personally, I see no real evidence of âenjoys,â just interest in the paycheck (treat) at the end of the job.
Big deal even I can do thatâŚ
Racoons might actually be smart enough to be alienated labor, so itâs definitely a consideration.
Xeni posts the best stuff.
>training wheels
hey, man, thatâs cheating!
I think I might have hit on a really new idea, that maybe all these little tricks and such we see animals doing are actually just behaviors they have been trained to do by receiving rewards at the end - that as much as they might look like they enjoy it this is just us ascribing human characteristics to them - this seems like a fresh new area that will be worth studying, Iâm going to call it ârewardism.â
As someone who has never had to share a continent with raccoons, I demand that a breeding program to domesticate them for export be started immediately.
Teen-aged and adult raccoons are usually nasty, nasty creatures.
Hence the domestication.
Well I think that when the âtricksâ involve existing wild behaviors there often IS enjoymentâŚsay playing fetch with your dog, or having a rat traverse a tightropeâŚ
Iâm not sure that they can be domesticated, as a species.
Thereâs a reason that zebras, for example, havenât been domesticated. Theyâre foul-tempered.
Russia domesticated the fox in fifty years, so I have hope.
with my new science of âRewardismâ I am just going to theorize that everything is a machine, much easier to model that way.
Behaviorism isnât new, itâs the bastard child of psychology and logical positivismâŚ
Yeah, looks like a stressed-out trained animal to me. I know itâs easy to confuse animal emotions, but I do think Iâve seen happy and cheerful raccoons before, and that did not look to me like a happy, cheerful raccoon.
Behaviorism? Whatâs that?..
(Does some quick googling)
Oh God, wow I feel really silly now. Damn.
Fucking hipster raccoons and their fixiesâŚ
Like humans, then?
First of all, humans are animals tooâŚmany other animals might enjoy similar activities we enjoy. Certainly some trained tricks are only done for a reward, kinda like many of our âday jobsâ, we arenât so different you know.
I think youâll have a hard time proving behaviorism, as nothing is so black or white no matter how far up or down the animal chain you go, but if you can prove it Iâll give you a sandwich!
Not trained, clearly enjoying a âhumanâ activity we call saucer sledding:
