>>63920901>humans are hardwired to see things like puppies with a similar level of affection and compassion as we see childrenIt's sort of the other way around, we sculpted puppies to resemble children so as to elicit the affection and compassion we feel for them.
Not that it changes anything.
>If you tell me casually you used to torture puppies as kidIt's certainly a sign that they can't be trusted with power or custody of other lifeforms, even their own offspring are unlikely to be safe.
>China's monstrous obsession with dog and cat tortureYou'd be surprised, animal welfare groups are very active in China and very large. For patrol cop beating a dog to death because it didn't have a tag (or they couldn't catch it to identify it), there's a protest outside a station and/or city hall demanding the cop be fired (if the protest reaches the internet and can't be easily censored, this will succeed, there's an unofficial like&share quota that gets the subject of the video fired in China but the author potentially deplatformed and under house arrest).
>>63920908>in the country most kids tend to be at least respectful of animalsEh, there's wide variation on that.
Some farm kids have a certain (callous) respect for animals, others enjoy and indulge in the power they have over them. It's the same root personalities as any other group of humans, you're just seeing how the quirks play out in different environments.
You probably see less inter-human conflict in the countryside because the neighbours are a long way off, there aren't kids riding down your street that you can challenge for being on your turf. There are some animals in the pen that you're going to get beaten if they aren't fed though, you can mess with them as much as you like so long as it doesn't show.