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Your story clearly indicates this has nothing to do with it being a wolf. It happened to have a body that was capable of killing, yes. But the owner picked it u

Your story clearly indicates this has nothing to do with it being a wolf. It happened to have a body that was capable of killing, yes. But the owner picked it up and slammed it whenever it misbehaved, and the owner actively encouraged it to kill things. If your parents did that, you would do the same thing. You see this kind of prejudice against pitbulls too. They're some of the sweetest dogs.

macspoofing 9y ago
>Your story clearly indicates this has nothing to do with it being a wolf How do you figure that? The entire article basically talked about how you can never domesticate a wolf.
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- deleted 9y ago
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- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  Do you believe that if you can't domesticate an animal, that it's inherently and randomly violent? Every single one, in all cases? People live with tigers. You'd never say that they were domesticated. The majority of the time, this works fine. you only hear about cases where they turn on their owner, which is rare. I've spent a long time thinking about this question, and it seems like the ultimate truth is that we humans are uncomfortable with anything that can possibly threaten us. If we can't win in a fistfight, we classify it as subhuman. We don't really classify dogs as subhuman. We treat them like family. We love them. They love us. If you think back to when gay people were oppressed, and are still being oppressed in Uganda (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2W41pvvZs0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2W41pvvZs0), the rhetoric against them is pretty similar to the type of thing you'd say to convince you that wolves are randomly and uncontrollably violent. It's at least an interesting coincidence. It's not fair to label them. "Only get a wolf if you can stomach putting a bullet in its head after it brutalizes your kids." Are you sure it makes no difference in how you raise them? The article seems to support this. Again, the specific wolf matters. But there are certainly wolves that don't have a high adrenaline response, meaning they are genetically predisposed to being nicer. They're not dogs, but they're not mindlessly violent. It's important to realize that the comments in this post suffer from selection bias. Obviously, if you make a post about how wolves become nasty, you're going to get ten thousand stories about all the wolves anyone has ever seen that were remotely nasty. I have no experience with wolves. I don't know one way or the other. Maybe you're right, and literally all of them will bite your kids. But almost no one here is speaking from first-hand experience, except this top comment. And that wolf owner was more interested in having a killing machine than having a new member of their family. It's important to be actively skeptical in that context. So, there you go. I've tried to be thorough and intellectually gratifying. I will say that I've been teetering on leaving HN lately because no one seems to be willing to engage with controversial ideas anymore -- they want to shout them down. I try not to generalize like that, because HN isn't a single entity, but there are a variety of ways to stomp on intellectual curiosity without breaking the rules. Maybe if I just attach that disclaimer to the bottom of all my long comments, things will turn out differently.
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    > Do you believe that if you can't domesticate an animal, that it's inherently and randomly violent? The wolf in the story wasn’t randomly violent. It was vying for a better spot in its pack’s hierarchy. It was exhibiting ambition. Unless you’re willing to be seen as an equal by an ambitious animal willing to rationally dispense violence to obtain its short-term goals, you don’t want a wolf. You want a nice, subservient dog whose competitive instincts vis-à-vis humans have been bred out.
    - sillysaurus3 9y ago
      The wolf biting the children may be related to being raised in an environment that included brutally murdering other animals at the owner's whim. We can't know whether that matters.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
        > We can't know whether that matters Not from this anecdote, but there is research on the topic. Studying puppies at 3, 4 and 5 weeks of age: “compared to wolves, dogs tended to display more communicative signals that could potentially facilitate social interactions, such as distress vocalization, tail wagging, and gazing at the humans’ face. In contrast to dog puppies, wolf pups showed aggressive behavior toward a familiar experimenter and also seemed to be more prone to avoidance. [1]” Approach avoidance through biting and other behaviours are discussed in the same paper’s “discussion” section. Later, they find wolves are worse at yielding to humans, keeping eye contact, sensing changes in vocal intonation or context when multiple people enter the room, et cetera [2]. [1] http://real.mtak.hu/3680/1/1075597.pdf http://real.mtak.hu/3680/1/1075597.pdf [2] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016815911300066X http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168159113...
        sillysaurus3 9y ago
thebulgar 9y ago
I don't know why you're getting downvoted. Pitbulls, golden retrievers, wolves--all technically the same species. The prejudice against certain breeds of "dog," or against "wolves," is no different from racism.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  Pretty much. Imagine what it would be like to be born a wolf or a pitbull. If nature is stronger than nurture, what does that say about our own species? How likely is it that it's impossible to shape a wolf? Dogs came from them. It has to start somewhere; it's not a step function. It's difficult to explore the question, though.
  - thebulgar 9y ago
    Your name is fitting.
- bitcoindoubt 9y ago
  Hackernews is like if you filled Palo Alto up three feet with raw sewage.
- PhasmaFelis 9y ago
  > The prejudice against certain breeds of "dog," or against "wolves," is no different from racism. Jesus Christ.
- goatlover 9y ago
  The same species if you ignore thousands of years of human breeding. And racism, WTF?
- lovich 9y ago
  I've never seen this argument before, so I would be interested if you could expand on your point

macspoofing 9y ago

>Your story clearly indicates this has nothing to do with it being a wolf How do you figure that? The entire article basically talked about how you can never domesticate a wolf.

