I live in Seattle where the local highly progressive animal-centric culture is probably the vanguard of what this article is talking about. I think about it all the time.
I believe there are a few things leading many people to choose pets instead of children to fulfill their desire to nurture:
1. The trauma theory of psychology.
Pop psychology today seems to assume that babies are born perfectly mentally healthy, except for any genetic mental illnesses they inherited from their parents. Then at some point, if they're unlucky, they experience some sort of trauma, often at the hands of their parents. That trauma inflicts a mental illness on them. They can treat it with therapy and/or meds, but the assumption is that the illness is irrevocable. (Don't believe me? The next time you're talking to a friend and they bring up therapy or mental health medication, ask them when they think they'll be cured and can stop.)
The implication here is that as a parent, you've got basically nowhere to go but down with regards to your kid's mental health. If you are yourself perfectly mentally healthy and pass on no predispositions to your kid, and you parent them flawlessly 24/7 for eighteen years and dodge every possible trauma, then congrats you didn't fuck them up. Anything less than that and you're a bad parent. Which leads to...
2. Impossible parenting standards.
Media is constantly filled with all of the various ways a parent can do a bad job. Start the car moving down the driveway before they have their seatbelt on? Bad parent. Let them walk to the park on their own and risk being abducted? Bad parent. Give them access to junk food? Bad parent. Don't put them in enough extracurricular activities to pad their college application letter a decade from now? Bad parent. Too many extracurricular activities so they don't have enough free time in which to learn initiative? Bad parent.
It is unending and demoralizing the ways in which parents are made to constantly feel they are inadequate. When I was a kid, if another kid fell playing and broke their arm, it was just "OK, kids get hurt." Today, it's "Why did you let them do that?" Parents have never spent more time with their children than they do today, but our culture still tells us it's not enough. Or, if it does, they tell us it's too much.
Mix that with the previous point, and having a kid with any mental health challenges is not just a tragedy but your fault as a parent.
3. Long-term pessimism.
I know many people who truly do believe the world is fucked because of climate change and politics. Not only do they not believe any potential children of theirs would be raised in a world worse than they one they grew up in, they don't even have faith that world will be functionally habitable at all.
Best case, they believe their children may thrive only because they happen to be born into privilege while other children in poorer locations will suffer catastrophically from climate change. So the best outcome they can imagine is a profound failing of moral justice.
Meanwhile, consider pets:
1. Rescued from trauma.
Most pet owners get their pets from shelters. The animal may actually have had trauma before being adopted, but the owner wasn't morally responsible. Instead, they are the rescuer that saved the animal from further trauma. If the animal bounces back and has great behavior, then it's a testament to the amazing resilence of animals and the benefits of compassionate ownership. If the animal always has behavioral issues, well it's not their fault they were traumatized and what a good owner they have to take care of them in spite of those challenges.
2. High but meetable standards
Standards for pet ownership are certainly high here too. Long gone are the days of putting the dog in a doghouse in the backyard and giving them a scoop out of the giant cheap bag of Alpo every day. Pets are expected to be fed healthy food, kept inside and safe, given good vet care, and lots of interaction and enrichment.
Those standards are high but attainable. You can just do those things and feel like a good pet owner. And the pet will certainly make you feel like a good pet owner. Their expectations are low and it's easy to exceed them.
3. Shorter life span
If you believe the world is doomed, then a living being that will never outlive you and have to figure out how to make its without your support is a blessing. You don't have to feel guilty about the fact that in a thousand tiny ways, you contributed to climate change that will end up harming a loved one decades from now.
GP's comment is extremely eloquent, and for me too expresses exactly how I feel. If you look at the profile, it's Bob Nystrom, writer of HN favourites Game Programming Patterns and Crafting Interpreters, so it makes sense that he knows how to write well. Still, I'm pretty much amazed at how he was able to express himself in such a clear, empathetic, and yet no-BS way. I'd love to become so clear; even this awkwardly-phrased comment took me ten minutes.
I don't think there's any secret to writing well beyond:
1. Write a whole lot.
2. Reflect on the writing and iterate.
Probably the most helpful thing that's taught me to write better (without intending it to be that way) is spending years and years on Reddit and HN, writing thousands of comments. Seeing which ones resonate with people and how is an effective training ground for getting better at making sentences that work.
It's kind of weird how politically charged dog ownership has become seemingly out of nowhere.
I love dogs, I had dogs as a kid, I have a dog now. I don't, nor have I ever thought my dog is a replacement for children. My dog doesn't hold me back from forming human relationships. Yet there is this weird online value judgement (never actually seen it IRL) that owning a dog is somehow a betrayal of the human race.
> It's kind of weird how politically charged dog ownership has become seemingly out of nowhere.
I've noticed this too. I try not to use Reddit very much, if at all, but when I do this sentiment is one that sticks out now. It's not everywhere, but you can certainly find an undercurrent of anti-dog, "downfall of western civilization," "Children of Men was so prescient" sentiment in the comments of some posts featuring dogs that make it to r/all.
There were many factors that went into my wife and I deciding not to have kids, but dogs being a replacement for children was not one of them. We made that decision years before we got our first dog.
Humans have always had pets but they were less of a 'lifestyle' in the past.
There is a ton of money and investment in the pet industrial complex now, pets are aspirational, pets are marketted as part of your personality, pets get thier own social media, famous pets have merch lines.
I did a lengthy paid survey a few years back that was sponsored by a VC owned pet supply company in my country. All the questions were to non pet owners, or former reluctant non owners and was aimed at getting data on how much pet ownership improved your life. I have seen the results of this survey paraphased and published in every single major news outlet in my country ('science says pet good!'). Pets are consumption, companies run PR campaigns to promote consumption of their product.
I think the politicisation has come because you can't now criticise the pet or having of pets without it being seen as an attack on the owners whole lifestyle and personal image, for those who have become dog dads/dog mums. But for people who do take a position against it, they have to be willing to make that attack on someone's image to get their point across.
I dont want pets, I think a not insignificant # of people have them for the wrong reasons (like the above comment on trauma rescuing), I think over consumption of pet at a macro level is bad, but I like all the individual dogs and cats I know in my life.
Because the internet has deformed our fucking brains. Basically everyone is walking around in a state of chronic narcolepsy and we repeat everything we fucking hear online. We are being psyop'd by big tech into being angrier, and therefore easier to control.
Delete all social media, and, if you can, choose to have absolutely no dealings with the big tech industry
Not really weird. In the USA pretty much anything that is split along the lines of urban/rural, liberal/conservative, coastal/inland etc. is immediately political.
Yeah I guess you're right. I live in the country and almost everybody has a dog. I never thought something as benign as pet ownership would get absorbed into the internet discourse but here we are.
I don't think the kind of dog ownership you're talking about is the same as the one in the article.
It's about dogs as a replacement for children which anecdotally I have definitely seen happening. I've met more than one married couple who are proud about not wanting kids but own a dog and treat it to an absurd degree like one would treat a toddler including but not limited to talking to / about it like one would to their child (imagine the kind of coworker who loves to talk your ear off to you about every single little detail of their child's life, complete with photos, but with a dog), cooking for and feeding it like a child (not just putting a dog bowl out on the floor), hiring babysitters when they go out, taking it to daycare centers for dogs, planning activities for/around it, doting on it like a child (dressing it up, carting it around in a baby stroller on walks) etc. etc.
It's a world of a difference from simply owning and taking care of a dog. It's a perpetual simulation of human childcare projected onto a dog that never "grows up" and without all the struggles and ugly situations that might happen with a real toddler ie tantrums.
I 100% don't think dogs should be allowed in grocery stores or restaurants or frankly most businesses outside of pet stores.
> I've met more than one married couple who are proud about not wanting kids but own a dog and treat it to an absurd degree like one would treat a toddler.
My first reaction to this kind of comment is "mind your own business." People are way too up in other peoples personal affairs these days. I'm not saying this to you specifically, you were just clarifying the discussion, but in general.
On a personal level? Sure, I don't think anyone should be calling out, naming and shaming, or drawing attention to abnormal behavior that specific individuals have. Nobody should target a real human being doing something weird but otherwise harmless to others with the intention of causing them distress.
But on a societal level I think it's absolutely okay to look around and say, "Hey, have you noticed the <insert something out of the ordinary> behavior that's starting to happen? What's causing that? How did it become normalized? Is that something we should readily accept?"
Such cases can absolutely be symptoms of larger societal problems and we shouldn't brush them away without examining them first.
I think you are right, and it would be wonderful if people could mind their own business more.
I can't speak for the original commentator, but my own experience is one of trying to mind my own business and having this experience thrust upon me by people who are very excited about their pets.
I guess I'd like people to keep their pets to themselves the way I keep my kids to myself: if someone asks I'm generally happy to talk about them, otherwise I don't volunteer information.
Even though I think having pets satisfies in many ways that having children would, but with far less work and a lot less liability, I don't think this can be divided along the political lines that you suggested.
Urban / rural people like to keep dogs.
Poor / rich people like keeping dogs.
Liberal / conservative people like keeping dogs.
Young / old people like keeping dogs.
My spin, dogs, as an example pet, are a good way to practice empathy. It doesn't always translate, but if you can be loving and empathetic to a dog, you can surely began to be that way to humans.
we have a good relationship with the children we raised, along with their children. Our dog, however, is always with us and it just feels good to watch after her. We don't consider her a child, just a very good, non-verbal friend.
I would not necessarily call that friendship as your dog depends on you for its survival and is at your mercy. You are the one who defines the terms of the relationship. A friendship involves two individuals who are equally empowered to develop the friendship. A dog-human bond not so much. My two cents
I would not presume to define the parameters of friendship for others, as it can vary wildly between people and even between a given person’s friendships.
There is certainly an imbalance between dog and human authority/autonomy/agency, but that is not the only dynamic in the relationship. And it’s not necessarily the defining dynamic, nor is it consistently applicable.
If my attitude toward my dog is that she depends on my mercy to survive, then I am a monster with no feelings or morality. (Yes, I am responsible for her well being as a responsible owner, and rightfully so.)
Whether she understands how we feel about her isn't the point or the definition. She seems happy and doesn't live in any kind of fear, and that makes all the difference to us. Anything else is just picking fly scat out of pepper.
Your dad may have been your best friend, but that doesn't mean you were your dad's best friend.
The parent-child relationship is asymmetric in ways that are often not as visible to the child as they are a parent. There's a reason why for generations, parents have been responding to their childrens' arguments with "when you're a parent, you'll understand".
My wife and I got a puppy before we had kids and I will say it was an interesting "taste of things to come." Of course it's only superficially comparable, but the puppy experience definitely gave me practice in staying calm while sleep deprived and stressed.
Better quit eating food and drinking water, too - wouldn't want to associate yourself with Hitler and Putin, both famously known to regularly eat food and drink water.
You seem to be wrongly implying that I'm insinuating that loving dogs is correlated with being a ruthless killer.
My comment was another counter example to the GP's statement: "if you can be loving and empathetic to a dog, you can surely began to be that way to humans."
So the point is loving dogs doesn't necessarily correlate with being loving towards humans. That doesn't say anything about what loving dogs does correlate with.
That's very different from what you seem to be implying.
This a terrific deep-dive into pet parenting and its rewards, motivations, and risks for both the human and the dog.
As a lifelong rescuer of pit bulls and other "problem" dogs, I can see how that role I've picked for myself aligns and contrasts with how others view human-dog relationships.
I had a dog for decades (not the same).
The trend of dog craziness of some people in the last 5-10 years belongs to a specific psychiatric situation (depression, personality disorder, OCD?). On the other side many, mostly childless, women feel some kind of loneliness and adopt a dog. The dynamics of pet love has many paths.
>On the other side many, mostly childless, women feel some kind of loneliness and adopt a dog.
Back in "the day" these people would get into crappy marriages and pop out a few kids before ultimately getting divorced or just be single moms. While it's nice that they're not doing that I think the more interesting angle is the picture of how the economic reality has changed over the generations.
The most amazing thing to me, is how human pet "parents" ignore the fact that the dog has an actual parent, and the puppy is stolen off of it's actual mother's suckling tit, and handed to a human while it's still an infant, so that it bonds with the human, not it's actual mother.
As in many things, most people are willing to ignore any aspect that is not what's in their face, and appealing to them.
There are many other aspects to the thoughtless use of other animals to assuage a human's mental illness.
One of the main ones is projection: the animal can't speak, or otherwise precisely express themselves. Into this silence, the human is able to inject whatever narrative they desire. This leads to people claiming that the animal is much more responsive to their needs, and provides greater solace than another human. This solace is purely in the mind of the beholder. No one knows what the dog is thinking, therefore it's thinking exactly what we want it to think.
Another aspect of the entire pet issue, that I haven't seen otherwise mentioned in the comments, is the disruption to the public peace caused by many dogs. I have seen a couple of comments about dog shit, which is a major problem, but noise is also a significant issue.
Both of these are primarily the fault of negligent owners, which are the overwhelming majority of modern US pet owners.
