... which isn't news to me.

For a time it seemed that everybody wanted to shit on animals as being way inferior to humans in every way, including lacking empathy emotion feelings and stuff.

But that was always wrong. Who has ever worked with animals be it horses dogs or farm animals knows they have a soul. Well, but also a lot of them are just evil bastards.

Rats live like 2 years.

In two years, they learn how to be better to each other than a large part of the human race.

Rats can eat chocolate?

have you considered that no longer hearing cries of healp is reason enough

Calling them "bastards" is completely uncalled for

Empathy over natural selection ftw.

now make the rats comprehend fascism.

Would be an interesting study if that was possible.

If a rat has a better developed sense of empathy than you do, then you've probably made some seriously awful life choices somewhere along the line.

Rats together strong

On the other hand, they willingly live in sewers and their sense of smell is stronger than ours.

I'm curious if the rat would bother to let the other rat out if it's not confined to an enclosure with the caged rat. If the rat can just run off and ignore the cries for help, will it still help? That would be much more impressive.

Which is why rats never built empires and conquered the world