7 ms·

On this topic I saw this great documentary called "Man's first friend" from 2008.[1]. Also speaking of northern Italy, as a dog owner, I am fully behind this[2

On this topic I saw this great documentary called "Man's first friend" from 2008.[1]. Also speaking of northern Italy, as a dog owner, I am fully behind this[2] proposal to DNA test dogs and punish anyone leaving dog poop on the streets. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=talBvZ5x8sY&t=4882s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=talBvZ5x8sY&t=4882s 2. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/17/italian-province-orders-all-dogs-to-be-dna-tested-in-poo-crackdown https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/17/italian-provin...

xandrius 3y ago
In a low-trust country such as Italy, I'd say that it would be useful. Also it would depend on the specific commune and not a country-wide requirement.
- ethanbond 3y ago
  Also necessary in NYC which I don’t really feel is low-trust in general.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    Also necessary in pretty much all USA metros and suburbs I have been to in the last 10 years.
  - xandrius 3y ago
    NYC and US are definitely low-trust. Interesting comparison: https://jacknicastro.substack.com/p/vienna-and-new-york-high-and-low https://jacknicastro.substack.com/p/vienna-and-new-york-high...
    - ambrose2 3y ago
      Definitely a high trust city (Vienna), but note that a few times a year they do check for tickets. Because the monthly pass rate is so low, most people have purchased the pass on their phone and that must be shown a couple of times a year or else you’ll be charged a fine at the checkpoint. I’m actually surprised that the evasion stats are so low, since the fine isn’t terribly large and you might come out ahead just never paying the fare and only paying fines. I have to say though, that system of spot checks makes the day to day very low friction.
      - CalRobert 3y ago
        The first time I visited Vienna I noted the complete lack of fare control and thought "wow, it's great they've made public transport free!" My hostel was kind enough to disabuse me of this notion, though.
    - ethanbond 3y ago
      I don't think a single parameter like that makes it "definitely" low-trust. In Austria, people are required to deposit money to borrow a grocery cart while shopping for food. Not so anywhere I've been in the US -- ergo Austria is low-trust and US is high-trust? I think not. https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travelbuzz/2004272-euro-coins-ones-might-useful-have-4.html https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travelbuzz/2004272-euro-coin...
      - lupusreal 3y ago
        The US has those, Aldi uses them. But isn't this because they don't have cart boys to bring the carts from corals throughout the parking lot back to the front of the store? It's just a different model of cart management, not indicative of trust or lack thereof. If somebody wanted to steal a cart, that quarter is a trivial price for it. It's not an anti-theft measure, just a little thing to encourage honest people to walk slightly further than normal. Here's a rule of thumb I use to judge if a community is high trust or not. If I leave my bicycle unlocked and it gets stolen, will others be surprised or will they call me a moron for trusting other people? Obviously NYC is low trust, I would be mocked mercilessly if my unlocked bike got stolen there.
        vkou 3y ago
        My bar for low-trust is 'Should I expect to have to bribe public and private officials to get them to perform their duties, most of the time'? The US is relatively high trust in this space. And I don't know of many countries that will pass the bike test. Certainly, nowhere in Europe would. Maybe we could try a different test - how afraid is the society of itself. Count how often you see cops, how well-armed they are, etc...
        xandrius 3y ago
        For me the test is: if possible, would an individual skip paying the ticket for a public transport if they know almost nobody will check? It's so trivial and yet it shows how much the society cares about its own systems functioning properly or not.
  - nradov 3y ago
    Hardly anyone in NYC would comply with such a law. They would just ignore it. The city could perhaps require DNA testing by animal shelters and legitimate breeders within it's borders. But many dogs come from elsewhere, or from backyard breeders who don't care about laws.
    - llamaimperative 3y ago