> the puppy is stolen off of it's actual mother's suckling tit,
Puppies wean from around 3-8 weeks and aren't adopted until 8-10 weeks, well after they are weaned. This is obviously true because when people adopt puppies, they aren't feeding them milk replacement out of a bottle. The puppy is eating solid food.
My wife fosters kittens, and she frequently gets a litter along with the mother cat. In most cases, the mom cat completely loses interest in the kittens well before they are ready to be adopted out. Often, the mom cat leaves and goes up for adoption before the kittens do because she is no longer taking care of them at all.
Human children eat food after a couple years but no one would argue they’re ready to leave their family unit. The OPs point was exaggerated but still valid.
Humans have basically the slowest development of all species.
I don't have as much first-hand experience with puppies, but with kittens, the mom cat is done with them and ready to move on with her life before the kittens get adopted.
I think a lot of people, myself included, are acutely aware of this... which is why I adopted an adult rescue, not a puppy. Not everyone does it that way.
The problem isn't so much having to deal with the dogs that have already been manufactuered, they should be supported as well as possible, the problem is stopping the ongoing manufacture of new animals as products.
What does your ideal world look like? Dogs and humans have no relationship? Humans stop interacting with the animals we have domesticated and return them all to the wild?
I don't think there's a large constituency in this thread who's in support of "manufacture" of dogs in the sense of things like puppy mills. But that isn't what we're talking about with shelter dogs. Nor are dogs simply going to cease existing if we decide as a society that we don't want to continue our relationship with them.
"and handed to a human while it's still an infant, so that it bonds with the human, not it's actual mother."
If you continue this idea, then the dogs we consider "normal" all suffer from Stockholm Syndrome. The dogs we consider aggressive show the behavior that is actually logical and relatable.
This is why I truly believe AI companions are going to be the downfall of civilization. Now you don't even need to project what you want them to think. The AI will just actually say what you want it to.
I'm really starting to believe that capitalism as a Great Filter is the solution to the Fremi Paradox.
Declining birth rates are clearly a response to the deterioating economic conditions of most people. Stagnant real wages, skyrocketing costs, ever-more inaccessible housing and so on. Housing debt, student debt, medical debt. The cost of childcare can reach $3000/month per child. If you want your child to have the best opportunities, it may well cost $1 million or more between all those costs to raise a child. At a time when people can barely provide for themselves.
Of course pets are surrogate children for some people. And even that's being ruined by capitalism as private equity moves into the vet space to squeeze every last dollar from people.
Another aspect to this is social control. One reason Western societies have been relatively stable is the method of control is treats, basically. Social media, pets, smartphones, etc all mollify the masses. In more totalitarian societies, the threat of violence is a more typical method of control. Think of something like the Stasi in East Germany.
The profit motive is destroying the treats. If you're on the verge of homelessness and can barely feed yourself, skyrocketing costs of pet ownership are a real issue. We're rapidly approaching a point where people think they'll never be able to retire and really have nothing to live for.
Rather than the ultra-wealthy being slightly less wealthy so the rest of society, which is necessary for their wealth to exist, can have something good in their lives, we're instead becoming increasingly oppressive. Over-policing, militarizing police, crushing protests (as per this last weekend in LA), etc.
Things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. And to think, all a lot of people need to be happy is a roof over their head, not having to have 3 jobs and being able to have a dog.
I’m very disappointed to see such wide adoption of pets, especially dogs, as “replacements” of children in adult lives. I do not think it’s healthy for adults to do this because it infantilizes the adult. It is actually very sad, almost pitiful to see it happen. I think pets are wonderful for children because it helps them to develop a connection with living beings that aren’t humans, to see emotions are a universal trait.
More frequently I see now grown people wheeling their dogs in baby carriages. If this is some cosmic-scale humor by nature because we have overpopulated the planet and it’s intentionally sabotaging the environment, then I’m afraid the joke is on us.
Advertising to pet owners is reaching absurd levels. Pet owners are now “pet parents” and the marketing is basically identical to marketing directed at new (real) parents.
While there are some surface level similarities to owning a pet and having children, it’s absurd to conflate the two as if they are equivalent.
Not most but there definitely is a weird subculture out there.
The /r/petfree subreddit is hysterical in the opposite direction at times but there is some fascinating content on there sometimes. An example: a social media post of someone mourning their child's death, folks commenting about the death of their pets as if it were comparable:
> My three year old killed by a drunk driver. A lady said I know how you feel, my dog died last year
> Idk about you but I loved my dogs more than anything. I felt guilty for a long time bc I sobbed for days after each was put down but didn't cry at my cousin or grandfather's funeral
> I loved my dog and mom exactly the same, and their deaths both felt the same
> It's been scientifically proven that a dog death can effect you more than a human one
Why would someone go out of their way to make r/petfree to demonize pet owners is beyond me. But hey, that’s the internet nowadays I guess. Rage fueled machine.
Well, I'd imagine they'd do it because they are frustrated with pet owners. Half the content on that sub is people bringing their dogs to places dogs shouldn't go and I share a frustration with that. I'm not about to curate an entire community dedicated to it, but still.
People have pretty strong motivation to conflate the two - namely, access to privileges traditionally granted to parents.
Leaving work early to deal with kid(/dog) stuff, public spaces tolerating the presence of your loud, annoying, not-that-clean kid(/dog), an expectation of urban spaces providing places for your kid(/dog) to go to the bathroom. Etc.
That's an interesting perspective. As an adult who has both human children and many pets, I disagree that your premise that pets are only valuable for children. We come from cave people who live in big family groups. Modern humans are more isolated and live in relatively small houses, without their extended families. I think it's only natural for us to want to care for animals. And just because a dog isn't as smart, and can't talk doesn't mean it can't be a real friend.
>I disagree that your premise that pets are only valuable for children.
On r/poveryfinance and similar subreddits, one can always find someone complaining that they're about to become homeless because they can't afford rent, begging others to please tell them what line item can be cut from their budget to make it work, the conceit being that they consider every item essential. Mixed in among the electrical and water and costs of commuting to work will be $100/month for dog food or cat litter or whatever.
Not only is there no value there, there is, quite often, anti-value. And this is just the quantifiable stuff, these people follow their dogs around picking up their feces with their hands.
Not who you were responding to, but in your original statement you wrote "I do not think it’s healthy for adults to do this [sic] I think pets are wonderful for children"
By explicitly calling out that "[they] are wonderful for children" you are implicitly calling into question their value for adults. Whether that was your intention or not, it's certainly how I read your statement.
> I do not think it’s healthy for adults to do this because it infantilizes the adult. ... I think pets are wonderful for children because it helps them to develop a connection with living beings that aren’t humans
This quote heavily implies pets are bad for adults. Maybe it wasn't your intent.
Almost anything, humane, to lower the earth's population, is fine by me. Do some people go a little overboard? Certainly. Are they having fun and not hurting anyone else at the same time? Excellent!
I think the only entity sabotaging the environment is we humans. Nature deals with what it's given by adapting. I do think the baby carriages are hilarious, unless it's a geriatric pet.
Most of the time a dog is in a stroller it’s because the dog is old or injured. I don’t think many people do it just to make the dog seem more like a child.
Not in my observations. Where I am, people put their little dogs in strollers, dress them up with hair clips, etc and stroll them around while they're shopping at Macy's etc.
I have the same thought; it messes with peoples value systems and just isn't healthy for a lot of people. I wouldn't say it ruins lives but people will do nothing but work and tend to their 3 dogs, which inhibits personal development or meaningful progress in life.
Plus nobody enforces a lot of health and safety laws anymore, it's not uncommon to see dogs in grocery stores for example, despite it being illegal and gross.
> people will do nothing but work and tend to their 3 dogs, which inhibits personal development or meaningful progress in life.
If that connection with their dogs is what brings them personal fulfillment, why is that not meaningful? And can they not personally develop within that chosen life path?
> personal development or meaningful progress in life
What exactly are people not achieving when they have a dog?
I bought my first home in my twenties, have a very high paying job, I have good friends, I play music sometimes, I grow my own food, I can cook better than most restaurants, I am happy most of the time, I am reasonably physically fit and can climb a mountain (literally).
What meaningful progress is my dog holding me back from?
As the article says, for some people it serves as a substitute for having kids/a family. Life is about more than your personal well being. Maybe you disagree; there are certainly a lot of moral frameworks under which that's not a true statement, and unless there's a higher power to appeal to nobody can tell you that your chosen philosophy is wrong. But all of us will someday grow old and die, and dogs aren't going be our legacy, nor will they be taking care of us in our old age. Just something to consider...
Regardless of dog ownership, it sounds a bit ego-centric to think that life is solely about leaving a legacy and assuming your kids are there solely to care for their parents in old age.
I agree. I'm certainly not suggesting those are the only reasons to have kids, just two that I felt might resonate well with the the previous poster given the materialistic thrust of his comment.
> people will do nothing but work and tend to their 3 dogs, which inhibits personal development or meaningful progress in life.
GP was referring to this group of people whose lives consist of only work and their pets. Clearly you do not fall into this group. In fact, given your lifestyle (a healthy, balanced one), I'd say a pet has great potential to further enhance personal development.
Every person who has a dog/cat isn't stiffed, just that they progress less on average.
What I've seen is they aren't getting into real relationships or developing hobbies, and are instead becoming attached to their pets. I know it's dismal but the loneliness associated with being single is supposed to motivate you into improving yourself and finding a partner. By spending money and a few hours a day with your pet, you're not doing other (potentially more real) things.
I don’t agree. Most people spend their free time doing objectively useless/harmful things like watching TV and playing video games while being 30+ BMI and no friends.
Some objective things having a dog has forced me to do:
* I go outside more often
* I meet more people outside and many have become friends
* I have a schedule every day
This has really not been my experience at all. If anything, having a dog is an excuse to get out of the house. Hell, my best friend found his wife because they both loved dogs.
I'm happy to hear you like your dog, but if you spent any time caring for your dog then that's time you can't spend doing other things. It's less of a subjective qualitative analysis and more of a quantitative one
I guess I just don't understand what point you're trying to make. I'm mean, time I spend on HN is time I can't spend doing other things as well. Or commuting, or watching movies, or playing piano, literally anything we do in life that isn't directly related to survival.
In fact, things like taking my dog for a walk is a pure positive. I get exercise and sometimes my family comes along for the walk too. That's a boost to my family's health and relationships enabled by the context of caring for the dog. So trying to portray dog ownership as a pure energy drain is just not true.
Bro are you aware that dogs are absolute chick magnets? If you don't have a partner, get a cute-looking dog* and walk it twice a day at parks or other places there are people, and the ladies will just walk up to you. The exercise from all the walking will make you more attractive to potential mates too. With a bit of personality and humor, anyone can convert that high-quality potential-partner funnel into a good relationship.
* I mean take good care of the dog obviously. It's not just a tool to improve your love life. But like if you genuinely think dog ownership is holding people back from romance, you really don't know how things work.
Dunno, if the alternative is actively destructive behaviour, it might be good for society for people to find meaning in pets. It's also good for those individuals and animals in question as well. I'm not sure we're missing out on many Requiems, Anna Kareninas, and Space Odysseys because of it.
I wonder what you think people who dont have children and opt for pets thought about or went through prior to making that decision? I personally dont care for children and cannot think of a universe in which I would want to be a parent - why would I want the stress and strain of coddling a child for two decades?
I am sympathetic to this view even if I think it understates the value pets may bring. I do agree that people, as they tend to do, push the limits on what is socially acceptable to some silly degree, but, I also accept, that as long they don't hurt anyone in the process, it might be ok.
The issue is.. pets are still pets. And to your point, unbehaved dog can be dangerous to its immediate surrounding. I won't go into details, but our dog is very protective of our kid, so there are places I will not take it ( or at least not without precautions ).. and this is what I see less and less: responsible behavior.
But I will say this, dog was a great training for a kid, when it came for us, because we saw some very similar issues repeat themselves.
I avoided going into all the myriad of things that pets are good for because it’s not the point. I grew up with a small backyard graveyard of all the pets I’ve had over the years, some given some adopted some stray, so I’m very far from anti-pet.
What I’m really poking at here in the joke behind the rant sort of way is a suspicion, a conspiracy by nature to suppress our reproduction capabilities by slowly not only making us infertile in greater numbers, but steering us towards adopting pets instead of humans as a prank, to make us see the animals we are in an animal kingdom.
Interesting, I will admit that I missed that interpretation, but the coffee still didn't kick in yet. In that sense, it would be an interesting expansion on the jokes of Carlin ( how would planet deal with such unhealthy surface nuissance? ). I did internally chuckle so thank you for this morning smile.
That confused me a bit too, but what I suspect is that owning a pet is kind of like having a permanent baby, but without many of the real challenges a human child presents.
Your dog can be cute and child-like and playful for its entire life, but is also far more self-sufficient than a human child is in the first year or two of its life.
It’s kind of like you get to be a make-believe parent without any of the difficult parts.
