• Babs [she/her]
    ·
    14 hours ago

    My main takeaway is that maybe we shouldn't be riding horses for fun.

  • booty [he/him]
    ·
    14 hours ago

    but they love to be ridden!!! it's not animal abuse! they love it! it doesn't hurt them! it's good for them! tHeY lOvE iT rage-cry

    • SSJMarx@lemm.ee
      ·
      14 hours ago

      I mean it's also possible that different horses have different personalities and preferences.

      • booty [he/him]
        ·
        12 hours ago

        That's why you have to "break" them in order to get them to let you climb on, because they just naturally love it so much bean

        • Dolores [love/loves]
          ·
          11 hours ago

          we use the same language to describe teaching a dog not to shit inside 'housebreak'. we don't typically imbue that with a negative association.

          • booty [he/him]
            ·
            11 hours ago

            Ok let me just be direct then so you animal-abusing fuckheads stop playing word games with me like redditors

            Leave the fucking animals alone. They are not built to carry your dumb ass around. It causes pain and stress and long-term medical problems. The animal, even if you abuse it into allowing you to do this, cannot give informed consent for it because it cannot be made aware of the long-term risks associated with the act. No person who truly cares about animals would use them as vehicles.

            • Dolores [love/loves]
              ·
              10 hours ago

              you've made an argument based on the word you can't suddenly be precious and pretend it's somehow off limits to interrogate that! reddit=actually replying to the argument you've made, not the (unstated!) moral assumptions you have behind it

              i don't ride horses, dipshit. you did not address what i said whatsoever, i can appreciate animal cruelty can make someone angry but your reply was disproportionate and unpleasant.

              • booty [he/him]
                ·
                edit-2
                10 hours ago

                You don't see why I find it unreasonable and dishonest to compare the use of the term "housebreaking" to refer to training a dog to not shit in the house (beneficial to the dog, detrimental to no one) to the use of the term "breaking" to refer to abusing a horse into allowing you to ride it (detrimental to the horse, beneficial to you)

                Not only is the term different, because in housebreaking a dog you are "breaking" the behavior and not the animal, but the act itself is so dissimilar that there is no reason to compare them except as a dishonest way of defending animal abuse

                i can appreciate animal cruelty can make someone angry but your reply was disproportionate and unpleasant.

                My reply was proportionate to your defense of animal abuse which is far more unpleasant than any insults I could ever come up with to throw at you (all of which would be deserved)

                Finally, yes I dispensed with the semantic arguments in my previous reply because it doesn't fucking matter. The semantics are not the point. I didn't want to get into the weeds about this. The point is that if you defend or attempt to normalize the abuse of horses then you fucking suck.

                Also you call the "moral implications" of my comments "unstated" and honestly I don't see how you could possibly be commenting in good faith if you think that. Re-read my comments. My top level comment in this thread explicitly calls out horse riders as animal abusers and mocks them for justifying it. If you think I left the moral argument "unstated" and that this conversation has always been about the fucking semantics it's only because you are in denial and want the conversation to be about semantics.

                • Dolores [love/loves]
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  9 hours ago

                  housebreaking

                  breaking

                  this comparison is dishonest? it's the same fucking word. don't play 'word games' unless it's me pretending slapping a noun on a verb completely removes all context and meaning from it

                  yes I dispensed with the semantic arguments

                  if only you actually had

                  in housebreaking a dog you are "breaking" the behavior and not the animal

                  defend this. where is it written that when people say 'housebreak' for dogs they are very specifically talking about behavior but 'break' a horse is totally not related to the behavior of bucking riders and in fact, exclusive to the subjugation of the natural character of the horse. is shitting inside not a natural behavior of dogs?

                  the act itself is so dissimilar that there is no reason to compare them

                  ah yeah, people never coerce or use violence on dogs to train them. utterly unheard of

                  training a dog to not shit in the house (beneficial to the dog, detrimental to no one)

                  defend this. what benefit does a dog get from not being allowed to shit where it pleases

                  • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
                    ·
                    8 hours ago

                    Shitting inside is not the natural behavior of a dog but there is a difference between holding a poop in until you go outside and carrying a person on your back. If someone isn't bringing their dog out to poop and forcing them to hold it in to an uncomfortable point it's comparable to riding horses. I don't see how the situation benefits the dog here, but it is dog-neutral as long as you aren't being specifically negligent or abusive. The act of riding the horse is abuse in itself. So one is teaching a behavior that is for your convenience but doesn't harm the animal and the other harms the animal. I'm sure there are etyomolgical similarities between breaking a horse and housebreaking a pet but housebreaking has turned into a more colloquial term distinct from 'breaking' a horse. Words being the same doesn't really mean much when the context of their use is clearly different. A well seasoned solider isn't one who's covered in cumin and tarragon and a well seasoned meal hadn't fought many battles.

                    • Dolores [love/loves]
                      ·
                      8 hours ago

                      A well seasoned solider isn't one who's covered in cumin and tarragon and a well seasoned meal hadn't fought many battles

                      this is the core of a fantastic joke with a lil set up

                      So one is teaching a behavior that is for your convenience but doesn't harm the animal and the other harms the animal

                      this is where the trouble is. from a human perspective i recognize a distinct similarity, but i am not veterinarian enough to make a judgement on how true that is from a biological standpoint. does the weight of people/cargo on an equine make it so? is pulling a wagon as damaging as putting things on their back? how often are these activities done, does that matter?

                      i don't expect you to answer those, i just have a bit of skepticism around this from studying people with very fundamental relationships with horses on the steppe. it's hard to imagine that horses have had a place below and less care than other animals in societies that prised them so much, y'know?

                      • miz [any, any]
                        ·
                        7 hours ago

                        I'm gonna be workshopping this seasoned soldier joke for a while. I feel like maybe we could tie it in with Biden's fabulisms about his uncle being eaten by cannibals

                      • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
                        ·
                        7 hours ago

                        Care is irrelevant here, riding horses is really bad for them, same with making them pull stuff. Plain and simple. For riding, it's a lot of weight constantly on their spine and for hauling carts and stuff, that's physical labor a horse was never meant to do. I was gonna say we don't industrialized dogs, but we do and did even more in the past but the majority of dogs that people have now are mostly just there to be pals, that evolution never happened when cars replaced horses, we stopped needing dogs as useful hunting and gathering pals but we still enjoyed their company where it seems any attachment to a horse is based mostly around the riding of it. And like, I raised huskies and have had them lead a sled and had the youngest one we raised learn to haul me around on a skateboard when we moved into town, so I'm not totally innocent here, but well and this is my personal observation here, the huskies really really wanted to do it and the horses I've seen have seemed less enthusiastic

                        • Dolores [love/loves]
                          ·
                          7 hours ago

                          for hauling carts and stuff, that's physical labor a horse was never meant to do

                          this is super fascinating because what about those draught horses, which brings in the whole can of worms about selective breeding. but they can definitely handle pulling modern day shit (but were bred for a lot of heavier, more dangerous tasks in the 19th century)

                          we still enjoyed their company where it seems any attachment to a horse is based mostly around the riding of it

                          i wonder if 'early' relationships with dogs were viewed the same way. is there space for pet-like conditions for horses? and like dogs would that be accompanied with some labor uses (herding dogs, watch dogs) while most of them were just companions? i think donkeys are a total shoo-in for pets but horses are awful big

                          • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
                            ·
                            6 hours ago

                            Yes, most dogs were generally kept for their labor use and smaller lap dog types were generally bred by royalty as a status symbol. And generally speaking your working dogs are in a bit of a symbiotic relationship, dogs sorta followed people eating leftovers and also had the benefit for people of having packs of dogs watching their backs and keeping other scary stuff more nervous and that turned from a mutually beneficial relationship to us using dogs as tools and companions at the same time. However as utility shrank the angle of companionship stayed and became.e more important and thar was also to the detriment of dogs, look at pugs etc. Also this is starting to cross into the territory of I think we also have historically mistreated dogs, there are differences in how and I fo think dogs and people are more set up to coexist than horses and humans because of how the relationship developed, there is a pretty old symbiosis with dogs and people, horses were pure animal exploitation.

                            • Dolores [love/loves]
                              ·
                              6 hours ago

                              horses were pure animal exploitation

                              dogs are a bit older than other domestic animals but i hesitate to put too much meaning in dates that can vary 1,000 years in a period where the biggest advancements are in ways to put stone-headed sticks into things. i'm a firm believer in animal agriculture being after plant agriculture ofc but that hypothesis does imply some symbiosis with the progenitors of domestic species, so it's hard to say how different that is.

                              • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
                                ·
                                edit-2
                                6 hours ago

                                Dogs were domesticated prior to agriculture and there's evidence of that. You maybe just don't know shit about anthropology and when and how different animals were domesticated.

                                • Dolores [love/loves]
                                  ·
                                  5 hours ago

                                  i know that, but how little we know about domestication and stone age shit shouldn't give one confidence in making huge character differences between how different animals were domesticated originally. nobody wrote down that dogs are friends but cow-aurochs are food. could aurochs or horses be a benefit to have around the agricultural community before domestication? we don't know

                                    • ClimateChangeAnxiety [he/him, they/them]
                                      ·
                                      4 hours ago

                                      There are wild populations descended from the same ancestors as horses and dogs, those are not the same thing as wild horses and dogs. They have fundamental biological and behavioral differences.

                                      Yes, domesticated horses and dogs can interbreed with their wild counterparts, but at that point you’re getting into the “What is a species?” question. Polar bears and grizzly bears can interbreed just fine if they’re in the same place, same for chimps and bonobos.

                                      And for horses there aren’t even really still wild horses. There’s Przewalski's horse, but they separated from the ancestors of domestic horses long before domestication. They have a different number of chromosomes. Whatever wild horse populations we originally took the first horses from are long extinct.

                    • booty [he/him]
                      ·
                      edit-2
                      8 hours ago

                      I don't see how the situation benefits the dog here,

                      Seriously? You don't think that it is detrimental to any animal to live in its own shit? I expected "show me some scientific evidence that it is good for a dog not to have to live in a pile of its own feces" from the dishonest animal abuse supporting dipshits but I didn't expect it from you

                      I really thought that anyone arguing in good faith would take for granted that teaching a dog to go outside to poop is beneficial to the dog in the same way that it is beneficial to a child to teach it to poop in the toilet

                      • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
                        ·
                        edit-2
                        7 hours ago

                        I agree it does benefit the dog that way, but that is only because you're also keeping a dog indoors more than it probably wants to for your own convenience which I figure kinda evens it out. I guess I also assumed the owner would clean up the indoor dog shit cause they would have to live with the same pile

                        • booty [he/him]
                          ·
                          7 hours ago

                          Ah, I see where the disconnect was then. Obviously I have never seen dogs that weren't trained to poop outside except in neglectful households where they were abused in various other ways at the same time. I very much associate refusing to train a dog to poop outside with neglect and carelessness and so the image in my head was of someone who just doesn't pay attention to what the dog does at all (maybe the dog is locked in a seldom used room or it's a hoarder house where some extra poop pretty much just goes unnoticed)

                          I see what you're getting at now, if you clean up the poop then yeah that's more convenient for the dog, and the only upside then to training it to poop outside is for you and not the dog. You're right.

                          Also sorry for the tone of my previous comment, that was pretty cringe yikes-1

                            • booty [he/him]
                              ·
                              6 hours ago

                              You know, when I see a struggle session thread I just keep on scrolling because it's never worth it. I don't usually say controversial things at all because, again, not worth it. But this place is usually cool enough that I often forget that basic vegan criticisms of obvious animal abuse are considered controversial here and will instantly turn even the otherwise coolest users into your shitty uncle in his f150

                              It isn't worth it

                              • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
                                ·
                                6 hours ago

                                Thanks for saying I'm cool, but like, same. We use the term Dehumanization for the most awful treatment of people and the word implicitly applies that treating non humans terribly is fine. Animal abuse is disturbingly ingrained in people and as long as we continue a mechanized genocide on animals for our own carnal pleasure we will never be good enough to have the control over the earth that we do.

                  • booty [he/him]
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    9 hours ago

                    defend this.

                    refuse-the-question No.

                    I'm done playing reddit debatebro with you. Fuck off. Stop defending animal abuse.

