Hexus

Our Overestimated Friends

/discuss

-Hexus-

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http://www.genpets.com/index.php

Orochan

That whole thing is completely biased tbh.

I stopped reading about halfway through, not worth it.

Huge disappointment imo.

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damocles

Most people assign their pets characteristics that they admire or wish that they themselves possessed. It's the opposite of how we choose friends; if someone has traits that we admire or wish we had, we tend to like them and try to to make them our friends.

With pets, we have this dumb beast we like and pretend that it has these charateristics to justify our affection.

It's not complicated. Just think about the last time you had to explain to someone why you hang out with that friend of yours that everyone else dislikes.

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"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." -George Orwell

3devious

My dog is really cute and can't talk. I love her. I didn't get to read the article, our firewall said someting about it being tasteless...

Velvenia

I love my animals to death. They aren't stupid like he's trying to say. Obviously they aren't smart like humans, but you can basically say that about anything. I don't need to give a detailed opinion, not trying to start a ridiculous debate, but I agree with the previous statement of it being incredibly biased.

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Feefai

We'll never know if pets are capable of love or intelligence beyond (eventually) learning from trial and error.

Who cares, though? I've always loved my dogs. My firecracker of a terrier-chihuahua mut was yappy and peed on everything, but he was always excited to see me and was fun to play tug o war with. He was killed by coyotes less than 2 weeks ago, and I cried. I had him for 10 years, its like losing a family member. You don't stop loving a family member just because they're slightly retarded.

Atelos_AB

My cat has figured out how to use the lever-type door handles to open doors. He also has specific meows for specific things, which I've tested repeatedly. Sure, I may assign positive qualities to him that he doesn't have, but that's what pets are for; comfort and companionship. People don't keep pets because they're smart. We keep them because they make us feel good.

aduros

While I agree with intelligence, 'love' isn't anything special or characteristically exclusive to humans.

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Daedalus

God, I hate it when cats learn how to do that.
Think one of our cats managed to get 3 or 4 of the other ones eaten by something before finally getting munched himself.
Not to mention, when the handles are just barely within reach and they have to sit there and jiggle the handle obnoxiously loud....

3devious

I finally got to read the article. It's funny, I feel the same thing about people, though most of them are not too dumb to live on their own.

Humans are as fucking stupid as animals, it's just that we make our society look after us. Look at all of the "They should pay for my car getting wrecked because they let the parking lot get icy." people. Most people out there are more useless than my dog.