>That confused me a bit too, but what I suspect is that owning a pet is kind of like having a permanent baby,
No, he's saying that having a puppy is something a child does, something that's normal for children. If you're doing things that only children should be doing, you are infantilizing yourself (changing your brain in ways that prevents you from growing up properly).
I would not blame nature for this. I'm not particularly conspiracy-minded (humans are generally too stupid for supervillain-style conspiracies), but people did this. The only question at all is whether they did it deliberately, or if it was accidental.
A recent car crash in San Francisco killed a man and his dog and many people on Reddit reacted with a comment like “Nooo! Not the dog!”
I thought that was ridiculous because these are just animals. It sucks when they die but it’s not the end of the world.
Another car nearby killed a little child and her father and that one was much more horrific to me.
But now it makes sense: to these people the two incidents were equivalent. I suppose that is normal, what with all the stories of animals caring for the young of other animals. Neotenic characteristics seem to have cross-species impact.
Animals now play a role that angels and similar religious concepts played in the past - an abstract ideal representing what is Good. It's difficult for a human to win this battle. No dog ever operated a sweatshop, dumped mercury into a river, or siphoned billions off to some tropical island somewhere.
When tragedy befalls an animal, we tend to be more upset about it because animals are innocent. They're not aware like we are and can't make better choices when we can, so when they get caught at the wrong place at the wrong time, it's somehow sadder to a stranger than if it were an adult human.
You see this in cinema. We're relieved that the cat survives in Alien, even though we just watched several humans die horribly. And we kind of feel like John Wick's Roaring Rampage of Revenge is justified after the Russian mafia kills his dog.
They're not innocent, they kill even when they're not hungry. If people evolved empathy towards them because historically they killed pests, that would explain why people love little murderers. The fact that the animals "don't know any better" isn't causal, mosquitoes don't know any better either.
"knowing better" implies a societal framework that animals just simply do not participate in.
i'm not a fan of housecats (based on their environmental impact) but i'm not going to hold them individually responsible or liable for things they legally cannot partake in (murder).
We evolved empathy towards them because of superficial cute features. Like puppy dog eyes and other endearing child like features. Dogs are evolving towards a parasitic role by hijacking our biological instincts to care for things that are small and cute. This instinct never evolved t the point where it specifically only applies to human cuteness because such selection pressure was unneeded. There were human babies and that’s it.
Dogs took advantage of this situation and they evolved to hijack our paternal and maternal instincts. Now there is selection pressure. But note dogs reproduce much much faster than humans so this will be an evolutionary arms race where dogs get cuter and humans become less interested in dogs. The first round comes when the people who have dogs instead of kids fail to reproduce. Also Expect an increase in dog allergies over time.
> When tragedy befalls an animal, we tend to be more upset about it because animals are innocent.
This never gets reconciled with the reality of factory farms and mass meat production. It’s certainly a type of cognitive dissonance. In a hundred years we might look back on the now with horror (more generalized anyway).
Because most people don't keep cows, pigs, and chickens as pets.
People who grow up even on small, non-factory farms see these animals as products for sale or economic assets, not companions. And even the dogs and cats are likely to be utilized for work as much as companionship.
> In a hundred years we might look back on the now with horror (more generalized anyway).
You don't have to go a hundred years - most non-western societies look at western fascination with dogs and pets with horror, especially when couples with low rates of marriage, population collapse etc.
Which societies are those? It's got to be Africa, a little of the Middle East, and South East Asia alone, because East Asia, South America, even much of the Middle East is lower than replacement. By population, it's only Africa that really has this opinion.
It baffles the mind that people decry the death of a dog while munching a burger. Cows (or chickens, for that matter) are not less precious than dogs, and yet the vast majority of us eat as much and as many of them as they can afford.
> Cows (or chickens, for that matter) are not less precious than dogs
You can feel that way, and that's fine, but people are allowed to decide what they do or don't find precious. They are allowed to rank species and members within a species in order of most to least precious. There's no inherent rule that all life must be valued the same. Would you not be more sad about a human child dying over a cow? Would you not be more sad about a loved one dying about a random person you don't know a few thousand miles away?
The person you're responding to didn't mention "feeling". They made a moral statement. Feelings are something we deal with, morals are something we work to build. Confusing the two will lead to a very confusing life.
Additionally, your examples are passive. A more appropriate comparison would be "Would you not be more sad about killing a human child instead of a cow?" Of course you would be! But what if you didn't have to do either?
Humans are remarkably skilled at extending-reducing the range of their empathy, often deep compassion is reserved only for the carefully selected in-group members. It’s even easier to withhold it when it comes to other beings.
Yeah. They hijacked our maternal instincts and our productivity instincts. Dogs have evolved to the point where they now have humans handling artificial selection for them instead of relying on natural selection.
It's a 1000x speed up to have humans picking out the cute ones and deliberately forcing this forward to make money.
You have to realize that it's our own instincts driving this forward and if it detriments humanity then the traits of "seeking profit" or "seeking cuteness" become subject to natural selection. These traits will go away with time.
If you're just eating a burger, you're not personally slaughtering the cow. Secondly, the relationship of humans and dogs is far different than humans and cows, dogs have evolved alongside us as companions, and cows are food.
If you had to choose between a family member dying or a totally random person dying, even though objectively they're both just humans, you're going to kill the random person, because you have feelings and emotions, and they are part of the equation. For the same reason you'd kill the random person, people would kill the cow, and want to save the dog.
People bringing their pet dogs into grocery stores is an especially egregious societal ill. It's a major problem in places like Seattle where dogs outnumber children.
I once watched a woman hold her little dog over the glass at the pizza bar in Whole Foods. Was waiting for the dog to drop a free sausage link onto the pizza below.
Placing dogs into shopping carts is another one. Dogs rub their dirty buttholes on the same surfaces where you later place your fruits and vegetables.
I too dislike extreme dog people - the kind of people who treat them as a human equal. I grew up with dogs and cats, nowadays just two cats, after they go, no more pets for me. I deeply love my animals and they make great companions.
But make no mistake, they're still animals and are not predictable. I would never bring a dog with me outside to do anything other than go for a walk, always on a leash. They really dont belong in public spaces. I've seen and heard too many stories of dogs suddenly not being the perfect precious animal their owner claims and it bites or attacks another animal or person. Then when they do the owners insist the victim must have done something wrong and take zero responsibility.
> the kind of people who treat them as a human equal.
No, they treat them as better than people.
Because in their value system, animals are moral objects but not moral subjects. By that, I mean that actions done to animals can have moral weight. If you take a sick kitten and nurse it back to health, you are a good person. If you kick a puppy, you are a bad person.
But the animal itself (according to this culture) carries no moral responsibility. If a dog bites someone, it's not an evil dog. It's not the dog's fault. It was just raised poorly, or traumatized as a puppy, or the owner should have kept it leashed better, etc.
Thus animals are always morally pure, but people can be bad people. I kind of get where the value system is coming from: animals really are on the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to power and agency, so it does make sense to think of them as mostly receivers of moral actions. But some people take that really far.
Yes, it extends to the realm of absurdity. When people post videos of animals doing good things, invariably comments are posted affirming how much better animals are than humans and "we don't deserve #{animal}s". At the same turn completely forgetting that in the wild, animals eat other animals (and humans) alive, engage in tribal wars, play around and torture their prey before eating them, commit infanticide, rape, etc.
When they aren't abused, nearly all dogs are extremely loyal and affectionate. When they see you after even the shortest of absences, they act like a kid on Christmas morning just because you're there. They understand basic feelings and will try to comfort you when you're not feeling great. Most are patient to a fault with children. Many if not most will act as guardians, protecting you from threats without hesitation, even in cases where it is obvious it is likely to cost their lives.
We absolutely don't deserve them.
With no cognitive dissonance, I can also recognize that some dogs can be dangerous, and in extreme cases, need to be put down. However, I would point out that the vast majority of misbehaved dogs can and should be trained out of their bad behavior, so it's nearly always their owners' responsibilities.
> I would never bring a dog with me outside to do anything other than go for a walk, always on a leash. They really don't belong in public spaces.
This seems a bit extreme. I think dog owners have a responsibility to make sure their animal is trained and able to be controlled near people, but outdoor public spaces (parks/plazas, cafes with outdoor seating whose management is dog friendly), seem fine.
However, the responsibility for your dog's behavior extends even outside of public space. I was bitten by a dog in the lobby of a friend's building. The dog was leashed and presumably just returning from a walk. Later, I heard that some inspections in that building had to be rescheduled because a dog bit one of the inspectors while inside one of the condos (not sure if it was the same dog). Being in a non-public space in no way reduces the owner's responsibility.
Whoa, please don't get aggressive on HN. Regardless of how much of a problem certain dogs are or you feel they are, it is not ok to post like that.
Edit Unfortunately, your account has been breaking the site guidelines in other places too. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
FWIW I wrote that post with no aggression intended. I suspect you may be overanalyzing things. Have a Coke and a smile, Dan.
Unfortunately, if my manner of speaking directly is breaking the site guidelines, then I'm afraid my values are incompatible with posting here.
I hope you didn't expend too much energy digging through my post history looking for transgressions. Though I do think it's funny the post that got me yelled at was the post insulting pit bulls.
Remember to not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Many of my posts were highly upvoted. I bid you good day.
I believe you about your intent, but intent doesn't communicate itself—particularly not in tiny textblobs where tone of voice, body language, and so on, aren't available. Intent has to be supplied along with your message in a way that people can perceive, and the burden is on you (i.e. the commenter) to disambiguate it. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....
People's posts often generate effects that they didn't have in mind when they were posting. For the health of an internet forum, effects (which are observable) matter more than intent (which is not). https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
The language you used in the last sentence of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44225270 was so garish, violent, and personal that it counts as aggressive, whether you were feeling aggressive or not when you posted it. That was way beyond just "speaking directly".
(Btw, I apologize for linking so much to lists of my own past comments. It's annoying and embarrassing. But it's the only efficient way I know of to provide additional explanation, and additional explanation is often necessary.)
Anyone owning a pit who isn't both strong & physically large is putting other people and animals at risk. I have met many, many sweet pits, but all dogs can lose it and if a pit goes many of the pit owners I've seen couldn't do a damned thing about it: they are incredibly powerful animals.
To be honest I think that's what attracts many inappropriate owners to them.
Two pit stories:
I saw a fat guy walking a relatively small pit and took my dogs off to the side, about 20 feet away to let them pass. The pit pulled out of his (inappropriately fastened) muzzle backwards (they are smart dogs) and took a dead no-bark run at my terrier. I had my 35 lb terrier in the air and kicked that dog as hard as I could in the side to get the situation under control.
Our neighbor had a BIG pit named Thor (big guy, he could control the dog, but kept him leashed out front.). Thor got off leash once and came over and messed w/our goats. We had one goat (the smallest) who we kept horns on and Thor found out the hard way that that goat wasn't going down w/o a fight. Thor survived but didn't mess w/the goats any more after that.
Again, I like most of the pits I've met, but I see a lot of irresponsible owners.
It’s hard to engage in rational good-faith discussion about problem dog breeds because most folks have already made up their mind, and there’s no changing it.
The chances of someone surrendering their dog to which they are bonded after reading a comment is unlikely. The chances of someone with the opposite opinion adopting a pitbull are similar.
You writing "one of these land sharks" here shows nothing but your ignorance, to both pit bulls and sharks, as both of these animals don't have any kind of natural aggression towards humans. Sure, both are powerful and CAN hurt you (perhaps more than other animals), but are certainly not short-wired to bite you.
But especially in the case of domesticated dogs, the problem are NOT the pits themselves, but the conditions in which they were raised.
There are over 200 breeds of dog, it doesn't really track that only 2-3 breeds would be significantly more violent than the others.
We don't have enough data to be conclusive one way or the other, but if you look at the occurrence of strays and breed ownership by socioeconomic status, pit bull breeds are also very high on these lists.
This tracks with human data to some extent: people from lower socioeconomic groups are more often perpetrators and victims of violence.
Looking at breed specific violence and coming to a conclusion about temperament is very similar to looking at race specific graduation rates and coming to a conclusion about intelligence.
> There are over 200 breeds of dog, it doesn't really track that only 2-3 breeds would be significantly more violent than the others.
Why not? There are breeds that are taller or shorter, high-energy or low-energy, great hunters or awful hunters, and so on. And it’s not a mystery why some breeds got this way: they were specifically bred for it.
While I don’t think the dogs are at fault, I’m not sure your argument follows. Why can’t we breed aggression in only a small number of breeds? We don’t breed short legs into all the breeds.
asked in another way: where are all the aggressive offshoot breeds from pitbulls? there are a wide variety of short-legged dog breeds; corgis, dachsunds, basset hounds, scotties, bulldogs... there's an enormous variety there... yet we're to expect that aggressive dogs are limited to a very specific appearance (seriously, an order of magnitude higher than almost all other breeds)? the data absolutely stinks
there are multiple other factors (social, socioeconomic) that are a better predictor of behaviors that can also be applied to humans
Dating later in life with children and this is something I don’t need research to tell me. If you’re in your 30s-40s without kids and a dog, we’re of totally different mindsets.
