Just finished V Rising. I really liked it. For those who don’t know and are curious, it’s one of those games where, if you can’t beat a boss, you just have to get better. There’s some small things that make a fight easier, but it basically comes down to you understanding the enemy and learning to play better.

Same with golfing, bowling, darts, etc. I think part of the enjoyment of these types of sports/games/competitions is to see how close to perfection you can get.

My understanding is that some of the benefits China would get from invading Taiwan is the control of Taiwan’s world-leading semiconductor industry. So making it public knowledge that any invading force (i.e. China) would not be able to take over their production capabilities is a small deterrent.

That’s a good point about disease and I think it could be a potential cause of the low genetic prevalence.

I don’t know about your roaming free option. I think if that were true, there would still be wild packs today or there would have been roving dog packs mentioned in historical text (possible but I don’t recall any mention of them). Alternatively, they would have inter-breed with European varieties and had a more significant impact on genetics, but that’s not seen.

While I agree that Europeans liked to remove/exterminate “uncivilized” things, that mostly applies to people. I suspect if the American dogs were significantly useful they would have made use of them.

This conversation allowed me to recall that the plains tribes utilized dogs as pack animals. Then once horses made their way onto the scene those tribes switched from dogs to horses for that role. I’m not sure what other “jobs” American dogs performed but I suspect if they were significantly utilized as pack animals they were probably breed for such and with that niche gone they may not have performed well in other “dog” tasks, compared to European varieties.

To conclude, for American dogs to be such a small percent of the current dog genome, I think, the European varieties had to significantly outlive their American counterparts. Whether because they were replaced by better performing European varieties/horses, because they died from European diseases, or a combination of those options.

After the arrival of Europeans, native American dogs almost completely disappeared, leaving a minimal genetic legacy in modern dog populations.

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7116273/

I did not do a very deep dive but it looks like there were “domesticated” dogs in the Americans prior to Europeans, but they were almost completely replaced by their European counterparts. This leads me to believe the European versions were far superior for the intended usage. If the American version was indeed significantly inferior for their intended purposes, they may have been at or below the effectiveness/usefulness levels of semi-domesticated animals, like foxes.

Edit: The_Sasswagon brings up a good point about the effects of potential European diseases on American dogs.

Relevant Section, with example implementation:

With an annual budget of roughly $2 million, the program saves Eugene $14 million annually in ambulance trips and emergency room costs, plus an estimated $8.5 million in public safety costs—and has successfully diverted thousands from the criminal legal system. Of the estimated 17,700 calls CAHOOTS responded to in 2019, teams requested police backup only 311 times.

311/17700=~1.75%

Article Text Below:

What Happens When We Send Mental Health Providers Instead Of Police

For Daniel Prude, Patrick Warren Sr., and Ricardo Muñoz, 911 calls led to tragedy. They are three of at least 97 people killed just last year after police responded to reports of someone “behaving erratically or having a mental health crisis.”

Like Prude, Warren Sr., and Muñoz, nearly a quarter of the more than 6,000 people fatally shot by police since 2015 were experiencing a mental health crisis. Today, a person having a mental health crisis is more likely to encounter law enforcement than they are to get any medical support or treatment, making jails the largest behavioral health facilities in the country. Chicago’s Cook County Jail, the Los Angeles County Jail, and New York’s Rikers Island jail complex each hold more people with serious mental health conditions than any dedicated treatment facility in the country.

Numerous deadly encounters prove that police are ill-equipped to safely and effectively serve people experiencing mental health crises, yet police have been the default first responders for a range of social issues. And as with so many aspects of our broken criminal legal system, Black people become victims in disproportionate numbers. A study published in January 2021 found that police are more likely to shoot and kill Black men who exhibit mental health conditions than white men who display similar behaviors.

Advocates across the country have called for officials to develop services that curb police involvement in mental health crises, and community organizations have led the way. Approaches vary, but a growing number of cities are starting programs that rely on first responders who aren’t police, such as counselors or social workers, to respond to calls that involve mental health crises and substance use.

Eugene, Oregon, is home to one of the oldest such civilian response programs in the country, launched in 1989. The Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets (CAHOOTS) program, operated by Eugene’s White Bird Clinic, pairs a medic with a crisis worker to respond to 911 and non-emergency calls involving mental health, homelessness, and substance use. The teams are trained to provide crisis intervention, counseling, basic emergency medical care, transportation, and referrals to services.

With an annual budget of roughly $2 million, the program saves Eugene $14 million annually in ambulance trips and emergency room costs, plus an estimated $8.5 million in public safety costs—and has successfully diverted thousands from the criminal legal system. Of the estimated 17,700 calls CAHOOTS responded to in 2019, teams requested police backup only 311 times.

The program has served as a model for places like Denver and Olympia, Washington, with many other cities looking to create their own programs. Of course, every community is different, so a one-size-fits-all approach will not work. Eugene, for example, is more than 80 percent white. White Bird Clinic Director of Consulting Tim Black recognizes that residents have a “healthy enough relationship” with police, so they may feel more comfortable calling 911 for crisis response incidents than people who live in communities that are overpoliced.

Denver’s Support Team Assisted Response (STAR) program, which launched as a pilot in June 2020, similarly sends health care workers to respond to incidents related to mental health, poverty, homelessness, and substance use. As of May 2021, STAR had successfully responded to 1,323 calls, none of which resulted in injury, arrest, or a request for police backup. Denver’s police chief has said the program “saves lives” and “prevents tragedies.”

But the program faces criticism from community members and advocates, who have said that responses have been “clinical” and that responders often can’t relate personally to the people they serve. STAR is staffed by social workers who are predominantly white, and advocates envision a community-driven program that includes “providers who share lived experiences and identities with Denver’s diverse population.”

Polling shows that Democrats, independents, and Republicans alike support programs that replace police with trained experts in situations involving behavioral or mental health crises. But residents, community organizations, behavioral health professionals, and others need to be involved in the creation and implementation of any crisis response program. And stakeholders need to ensure that these programs don’t perpetuate inequities based on who they serve, which calls get diverted, and how first responders work to resolve a situation.

With American Rescue Plan (ARP) funding, local governments have an opportunity to make real investments in health-first approaches. Denver has already committed to using ARP dollars to enable an expansion of STAR, and other cities—including Charlotte, Long Beach, Phoenix, and San Francisco—are funding similar programs through ARP. Cities need to create and implement programs that actually promote public safety—and save lives.