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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

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
      You could say the same thing about introverts. (I promise that's a genuinely thoughtful point, not an offhand dismissal.) Research into the question of whether wolves are different will discover that wolves are different. I appreciate the cite, but it isn't evidence that wolves will maul children just because they're ambitious. Maybe they do; maybe you're right. All we can say for certain is that we don't know. I think you could make the same points about lions, yet there is evidence of lions loving their owners and treating them with the same emotional bonds as a family member.

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
    You could say the same thing about introverts. (I promise that's a genuinely thoughtful point, not an offhand dismissal.) Research into the question of whether wolves are different will discover that wolves are different. I appreciate the cite, but it isn't evidence that wolves will maul children just because they're ambitious. Maybe they do; maybe you're right. All we can say for certain is that we don't know. I think you could make the same points about lions, yet there is evidence of lions loving their owners and treating them with the same emotional bonds as a family member.