> If you’re in your 30s-40s without kids and a dog, we’re of totally different mindsets.
I'm broke. As much as it pains me to be without a pet, I dont want to take on additional responsibilities if I am incapable of sufficiently giving the care these living beings need and deserve.
I've considered fostering, as they pay for many things the animals need. Perhaps in the future.
From a biological perspective dogs are parasites. They are hijacking our biological maternal instincts and replacing children.
They drain resources and get free care while offering no benefit other than satisfying maternal urges which were designed to work on human babies. Puppies are 100 percent part of the reason for the westernized world’s population problem.
>Puppies are 100 percent part of the reason for the westernized world’s population problem.
I know dozens of couples who were pairs of high earners but one quit their job to stay at home with their child because it was cheaper than paying for child care, but sure, tell yourself it's the dogs.
Don’t be biased because you love dogs. Face the truth.
The economy IS a factor.
But sinking resources into a dog that offers no evolutionary or biological benefit IS ALSO a factor.
There is no other way to look at this. You are committing an act of irrationality if you refuse to see dogs from a biological perspective.
Porn sits in the same area. Hijacking biological instincts to prevent reproduction.
We are looking at multiple causal sources that prevent us from having more children. In the same way men use porn to assuage our sexual urges, many women use dogs to help assuage their maternal instincts. Don’t let your emotions cloud your logic.
This article did not deserve to get flagged simply for offering their own perspective.
Dogs have nothing to do with it. People are choosing not to have kids, especially in America, because they can barely pay for rent, food, and (if they're fortunate) healthcare for themselves. Going out to eat is a luxury that even software engineers earning 6 figures are having to reevaluate with prices to say nothing of other entertainment.
Third places and opportunities to meet people are greatly reduced because everything's taken over by venture capital chains and so expensive, and even if you meet someone the odds of the two of you making enough money to afford to raise a child is low.
If you have that money, you're probably educated enough to see that life for your child will be significantly worse than life for you right now - the rise of authoritarianism, climate change, the active ongoing destruction of American economic power and soft political power, the concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands, disinformation causing massive chunks of the country to oppose science, education, and other things, discrimination based on gender and race....we're in for some very hard times and it takes a certain mindset to decide that you want to subject a child you love to all of it.
It's the economic issue AND a dogs issue AND a birth control issue AND porn a porn issue.
Sperm getting launched into socks or condoms instead of vaginas, not enough money and maternal instincts being assuaged by puppies all contributes to the problem.
The mechanisms that force the population to expand are designed to go against our judgement. Sexual instincts, birth control and maternal instincts are all designed to override our judgement and push the population forward at the detriment of of the human individual. Are you poor? Evolution does not give a fuck, it designed you to be horny and to have maternal instincts so you will increase the population no matter how fucked up your situation is.
But thanks to modern technology we've learned to conquer these things. Puppies, condoms and porn. All contributors to the issue.
Bro, I own a dog. I love dogs and condoms. Doesn't mean I'm going to let my love of dogs and condoms cloud my objective reasoning. Also I'm still going to use a condom when I fuck some random hot girl because my individual situation is more important To Me then the overall population problem. It's called the tragedy of the commons.
A Dog's heightened senses are an asset when detecting intruders. I'm sure thats probably the biggest reason humanity domesticated them in the first place.
If a dog keeps depression at bay, someone could possibly avoid having their brain chemistry permanently altered by owning a dog.
There are even working breeds with many different purposes. It's not all black lab and American Eskimo.
One of your statements was "They drain resources and get free care while offering no benefit other than satisfying maternal urges which were designed to work on human babies".
Any example of a dog offering a benefit other than satisfying maternal urges contradicts that statement.
In addition to the non-maternal urge satisfying benefits he named I'll give another: protecting human children. When I was around 4 our dog stopped me from going and picking up a rattlesnake. The dog blocked me from getting closer to the snake and barked until my Mom came to investigate.
> Puppies are 100 percent part of the reason for the westernized world’s population problem.
Isn't "100 percent" redundant here? In general X is either part of the reason for Y or X is not part of the reason for Y. I can't think of any example where X might be say 87% part of the reason for Y.
You’re ignorant. Every scientific measurement from every major statistical source about these things knows that there is a population problem. It’s not even a right or left thing it’s reality. It’s science. I can source dozens of neutral sources.
Look it up yourself. This is not a political issue. This is a logistical one and it is highly verified through science.
There’s a _demographic_ problem, which will require economic adjustment; the population is shifting older. There’s no population problem per se, though.
That’s categorically wrong. There is a population problem. Every scientific source says so. It’s universally known.
The demographic problem is causally related to the population problem. There’s also no other way to logically categorize it.
A demographic problem means we have too little young people and too many old people. How does that even logically happen?
It happens because one demographic is not reproducing fast enough. _That_ is intrinsically a population problem. This is just derived from pure logic… outside of logic you can derive the same from numerous pieces evidence where this issue is totally evidence and unequivocally obvious for people who study the population.
A declining population would not inherently be a problem. Low population growth is a concern only in that it is associated with a demographic problem, but the demographic problem is itself a problem only in that it raises concerns about how to support lots of elderly people, and there are many solutions there, only some of which involve higher population growth (for instance, increased taxation, increased automation, raised retirement ages, etc etc). And it is inherently a _temporary_ problem; eventually birth rates will stabilise at a new normal (this may already be happening in many places), the bulge in the population chart will age out, and normality will resume at a lower base.
This isn't even _that_ novel; major wars, for instance, tend to produce a temporary deficit of working age people vs elderly, as do certain disease epidemic (the 1918 flu pandemic preferentially killed young people, for instance).
Some people seem to extrapolate low population increase to _human extinction_ or something, but this really makes very little sense; lower birth rates doesn't mean _zero_ birth rates.
obviously by population problem I mean declining population. This is just pedantism.
That being said every expert who talks about this or studies it refers to this as a problem. Everyone. You’re on a sinking ship trying to not look like an idiot and you’re failing. It’s more than just a demographic problem. It’s a major economic problem even when looked at independent from the demographic issue.
When did I extrapolate extinction or zero birth rate? Don’t be an idiot. zero birth rate means nobody is having kids. If one person out of 10 billion people has a kid then the birth rate is positive. Only a genius can come up with a statement like zero birth rate.
What the hell is up with your underscores? “_that_” as if you know what you are talking about. You said this isn’t “_that_ novel”? Are you kidding? Every major expert or study classifies our declining birth rate as completely novel. Unprecedented in the history of mankind. Nobody knows the exact cause and nobody knows where it will lead.
In general it is associated with the cultural and technological shift in human civilization that has never happened before throughout human history. Modern technology, women’s rights, birth control, the way we live. The current way we live represents about 1 percent of our collective history and we’ve never lived this way for 99 percent of our history. For most of human civilization we couldn’t afford to raise a freaking dog because doing so would compromise our survival. Things have changed and we are very sure that the changes are related to declining population but we cannot point to an exact causal source.
Wake up. Go educate yourself about the issue extensively and learn about anthropology and the economy before pretending you know what you’re talking about.
Science will also always intersect with your love of dogs, liberal beliefs or conservative values. Ignore the morals when judging truth as truth is independent of right and wrong. Then when you have clarity about what’s going on you’ll gain the ability to interpret reality for what it is rather then blindly fighting for some ideology.
For example, I love dogs. But that doesn’t change the fact that dogs offer virtually no evolutionary benefit to humans. If you want to solve the population issue without harming your dogs then address the issue truthfully rather through some misguided attempt to protect man’s best friend by making up bs.
Can you explain why you think that the population (eventually) falling is an inherent problem? (Beyond claiming that unnamed experts think that it is a problem, I mean.) There are of course problems which it implies, primarily, bluntly, "how do we pay for all the old people", but really that one was going to show up to some extent _anyway_ just due to increased lifespans, and it has many possible solutions which don't involve population increase.
If, in a couple of centuries, the world's population is, say, 3 billion, then, provided that they've weathered the economic stresses around pensions etc., why is that a problem?
Personally, I'm far from a dog enthusiast. My reasons for questioning you on this are in no way related to dogs.
> You said this isn’t “_that_ novel”? Are you kidding?
I was referring to a shortfall in working-age vs non-working-age population (for reasons other than low growth; disease or war generally, though if you go back a bit further famines sometimes also cause a similar distortion) not being that novel. And the working/non-working ratio is the only _real_ concern that I can see here.
Japan and Korea were ahead of the curve. They hit the major issues first and they are a precursor to the problems the rest of the world will face in a major way.
The last link is from the UN. There’s even a link from Nature.
If you think population decline is political propaganda from right wing people then you are profoundly ignorant. The situation is well known factually by both sides as a logistical issue. The first countries hitting these problems are in Asia. Korea and Japan are facing the brunt of the problem head on before the rest of the westernized world faces it. The US hasn’t gotten the negative side effects of it yet as a lot of the decline is held up by immigration.
Stop being emotional. Stop being angry. I own a dog myself but that does not mean I don’t face biological and logistical reality.
The person directly referenced my claim that there are numerous sources and he called it “spewing shit”. So yes he was objecting to the fact that decline even exists.
They can't be convinced with reason, because they came to their point of view without it. They may in fact desire the extinction of humanity and claim ignorance because it confuses and disarms people like yourself. Such people become school teachers and cultivate similar attitudes in your children. They become journalists and understate these problems while overstating non-problems.
There is no point in talking to them once you have identified them.
I live in Seattle where the local highly progressive animal-centric culture is probably the vanguard of what this article is talking about. I think about it all the time.
I believe there are a few things leading many people to choose pets instead of children to fulfill their desire to nurture:
1. The trauma theory of psychology.
Pop psychology today seems to assume that babies are born perfectly mentally healthy, except for any genetic mental illnesses they inherited from their parents. Then at some point, if they're unlucky, they experience some sort of trauma, often at the hands of their parents. That trauma inflicts a mental illness on them. They can treat it with therapy and/or meds, but the assumption is that the illness is irrevocable. (Don't believe me? The next time you're talking to a friend and they bring up therapy or mental health medication, ask them when they think they'll be cured and can stop.)
The implication here is that as a parent, you've got basically nowhere to go but down with regards to your kid's mental health. If you are yourself perfectly mentally healthy and pass on no predispositions to your kid, and you parent them flawlessly 24/7 for eighteen years and dodge every possible trauma, then congrats you didn't fuck them up. Anything less than that and you're a bad parent. Which leads to...
2. Impossible parenting standards.
Media is constantly filled with all of the various ways a parent can do a bad job. Start the car moving down the driveway before they have their seatbelt on? Bad parent. Let them walk to the park on their own and risk being abducted? Bad parent. Give them access to junk food? Bad parent. Don't put them in enough extracurricular activities to pad their college application letter a decade from now? Bad parent. Too many extracurricular activities so they don't have enough free time in which to learn initiative? Bad parent.
It is unending and demoralizing the ways in which parents are made to constantly feel they are inadequate. When I was a kid, if another kid fell playing and broke their arm, it was just "OK, kids get hurt." Today, it's "Why did you let them do that?" Parents have never spent more time with their children than they do today, but our culture still tells us it's not enough. Or, if it does, they tell us it's too much.
Mix that with the previous point, and having a kid with any mental health challenges is not just a tragedy but your fault as a parent.
3. Long-term pessimism.
I know many people who truly do believe the world is fucked because of climate change and politics. Not only do they not believe any potential children of theirs would be raised in a world worse than they one they grew up in, they don't even have faith that world will be functionally habitable at all.
Best case, they believe their children may thrive only because they happen to be born into privilege while other children in poorer locations will suffer catastrophically from climate change. So the best outcome they can imagine is a profound failing of moral justice.
Meanwhile, consider pets:
1. Rescued from trauma.
Most pet owners get their pets from shelters. The animal may actually have had trauma before being adopted, but the owner wasn't morally responsible. Instead, they are the rescuer that saved the animal from further trauma. If the animal bounces back and has great behavior, then it's a testament to the amazing resilence of animals and the benefits of compassionate ownership. If the animal always has behavioral issues, well it's not their fault they were traumatized and what a good owner they have to take care of them in spite of those challenges.
2. High but meetable standards
Standards for pet ownership are certainly high here too. Long gone are the days of putting the dog in a doghouse in the backyard and giving them a scoop out of the giant cheap bag of Alpo every day. Pets are expected to be fed healthy food, kept inside and safe, given good vet care, and lots of interaction and enrichment.
Those standards are high but attainable. You can just do those things and feel like a good pet owner. And the pet will certainly make you feel like a good pet owner. Their expectations are low and it's easy to exceed them.
3. Shorter life span
If you believe the world is doomed, then a living being that will never outlive you and have to figure out how to make its without your support is a blessing. You don't have to feel guilty about the fact that in a thousand tiny ways, you contributed to climate change that will end up harming a loved one decades from now.
