[retox]

As a thought experiment, imagine if this mutually beneficial behaviour went on for hundreds/thousands of years to the point that the animals lost their insincts for hunting/finding food independently. It would be a disaster if suddently humans changed the conditions of the relationship by, for example, outlawing cigarettes in favour of vaping.

Does anyone know of any real-world examples of this happening? The only ones I can think of are the domestication of cats, dogs and pigs, but left to their own devices those animals revert to their natural behaviour fairly quickly.

Edit:

I found this quote unbelievable; "Cigarettes are the most littered item on earth. Worldwide about 4.5 trillion cigarettes are littered each year." That's 650 for every person on the planet.

[tzahola]

Except for pugs. They can barely breath without surgical help from humans. They also frequently lose their eyes due to recurring infections, because their eyes are too big for their eyesockets.

But they are cuuuuuuute :3

[darkstar999]

> I found this quote unbelievable

4.5 trillion does sound like a lot.

One source said there were 5.8 trillion cigarettes smoked globally in 2014. There's no way most of those get littered.... right?

[dragonwriter]

> One source said there were 5.8 trillion cigarettes smoked globally in 2014. There's no way most of those get littered.... right?

Given my observation of people's smoking habits and the locations (or, mostly, not) of public facilities for the disposal of cigarettes, I'd say it's quite plausible that most got literates but only between 1/5 - 1/4 were smoked in a place where there was convenient access for disposal by someone who cared to use it.

[barrkel]

Consider our cells; they revert to their natural behaviour of reproducing without limit, in the form of cancer, despite 100s of millions of years of evolution.