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Normally when you try to make a point using reduction to absurdity you jump straight to nuclear missiles: i.e. "How is this different from allowing people to br
by willarson 19y ago
Normally when you try to make a point using reduction to absurdity you jump straight to nuclear missiles: i.e. "How is this different from allowing people to bring nuclear missiles to work that they may point at you occasionally?"
Unfortunately this is a contrived comparison. People who are bringing dogs into work are not bringing them as weapons that they then deliberately threaten their coworkers with. The key differences here is intentionality: bringing a dog to work is not intrinsically threatening, point a gun at someone is.
Your comparison only becomes valid if the individuals brought their dogs into work and threatened to assault coworkers with them. This is likely not part of Google's acceptable policies.
- amichail 19y agoThe point is dogs are less predictable than people and may decide to attack for no obvious reason. It doesn't matter that their owners did not bring them to work to intimidate coworkers.
- willarson 19y agoYour argument is based your intuitive view on the comparable reliability of dogs and people. It is your personal opinion that dogs are less predictable than people. Personally I find your opinion to be troubling, how can a much simpler creature be more complex and less predictable? There have been between 17 and 26 dog related deaths per year for the past two decades in the US. There were 28874 gun related deaths in 1999 in the US. These numbers don't tell a very complete story, but I think they are sufficient to raise doubts about your premise that dogs are less predictable or more dangerous than armed humans.
- ivankirigin 19y agoWatch the dog whisperer. Dogs are extremely predictable. Now I'm exposing my biases :). I suppose a serious reason not to allow dogs is that some people might not know how to act around them, and would become a danger to themselves. But again, only the most well behaved dogs should be included. I should also mention that I don't feel very strongly about any of this.