This all feels very true to me, and written much more crisply and empathetically than I could manage
GP's comment is extremely eloquent, and for me too expresses exactly how I feel. If you look at the profile, it's Bob Nystrom, writer of HN favourites Game Programming Patterns and Crafting Interpreters, so it makes sense that he knows how to write well. Still, I'm pretty much amazed at how he was able to express himself in such a clear, empathetic, and yet no-BS way. I'd love to become so clear; even this awkwardly-phrased comment took me ten minutes.
Thank you for saying that.
I don't think there's any secret to writing well beyond:
1. Write a whole lot.
2. Reflect on the writing and iterate.
Probably the most helpful thing that's taught me to write better (without intending it to be that way) is spending years and years on Reddit and HN, writing thousands of comments. Seeing which ones resonate with people and how is an effective training ground for getting better at making sentences that work.
Thanks! After my initial commenting, I sent off a long-winded email asking for your secret ;) Your comment covers it nicely. Cheers!
How about simply greater responsibility compared to a deformed wolf following you around that you can leave food out for.
It's kind of weird how politically charged dog ownership has become seemingly out of nowhere.
I love dogs, I had dogs as a kid, I have a dog now. I don't, nor have I ever thought my dog is a replacement for children. My dog doesn't hold me back from forming human relationships. Yet there is this weird online value judgement (never actually seen it IRL) that owning a dog is somehow a betrayal of the human race.
> It's kind of weird how politically charged dog ownership has become seemingly out of nowhere.
I've noticed this too. I try not to use Reddit very much, if at all, but when I do this sentiment is one that sticks out now. It's not everywhere, but you can certainly find an undercurrent of anti-dog, "downfall of western civilization," "Children of Men was so prescient" sentiment in the comments of some posts featuring dogs that make it to r/all.
There were many factors that went into my wife and I deciding not to have kids, but dogs being a replacement for children was not one of them. We made that decision years before we got our first dog.
Humans have always had pets but they were less of a 'lifestyle' in the past. There is a ton of money and investment in the pet industrial complex now, pets are aspirational, pets are marketted as part of your personality, pets get thier own social media, famous pets have merch lines.
I did a lengthy paid survey a few years back that was sponsored by a VC owned pet supply company in my country. All the questions were to non pet owners, or former reluctant non owners and was aimed at getting data on how much pet ownership improved your life. I have seen the results of this survey paraphased and published in every single major news outlet in my country ('science says pet good!'). Pets are consumption, companies run PR campaigns to promote consumption of their product.
I think the politicisation has come because you can't now criticise the pet or having of pets without it being seen as an attack on the owners whole lifestyle and personal image, for those who have become dog dads/dog mums. But for people who do take a position against it, they have to be willing to make that attack on someone's image to get their point across.
I dont want pets, I think a not insignificant # of people have them for the wrong reasons (like the above comment on trauma rescuing), I think over consumption of pet at a macro level is bad, but I like all the individual dogs and cats I know in my life.
Because the internet has deformed our fucking brains. Basically everyone is walking around in a state of chronic narcolepsy and we repeat everything we fucking hear online. We are being psyop'd by big tech into being angrier, and therefore easier to control.
Delete all social media, and, if you can, choose to have absolutely no dealings with the big tech industry
Not really weird. In the USA pretty much anything that is split along the lines of urban/rural, liberal/conservative, coastal/inland etc. is immediately political.
Yeah I guess you're right. I live in the country and almost everybody has a dog. I never thought something as benign as pet ownership would get absorbed into the internet discourse but here we are.
I don't think the kind of dog ownership you're talking about is the same as the one in the article.
It's about dogs as a replacement for children which anecdotally I have definitely seen happening. I've met more than one married couple who are proud about not wanting kids but own a dog and treat it to an absurd degree like one would treat a toddler including but not limited to talking to / about it like one would to their child (imagine the kind of coworker who loves to talk your ear off to you about every single little detail of their child's life, complete with photos, but with a dog), cooking for and feeding it like a child (not just putting a dog bowl out on the floor), hiring babysitters when they go out, taking it to daycare centers for dogs, planning activities for/around it, doting on it like a child (dressing it up, carting it around in a baby stroller on walks) etc. etc.
It's a world of a difference from simply owning and taking care of a dog. It's a perpetual simulation of human childcare projected onto a dog that never "grows up" and without all the struggles and ugly situations that might happen with a real toddler ie tantrums.
I 100% don't think dogs should be allowed in grocery stores or restaurants or frankly most businesses outside of pet stores.
> I've met more than one married couple who are proud about not wanting kids but own a dog and treat it to an absurd degree like one would treat a toddler.
My first reaction to this kind of comment is "mind your own business." People are way too up in other peoples personal affairs these days. I'm not saying this to you specifically, you were just clarifying the discussion, but in general.
On a personal level? Sure, I don't think anyone should be calling out, naming and shaming, or drawing attention to abnormal behavior that specific individuals have. Nobody should target a real human being doing something weird but otherwise harmless to others with the intention of causing them distress.
But on a societal level I think it's absolutely okay to look around and say, "Hey, have you noticed the <insert something out of the ordinary> behavior that's starting to happen? What's causing that? How did it become normalized? Is that something we should readily accept?"
Such cases can absolutely be symptoms of larger societal problems and we shouldn't brush them away without examining them first.
I think you are right, and it would be wonderful if people could mind their own business more.
I can't speak for the original commentator, but my own experience is one of trying to mind my own business and having this experience thrust upon me by people who are very excited about their pets.
I guess I'd like people to keep their pets to themselves the way I keep my kids to myself: if someone asks I'm generally happy to talk about them, otherwise I don't volunteer information.
Even though I think having pets satisfies in many ways that having children would, but with far less work and a lot less liability, I don't think this can be divided along the political lines that you suggested.
Urban / rural people like to keep dogs. Poor / rich people like keeping dogs. Liberal / conservative people like keeping dogs. Young / old people like keeping dogs.
> Yet there is this weird online value judgement (never actually seen it IRL) that owning a dog is somehow a betrayal of the human race.
Huh, never seen or heard of this. I'd put it down to "weird online thing", yeah.
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My spin, dogs, as an example pet, are a good way to practice empathy. It doesn't always translate, but if you can be loving and empathetic to a dog, you can surely began to be that way to humans.
we have a good relationship with the children we raised, along with their children. Our dog, however, is always with us and it just feels good to watch after her. We don't consider her a child, just a very good, non-verbal friend.
I would not necessarily call that friendship as your dog depends on you for its survival and is at your mercy. You are the one who defines the terms of the relationship. A friendship involves two individuals who are equally empowered to develop the friendship. A dog-human bond not so much. My two cents
I would not presume to define the parameters of friendship for others, as it can vary wildly between people and even between a given person’s friendships.
There is certainly an imbalance between dog and human authority/autonomy/agency, but that is not the only dynamic in the relationship. And it’s not necessarily the defining dynamic, nor is it consistently applicable.
If my attitude toward my dog is that she depends on my mercy to survive, then I am a monster with no feelings or morality. (Yes, I am responsible for her well being as a responsible owner, and rightfully so.)
Whether she understands how we feel about her isn't the point or the definition. She seems happy and doesn't live in any kind of fear, and that makes all the difference to us. Anything else is just picking fly scat out of pepper.
Fortunately, dogs aren't cynics.
Heh, I appreciate the pun!
But nature is.
Idk, my dad was my best friend growing up and I never fed him.
Your dad may have been your best friend, but that doesn't mean you were your dad's best friend.
The parent-child relationship is asymmetric in ways that are often not as visible to the child as they are a parent. There's a reason why for generations, parents have been responding to their childrens' arguments with "when you're a parent, you'll understand".
yeah but your dad wouldn't die as a result
No, I (the child) am the dog that would die if it weren't fed in this situation. Sorry that was confusing.
Sure but does the dog understand that? The owner can somewhat argue that the dog think it is his friend.
My wife and I got a puppy before we had kids and I will say it was an interesting "taste of things to come." Of course it's only superficially comparable, but the puppy experience definitely gave me practice in staying calm while sleep deprived and stressed.
Counter-example
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blondi
Putin loves dogs too.
Better quit eating food and drinking water, too - wouldn't want to associate yourself with Hitler and Putin, both famously known to regularly eat food and drink water.
You seem to be wrongly implying that I'm insinuating that loving dogs is correlated with being a ruthless killer.
My comment was another counter example to the GP's statement: "if you can be loving and empathetic to a dog, you can surely began to be that way to humans."
So the point is loving dogs doesn't necessarily correlate with being loving towards humans. That doesn't say anything about what loving dogs does correlate with.
That's very different from what you seem to be implying.
This a terrific deep-dive into pet parenting and its rewards, motivations, and risks for both the human and the dog.
As a lifelong rescuer of pit bulls and other "problem" dogs, I can see how that role I've picked for myself aligns and contrasts with how others view human-dog relationships.
I had a dog for decades (not the same). The trend of dog craziness of some people in the last 5-10 years belongs to a specific psychiatric situation (depression, personality disorder, OCD?). On the other side many, mostly childless, women feel some kind of loneliness and adopt a dog. The dynamics of pet love has many paths.
>On the other side many, mostly childless, women feel some kind of loneliness and adopt a dog.
Back in "the day" these people would get into crappy marriages and pop out a few kids before ultimately getting divorced or just be single moms. While it's nice that they're not doing that I think the more interesting angle is the picture of how the economic reality has changed over the generations.
The most amazing thing to me, is how human pet "parents" ignore the fact that the dog has an actual parent, and the puppy is stolen off of it's actual mother's suckling tit, and handed to a human while it's still an infant, so that it bonds with the human, not it's actual mother.
As in many things, most people are willing to ignore any aspect that is not what's in their face, and appealing to them.
There are many other aspects to the thoughtless use of other animals to assuage a human's mental illness.
One of the main ones is projection: the animal can't speak, or otherwise precisely express themselves. Into this silence, the human is able to inject whatever narrative they desire. This leads to people claiming that the animal is much more responsive to their needs, and provides greater solace than another human. This solace is purely in the mind of the beholder. No one knows what the dog is thinking, therefore it's thinking exactly what we want it to think.
Another aspect of the entire pet issue, that I haven't seen otherwise mentioned in the comments, is the disruption to the public peace caused by many dogs. I have seen a couple of comments about dog shit, which is a major problem, but noise is also a significant issue.
Both of these are primarily the fault of negligent owners, which are the overwhelming majority of modern US pet owners.
> the puppy is stolen off of it's actual mother's suckling tit,
Puppies wean from around 3-8 weeks and aren't adopted until 8-10 weeks, well after they are weaned. This is obviously true because when people adopt puppies, they aren't feeding them milk replacement out of a bottle. The puppy is eating solid food.
My wife fosters kittens, and she frequently gets a litter along with the mother cat. In most cases, the mom cat completely loses interest in the kittens well before they are ready to be adopted out. Often, the mom cat leaves and goes up for adoption before the kittens do because she is no longer taking care of them at all.
Human children eat food after a couple years but no one would argue they’re ready to leave their family unit. The OPs point was exaggerated but still valid.
Humans have basically the slowest development of all species.
I don't have as much first-hand experience with puppies, but with kittens, the mom cat is done with them and ready to move on with her life before the kittens get adopted.
I think a lot of people, myself included, are acutely aware of this... which is why I adopted an adult rescue, not a puppy. Not everyone does it that way.
Every dog was a kidnapped puppy at some point.
The problem isn't so much having to deal with the dogs that have already been manufactuered, they should be supported as well as possible, the problem is stopping the ongoing manufacture of new animals as products.
What does your ideal world look like? Dogs and humans have no relationship? Humans stop interacting with the animals we have domesticated and return them all to the wild?
I don't think there's a large constituency in this thread who's in support of "manufacture" of dogs in the sense of things like puppy mills. But that isn't what we're talking about with shelter dogs. Nor are dogs simply going to cease existing if we decide as a society that we don't want to continue our relationship with them.
"and handed to a human while it's still an infant, so that it bonds with the human, not it's actual mother."
If you continue this idea, then the dogs we consider "normal" all suffer from Stockholm Syndrome. The dogs we consider aggressive show the behavior that is actually logical and relatable.
> One of the main ones is projection
This is why I truly believe AI companions are going to be the downfall of civilization. Now you don't even need to project what you want them to think. The AI will just actually say what you want it to.
I'm really starting to believe that capitalism as a Great Filter is the solution to the Fremi Paradox.
Declining birth rates are clearly a response to the deterioating economic conditions of most people. Stagnant real wages, skyrocketing costs, ever-more inaccessible housing and so on. Housing debt, student debt, medical debt. The cost of childcare can reach $3000/month per child. If you want your child to have the best opportunities, it may well cost $1 million or more between all those costs to raise a child. At a time when people can barely provide for themselves.
Of course pets are surrogate children for some people. And even that's being ruined by capitalism as private equity moves into the vet space to squeeze every last dollar from people.
Another aspect to this is social control. One reason Western societies have been relatively stable is the method of control is treats, basically. Social media, pets, smartphones, etc all mollify the masses. In more totalitarian societies, the threat of violence is a more typical method of control. Think of something like the Stasi in East Germany.
