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If you don't like dogs, you will probably have zero interest in this. It has nothing to do with programming or society at large.
by Noumenon72 7y ago
If you don't like dogs, you will probably have zero interest in this. It has nothing to do with programming or society at large.
- 0x8BADF00D 7y agoIt’s much deeper than a story about a man and his dog. The real moral of this story is to not have any attachments. It’s all fleeting in the end. When the time comes, you need to accept it with open arms, instead of holding on in futility. Death comes for us all eventually.
- bittercynic 7y agoIt might be more fulfilling to learn to have attachments and to cope with loss.
- 0x8BADF00D 7y agoThat’s the path toward suffering. What if I choose to have zero personal attachments, but still celebrate human life? Complete strangers become immediate friends, family even. I have no need for such selfish bonds that will lead me to suffering.
- bittercynic 7y agoI guess that's your choice, but please consider that avoiding suffering at the expense of all other factors is an extreme choice, and you may miss out on something worthwhile.
- sgt101 7y ago>you may miss out on something worthwhile sorry, you should correct that to : you will miss out on everything worthwhile
- Noumenon72 7y agoNothing is actually worthwhile. Our "worthwhile" sense is perfectly capable of telling us that building the largest Beanie Baby collection is worthwhile, that joining the Westboro Baptists is worthwhile, or starting a juice bag startup is worthwhile. Do other people's lives seem more worthwhile to you because they have some relationships with people you'd care nothing for? Not to me -- the worthwhileness is an entirely subjective feeling for them. Whereas suffering is a real thing that subtracts much more from life than worthwhile adds.
- krageon 7y agoIf the highest you can attain in life is a lack of suffering, then death is the reasonable option. As a mindset, I think that's not a great one to have.
- krapp 7y ago>As a mindset, I think that's not a great one to have. It's the thesis behind one of the world's great religions.
- krageon 7y agoIt is in fact not, unless you are talking about some cult I don't know about. If you are talking just from the elimination of suffering angle, sure. But they make the theological case that the absence of suffering itself leads to a state that is far more than just the absence of suffering. I don't think we can or should take that as a given, just as we don't take other theological truths as a given.
- ghi5goio3qno4i3 7y agoPerhaps, but sometimes it's the right thing to do even if it's painful. Imagine for a moment a person makes the decision to commit suicide but needs to stay alive for a while longer in order to complete certain professional obligations. Would it be appropriate for that someone to form attachments, to be selfish and make friends knowing that he will hurt them terribly when he kills himself? If one of them were to be the one that discovers his dead body, or by the ones coping with his disappearance? Or is it better that he do the right thing, and sever any attachments that may exist so that they won't get hurt when he does kill himself? To contain the suffering to just one single individual.
- criddell 7y agoHow do you make decisions about whether or not to exercise or when to go to the dentist? I find it hard to believe that you could read a story like this one and what you come away with is the idea that dogs bring suffering.
- imtringued 7y agoThe only way you can avoid suffering is by not being born and since you are already here, you have lost from the start.
- YinglingLight 7y agoYou are flirting with Nihilism. Nihilism is sick beyond belief. It's alluring because "people are more afraid that things might have meaning, than that they might not."
- danso 7y agoI like dogs, but I saw it more of a story about the expectations we often have for folks in their 30s, in terms of life responsibilities and relationships. The author describes having to move on from the perfect love of a dog: > Dusty taught me everything I needed to know about life, but over the years there had been something missing. My friends Ben and Rachel insisted I join a dating app to expand my horizons. That’s how they met, but I loathed the idea. > Why would I want to expand my life? I had a dog, a place to live, a pickup truck smothered in bumper stickers. But out of curiosity (or God knows what), I humored them. I created a Tinder account with a picture of Dusty as my profile picture. No one matched with me until Rachel explained that I was swiping in the wrong direction. The first time I swiped right, I matched.
- sbmthakur 7y agoDo women have a thing for men with dogs? I've read at certain forums that men with dogs have better success with girls but never came across a study.
- decebalus1 7y agoIt's an American thing and it's more than that. Having a dog is like a signal that you're 'normal'. If you don't have a dog, there may be something wrong with you. The lack of a dog or love for dogs is actually the red flag. The dog just raises you closer to the baseline. If you don't like dogs and have the audacity to voice your preference out loud, prepare to be a social outcast/weirdo/creep.
- magduf 7y agoExactly. My profile clearly states that I have cats, and at least on OKC, I do have the audacity in the "questions" (in a couple asking if you have/want a dog or like dogs) to say that I don't like dogs much, and like them about as much as I like goats and horses (which is to say, they're fun to see on a farm once in a while, but that's it). I rarely get any interest from white American women, but I get tons of interest from Asian women. I agree that this is an American thing, but moreover, I think it's a relatively recent thing too. I don't remember this dog craze existing back in the 90s.
- dwd 7y agoI guess it's all in the signaling. A guy who's nice to animals may be perceived as being nice in general. Owning a dog makes for a good neutral conversation starter. There is a link between cruelty to animals and violence against women, murder, etc. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/domestic-violence-animal-cruelty-abuse-neglect-murder-children-dogs-a9018071.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/domestic-viole... Owning a cat however isn't the same, and could have a negative effect.
- mirimir 7y ago> Owning a cat however isn't the same, and could have a negative effect. Huh? All of my ~longtime girlfriends and wives have been cat people. Two out of three wives, at one point in their lives, had more than five cats. The first, when I met her, had over 20 cats. Counting kittens and loosely attached males. So why not cats?
- maximente 7y agonah, i'm not really into dogs but found the story fascinating: - author's fear of being left without companionship overcoming his fear of commitment/failure (seemingly): ... I didn’t want to lose Ilse, especially knowing I was about to lose Dusty ... - author's POV about living for more than himself: ... I thought none of this was worth anything unless I had something more to live for. - how his "youth"/carefree phase sort of died with his dog - travels ending in his truck, etc. - and a new chapter begins with his spouse - near death experience + how that (seemingly?) kicked off his choice to marry his spouse lots of good stuff to reflect on here, especially for lone ranger/loss-averse/single people types
- Noumenon72 7y agoThanks, that makes sense. I don't really recognize those kind of emotions as valid reasons to do anything, so I skimmed without identifying with him or understanding the kind of journey he was trying to tell. Maybe letting the emotions take charge is the only way people do break away from being a lone ranger/loss-averse/single people type. I always have trouble understanding why they do, even when they write a whole essay to explain it to me.
- honestoHeminway 7y agoThe animal cult has become a problem for society at large. You might not know this, but there are regularly mobs crying for lynchings on imgur etc. when a troll posts some animal-cruelty or touching story. Its part of the anti-enlightment, a crawling back into emotional safe spaces, shunning human company for controllable social interaction. Thus a problem. Thus relevant, at least when it comes to meta.
- kwhitefoot 7y agoNot at all. And HN posts are not required to be about programming or programmers. Anyway, I don't even like dogs and I certainly don't have one but I was still touched by it.
- pbhjpbhj 7y agoIs HN really for trite, emotional, insubstantial stories about people who think their dog has a favourite pizza parlour though? Seems more Reddit or pulp magazine territory to me.
- blaser-waffle 7y agoI agree. I come to HN for tech-ish news. Usually it'll include things related to work/tech stuff, like the economy or employment laws, or whatever. But when you're just softballing in "human interest" stories about pets then it's just reddit with less features.