition, she would deliberately seek out the young and newborn which made particularly easy targets. The more it mewled and wriggled the better.
Lion Achieves Sentience then Commits Suicide
But one morning Lilly woke up and everything felt a bit different. Her mind was slightly clearer. She was starting to worry about things she had never worried about before. It felt really bizarre and strange. She felt anxious about finding her purpose in life. In addition, she was compelled to find something called Amazon and endlessly purchase things on it. She had no idea what any of these things were but she was sure of one thing, her world felt like it had turned upside down. Somehow Lilly’s mind had evolved overnight and she had developed human-level intelligence.
That day the pride set out and happened upon a herd of Gazelle. The rest of the Lions set off and caught one, bringing it down in a flurry of teeth and guts. Lilly watched on horrified. This time she felt every scream as the Gazelle begged for its life. She felt different, this didn’t feel good at all. It suddenly dawned on Lilly that every Gazelle she had ever killed felt this way, that it cried in pain. She felt horrified. What had she done? All that pain and suffering. She couldn’t take it anymore so she took herself to the nearest cliff and hurled herself off.