The profit motive is destroying the treats. If you're on the verge of homelessness and can barely feed yourself, skyrocketing costs of pet ownership are a real issue. We're rapidly approaching a point where people think they'll never be able to retire and really have nothing to live for.
Rather than the ultra-wealthy being slightly less wealthy so the rest of society, which is necessary for their wealth to exist, can have something good in their lives, we're instead becoming increasingly oppressive. Over-policing, militarizing police, crushing protests (as per this last weekend in LA), etc.
Things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. And to think, all a lot of people need to be happy is a roof over their head, not having to have 3 jobs and being able to have a dog.
Your newsletter. I needs it.
I am so tired of seeing the most interesting or actually life impacting subjects getting flagged.
You know what we all need? Another article about LLMs.
I agree. I think we need an "unflag" link, to allow "do not flag" opinions to also be expressed.
It has been tens of thousands of years and mankind’s greatest achievement is still the domestication of the dog.
It is no surprise that people are fans of them, for a variety of reasons.
Semi-rant:
I’m very disappointed to see such wide adoption of pets, especially dogs, as “replacements” of children in adult lives. I do not think it’s healthy for adults to do this because it infantilizes the adult. It is actually very sad, almost pitiful to see it happen. I think pets are wonderful for children because it helps them to develop a connection with living beings that aren’t humans, to see emotions are a universal trait.
More frequently I see now grown people wheeling their dogs in baby carriages. If this is some cosmic-scale humor by nature because we have overpopulated the planet and it’s intentionally sabotaging the environment, then I’m afraid the joke is on us.
Advertising to pet owners is reaching absurd levels. Pet owners are now “pet parents” and the marketing is basically identical to marketing directed at new (real) parents.
While there are some surface level similarities to owning a pet and having children, it’s absurd to conflate the two as if they are equivalent.
I don't think most people using silly terms like "pet parents" are actually conflating parenthood with caring for a pet.
Not most but there definitely is a weird subculture out there.
The /r/petfree subreddit is hysterical in the opposite direction at times but there is some fascinating content on there sometimes. An example: a social media post of someone mourning their child's death, folks commenting about the death of their pets as if it were comparable:
https://www.reddit.com/r/petfree/comments/1kzlt3o/people_arg...
> My three year old killed by a drunk driver. A lady said I know how you feel, my dog died last year
> Idk about you but I loved my dogs more than anything. I felt guilty for a long time bc I sobbed for days after each was put down but didn't cry at my cousin or grandfather's funeral
> I loved my dog and mom exactly the same, and their deaths both felt the same
> It's been scientifically proven that a dog death can effect you more than a human one
Why would someone go out of their way to make r/petfree to demonize pet owners is beyond me. But hey, that’s the internet nowadays I guess. Rage fueled machine.
Well, I'd imagine they'd do it because they are frustrated with pet owners. Half the content on that sub is people bringing their dogs to places dogs shouldn't go and I share a frustration with that. I'm not about to curate an entire community dedicated to it, but still.
I don’t know what percentage are sincere about it, but I have absolutely heard it used in advertising in ways that seemed completely straight-faced.
People have pretty strong motivation to conflate the two - namely, access to privileges traditionally granted to parents.
Leaving work early to deal with kid(/dog) stuff, public spaces tolerating the presence of your loud, annoying, not-that-clean kid(/dog), an expectation of urban spaces providing places for your kid(/dog) to go to the bathroom. Etc.
That's an interesting perspective. As an adult who has both human children and many pets, I disagree that your premise that pets are only valuable for children. We come from cave people who live in big family groups. Modern humans are more isolated and live in relatively small houses, without their extended families. I think it's only natural for us to want to care for animals. And just because a dog isn't as smart, and can't talk doesn't mean it can't be a real friend.
>I disagree that your premise that pets are only valuable for children.
On r/poveryfinance and similar subreddits, one can always find someone complaining that they're about to become homeless because they can't afford rent, begging others to please tell them what line item can be cut from their budget to make it work, the conceit being that they consider every item essential. Mixed in among the electrical and water and costs of commuting to work will be $100/month for dog food or cat litter or whatever.
Not only is there no value there, there is, quite often, anti-value. And this is just the quantifiable stuff, these people follow their dogs around picking up their feces with their hands.
Yes, rent itself is generally cheaper in the absence of pets.
> I disagree that your premise that pets are only valuable for children.
Where did you get this premise from?
Not who you were responding to, but in your original statement you wrote "I do not think it’s healthy for adults to do this [sic] I think pets are wonderful for children"
By explicitly calling out that "[they] are wonderful for children" you are implicitly calling into question their value for adults. Whether that was your intention or not, it's certainly how I read your statement.
> I do not think it’s healthy for adults to do this because it infantilizes the adult. ... I think pets are wonderful for children because it helps them to develop a connection with living beings that aren’t humans
This quote heavily implies pets are bad for adults. Maybe it wasn't your intent.
Almost anything, humane, to lower the earth's population, is fine by me. Do some people go a little overboard? Certainly. Are they having fun and not hurting anyone else at the same time? Excellent!
I think the only entity sabotaging the environment is we humans. Nature deals with what it's given by adapting. I do think the baby carriages are hilarious, unless it's a geriatric pet.
Most of the time a dog is in a stroller it’s because the dog is old or injured. I don’t think many people do it just to make the dog seem more like a child.
Not in my observations. Where I am, people put their little dogs in strollers, dress them up with hair clips, etc and stroll them around while they're shopping at Macy's etc.
This is predominantly what I have also seen.
You should see east Asia. There are more dog strollers than baby strollers.
I have the same thought; it messes with peoples value systems and just isn't healthy for a lot of people. I wouldn't say it ruins lives but people will do nothing but work and tend to their 3 dogs, which inhibits personal development or meaningful progress in life.
Plus nobody enforces a lot of health and safety laws anymore, it's not uncommon to see dogs in grocery stores for example, despite it being illegal and gross.
> people will do nothing but work and tend to their 3 dogs, which inhibits personal development or meaningful progress in life.
If that connection with their dogs is what brings them personal fulfillment, why is that not meaningful? And can they not personally develop within that chosen life path?
Personal development and progress of ... what?
What are people not building too that you think they should? What have you built that's so great?
> personal development or meaningful progress in life
What exactly are people not achieving when they have a dog?
I bought my first home in my twenties, have a very high paying job, I have good friends, I play music sometimes, I grow my own food, I can cook better than most restaurants, I am happy most of the time, I am reasonably physically fit and can climb a mountain (literally).
What meaningful progress is my dog holding me back from?
As the article says, for some people it serves as a substitute for having kids/a family. Life is about more than your personal well being. Maybe you disagree; there are certainly a lot of moral frameworks under which that's not a true statement, and unless there's a higher power to appeal to nobody can tell you that your chosen philosophy is wrong. But all of us will someday grow old and die, and dogs aren't going be our legacy, nor will they be taking care of us in our old age. Just something to consider...
Regardless of dog ownership, it sounds a bit ego-centric to think that life is solely about leaving a legacy and assuming your kids are there solely to care for their parents in old age.
I agree. I'm certainly not suggesting those are the only reasons to have kids, just two that I felt might resonate well with the the previous poster given the materialistic thrust of his comment.
> people will do nothing but work and tend to their 3 dogs, which inhibits personal development or meaningful progress in life.
GP was referring to this group of people whose lives consist of only work and their pets. Clearly you do not fall into this group. In fact, given your lifestyle (a healthy, balanced one), I'd say a pet has great potential to further enhance personal development.
Every person who has a dog/cat isn't stiffed, just that they progress less on average.
What I've seen is they aren't getting into real relationships or developing hobbies, and are instead becoming attached to their pets. I know it's dismal but the loneliness associated with being single is supposed to motivate you into improving yourself and finding a partner. By spending money and a few hours a day with your pet, you're not doing other (potentially more real) things.
I don’t agree. Most people spend their free time doing objectively useless/harmful things like watching TV and playing video games while being 30+ BMI and no friends.
Some objective things having a dog has forced me to do:
* I go outside more often * I meet more people outside and many have become friends * I have a schedule every day
This has really not been my experience at all. If anything, having a dog is an excuse to get out of the house. Hell, my best friend found his wife because they both loved dogs.
I'm happy to hear you like your dog, but if you spent any time caring for your dog then that's time you can't spend doing other things. It's less of a subjective qualitative analysis and more of a quantitative one
I guess I just don't understand what point you're trying to make. I'm mean, time I spend on HN is time I can't spend doing other things as well. Or commuting, or watching movies, or playing piano, literally anything we do in life that isn't directly related to survival.
In fact, things like taking my dog for a walk is a pure positive. I get exercise and sometimes my family comes along for the walk too. That's a boost to my family's health and relationships enabled by the context of caring for the dog. So trying to portray dog ownership as a pure energy drain is just not true.
Bro are you aware that dogs are absolute chick magnets? If you don't have a partner, get a cute-looking dog* and walk it twice a day at parks or other places there are people, and the ladies will just walk up to you. The exercise from all the walking will make you more attractive to potential mates too. With a bit of personality and humor, anyone can convert that high-quality potential-partner funnel into a good relationship.
* I mean take good care of the dog obviously. It's not just a tool to improve your love life. But like if you genuinely think dog ownership is holding people back from romance, you really don't know how things work.
Dunno, if the alternative is actively destructive behaviour, it might be good for society for people to find meaning in pets. It's also good for those individuals and animals in question as well. I'm not sure we're missing out on many Requiems, Anna Kareninas, and Space Odysseys because of it.
Dogs shouldnt be in grocery stores, bars or restaurants.
Have you seen the other people in there? How are the dogs worse?
I wonder what you think people who dont have children and opt for pets thought about or went through prior to making that decision? I personally dont care for children and cannot think of a universe in which I would want to be a parent - why would I want the stress and strain of coddling a child for two decades?
I am sympathetic to this view even if I think it understates the value pets may bring. I do agree that people, as they tend to do, push the limits on what is socially acceptable to some silly degree, but, I also accept, that as long they don't hurt anyone in the process, it might be ok.
The issue is.. pets are still pets. And to your point, unbehaved dog can be dangerous to its immediate surrounding. I won't go into details, but our dog is very protective of our kid, so there are places I will not take it ( or at least not without precautions ).. and this is what I see less and less: responsible behavior.
But I will say this, dog was a great training for a kid, when it came for us, because we saw some very similar issues repeat themselves.
The issue is what it has always been: people.
I avoided going into all the myriad of things that pets are good for because it’s not the point. I grew up with a small backyard graveyard of all the pets I’ve had over the years, some given some adopted some stray, so I’m very far from anti-pet.
What I’m really poking at here in the joke behind the rant sort of way is a suspicion, a conspiracy by nature to suppress our reproduction capabilities by slowly not only making us infertile in greater numbers, but steering us towards adopting pets instead of humans as a prank, to make us see the animals we are in an animal kingdom.
Interesting, I will admit that I missed that interpretation, but the coffee still didn't kick in yet. In that sense, it would be an interesting expansion on the jokes of Carlin ( how would planet deal with such unhealthy surface nuissance? ). I did internally chuckle so thank you for this morning smile.
Can you elaborate on how it "infantilizes the adult"?
That confused me a bit too, but what I suspect is that owning a pet is kind of like having a permanent baby, but without many of the real challenges a human child presents.
Your dog can be cute and child-like and playful for its entire life, but is also far more self-sufficient than a human child is in the first year or two of its life.
It’s kind of like you get to be a make-believe parent without any of the difficult parts.
>That confused me a bit too, but what I suspect is that owning a pet is kind of like having a permanent baby,
No, he's saying that having a puppy is something a child does, something that's normal for children. If you're doing things that only children should be doing, you are infantilizing yourself (changing your brain in ways that prevents you from growing up properly).
>If this is some cosmic-scale humor by nature
I would not blame nature for this. I'm not particularly conspiracy-minded (humans are generally too stupid for supervillain-style conspiracies), but people did this. The only question at all is whether they did it deliberately, or if it was accidental.
>then I’m afraid the joke is on us.
It's definitely on us.
A recent car crash in San Francisco killed a man and his dog and many people on Reddit reacted with a comment like “Nooo! Not the dog!”
I thought that was ridiculous because these are just animals. It sucks when they die but it’s not the end of the world.
Another car nearby killed a little child and her father and that one was much more horrific to me.
But now it makes sense: to these people the two incidents were equivalent. I suppose that is normal, what with all the stories of animals caring for the young of other animals. Neotenic characteristics seem to have cross-species impact.
Very cool. Thank you for sharing this.
Animals now play a role that angels and similar religious concepts played in the past - an abstract ideal representing what is Good. It's difficult for a human to win this battle. No dog ever operated a sweatshop, dumped mercury into a river, or siphoned billions off to some tropical island somewhere.
As they say, all dogs go to heaven.
When tragedy befalls an animal, we tend to be more upset about it because animals are innocent. They're not aware like we are and can't make better choices when we can, so when they get caught at the wrong place at the wrong time, it's somehow sadder to a stranger than if it were an adult human.