                      • booty [he/him]
                        ·
                        9 hours ago

                        Genuine question, why does it so upset you that I don't want to host a scored and moderated debate about this semantic point you refuse to let go of that I have said multiple times that I was never interested in? Every single time I tried to redirect the conversation to what actually mattered to me the entire time, you came back harder on the semantics. The one time I actually indulged you and got into the weeds about the semantics, you mocked me for doing so. Why the hell would I even consider this discussion with you after all of this behavior was considered together? It is on a topic I don't care about, with a person who is defending something I find indefensible and disgusting, who is defending it in ways that are dishonest, and who has only been an asshole to me even when I engaged as you seemingly desired.

                        In short, there are two wolves inside you. Both of them are redditors. Evict them. two-wolves-1 two-wolves-2

                        • Dolores [love/loves]
                          ·
                          8 hours ago

                          i am not upset you won't engage in a moderated debate. you've insulted me repeatedly, even in this reply! this paternalistic attitude you've adopted 'i know you ride horses (i physically cannot), you're a redditor (ive been on here as long you)' is absolutely incompatible to actually having a conversation with someone.

                          i'm sure you wouldn't respond well to someone insulting you, i mean i just have in response and you didn't. so why would you expect that i would?

                          • booty [he/him]
                            ·
                            8 hours ago

                            you've insulted me repeatedly, even in this reply!

                            Don't go to bat for animal abusers and I won't insult you. The difference between me insulting you and you insulting me is that you deserve it.

                            'i know you ride horses

                            I never said that. I called you an animal abuser for defending horse riding regardless of whether you engage in it yourself. I don't know you, I don't care who you are or what you do. What I do care about is the shit you say because that is all that exists here. And what you are saying is in defense of animal abuse.

                            • Dolores [love/loves]
                              ·
                              7 hours ago

                              I never said that

                              Leave the fucking animals alone. They are not built to carry your dumb ass around

                              that is exactly what you fucking said. you can't cede a fucking millimetre and you're calling me a reddit debatebro

                              • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
                                ·
                                7 hours ago

                                'Your' in this context refers to people in general and not you specifically. Or even if it's about you it still doesn't imply that you've ridden a horse it just says they weren't put on earth to be ridden by you (and by implied extention anyone else)

                              • booty [he/him]
                                ·
                                edit-2
                                7 hours ago

                                Right. They aren't built to carry you around and you should leave them alone. I did say that. Where exactly did I claim that you personally ride horses? My comment was, in the first paragraph, addressed to "you animal-abusing fuckheads." Plural. How exactly will you claim that I was referring to you and you alone?

                                I was speaking generally. They aren't built to carry (your; general) dumb ass around. Anyone's dumb ass. They aren't built to carry people or things around. They are animals, and are best suited to carrying themselves and nothing else.

                                And even if I was speaking specifically to you I never actually accused you of having ridden any horse in your life. However, your defense of horse riding implies that you might in the future decide to do so, and I would like to reiterate again that you should not do that. Because that would be animal abuse.

                                Now I've had to write three paragraphs of wordy refutation of your dishonest claims, once again demonstrating why my first reaction to your reddit bullshit was to refuse to engage with it.

                                • Dolores [love/loves]
                                  ·
                                  7 hours ago

                                  you're treating "reddit" like a magic word that invalidates anything i say, lmao

                                  I never actually accused you

                                  shot

                                  your defense of horse riding implies that you might in the future decide to do so

                                  chaser

                                  i physically fucking can't ride a horse! i will remind you my OP was comparing semantics between dog training and equine training, not a claim that training horses to be ridden is a good thing. despite like 6 replies where you insist everything i've said has been in service of that, i literally never said it. because i don't necessarily believe it's true

                                  • booty [he/him]
                                    ·
                                    7 hours ago

                                    you're treating "reddit" like a magic word that invalidates anything i say, lmao

                                    No actually, I am being a complete dumbass by actually addressing what you say when I should dismiss it because it is already invalid

                                    Because I actually believe in people and even though I identified you correctly as an internet troll who has no beliefs and simply wants to argue about nothing at your very first comment, I still tried to open a dialogue with you several times and every single time I have regretted it

                                    I never actually accused you

                                    shot

                                    your defense of horse riding implies that you might in the future decide to do so

                                    chaser

                                    You really thought you had something here didn't you? All you're telling me is that you don't know how to read. That is not an accusation that you have ever ridden a horse.

