It was also before the "if it bleeds, it leads" explosion of crime reporting starting in the 90s.

But humans can actually make conscious choices beyond their base animal pressures. We use prophylactics even though those go against our animal pressure to procreate. We help strangers even if it won't improve our own situation and without any expectation of future reciprocation. We have to eat and sleep to live, we don't have to have children.

We also have cultural pressures, which can shape individual behavior. We could have a culture where the default is not to have kids, but that you should not have kids unless you are stable and secure enough to have then and are prepared to invest sufficiently in raising them.

Worse, than that, if you preach antinatalism it has any chance of catching up with people of some knowledge and reflection, leaving the Earth to the children of those of less knowledge and reflection.

While slavery exists in various forms (wage slavery, prison labor, etc.) it is still important to make the distinction between those and the extreme form of chattel slavery that existed from the 16th to 19th century. People, and all their descendants, being literal property, able to be tortured, raped, and murdered with the same legal status as a couch tossed in a dumpster, is not the same as modern versions of slavery.

While I agree that police should be held to a high standard and trained well, is this the actual case in SF? Or is it bureaucratic hoops leading to long wait times and/or duplication of effort?

On the whole, most things that have been said were not said by Twain.

It probably isn’t accurate to classify it as working and relaxing, in the way we humans see “going to work”. I’ve never worked with a service dog but I have with “working” dogs. They almost universally enjoy and prefer working to “relaxing”. The reason people need to take their dogs on long walks and play with them in the park is really to simulate working. Dogs like tasks, focusing and following a leader, and having a structure of being a pack member fulfilling whatever goal.

Agreed. A better word might be "focused". A dog has one set of behaviors when focused, and another when not.

When I research a topic, whether it's an engineering diagram or looking up a half-remembered recipe on my phone, I immediately engage. It's fulfilling, not tedious. It can lead to "being in the zone".

It doesn't mean it's not taxing, but there's definitely a positive feedback from my system. Probably the same feeling if you're watching the water for a fish to spear, or watching your dad to see how he spears fish, or watching your mom to see how her lips move when she says "Mom". Or the ball to see when it's thrown and where, or if cars are coming because then you need to stay still and keep your human from proceeding.

The situation of ptsd service dogs is somewhat different, even more so if its client has to earn a living. A big chunk of the dog’s work could be to observe their client and to act if (and only if) dissociation happens (ideally to intervene before the client dissociates). While overseeing the client’s wellbeing, they have to stay out of the way of the business as much as possible (especially during meetings, seeing customers etc).

Apart from the clients workplace, the service dog will be on and off duty for the rest of the day depending on the specific needs of its client. It follows them wherever they go (supermarkets, doctors, museums, whatever).

The dog can play or relax during breaks, or in the evening, when the client is in a safer/less stressful environment.

I think one of the big differences is charging enough to maintain the network and charging to extract as much money as possible.

That's a good point. At some point the fee to play becomes exorbitant (or some might say, extortion).

I'm going to assume good faith on your part. OP is using analogy as a rhetorical device, using things in their own life that would be recognizable and transferable to others. When he says its like "speaking English", it is because he speaks English, but it can be understood that any non-English natives would insert their own mother tongue. 88% of European households and 92% of US households own at least one car. Driving, as something that once learned you take for granted since you do it pretty much daily, is something most people can related to. Even those that cant, are probably intimately familiar with those that do. It isn't something exotic and specialized, like airline pilot or submarine crewmember.

If I say "its like finding out someone ate the last of your favorite candy", it is meant to analogize a feeling of disappointment. If you personally don't like candy, I would expect that you have the ability to understand the meaning and intent and not focus on how the analogy doesn't perfectly align with your individual personal experiences and preferences. If you want to complain about how some cultures don't really eat candy, while others focus on collective sharing over individual ownership, I suppose you can.

This is such a good analogy. There are some things that bacteria can evolve to deal with, like training yourself to build up an immunity to iocane powder. There are some things they cant, like training yourself to be bulletproof.

Train yourself, no. Evolve it? Yes. But you'll need an awful lot of generations. Put a robot gun where everything has to come to drink--but it's an air rifle, calibrated to the point of maybe causing injury. Every year you raise the pressure by a tiny bit.

The reason you can't evolve bulletproofness is that it's an overwhelming force. You get evolution when you subject your target to something that only gives a partial kill.

I like my auto lock feature, but I manually lock it as a habit and only rely on the auto lock as a backup in case I forget. I only have to touch the keypad to lock it and can hear it lock. Also, I can check remotely if it is locked (even though the lock can/does work completely without a need for a connection).