You see this in cinema. We're relieved that the cat survives in Alien, even though we just watched several humans die horribly. And we kind of feel like John Wick's Roaring Rampage of Revenge is justified after the Russian mafia kills his dog.
They're not innocent, they kill even when they're not hungry. If people evolved empathy towards them because historically they killed pests, that would explain why people love little murderers. The fact that the animals "don't know any better" isn't causal, mosquitoes don't know any better either.
"knowing better" implies a societal framework that animals just simply do not participate in.
i'm not a fan of housecats (based on their environmental impact) but i'm not going to hold them individually responsible or liable for things they legally cannot partake in (murder).
We evolved empathy towards them because of superficial cute features. Like puppy dog eyes and other endearing child like features. Dogs are evolving towards a parasitic role by hijacking our biological instincts to care for things that are small and cute. This instinct never evolved t the point where it specifically only applies to human cuteness because such selection pressure was unneeded. There were human babies and that’s it.
Dogs took advantage of this situation and they evolved to hijack our paternal and maternal instincts. Now there is selection pressure. But note dogs reproduce much much faster than humans so this will be an evolutionary arms race where dogs get cuter and humans become less interested in dogs. The first round comes when the people who have dogs instead of kids fail to reproduce. Also Expect an increase in dog allergies over time.
I like cats as well as dogs, but it feels obligatory to include this:
https://theoatmeal.com/comics/cats_actually_kill
> When tragedy befalls an animal, we tend to be more upset about it because animals are innocent.
This never gets reconciled with the reality of factory farms and mass meat production. It’s certainly a type of cognitive dissonance. In a hundred years we might look back on the now with horror (more generalized anyway).
Because most people don't keep cows, pigs, and chickens as pets.
People who grow up even on small, non-factory farms see these animals as products for sale or economic assets, not companions. And even the dogs and cats are likely to be utilized for work as much as companionship.
> In a hundred years we might look back on the now with horror (more generalized anyway).
You don't have to go a hundred years - most non-western societies look at western fascination with dogs and pets with horror, especially when couples with low rates of marriage, population collapse etc.
Which societies are those? It's got to be Africa, a little of the Middle East, and South East Asia alone, because East Asia, South America, even much of the Middle East is lower than replacement. By population, it's only Africa that really has this opinion.
It baffles the mind that people decry the death of a dog while munching a burger. Cows (or chickens, for that matter) are not less precious than dogs, and yet the vast majority of us eat as much and as many of them as they can afford.
> Cows (or chickens, for that matter) are not less precious than dogs
You can feel that way, and that's fine, but people are allowed to decide what they do or don't find precious. They are allowed to rank species and members within a species in order of most to least precious. There's no inherent rule that all life must be valued the same. Would you not be more sad about a human child dying over a cow? Would you not be more sad about a loved one dying about a random person you don't know a few thousand miles away?
The person you're responding to didn't mention "feeling". They made a moral statement. Feelings are something we deal with, morals are something we work to build. Confusing the two will lead to a very confusing life.
Additionally, your examples are passive. A more appropriate comparison would be "Would you not be more sad about killing a human child instead of a cow?" Of course you would be! But what if you didn't have to do either?
Exactly.
By extension, what makes cows more precious than 800 lb. of algal scum? Heck, the scum at least is reducing CO2 content; cows support global warming.
Who's precious now???
Humans are remarkably skilled at extending-reducing the range of their empathy, often deep compassion is reserved only for the carefully selected in-group members. It’s even easier to withhold it when it comes to other beings.
It’s not baffling. Dogs appeal to our paternal and maternal instincts. They have evolved to hijack it.
They reproduce faster then us so puppies are able to get cuter then babies over generations and thus they are out competing us.
I would only agree to this to the extent that humans have engineered this "evolution".
That's why they're called "breeds", because humans bred them.
They're bred for cuteness, violence, but mostly they're bred for profit.
The "pet industry" is a rapid growth segment of the economy. If a pet is "part of the family", then isn't the "pet industry" basically a slave trade?
Yeah. They hijacked our maternal instincts and our productivity instincts. Dogs have evolved to the point where they now have humans handling artificial selection for them instead of relying on natural selection.
It's a 1000x speed up to have humans picking out the cute ones and deliberately forcing this forward to make money.
You have to realize that it's our own instincts driving this forward and if it detriments humanity then the traits of "seeking profit" or "seeking cuteness" become subject to natural selection. These traits will go away with time.
Calves aren't cute?
Not as cute as doggos. You realize most people think puppies are cuter than human babies right?
If you're just eating a burger, you're not personally slaughtering the cow. Secondly, the relationship of humans and dogs is far different than humans and cows, dogs have evolved alongside us as companions, and cows are food.
If you had to choose between a family member dying or a totally random person dying, even though objectively they're both just humans, you're going to kill the random person, because you have feelings and emotions, and they are part of the equation. For the same reason you'd kill the random person, people would kill the cow, and want to save the dog.
This is one of the reasons why I dislike "cattle, not pets" which is used in the SRE world to explain automation.
agreed. it's definitely descriptive based on the popular consensus, but... cattle are living, sentient creatures, too.
Is it legal to have a dog burger?
Depends on local laws.
[dead]
People bringing their pet dogs into grocery stores is an especially egregious societal ill. It's a major problem in places like Seattle where dogs outnumber children.
I once watched a woman hold her little dog over the glass at the pizza bar in Whole Foods. Was waiting for the dog to drop a free sausage link onto the pizza below.
Placing dogs into shopping carts is another one. Dogs rub their dirty buttholes on the same surfaces where you later place your fruits and vegetables.
I too dislike extreme dog people - the kind of people who treat them as a human equal. I grew up with dogs and cats, nowadays just two cats, after they go, no more pets for me. I deeply love my animals and they make great companions.
But make no mistake, they're still animals and are not predictable. I would never bring a dog with me outside to do anything other than go for a walk, always on a leash. They really dont belong in public spaces. I've seen and heard too many stories of dogs suddenly not being the perfect precious animal their owner claims and it bites or attacks another animal or person. Then when they do the owners insist the victim must have done something wrong and take zero responsibility.
> the kind of people who treat them as a human equal.
No, they treat them as better than people.
Because in their value system, animals are moral objects but not moral subjects. By that, I mean that actions done to animals can have moral weight. If you take a sick kitten and nurse it back to health, you are a good person. If you kick a puppy, you are a bad person.
But the animal itself (according to this culture) carries no moral responsibility. If a dog bites someone, it's not an evil dog. It's not the dog's fault. It was just raised poorly, or traumatized as a puppy, or the owner should have kept it leashed better, etc.
Thus animals are always morally pure, but people can be bad people. I kind of get where the value system is coming from: animals really are on the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to power and agency, so it does make sense to think of them as mostly receivers of moral actions. But some people take that really far.
Yes, it extends to the realm of absurdity. When people post videos of animals doing good things, invariably comments are posted affirming how much better animals are than humans and "we don't deserve #{animal}s". At the same turn completely forgetting that in the wild, animals eat other animals (and humans) alive, engage in tribal wars, play around and torture their prey before eating them, commit infanticide, rape, etc.
When they aren't abused, nearly all dogs are extremely loyal and affectionate. When they see you after even the shortest of absences, they act like a kid on Christmas morning just because you're there. They understand basic feelings and will try to comfort you when you're not feeling great. Most are patient to a fault with children. Many if not most will act as guardians, protecting you from threats without hesitation, even in cases where it is obvious it is likely to cost their lives.
We absolutely don't deserve them.
With no cognitive dissonance, I can also recognize that some dogs can be dangerous, and in extreme cases, need to be put down. However, I would point out that the vast majority of misbehaved dogs can and should be trained out of their bad behavior, so it's nearly always their owners' responsibilities.
You are simply delusional with your dog fetish.
> I would never bring a dog with me outside to do anything other than go for a walk, always on a leash. They really don't belong in public spaces.
This seems a bit extreme. I think dog owners have a responsibility to make sure their animal is trained and able to be controlled near people, but outdoor public spaces (parks/plazas, cafes with outdoor seating whose management is dog friendly), seem fine.
However, the responsibility for your dog's behavior extends even outside of public space. I was bitten by a dog in the lobby of a friend's building. The dog was leashed and presumably just returning from a walk. Later, I heard that some inspections in that building had to be rescheduled because a dog bit one of the inspectors while inside one of the condos (not sure if it was the same dog). Being in a non-public space in no way reduces the owner's responsibility.
Yes, it's truly disgusting. It's one of the only common anti-social behaviors that will actually make me verbalize my annoyance.
> a free sausage link
I’m in tears.
I can now see why the story was flagged. Based on the discussion, this is not a good look for the HN community.
[flagged]
Whoa, please don't get aggressive on HN. Regardless of how much of a problem certain dogs are or you feel they are, it is not ok to post like that.
Edit Unfortunately, your account has been breaking the site guidelines in other places too. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
(We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44225114.)
FWIW I wrote that post with no aggression intended. I suspect you may be overanalyzing things. Have a Coke and a smile, Dan.
Unfortunately, if my manner of speaking directly is breaking the site guidelines, then I'm afraid my values are incompatible with posting here.
I hope you didn't expend too much energy digging through my post history looking for transgressions. Though I do think it's funny the post that got me yelled at was the post insulting pit bulls.
Remember to not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Many of my posts were highly upvoted. I bid you good day.
I believe you about your intent, but intent doesn't communicate itself—particularly not in tiny textblobs where tone of voice, body language, and so on, aren't available. Intent has to be supplied along with your message in a way that people can perceive, and the burden is on you (i.e. the commenter) to disambiguate it. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....
People's posts often generate effects that they didn't have in mind when they were posting. For the health of an internet forum, effects (which are observable) matter more than intent (which is not). https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
The language you used in the last sentence of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44225270 was so garish, violent, and personal that it counts as aggressive, whether you were feeling aggressive or not when you posted it. That was way beyond just "speaking directly".
It's common (in fact we all do it) to underestimate the provocation level in one's own posts and overestimate it in others'. That leads to quite a skew in perception. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
(Btw, I apologize for linking so much to lists of my own past comments. It's annoying and embarrassing. But it's the only efficient way I know of to provide additional explanation, and additional explanation is often necessary.)
Anyone owning a pit who isn't both strong & physically large is putting other people and animals at risk. I have met many, many sweet pits, but all dogs can lose it and if a pit goes many of the pit owners I've seen couldn't do a damned thing about it: they are incredibly powerful animals.
To be honest I think that's what attracts many inappropriate owners to them.
Two pit stories:
I saw a fat guy walking a relatively small pit and took my dogs off to the side, about 20 feet away to let them pass. The pit pulled out of his (inappropriately fastened) muzzle backwards (they are smart dogs) and took a dead no-bark run at my terrier. I had my 35 lb terrier in the air and kicked that dog as hard as I could in the side to get the situation under control.
Our neighbor had a BIG pit named Thor (big guy, he could control the dog, but kept him leashed out front.). Thor got off leash once and came over and messed w/our goats. We had one goat (the smallest) who we kept horns on and Thor found out the hard way that that goat wasn't going down w/o a fight. Thor survived but didn't mess w/the goats any more after that.
Again, I like most of the pits I've met, but I see a lot of irresponsible owners.
It’s hard to engage in rational good-faith discussion about problem dog breeds because most folks have already made up their mind, and there’s no changing it.
The chances of someone surrendering their dog to which they are bonded after reading a comment is unlikely. The chances of someone with the opposite opinion adopting a pitbull are similar.
You writing "one of these land sharks" here shows nothing but your ignorance, to both pit bulls and sharks, as both of these animals don't have any kind of natural aggression towards humans. Sure, both are powerful and CAN hurt you (perhaps more than other animals), but are certainly not short-wired to bite you.
But especially in the case of domesticated dogs, the problem are NOT the pits themselves, but the conditions in which they were raised.
No breed of dog is a "violent schizophrenic." Poorly-raised dogs of any breed are dangerous. The problem is bad humans, not bad dogs.
> Don't think scare quotes are appropriate here. Pits are problem dogs; they are the violent schizophrenics of the dog world.
I don't think so.
There are over 200 breeds of dog, it doesn't really track that only 2-3 breeds would be significantly more violent than the others.
We don't have enough data to be conclusive one way or the other, but if you look at the occurrence of strays and breed ownership by socioeconomic status, pit bull breeds are also very high on these lists.
This tracks with human data to some extent: people from lower socioeconomic groups are more often perpetrators and victims of violence.
Looking at breed specific violence and coming to a conclusion about temperament is very similar to looking at race specific graduation rates and coming to a conclusion about intelligence.
> There are over 200 breeds of dog, it doesn't really track that only 2-3 breeds would be significantly more violent than the others.
Why not? There are breeds that are taller or shorter, high-energy or low-energy, great hunters or awful hunters, and so on. And it’s not a mystery why some breeds got this way: they were specifically bred for it.
