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| ▲ | jjtheblunt 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Cat's themselves are not very sanitary. Better than rats, sure, but they are a source of toxoplasmosis Hyperbole and toxoplasmosis go well together. In particular: it's a limited time window when an infected feline could transmit toxoplasmosis. It can be dangerous to pregnancies, or immuno-compromised individuals. Most humans (and other beings) aren't pregnant or immunocompromised, but the drama of the topic gets clicks, so it's a meme of sorts, and it resurfaces every six months or so in the news as if a revelation. | | |
| ▲ | kirubakaran 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Most humans (and other beings) aren't pregnant or immunocompromised Just because pregnant and immuno-compromised people are in the minority, it's not a big deal? | | |
| ▲ | sporadicism 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Additionally, I can't imagine being blase about gaining parasites just because you're not pregnant or immunocompromised. | | |
| ▲ | jjtheblunt 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | no one is being blase : we're immersed in a biological world teeming with such critters...and we exist through evolutionary adaptation to such. for fun, check out mites around eyelashes, for an innocuous example. | |
| ▲ | nkrisc 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | You’ve likely already got many critters living in an on you. |
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| ▲ | jjtheblunt 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | it's a big deal for some, but not for all individuals, is the point clearly made. | | |
| ▲ | kirubakaran 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | Well you wrote "Hyperbole and toxoplasmosis go well together". It's not "hyperbole" to care about others, however few they are, even though you yourself might not be at risk, right? But I don't mean to be confrontational. I understand that it is probably annoying to hear toxoplasmosis talked about like it is black death. | | |
| ▲ | colechristensen 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | A third of the entire human population is infected with toxoplasmosis, in some places nearly every human. If you put humans in a sterile bubble you get a different set of diseases, to a considerably greater degree because your immune system evolved in an environment where you actually got infections. | | |
| ▲ | kirubakaran 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | By that logic, we shouldn't be fighting malaria in Africa either. Are there any benefits to toxoplasmosis besides some people finding the vector cute? The alternative isn't living in a sterile bubble. | | |
| ▲ | colechristensen an hour ago | parent [-] | | Without infections your immune system gets bored and starts attacking you. You need to have something for your immune system to do on a regular basis. Toxo is to a very large degree asymptomatic. You are full of and covered with organisms. Being paranoid about infection isn't helpful to anyone. Ok you don't like cats, that's fine, but are you as passionate about rare steak which is a much more common vector? Malaria... is not asymptomatic. |
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| ▲ | alexjplant 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > they are a source of toxoplasmosis You are far more likely to get it from undercooked beef or shellfish than from a cat. Less than 1% of cats broadly are shedding it at any given time and that number is even lower for indoor cats. If, like me, you have a penchant for rare steak and beef tartare then there's a decent chance that you have it. | |
| ▲ | bombcar 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The vast majority of NYCs problem can be tied to their trash debacle, which is so outlandish it's hard for anyone not from there to believe is a real thing in 2206. It appears they finally discovered dumpsters recently: https://www.amny.com/news/curbside-empire-trash-bins-coming-... (Another crazy trash city was (is?) Seattle with their weird judgement causing everyone to compact their trash.) | | |
| ▲ | blatherard 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | And the difficulties of trash handling are further traceable, at least in Manhattan, to the decision by city planners in 1811 to not build alleys. No obvious place to store trash, nor an obvious place to put it when being collected. If you drive in Manhattan you'll also notice a whole lot of delivery trucks and other vehicles blocking lanes, and a lot of designated delivery-only parking zones. This is rooted in the same lack of alleys. | | |
| ▲ | wahern 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | San Francisco doesn't have alleys, either, not anymore than NYC. In older buildings, including older apartment buildings, trash cans are kept under stairways, in service rooms, in ground-level hallways, or for single-family homes in garages or backyards, then wheeled out to the sidewalk the night before collection day, blocking pedestrians. Then the garbage men have to roll those bins into the street, maneuvering around parked cars, etc. NYC doesn't have trash cans because New Yorkers perennially chose to continue to throw their trash on the ground like they always had. Blame unions, blame habituation, but you can't blame NYC's architecture and layout; nothing about it is unique compared to other cities globally or even nationally. | | |
| ▲ | brianwawok an hour ago | parent [-] | | Chicago has allys. Trash goes in ally. Streets smell nice. NYC has no allys. Trash goes on sidewalk. Streets smell stinky. |
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| ▲ | RandallBrown 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | What about Seattle's trash was crazy? I've lived here for 14 years and never noticed anything weird about it compared to other places I've lived. | | |
