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Owning a Pet Is Good for Well-Being

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Re: Owning a Pet Is Good for Well-Being

#61

Post by Raphmedia »

sokoloff wrote: post #57
Raphmedia wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reality is that a hypoallergenic-pet-only policy isn't all that useful. Why wouldn't it be useful? Pet allergies can trigger anaphylaxis which can result in death. Allergies to dogs and cats affect 10%–20% of the population[1]. That's a big chunk of the workforce you are cutting away from your company. Purchasing a hypoallergenic animal for the office's pet is simply being responsible. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.…

It's not the office pet, it's many people's family pet that this policy targets allowing. People are realistically not going to replace a beloved family pet in order to be able to bring them to work.

In this case, the responsible solution would be to provide a room where animals would be restricted, such as an indoor dog-park ventilated to the outside.

The only time I saw animals roaming freely in an office was the office pet and those should be hypoallergenic.

Re: Owning a Pet Is Good for Well-Being

#62

Post by asark »

bberrry wrote: post #30
charliesharding wrote: post #12

Would it follow that having kids is good for our well-being too? Sometimes I wonder if the decline of the family/people choosing not to have kids is linked with increasing rates of mental health problems

It's likely quite individual but personally I feel like I am less satisfied with life now that I have young children due to them dominating the agenda and life in general. I am however expecting kids to "pay off" in the happiness department in old age. I would imagine having no family at that stage in life would be quite bleak.

I think one kid improved my life quite a bit. At three of them, it's hard to really enjoy time with any of 'em—not impossible, but much, much harder—yet the amount of time, effort, and money they take is way higher. Probably worse than no kids from a pure how-happy-am-I-on-average perspective.

I'd think the relationships between the personal happiness and life-satisfaction at various states looks something like:

three kids But they're all youngish, so we'll see how things change as they get older. Reckon there'll be a couple years in the middle where things are pretty good, then, odds are at least one or two of them will make life a living hell during their teenage years. But when they're grown up and I'm old probably that'll be OK.

[EDIT] though we'll see how I feel at 55 when I make the mistake of running the numbers and realize I could have already retired if we'd had zero :-/

Re: Owning a Pet Is Good for Well-Being

#63

Post by world32 »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #2

For a while I worked at a place where they allowed dogs in the office. It’s probably not for everyone it but I personally felt this have the workplace a very nice touch and made it much more humane.

I love dogs and have one myself, but I don't think this is always a good idea. Maybe bring your dog in once a week or something like that but every day is too much. Some people have allergies, some dogs are poorly trained etc.

Re: Owning a Pet Is Good for Well-Being

#64

Post by tombert »

xythian wrote: post #38
tombert wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We tried that for awhile at a previous job. It was fun at first, but there were two problems: 1) Dogs like to poop. A lot. Even with a responsible owner, if the dog runs around the office frequently, they would poop, and someone would step in it, and that is gross. 2) Dogs like to bark. Most dogs are fine, but occasionally there would be one that wouldn't shut up and get them all started. After a few months, they got…

Huh. I worked at an office with dogs for ~4 years and never experienced pooping or barking problems or heard rumors of such issues. The biggest problem we had were allergies. There was an eventual compromise with dogs only allowed in specific conference rooms that had air purifiers running.

I think the pooping mostly stemmed from it being a pretty big office, and a non-enforcement of "keep your dog near you". Maybe with better policies it wouldn't have been an issue.

Re: Owning a Pet Is Good for Well-Being

#65

Post by Liquix »

Retra wrote: post #54
makerofspoons wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made no such assumption. There is nothing that can be done about the animals that are already here. But someone considering an animal for their mental well-being might be better served volunteering instead. The data shows adding an animal to your lifestyle increases your environmental impact considerably. Working in the community garden adds almost nothing and potentially would provide the same positive effect.

So would going to a gym. But it's easier to build a habit of taking care of something you love at home than doing a chore you have to drive/walk across town to do.

Well put. The pet is going to be a source of companionship and happiness even if you're too tired to go volunteer or hit the gym. It's also more than just an endorphin hit or not being alone; it's a complex and rewarding relationship.

To the original poster - humans have been keeping pets since prehistoric times [0]. Behavioral patterns which have been ingrained into our genetic makeup & the collective subconscious for 10,000-40,000 years probably aren't going to change much in the next 100 or even 1000 years.