      Dogs in NYC are already required to wear tags with their rabies vaccination statuses and IDs. That also isn't really checked, but it absolutely could be by simply stopping people walking their dogs and requesting to see their ID tag.
      - samatman 3y ago
        Don't shoot the messenger, but this is one of a number of quality-of-life improvements which is a non-starter because of the doctrine of disparate racial impact. The argument would be that poverty, undocumented status, etc, means it's harder for some ethnicities to comply with that sort of regulation, so the burden of police interaction would disproportionately fall on them. Probably not wrong in this case, getting a dog registered with all his shots is fairly expensive. My take is that a law worth having is a law worth enforcing, but unless that idea comes back into fashion, things like your suggestion won't happen.
        ethanbond 3y ago
        Yet obviously there are many laws that are enforced and do have disparate racial impacts... So this is just an airing of grievances.
        samatman 3y ago
        Those laws aren't dog ownership requirements in New York City, though. Which is the topic I was replying to. It wasn't a statement about all laws everywhere.
- bryanrasmussen 3y ago
  Denmark is generally considered a high trust country, but it happens often enough I would like to see it.
- smugglerFlynn 3y ago
  Isn’t solving trust issues with further mistrust leads to an even lower trust in the end? (genuinely interested because “low-trust/high-trust communities” concept is a topic I know nothing about.)
  - HarryHirsch 3y ago
    When you are eating a shit sandwich already because that's all there is it doesn't matter if there's dogshit or horseshit on it.
  - xandrius 3y ago
    Good point. I really don't think a country can switch side (high to low and viceversa) within a short timespan, maybe not even within a generation. So, if you want to solve the issue, you use the methods which work in the affected area. In high trust, as long as the thing is seeing benefitting most, it is often followed. In low trust, breaking a rule is often seen as a sign of independence and generally being cool, so you need to put deterrents to make it uncool to get caught. At least, this is coming from my own personal experience living in different countries. Might not be the same everywhere.
    - gadders 3y ago
      The UK has gone from high to low in a generation. People no longer (for instance) leave their children (or even their dogs) outside shops whilst they go inside.
      - xandrius 3y ago
        So you're saying that in the 70/80s people trusted each other much more? I'm not sure specifically about kids and dogs but I'm not quite sure that was the case then, given the extremely huge heterogeneous society that was already back then. What do you think?
        gadders 3y ago
        It's a complete mystery.
gadders 3y ago
DNA testing would presumably help cut down on dog theft, which was a big issue in the UK when puppy prices increased due to lockdown.
sph 3y ago
I also enjoyed the probably not very historically accurate movie Alpha, about a prehistoric young man domesticating a wolf: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4244998/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4244998/
hasty_pudding 3y ago
The founding fathers would think that allowing the government to have a database on ANYTHING is a bad idea. Plus dog poop is ecologically good for the environment and fertilizes nature.
- ChoGGi 3y ago
  Concrete and asphalt don't need fertilizer.
  - hasty_pudding 3y ago
    Most dogs are extremely particular about where they poop and don't poop on concrete and asphalt if they have any other choice.
    - ChoGGi 3y ago
      I guess we walk through different alleyways.
- nervousvarun 3y ago
  Apparently, dog poop is not an effective fertilizer and is considered harmful for grass? Was news to me as a dog owner who allows our dog to do her business in the back yard (but would never allow it on a public walkway/area). https://lawnlove.com/blog/is-dog-poop-bad-for-grass/ https://lawnlove.com/blog/is-dog-poop-bad-for-grass/
  - schwartzworld 3y ago
    That blows my mind. I had two dogs as a kid, and if we didn't pick up the poop fast it destroyed the grass underneath. Their corner of the yard was all dead grass.
    - hasty_pudding 3y ago
      My dog has pooped in my backyard for years and nothing but thick quality grass everywhere. probably because most kibble is vegetable based and vegetable based poop is good for the grass. maybe you fed your dog more meat? if your dog's poop is killing the grass you're doing something seriously wrong with its diet.
consf 3y ago
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xandrius 3y ago