| ▲ | buildsjets 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | He's being overly dramatic, and it's not a "Judgment", it's simple economics. Seattle is basically out of landfill space, the Cedar Hills landfill is a 96.6% capacity, so all trash needs to be trucked out of state. To minimize the cost of doing that they encourage sending most of your waste stream to recycling or compost instead. Many of the local trash haul haulers provide nice large recycle and compost bins, but a tiny landfill waste container unless you pay extra, hence the necessary compacting and stomping. My hauler charges an extra $25 fee if the flip-down lid on the garbage container is not fully closed, and they send you a photo and video of your non-compliant container along with the bill. Again, this is not a judgement or a mandate. You can pay for a larger garbage can or for a multiple garbage cans if you want to. But you have to pay for how your consumption habits impact the cost of disposal. | | | |
| ▲ | bombcar 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | IIRC they got a judgement against them a long time ago and charged more per can to pay for it - but my memory may be off. All I know is all the older homes have trash compactors and there was something called the "Seattle Stomp" and it wasn't a dance. https://www.spokesman.com/stories/1995/jan/26/seattle-stomp-... | | |
| ▲ | buildsjets 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | You do not recall correctly. That's not an article about Seattle. It's an article about Spokane, which is little college town close to five hours away from Seattle. There was no legal judgement, and there was no municipal government action here. A private corporation raised their prices, and their customers reacted by trying to get more for their money. John Smith's invisible hand continues to sculpt our reality. |
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| ▲ | addaon 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > 2206 Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. [Posted from 2026.] | |
| ▲ | yardie 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The reasoning gets worse the further you peel back that onion. Basically dumpsters are too large for sidewalks. Logically, it would make sense to put them on the curb. But no, drivers would complain because having to give up any curbside parking whatsoever. | |
| ▲ | tombert 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I was baffled when I first moved to NYC and found out that people just throw their garbage onto the sidewalk. I have the wheely bin now, which is good, but it's insane that it took until 2025 to actually require it. Probably the only good thing Eric Adams did. | |
| ▲ | dirck-norman 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | NYC was built without alleyways and much of NYC is single vaulted sewer systems due to its age. There is no space to put underground trash bins. NYC is also non-uniform, so there are different types of trucks and streets. Adam's admin largely solved this during his term, but the above ground bins are unpopular because they're ugly and then it takes time to retrofit the garbage trucks for mechanical pickup. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/03/02/upshot/nyc-tr... | |
| ▲ | pcrh 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's still a problem in 2206? | | |
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| ▲ | technothrasher 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The rats that the cats are keeping out of the stores are a much larger source of pathogen transmission to humans than the cats are. Not only do rats carry many more dangerous diseases than cats, but both can also transmit toxoplasmosis to humans. As it is transmitted through contact with feces, from which of the two are you more likely to encounter feces spread all over the store? So, while I actually find both rats and cats endearing, I'd take the cats over wild rats in the stores any day. | | |
| ▲ | trhway 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think we owe our civilization to cats - without them we would have never been able to stop being hunters-gatherers and settle into agricultural society as having food stores would have been impossible due to rats. And Black Death, owing to Church persecution of cats, is another great illustration of cats' role. | | |
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| ▲ | vedaba 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | You just angered a lot of cat people | | |
| ▲ | delecti 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | In my experience most people lovingly refer to their cats in negative-sounding ways. One of the terms of endearment we used for our most recent cat was "stinky little piss baby". I think most cat owners are well aware that they're unsanitary creatures. | | |
| ▲ | Jtsummers 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | If your housecat stinks, it's likely unhealthy or you're not providing it with a clean litterbox or you have insufficient litterboxes for the number of cats you have. | | |
| ▲ | delecti 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | He got the nickname while he was dying of cancer. He had stopped grooming himself because of his medications. So you aren't entirely wrong, but rest assured that we were agonizingly aware of the ways in which he was unhealthy. | |
| ▲ | bluefirebrand 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Calling your cat stinky does not actually mean they smell bad |
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| ▲ | jjtheblunt 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | dog person here : they're unsanitary how? they constantly fastidously clean themselves, from what i see. dogs roll in rotting anything for sport. | | |
| ▲ | delusional 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I suppose they're unsanitary in the same way all animals that aren't humans are: They don't was their hands? Cats don't strike me a particularly dirty creatures. They're not exactly clean and well groomed from nature, but no animal really is. | | | |
| ▲ | kevin_thibedeau 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | If you covered yourself in spit would that be sanitary? | | |
| ▲ | jjtheblunt 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | you just made me wonder if the fact we sweat serves a similar purpose as your spit covering example. (i don't know, but you triggered a thought!) |
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