deleted 9y ago
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deleted 9y ago
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sillysaurus3 9y ago
Do you believe that if you can't domesticate an animal, that it's inherently and randomly violent? Every single one, in all cases? People live with tigers. You'd never say that they were domesticated. The majority of the time, this works fine. you only hear about cases where they turn on their owner, which is rare. I've spent a long time thinking about this question, and it seems like the ultimate truth is that we humans are uncomfortable with anything that can possibly threaten us. If we can't win in a fistfight, we classify it as subhuman. We don't really classify dogs as subhuman. We treat them like family. We love them. They love us. If you think back to when gay people were oppressed, and are still being oppressed in Uganda (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2W41pvvZs0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2W41pvvZs0), the rhetoric against them is pretty similar to the type of thing you'd say to convince you that wolves are randomly and uncontrollably violent. It's at least an interesting coincidence. It's not fair to label them. "Only get a wolf if you can stomach putting a bullet in its head after it brutalizes your kids." Are you sure it makes no difference in how you raise them? The article seems to support this. Again, the specific wolf matters. But there are certainly wolves that don't have a high adrenaline response, meaning they are genetically predisposed to being nicer. They're not dogs, but they're not mindlessly violent. It's important to realize that the comments in this post suffer from selection bias. Obviously, if you make a post about how wolves become nasty, you're going to get ten thousand stories about all the wolves anyone has ever seen that were remotely nasty. I have no experience with wolves. I don't know one way or the other. Maybe you're right, and literally all of them will bite your kids. But almost no one here is speaking from first-hand experience, except this top comment. And that wolf owner was more interested in having a killing machine than having a new member of their family. It's important to be actively skeptical in that context. So, there you go. I've tried to be thorough and intellectually gratifying. I will say that I've been teetering on leaving HN lately because no one seems to be willing to engage with controversial ideas anymore -- they want to shout them down. I try not to generalize like that, because HN isn't a single entity, but there are a variety of ways to stomp on intellectual curiosity without breaking the rules. Maybe if I just attach that disclaimer to the bottom of all my long comments, things will turn out differently.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > Do you believe that if you can't domesticate an animal, that it's inherently and randomly violent? The wolf in the story wasn’t randomly violent. It was vying for a better spot in its pack’s hierarchy. It was exhibiting ambition. Unless you’re willing to be seen as an equal by an ambitious animal willing to rationally dispense violence to obtain its short-term goals, you don’t want a wolf. You want a nice, subservient dog whose competitive instincts vis-à-vis humans have been bred out.
  - sillysaurus3 9y ago
    The wolf biting the children may be related to being raised in an environment that included brutally murdering other animals at the owner's whim. We can't know whether that matters.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
      > We can't know whether that matters Not from this anecdote, but there is research on the topic. Studying puppies at 3, 4 and 5 weeks of age: “compared to wolves, dogs tended to display more communicative signals that could potentially facilitate social interactions, such as distress vocalization, tail wagging, and gazing at the humans’ face. In contrast to dog puppies, wolf pups showed aggressive behavior toward a familiar experimenter and also seemed to be more prone to avoidance. [1]” Approach avoidance through biting and other behaviours are discussed in the same paper’s “discussion” section. Later, they find wolves are worse at yielding to humans, keeping eye contact, sensing changes in vocal intonation or context when multiple people enter the room, et cetera [2]. [1] http://real.mtak.hu/3680/1/1075597.pdf http://real.mtak.hu/3680/1/1075597.pdf [2] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016815911300066X http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168159113...
      - sillysaurus3 9y ago

thebulgar 9y ago

I don't know why you're getting downvoted. Pitbulls, golden retrievers, wolves--all technically the same species. The prejudice against certain breeds of "dog," or against "wolves," is no different from racism.

sillysaurus3 9y ago
Pretty much. Imagine what it would be like to be born a wolf or a pitbull. If nature is stronger than nurture, what does that say about our own species? How likely is it that it's impossible to shape a wolf? Dogs came from them. It has to start somewhere; it's not a step function. It's difficult to explore the question, though.
- thebulgar 9y ago
  Your name is fitting.
bitcoindoubt 9y ago
Hackernews is like if you filled Palo Alto up three feet with raw sewage.
PhasmaFelis 9y ago
> The prejudice against certain breeds of "dog," or against "wolves," is no different from racism. Jesus Christ.
goatlover 9y ago
The same species if you ignore thousands of years of human breeding. And racism, WTF?
lovich 9y ago
I've never seen this argument before, so I would be interested if you could expand on your point