I fundamentally agree that we need to reduce our carbon footprint as a species, but feel we fundamentally disagree on the emotional and spiritual benefits of owning a pet. Regardless, I hope we can at least agree that it may be easier and more effective to start by looking at more modern, less ingrained, and higher-output sources of carbon.

[0] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/ask-s...

Re: Owning a Pet Is Good for Well-Being

#66

Post by world32 »

makerofspoons wrote: post #6

I'm not sure we should be encouraging people to own more dogs and cats- they have a substantial carbon footprint for being extravagances: https://www.salon.com/2014/11/20/the_surprisingly_large_carb...

You know what else has a carbon footprint? The computer that your're using to post on hackernews. How about instead of wasting electricity you go volunteer in your community?

Re: Owning a Pet Is Good for Well-Being

#67

Post by dang »

world32 wrote: post #66
makerofspoons wrote: post #6

I'm not sure we should be encouraging people to own more dogs and cats- they have a substantial carbon footprint for being extravagances: https://www.salon.com/2014/11/20/the_surprisingly_large_carb...

You know what else has a carbon footprint? The computer that your're using to post on hackernews. How about instead of wasting electricity you go volunteer in your community?

Can you please not take HN threads further into flamewar? Especially not by going personal.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Owning a Pet Is Good for Well-Being

#68

Post by malvosenior »

mikestew wrote: post #31
charliesharding wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One could argue that you're worsening the lot of the world by not having kids that you impress the importance of addressing climate change upon. Your children could help to radiate that message outwards and may even become scientists that help to reverse it! Of course there's no guarantee that they'll adopt your views but if you fundamentally believe the world is capable of saving then it's worth a shot :)

"Could", yes. The overwhelming odds, however, are that they'll grow up to be upper-middle class consumers who don't do anything outstanding other than hoover up huge amounts of resources and make the problem worse.

Unless you're assuming the socioeconomic class of the original poster to be upper-middle class and that that will extend to their offspring, then you are incorrect. Most people are not upper-middle class, so the odds are against any random person being an upper-middle class consumer.

Re: Owning a Pet Is Good for Well-Being

#69

Post by malvosenior »

homonculus1 wrote: post #60
charliesharding wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One could argue that you're worsening the lot of the world by not having kids that you impress the importance of addressing climate change upon. Your children could help to radiate that message outwards and may even become scientists that help to reverse it! Of course there's no guarantee that they'll adopt your views but if you fundamentally believe the world is capable of saving then it's worth a shot :)

The likelihood of a child becoming such a climate messiah is astronomically smaller than that of a mere additional exponentially-reproducing, exponentially-consuming carbon footprint. You're better off trying to impress eco-friendly memes on the offspring of people who insist on breeding no matter what. The notion of having kids to fight climate change is silly at best.

There are obviously many options between "climate messiah" and "exponentially-reproducing, exponentially-consuming carbon footprint". People can create value in multiple dimensions.

Even if you only look through the lens of offspring's ability to impact climate, then having children is essential unless you think changing the climate can be done in a single generation (the current one).

Re: Owning a Pet Is Good for Well-Being

#70

Post by malvosenior »

aphextim wrote: post #49
downandout wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect there's an increasing number of people who think that way. That is an extreme viewpoint. The number of people thinking this way may in fact be “increasing” because of the social media echo chambers that make almost any extreme viewpoint seem normal to those who have them. But I seriously doubt the number of people that actually refuse to have children based upon fear of climate change is high enough to make…

I would agree with you on this as well. It may appear that this is a more popular way to think and it very well could be increasing more than it had in the past, in western first world technology bubbles. However I feel for every person coming to this conclusion there are 100 more people on this planet who are ignorant to this trend and will continue to keep having babies, whether intentional or just by the circumsta…

It's not selfish to reproduce, it's literally why every living organism exists. The "I'm not going to have kids to save the climate" is definitely a tiny, mostly social media based, echo chamber.

Most people would think it's absurd to view having children as "selfish" since it definitely requires a lot of hard work and sacrifice and is generally viewed as building the future of your family, community and humanity.

It's actually kind of sad that this anti-human trope is becoming so prevalent on message boards.

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