Cute raccoon enjoys riding her little red bicycle

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personally, I see no real evidence of “enjoys,” just interest in the paycheck (treat) at the end of the job.

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Big deal even I can do that…

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Racoons might actually be smart enough to be alienated labor, so it’s definitely a consideration.

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Xeni posts the best stuff.

>training wheels

hey, man, that’s cheating!

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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, I’m going to call it ‘rewardism.’

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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.

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Teen-aged and adult raccoons are usually nasty, nasty creatures.

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Hence the domestication.

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Well I think that when the “tricks” involve existing wild behaviors there often IS enjoyment…say playing fetch with your dog, or having a rat traverse a tightrope…

I’m not sure that they can be domesticated, as a species.

There’s a reason that zebras, for example, haven’t been domesticated. They’re foul-tempered.

Russia domesticated the fox in fifty years, so I have hope.

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with my new science of ‘Rewardism’ I am just going to theorize that everything is a machine, much easier to model that way.

Behaviorism isn’t new, it’s the bastard child of psychology and logical positivism…

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Yeah, looks like a stressed-out trained animal to me. I know it’s easy to confuse animal emotions, but I do think I’ve seen happy and cheerful raccoons before, and that did not look to me like a happy, cheerful raccoon.

Behaviorism? What’s that?..

(Does some quick googling)

Oh God, wow I feel really silly now. Damn.

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Fucking hipster raccoons and their fixies…

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Like humans, then?

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First of all, humans are animals too…many other animals might enjoy similar activities we enjoy. Certainly some trained tricks are only done for a reward, kinda like many of our “day jobs”, we aren’t so different you know.

I think you’ll 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 I’ll give you a sandwich!

Not trained, clearly enjoying a “human” activity we call saucer sledding: