Cats indoors or outdoors?

• Do you think that cats should be indoors?
• Yes, outside cats are likely to die in a couple of years. Unless you want them to die.
• Nonsense. Here in Britain, most cats (except for pure bred fancy cats) spend a good chunk of their lives outside, and most of them live to a ripe old age too. That is also true of the majority of domesticated cats worldwide, and has been so for thousands of years.
• I understand that in the USA it's considered the done thing to keep a cat cooped up indoors 24/7, and even to rip out all of his knuckles so he doesn't damage your nice new curtains, but fortunately most European countries have animal cruelty laws which prevent that sort of thing.
• It is mostly the responsible thing to keep a cat indoors unless supervised (you can actually walk a cat); it prevents a host of infections, diseases and injuries to the cat as well as a host of little kittens if the cat isn't neutered. I'll find a proper source, but I do remember reading somewhere that the average life expectancy of a feral colony cat is about 3-4 years. And please, to anon 217, please remember to be civil.
• A feral cat is a very different thing from a cat that spends some or all of it's life outdoors but has regular contact with a person who provides it with food and water, manages the flea situation and takes it to a vet both for checkups and if they notice any problems.
  
• any a pet cat have died an early death going outside. Also, I suspected that the questioner was a kid, so I wished to convey a simple message. Pet cats kill millions of birds (I saw an estimate of 50 million a year in Britain) even though they are well fed, which is another reason to keep them indoors. Finally, pet/feral cats are driving the other Wildcat subspecies extinct by competion and interbreeding, so the responsible thing to do is not let your cat outside.
• Many a pet cat have died an early death staying inside. What are you going to do about that?
• Far more cats have died an early age roaming outside unsupervised than living inside. What I'd like to understand is why it is considered the responsible thing not to let a dog out without some supervision (for its own safety), but so many people still consider it's fine doing it with a cat? I guess this is just another mystery of life.
• or one, unsupervised dogs can be lethally dangerous. As for the dogs intelligence...
• Granted, cats are less likely to be lethally dangerous, but you can still get attacked by a cat, just as you could get attacked by a dog (although the damage is not likely to be as severe, and it would be a minority of either species who would be likely to attack. Not sure what the comparative intelligence of cats and dogs has to do with any of this.