                                    i will remind you my OP was comparing semantics between dog training and equine training

                                    And I will remind you that at no point have I been interested in arguing about those semantics, which is what I told you the moment you opened that discussion with me in the first place. I find it much more interesting to discuss the actual activities and not the arbitrary fucking glyphs we use to represent them, which is why I will be the dumbass once again and attempt to discuss that with you here:

                                    not a claim that training horses to be ridden is a good thing. despite like 6 replies where you insist everything i've said has been in service of that, i literally never said it.

                                    I accused you of being interested only in redirecting the discussion to the semantic argument I had no interest in, primarily. This entire time I have been pointing out (again, correctly) that your entire goal in this conversation was to avoid discussing the ethics of the issue which was my interest and to instead get bogged down in arguing about the semantics of the term "breaking" as it is applied in horse and dog training (again I will add that it is applied differently)

                                    because i don't necessarily believe it's true

                                    The reason I interpreted your unwavering desire to bog the discussion down with an argument about the semantics of the terms used to describe dog and horse training as a desire to defend the ethics of horseback riding is because I see the specific type of dog training in question (teaching the dog to poop outside instead of in the house where it has to live) as an unambiguous, obvious, undebatably positive thing for the dog. I assumed that no reasonable person would consider it to be acceptable to let a dog just shit all over the place and then have to walk around and sleep and eat and play in a shit covered house. If you, like me, assume training a dog to shit outside is unambiguously good, then your attempt to redirect the discussion to a semantic argument in which training a dog to shit outside and training a horse to stop fighting when you abuse it are equated would be seen obviously as a defense of the latter.

                                    • Dolores [love/loves]
                                      ·
                                      6 hours ago

                                      I assumed that no reasonable person would consider it to be acceptable to let a dog just shit all over the place and then have to walk around and sleep and eat and play in a shit covered house

                                      is this fr the core of this entire shitflinging argument? complete misalignment of priors. dogs that aren't housebroken are outside dogs. that's their 'natural' (deeply anthropogenic ofc) state. not dogs who live inside but shit everywhere. i can see how that would seem unreasonable, but that read legitimately did not occur to me at all.

                                      • booty [he/him]
                                        ·
                                        6 hours ago

                                        is this fr the core of this entire shitflinging argument?

                                        Isn't it wild how fast misunderstandings can be resolved when you have the guts to actually put forward a view instead of treating everything like a debate? The moment you clarified that you aren't trying to defend horse riding it became much easier to step back and determine where the disconnect came from. The entire time, my position has been crystal clear: riding horses is animal abuse, animal abuse is bad, training a dog to shit outside is not animal abuse and is not bad.

                                        You made an argument that I interpreted to be in defense of horseback riding, and I stated that interpretation clearly and immediately. Why exactly did it take you so long to clarify that that was not the intention of your argument? What reason, if you were interested in good faith discussion, could you have had for knowingly allowing the other party to discuss under the assumption that the argument you were making was a completely different one from the one you were actually making?

                                        dogs that aren't housebroken are outside dogs. that's their 'natural' (deeply anthropogenic ofc) state.

                                        Here I have to disagree. We invented dogs. Their natural state is to live with us. I see a dog living outside or in the 'wild' as the 'unnatural' state for a dog. They evolved not, like their wolf ancestors, to live in the wilderness, but to live with us protected by our tools and our shelters. Because we bred them that way.

                                        Anyway, that's just a digression. The point is which way is more ethical. To me it seems very obvious that if the two choices are don't bother to teach the dog to choose where it shits and force it to stay outside or do teach it to choose where it shits and allow it to benefit from the shelter of a human domicile, the latter is the more ethical choice.

                                        not dogs who live inside but shit everywhere. i can see how that would seem unreasonable, but that read legitimately did not occur to me at all.

                                        We must have quite different life experiences, because I have met plenty of dogs kept inside and not taught to appropriately handle their waste.

