The arc of history bends toward emotional support peacocks | Hacker News Reader

The arc of history bends toward emotional support peacocks

wesleyyang.substack.com

37 pointsprostoalex32 comments

If a blind woman enters your office with her dog and it poops on the rug you may be rather peeved over the event - but seeing eye dogs are exceedingly rare and blindness itself is a rather uncommon condition. I think part of the issue with ESAs was that suddenly they were everywhere - it didn't come on as a slow adaptation - it exploded like a fad because, well, it was one to a big portion of the population abusing it. I really don't want to comment on ESAs personally since I've led a very happy life free from rape or other emotional distress - but the desirability of having an ESA led to it's adoption at a far higher rate than was likely warranted (along with a fair bit of poisoning the well IMO) and so public opinion turned against it.

Additionally the blind tend to have a harder time interacting with society and a great deal of patience and fortitude is required to hold down a job when vision disabled - this means that the people receiving the benefits of their assistive dogs flying for free generally needed that assistance - emotional damage covers a wider financial range that's less likely to garner any sympathy.

Actual support animals are so well trained I’d be shocked if there was a single occurrence of one pooping on someone’s rug. I was recently on a 76 hour train sitting a few rows back from a support dog in training: not a peep out of him the entire ride, was able to hold his bladder for the infrequent smoke stops, I couldn’t believe the capability of the trainer to get a dog acting so professionally xD

I think the huge number of ESAs are a symptom of the problems our country is having with mental health. So many people are suffering from untreated or poorly controlled mood and personality disorders. Dogs in the grocery store are a cheap therapy that some people need because that is literally all they can afford.

On the other hand it's frustrating to see dogs in the supermarket licking stuff and snagging cookies off the bottom shelf of the supermarket. What's worse is when owners then put it back leaving me wondering if I'm getting dog slobber with my package of oatmeal cookies. Not to mention barking and lunging dogs sometimes make aisles impassable.

Luckily it's gotten a lot more rare lately. I think people quickly realize that taking poorly trained animals out in public just makes their lives harder.

Honestly I wouldn't be peeved over the event, I would just demand she pay for a new rug, plus any incidental costs.

One of the key distinctions between ESAs and real support animals is that real animals undergo thousands of dollars of training (normally paid via insurance) so that they are well behaved in public. If ESAs underwent the same training, more people would be OK with them.

I'm interested what happens when the emotional support peacock dies: If the person needing support can learn to lean on a new one, could we have cohorts of emotional support elephants, chimps, spidermonkeys, to "rent" for the trip? Then, we could swap out an allergy-causing Peacock, for a smooth skinned skink at the check-in desk.

There's quite a few dubious assertions here, but the interpretation of a poll jumped out at me.

> A poll of students taken at Pomona College in 2014 found that 5 percent of them identified as "disabled". That same poll administered in 2019 found that the figure had grown to 22 percent. A nearly fourfold increase in so brief a surely tracks the explosive growth of a culture of systemic advantage seeking; but it likely also indicates a changing perception of the self, a higher threshold of sensitivity to the vicissitudes of everyday life, and an overall normalization and valorization of the condition of disability.

It doesn't necessarily say that at all. In a country with thousands of colleges and universities, I don't think you can rule out chance. (Also, Pomona has 1500 students.)

Even if we saw a large increase across the U.S., it could also be due to increasing numbers of correct diagnoses (rather than overdiagnosis or fraudulent diagnosis) or a change in what conditions count as "disabilities." People considering, say, certain mental illnesses disabilities that they didn't before, that is an shift worth studying and commenting on, but not necessarily one caused by "systemic advantage seeking" or a "higher threshold of sensitivity".

Am I the only one who feels like there are more important things to worry in the world about than emotional support animals?

I mean sure if you’re not in a position where you’re actually dealing with people trying to bring animals where they don’t belong every day.

When you have your workplace overrun by dogs because we no longer expect grown adults to manage their own emotions, it'll be the most important thing in your world too.

It seems like a non-issue unless you are one of the many people who have been bitten by a dog. A lot of people are rightly afraid of un-trained and poorly socialized animals in public. When you share a grocery aisle with them it can be a bit hair raising. Just ask anyone who does work involving delivery or home service.

There is no such thing as a well socialized dog. They are pack animals and their owner is their pack, everybody else is the enemy. It doesn't matter how friendly you think they are, if they perceive a threat to their family they will attack.

Nothing worse than a dog owner who doesn't realize that the way that his dog treats him does not extend to the rest of the world, which from what I can tell lately is all of them.

1. My sister has a registered emotional support animal. She did this purely because she could as a convenience thing. IE instead of shipping her pet in a crate she wanted to hold it in the cabin so she could avoid the hassle of checking it in. During the process of getting it registered her psychiatrist was 100% aware she did not need an emotional support animal and said that other patients did the same thing. Based on this I'm assuming emotional support animals are essentially a myth, true needs are extremely rare, and most are in similar situations to my sister.

2. I have horrendous allergies to animal dander, and just don't like animals in general. Not life threatening but if I ever encountered an animal on a plane it would probably be one of the worst experiences of my life. I 100% sympathize with this guy. I've met way too many people who treat their "fur babies" better than the actual human beings around them.

Based on this I would support banning animals on airlines.

> if I ever encountered an animal on a plane it would probably be one of the worst experiences of my life.

If this is true, it sounds like a phobia, which is arguably itself a disability.

> I've met way too many people who treat their "fur babies" better than the actual human beings around them.

I sympathize with this in a way, but I urge you to recognize that your phobia may render you unable to understand or relate to the deep bonds that humans can form with their animals. These connections can be every bit as deep as those with other people.