In a low-trust country such as Italy, I'd say that it would be useful. Also it would depend on the specific commune and not a country-wide requirement.

ethanbond 3y ago
Also necessary in NYC which I don’t really feel is low-trust in general.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  Also necessary in pretty much all USA metros and suburbs I have been to in the last 10 years.
- xandrius 3y ago
  NYC and US are definitely low-trust. Interesting comparison: https://jacknicastro.substack.com/p/vienna-and-new-york-high-and-low https://jacknicastro.substack.com/p/vienna-and-new-york-high...
  - ambrose2 3y ago
    Definitely a high trust city (Vienna), but note that a few times a year they do check for tickets. Because the monthly pass rate is so low, most people have purchased the pass on their phone and that must be shown a couple of times a year or else you’ll be charged a fine at the checkpoint. I’m actually surprised that the evasion stats are so low, since the fine isn’t terribly large and you might come out ahead just never paying the fare and only paying fines. I have to say though, that system of spot checks makes the day to day very low friction.
    - CalRobert 3y ago
      The first time I visited Vienna I noted the complete lack of fare control and thought "wow, it's great they've made public transport free!" My hostel was kind enough to disabuse me of this notion, though.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    I don't think a single parameter like that makes it "definitely" low-trust. In Austria, people are required to deposit money to borrow a grocery cart while shopping for food. Not so anywhere I've been in the US -- ergo Austria is low-trust and US is high-trust? I think not. https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travelbuzz/2004272-euro-coins-ones-might-useful-have-4.html https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travelbuzz/2004272-euro-coin...
    - lupusreal 3y ago
      The US has those, Aldi uses them. But isn't this because they don't have cart boys to bring the carts from corals throughout the parking lot back to the front of the store? It's just a different model of cart management, not indicative of trust or lack thereof. If somebody wanted to steal a cart, that quarter is a trivial price for it. It's not an anti-theft measure, just a little thing to encourage honest people to walk slightly further than normal. Here's a rule of thumb I use to judge if a community is high trust or not. If I leave my bicycle unlocked and it gets stolen, will others be surprised or will they call me a moron for trusting other people? Obviously NYC is low trust, I would be mocked mercilessly if my unlocked bike got stolen there.
      - vkou 3y ago
        My bar for low-trust is 'Should I expect to have to bribe public and private officials to get them to perform their duties, most of the time'? The US is relatively high trust in this space. And I don't know of many countries that will pass the bike test. Certainly, nowhere in Europe would. Maybe we could try a different test - how afraid is the society of itself. Count how often you see cops, how well-armed they are, etc...
        xandrius 3y ago
        For me the test is: if possible, would an individual skip paying the ticket for a public transport if they know almost nobody will check? It's so trivial and yet it shows how much the society cares about its own systems functioning properly or not.
- nradov 3y ago
  Hardly anyone in NYC would comply with such a law. They would just ignore it. The city could perhaps require DNA testing by animal shelters and legitimate breeders within it's borders. But many dogs come from elsewhere, or from backyard breeders who don't care about laws.
  - llamaimperative 3y ago
    Dogs in NYC are already required to wear tags with their rabies vaccination statuses and IDs. That also isn't really checked, but it absolutely could be by simply stopping people walking their dogs and requesting to see their ID tag.
    - samatman 3y ago
      Don't shoot the messenger, but this is one of a number of quality-of-life improvements which is a non-starter because of the doctrine of disparate racial impact. The argument would be that poverty, undocumented status, etc, means it's harder for some ethnicities to comply with that sort of regulation, so the burden of police interaction would disproportionately fall on them. Probably not wrong in this case, getting a dog registered with all his shots is fairly expensive. My take is that a law worth having is a law worth enforcing, but unless that idea comes back into fashion, things like your suggestion won't happen.
      - ethanbond 3y ago
        Yet obviously there are many laws that are enforced and do have disparate racial impacts... So this is just an airing of grievances.
        samatman 3y ago
        Those laws aren't dog ownership requirements in New York City, though. Which is the topic I was replying to. It wasn't a statement about all laws everywhere.
bryanrasmussen 3y ago
Denmark is generally considered a high trust country, but it happens often enough I would like to see it.
smugglerFlynn 3y ago
Isn’t solving trust issues with further mistrust leads to an even lower trust in the end? (genuinely interested because “low-trust/high-trust communities” concept is a topic I know nothing about.)
- HarryHirsch 3y ago
  When you are eating a shit sandwich already because that's all there is it doesn't matter if there's dogshit or horseshit on it.
- xandrius 3y ago
  Good point. I really don't think a country can switch side (high to low and viceversa) within a short timespan, maybe not even within a generation. So, if you want to solve the issue, you use the methods which work in the affected area. In high trust, as long as the thing is seeing benefitting most, it is often followed. In low trust, breaking a rule is often seen as a sign of independence and generally being cool, so you need to put deterrents to make it uncool to get caught. At least, this is coming from my own personal experience living in different countries. Might not be the same everywhere.
  - gadders 3y ago
    The UK has gone from high to low in a generation. People no longer (for instance) leave their children (or even their dogs) outside shops whilst they go inside.
    - xandrius 3y ago
      So you're saying that in the 70/80s people trusted each other much more? I'm not sure specifically about kids and dogs but I'm not quite sure that was the case then, given the extremely huge heterogeneous society that was already back then. What do you think?
      - gadders 3y ago
        It's a complete mystery.

gadders 3y ago

DNA testing would presumably help cut down on dog theft, which was a big issue in the UK when puppy prices increased due to lockdown.

sph 3y ago

I also enjoyed the probably not very historically accurate movie Alpha, about a prehistoric young man domesticating a wolf: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4244998/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4244998/

hasty_pudding 3y ago

The founding fathers would think that allowing the government to have a database on ANYTHING is a bad idea. Plus dog poop is ecologically good for the environment and fertilizes nature.

ChoGGi 3y ago
Concrete and asphalt don't need fertilizer.
- hasty_pudding 3y ago
  Most dogs are extremely particular about where they poop and don't poop on concrete and asphalt if they have any other choice.
  - ChoGGi 3y ago
    I guess we walk through different alleyways.
nervousvarun 3y ago
Apparently, dog poop is not an effective fertilizer and is considered harmful for grass? Was news to me as a dog owner who allows our dog to do her business in the back yard (but would never allow it on a public walkway/area). https://lawnlove.com/blog/is-dog-poop-bad-for-grass/ https://lawnlove.com/blog/is-dog-poop-bad-for-grass/
- schwartzworld 3y ago
  That blows my mind. I had two dogs as a kid, and if we didn't pick up the poop fast it destroyed the grass underneath. Their corner of the yard was all dead grass.
  - hasty_pudding 3y ago
    My dog has pooped in my backyard for years and nothing but thick quality grass everywhere. probably because most kibble is vegetable based and vegetable based poop is good for the grass. maybe you fed your dog more meat? if your dog's poop is killing the grass you're doing something seriously wrong with its diet.

consf 3y ago

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