                                        I have also met plenty of neglected dogs kept outside, but I've never before thought there was a particular link between that and training them to poop in the right places.

                                        Now, I'd like to circle back around to the actual original point. Training a horse to stop fighting when you abuse it: necessarily abusive and done only in the service of more abuse. Training a dog to poop outside: not necessarily abusive and done in the service of affording the dog a more comfortable, safer, healthier, happier life inside shelter.

                                        Where is the connection?

                                        • Dolores [love/loves]
                                          ·
                                          5 hours ago

                                          What reason, if you were interested in good faith discussion, could you have had for knowingly allowing the other party to discuss under the assumption that the argument you were making was a completely different one from the one you were actually making?

                                          are you serious? the repeated insults; i'm flabbergasted you are still treating me like a child even after i've tried to cut through the misunderstanding and treat you with respect. you DID NOT articulate your alien interpretation of my OP at any point before this last comment. i was just supposed to vibe out that you had the weirdest possible reading of what i'd written? you expect everything of me but nothing of yourself, this self-satisfied screed is an embarrassment. you didn't "win" because i chose to try and explain our misunderstanding, you recapitulating it all over again in an infantilizing tone is testament to your dedication to getting in the last word just to look smart.

                                          as a great man once said "In short, there are two wolves inside you. Both of them are redditors. Evict them" two-wolves-1two-wolves-2

                                          • booty [he/him]
                                            ·
                                            edit-2
                                            5 hours ago

                                            you DID NOT articulate your alien interpretation of my OP at any point

                                            I repeatedly accused you of defending horse riding, and you did not say that that is not what you were doing. That is what I mean. If I were being accused of making an argument I wasn't making I, personally, would clarify what my point is rather than insisting on continuing into semantic arguments while the person I'm talking to is under a false understanding of what my position is.

                                            the repeated insults; i'm flabbergasted you are still treating me like a child even after i've tried to cut through the misunderstanding and treat you with respect.

                                            The fact that you interpret my frustration with your refusal to communicate your position as an insult seems like a you problem

                                            you didn't "win"

                                            There it is. You know, I haven't been treating you like a child whatever you say. But maybe i should have been, because you are one. No one "won" anything. This isn't a fucking competition. This is what I was talking about the entire time. You are reddit to your very core.

      • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
        ·
        11 hours ago

        Why on earth would a horse prefer to carry someone around for no benefit to themselves?

          • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
            ·
            8 hours ago

            Dog chase stuff in nature. It's a big part of being a dog. Horses don't carry things on their backs if left alone.

            • gay_king_prince_charles [she/her, he/him]
              ·
              7 hours ago

              Dogs (i.e Canis familiaris) don't exist in nature in the sense ClimateChangeAnxeity means. Dogs exist chase balls solely because humans have bred retrieving instincts into dogs.

              • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
                ·
                7 hours ago

                Brining it back maybe but even then, dogs work in groups a lot of the time and may have had some instinct to share beforehand. As far as chasing stuff goes, which is what I mentioned, dogs are all about chasing in nature.

                • ClimateChangeAnxiety [he/him, they/them]
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  4 hours ago

                  Fine maybe fetch was a bad example, although it’s not like wolves are all about picking stuff up with a soft mouth and giving it to others.

                  Closer example: Sled dogs. Have you ever seen a sled dog? They love pulling sleds. It’s their favorite thing in the world. You put them in their harness and they get antsy they’re so excited.

                  Over thousands of years, generations of humans used a wolf base to create an organism whose favorite thing to do is pull a sled. Which is pretty fucking cool imo.

                  Horses are not wild animals. In exactly the same way as dogs and sheep and cows, horses were created by humans. The normal rules about what they would reasonably want are different than wild animals.

                  Obviously not every horse enjoys being ridden, or any other job a horse does. But you can’t say there’s no reason a horse would enjoy riding with a human. There’s a big reason they might enjoy that, thousands of years of human-guided evolution where “rideability” was the main trait being selected for.

  • DragonBallZinn [he/him]
    ·
    13 hours ago

    The first lesson of post-college at work: “C” is the new “A”. Do C- or lower quality work? You’re fired. Do C+ or higher quality work? You get laid off and porky gets pickier with who he hires in the future.