> Based on this I would support banning animals on airlines.

If you're saying that your disability (i.e., you zoophobia) should be privileged over all other disabilities that might require the use of a service animal, then I think that's an unreasonable stance that, while common, won't ever be given credence in actual policy formation.

Even if someone isn't disabled and their animal companion isn't a service animal of any kind, I don't see why your disability should automatically foreclose their rights to have their companion with them.

For example, I have a friend, a single woman in her sixties with no family and no active social life. Her only companion is her little dog, who is far and away the most significant emotional bond in her life at the present time. If it happened that my friend had to travel and also had bring her dog with her, current airline policies would not automatically force her to put her companion in the cargo hold in deference to your phobia, and I think this is a fair compromise when the animal is small and well behaved.

> I have horrendous allergies to animal dander, and just don't like animals in general. Not life threatening but ...

There's the proceeding context that you ignored in order to claim the parent has some emotionally blinding phobia, and that'd be a super uncharitable interpretation even if that context wasn't included btw.

I'm sure that bringing your pet everywhere is nice but when your non-service animal triggers physical issues for others, why would you expect a company to prioritize your preference of convenience and slight increase in comfort over the preference of others to avoid unnecessary physical ills? It seems silly to me that there would even be a debate.

I'm not saying there isn't a good reason for a phobia--there usually is, whether a physical or emotional reaction. If the word doesn't fit here, that's fine, but "one of the worst experiences of my life" is pretty strong language, and I don't think it's a stretch to describe such a reaction as a disability.

The real point of contention is the extent to which the parent apparently believes their disability should be accommodated by society.

I have a few allergies myself, including to cats. I consider allergies, like I have, to be a very mild form of disability. I take some responsibility for my own very mild disability by packing an inhaler and antihistamines when I travel.

What I don't do is go around insisting that everyone else keep their animals away from me.

Now, does this mean that I believe everyone who fancies flying with a cat should be allowed to do so? Certainly not. There's a balance between those two extremes.

> preference of convenience and slight increase in comfort

That's a bit of a strawman itself don't you think? No, I don't think everyone should be allowed to fly with their pets simply because they prefer to. But your description certainly doesn't fit my friend, nor does it give adequate credit to the extent to which many people's companions help them with emotional and mental barriers to travel, such as agoraphobia.

So if the question involves a fantasy battle between @subjectsigma and my friend, then my desire would be for my friend to be allowed to bring her companion, and @subjectsigma to bring an inhaler and antihistamines. Just like I do.

All animals or just emotional support animals?

Well trained support animals seem both less common and more important, but unfortunately they're still animals.

Here's a thought experiment: suppose service animals did not exist. In this hypothetical world, do you suppose that users of ESAs would be able to successfully campaign for exemptions and rules for their animals that parallel the exemptions given to service animals?

I think that is highly unlikely. Service animals opened the door. And all ESAs had to do was pry it a little bit more. The propagation of ESAs rides on the average person's ignorance about the distinction between the two and a reluctance to inquire about an animal's status out of fear of prying, accusations of hostility, and simple shyness.

I know some people criticize the slippery-slope fallacy (their words) but it's a real thing. And once you let someone have an exemption, suddenly you realize there are sound arguments for just expanding the rules a little bit more.

No one wants to be the person telling someone 'No, you're not disabled'. It's uncomfortable, and seems harsh and unsympathetic.

The problem with these accommodations is that they aren't just a remedy for a disability, but are actually advantages. Giving students unlimited time on an exam incentivizes people to exaggerate symptoms.

So why don't we have this issue with ramps, door openers, and wide bathroom stalls? Well, the reason is that they are available to everyone--no one cares if you walk up the ramp or open the door with the button. They are required per the disability regulations, but in effect offered to everyone. And most people decline to use them because the don't give them an advantage.

The solution is simple--if someone requires it, them give it to everyone. If some people require unlimited time on the exam, then get rid of timed exams. If someone can bring a dog on the airplane, then anyone can.

Wouldn't a good solution for this be to require significant training for emotional support animals?

There are certainly potential issues of disenfranchisement created by simply raising the bar of qualifying for special treatment, but it would also do a lot to eliminate these frivolous claims of ESA need and also help to legitimize animals that serve a genuine and important function.

The title of this article is the pinnacle of clickbait for me. How do I not click this?

To be clear, this isn't a judgement of the content of the article (I found it interesting and not at all the kind of awfulness that constitutes "clickbait" typically).

> A network of trial lawyers and medical entrepreneurs found a profitable niche in colluding with a growing number of Americans regarding themselves through the prism of victimhood that happens to confer legally protected status onto them

What a statement. Its as if its saying lets just invalidate actual meaningful treatment modalities for ailments we've struggled to treat for decades. This is conservative talking point drivel that has never been true (see: welfare queens, satanic panics, "pussification of america" morning talk radio, reefer madness, etc).

No, stating that legal protections for certain categories of people are being abused by others has nothing in common with what you compare it to, it is a simple statement of fact which veracity can be gleaned both from the article as well as from experience for those who've been confronted with some "emotional support" creature when the fad became popular. The fact that the subject is not discussed on liberal channels like PBS and NPR also has no bearing on its veracity, that is just an example of the limiting effect of political bias on what can be discussed.

Take it up with the ADA then. Conservative memes are not simple statements of fact unless you want to bring data to the conversation.

And referring to something as a political meme is a shallow dismissal of the parent's point.

I counted the “rise of victimhood” as a political meme, as I think it’s a really shallow argument based in the masculine ideal of “just get over it” in relation to doctor diagnosed mental disorders.

What is conservative about pointing out that so-called Emotional Support Animals are not protected by the same laws as Service Animals?

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