> There are breeds that are taller or shorter, high-energy or low-energy, great hunters or awful hunters, and so on
there are dozens of breeds in each of these categories — we don't have a single breed of dog that's 5x faster than all the others
While I don’t think the dogs are at fault, I’m not sure your argument follows. Why can’t we breed aggression in only a small number of breeds? We don’t breed short legs into all the breeds.
asked in another way: where are all the aggressive offshoot breeds from pitbulls? there are a wide variety of short-legged dog breeds; corgis, dachsunds, basset hounds, scotties, bulldogs... there's an enormous variety there... yet we're to expect that aggressive dogs are limited to a very specific appearance (seriously, an order of magnitude higher than almost all other breeds)? the data absolutely stinks
there are multiple other factors (social, socioeconomic) that are a better predictor of behaviors that can also be applied to humans
There are relatively few fatal dog maulings, but when there is one it's usually a pit or a rot:
https://www.statista.com/chart/15446/breeds-of-dog-involved-...
I think you should have to be able to deadlift 350 lbs to own either.
The person you replied to: "I'm trying to help animals in need!"
You: "How dare you do this well intentioned, possibly dangerous thing?! Also, let me insult the animals you love!"
What is even a little bit constructive about your post? If you want the parent to change why would you write like this?
Dating later in life with children and this is something I don’t need research to tell me. If you’re in your 30s-40s without kids and a dog, we’re of totally different mindsets.
> If you’re in your 30s-40s without kids and a dog, we’re of totally different mindsets.
I'm broke. As much as it pains me to be without a pet, I dont want to take on additional responsibilities if I am incapable of sufficiently giving the care these living beings need and deserve.
I've considered fostering, as they pay for many things the animals need. Perhaps in the future.
Getting upvoted first then downvoted on this proves the point.
From a biological perspective dogs are parasites. They are hijacking our biological maternal instincts and replacing children.
They drain resources and get free care while offering no benefit other than satisfying maternal urges which were designed to work on human babies. Puppies are 100 percent part of the reason for the westernized world’s population problem.
>Puppies are 100 percent part of the reason for the westernized world’s population problem.
I know dozens of couples who were pairs of high earners but one quit their job to stay at home with their child because it was cheaper than paying for child care, but sure, tell yourself it's the dogs.
Don’t be biased because you love dogs. Face the truth.
The economy IS a factor.
But sinking resources into a dog that offers no evolutionary or biological benefit IS ALSO a factor.
There is no other way to look at this. You are committing an act of irrationality if you refuse to see dogs from a biological perspective.
Porn sits in the same area. Hijacking biological instincts to prevent reproduction.
We are looking at multiple causal sources that prevent us from having more children. In the same way men use porn to assuage our sexual urges, many women use dogs to help assuage their maternal instincts. Don’t let your emotions cloud your logic.
This article did not deserve to get flagged simply for offering their own perspective.
Dogs have nothing to do with it. People are choosing not to have kids, especially in America, because they can barely pay for rent, food, and (if they're fortunate) healthcare for themselves. Going out to eat is a luxury that even software engineers earning 6 figures are having to reevaluate with prices to say nothing of other entertainment.
Third places and opportunities to meet people are greatly reduced because everything's taken over by venture capital chains and so expensive, and even if you meet someone the odds of the two of you making enough money to afford to raise a child is low.
If you have that money, you're probably educated enough to see that life for your child will be significantly worse than life for you right now - the rise of authoritarianism, climate change, the active ongoing destruction of American economic power and soft political power, the concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands, disinformation causing massive chunks of the country to oppose science, education, and other things, discrimination based on gender and race....we're in for some very hard times and it takes a certain mindset to decide that you want to subject a child you love to all of it.
It's not the dogs.
It's the economic issue AND a dogs issue AND a birth control issue AND porn a porn issue.
Sperm getting launched into socks or condoms instead of vaginas, not enough money and maternal instincts being assuaged by puppies all contributes to the problem.
The mechanisms that force the population to expand are designed to go against our judgement. Sexual instincts, birth control and maternal instincts are all designed to override our judgement and push the population forward at the detriment of of the human individual. Are you poor? Evolution does not give a fuck, it designed you to be horny and to have maternal instincts so you will increase the population no matter how fucked up your situation is.
But thanks to modern technology we've learned to conquer these things. Puppies, condoms and porn. All contributors to the issue.
Bro, I own a dog. I love dogs and condoms. Doesn't mean I'm going to let my love of dogs and condoms cloud my objective reasoning. Also I'm still going to use a condom when I fuck some random hot girl because my individual situation is more important To Me then the overall population problem. It's called the tragedy of the commons.
A Dog's heightened senses are an asset when detecting intruders. I'm sure thats probably the biggest reason humanity domesticated them in the first place.
If a dog keeps depression at bay, someone could possibly avoid having their brain chemistry permanently altered by owning a dog.
There are even working breeds with many different purposes. It's not all black lab and American Eskimo.
I mean none of this is contradictory to any of my statements. All of this can be true ALONG with my statements as well.
One of your statements was "They drain resources and get free care while offering no benefit other than satisfying maternal urges which were designed to work on human babies".
Any example of a dog offering a benefit other than satisfying maternal urges contradicts that statement.
In addition to the non-maternal urge satisfying benefits he named I'll give another: protecting human children. When I was around 4 our dog stopped me from going and picking up a rattlesnake. The dog blocked me from getting closer to the snake and barked until my Mom came to investigate.
I meant it in a general sense from a biological and evolutionary perspective.
Obviously from other perspectives it’s different or else why would someone even own a dog if it had zero benefit?
> Puppies are 100 percent part of the reason for the westernized world’s population problem.
Isn't "100 percent" redundant here? In general X is either part of the reason for Y or X is not part of the reason for Y. I can't think of any example where X might be say 87% part of the reason for Y.
It is. It’s a figure of speech emphasizing that there is no way in reality where puppies have not influenced the population problem.
Saying that it has not influenced the population problem is equivalent to not living in reality.
The Western world does not have a "population problem" despite the feverish fantasies of right-wing nutjobs.
You’re ignorant. Every scientific measurement from every major statistical source about these things knows that there is a population problem. It’s not even a right or left thing it’s reality. It’s science. I can source dozens of neutral sources.
Look it up yourself. This is not a political issue. This is a logistical one and it is highly verified through science.
There’s a _demographic_ problem, which will require economic adjustment; the population is shifting older. There’s no population problem per se, though.
That’s categorically wrong. There is a population problem. Every scientific source says so. It’s universally known.
The demographic problem is causally related to the population problem. There’s also no other way to logically categorize it.
A demographic problem means we have too little young people and too many old people. How does that even logically happen?
It happens because one demographic is not reproducing fast enough. _That_ is intrinsically a population problem. This is just derived from pure logic… outside of logic you can derive the same from numerous pieces evidence where this issue is totally evidence and unequivocally obvious for people who study the population.
... Eh?
A declining population would not inherently be a problem. Low population growth is a concern only in that it is associated with a demographic problem, but the demographic problem is itself a problem only in that it raises concerns about how to support lots of elderly people, and there are many solutions there, only some of which involve higher population growth (for instance, increased taxation, increased automation, raised retirement ages, etc etc). And it is inherently a _temporary_ problem; eventually birth rates will stabilise at a new normal (this may already be happening in many places), the bulge in the population chart will age out, and normality will resume at a lower base.
This isn't even _that_ novel; major wars, for instance, tend to produce a temporary deficit of working age people vs elderly, as do certain disease epidemic (the 1918 flu pandemic preferentially killed young people, for instance).
Some people seem to extrapolate low population increase to _human extinction_ or something, but this really makes very little sense; lower birth rates doesn't mean _zero_ birth rates.
obviously by population problem I mean declining population. This is just pedantism.
That being said every expert who talks about this or studies it refers to this as a problem. Everyone. You’re on a sinking ship trying to not look like an idiot and you’re failing. It’s more than just a demographic problem. It’s a major economic problem even when looked at independent from the demographic issue.
When did I extrapolate extinction or zero birth rate? Don’t be an idiot. zero birth rate means nobody is having kids. If one person out of 10 billion people has a kid then the birth rate is positive. Only a genius can come up with a statement like zero birth rate.
What the hell is up with your underscores? “_that_” as if you know what you are talking about. You said this isn’t “_that_ novel”? Are you kidding? Every major expert or study classifies our declining birth rate as completely novel. Unprecedented in the history of mankind. Nobody knows the exact cause and nobody knows where it will lead.
In general it is associated with the cultural and technological shift in human civilization that has never happened before throughout human history. Modern technology, women’s rights, birth control, the way we live. The current way we live represents about 1 percent of our collective history and we’ve never lived this way for 99 percent of our history. For most of human civilization we couldn’t afford to raise a freaking dog because doing so would compromise our survival. Things have changed and we are very sure that the changes are related to declining population but we cannot point to an exact causal source.
Wake up. Go educate yourself about the issue extensively and learn about anthropology and the economy before pretending you know what you’re talking about.
Science will also always intersect with your love of dogs, liberal beliefs or conservative values. Ignore the morals when judging truth as truth is independent of right and wrong. Then when you have clarity about what’s going on you’ll gain the ability to interpret reality for what it is rather then blindly fighting for some ideology.
For example, I love dogs. But that doesn’t change the fact that dogs offer virtually no evolutionary benefit to humans. If you want to solve the population issue without harming your dogs then address the issue truthfully rather through some misguided attempt to protect man’s best friend by making up bs.
Can you explain why you think that the population (eventually) falling is an inherent problem? (Beyond claiming that unnamed experts think that it is a problem, I mean.) There are of course problems which it implies, primarily, bluntly, "how do we pay for all the old people", but really that one was going to show up to some extent _anyway_ just due to increased lifespans, and it has many possible solutions which don't involve population increase.
If, in a couple of centuries, the world's population is, say, 3 billion, then, provided that they've weathered the economic stresses around pensions etc., why is that a problem?
Personally, I'm far from a dog enthusiast. My reasons for questioning you on this are in no way related to dogs.
> You said this isn’t “_that_ novel”? Are you kidding?
I was referring to a shortfall in working-age vs non-working-age population (for reasons other than low growth; disease or war generally, though if you go back a bit further famines sometimes also cause a similar distortion) not being that novel. And the working/non-working ratio is the only _real_ concern that I can see here.
Japan and Korea were ahead of the curve. They hit the major issues first and they are a precursor to the problems the rest of the world will face in a major way.
https://www.newsweek.com/japan-south-korea-face-population-d...
Look it up. This problem is everywhere, it's very public. It's not some obscure problem I dug up.
Also you're talking about hypotheticals in a couple of centuries. The problems being discussed are ones we will be facing within our lifetimes.
If you want to debate me I'm done talking. But if you want to learn more, go look it up. There's entire podcasts talking about this problem.
Name one scientific source that says "there is a population problem".
It doesn't count if it merely says "population is decreasing"; that's assuming the premise.
There is ONLY a problem if it contradicts a desirable goal - and by your post, that goal is apparently universal. Good luck with that.
Every scientific source I referenced and every single expert refers to the declining population as a problem.
There is a positive environmental and energy impact but in general the sentiment is that this is a problem.
Read about it. Look it up. Get with the program before running your mouth with made up stuff.
>I can source dozens of neutral sources. Look it up yourself.
The anthem of people spewing bullshit across the internet for 30 years.
Watch your tone. You are categorically ignorant to the situation at hand. I'm a moderate.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_decline
https://youtu.be/SdeoAgH-H_o?si=1-T1SGNZUyTFCFKP
https://youtu.be/kAolCH_yXwI?si=5wOqB3xxy1e2rayu
https://youtu.be/nms4BMOuDeE?si=auCl7FbXjQ-vnLED
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/population-declin...
https://www.iflscience.com/global-population-growth-is-rapid...
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11227040/
https://www.science.org/content/article/population-tipping-p...
https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/population-dec...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-025-04868-y
https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/population#:~:text=The%2...
The last link is from the UN. There’s even a link from Nature.
If you think population decline is political propaganda from right wing people then you are profoundly ignorant. The situation is well known factually by both sides as a logistical issue. The first countries hitting these problems are in Asia. Korea and Japan are facing the brunt of the problem head on before the rest of the westernized world faces it. The US hasn’t gotten the negative side effects of it yet as a lot of the decline is held up by immigration.
Stop being emotional. Stop being angry. I own a dog myself but that does not mean I don’t face biological and logistical reality.
I believe the objection wasn't to the claim of decline but rather to the claim that it is a problem.
The person directly referenced my claim that there are numerous sources and he called it “spewing shit”. So yes he was objecting to the fact that decline even exists.
Which shows how ignorant he is.
I strongly object to "look it up yourself" which is the argument of charlatans and lazy people. If you make a claim, support it yourself.
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They can't be convinced with reason, because they came to their point of view without it. They may in fact desire the extinction of humanity and claim ignorance because it confuses and disarms people like yourself. Such people become school teachers and cultivate similar attitudes in your children. They become journalists and understate these problems while overstating non-problems.
There is no point in talking to them once you have identified them.
are those right-wing nutjobs in the room with us right now?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_fer...