Astral Codex Ten

cynophobia

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cynophobia

Article

cynophobia is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between March 10, 2021 and May 14, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as ""cynophobia , pathological fear of dogs""; “One easy answer would be cynophobia, the pathological fear of dogs”. It most often appears alongside /r/atheism, /r/childfree, /r/fuckcars.

Metadata

  • Category: Concepts
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: March 10, 2021
  • Last seen: May 14, 2025

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Trapped Priors As A Basic Problem Of Rationality
March 10, 2021 · Original source
Some people never manage to do this. They get cynophobia, pathological fear of dogs. In its original technical use, a phobia is an intense fear that doesn't habituate. No matter how many times you get exposed to dogs without anything bad happening, you stay afraid. Why?
In the old days, psychologists would treat phobia by flooding patients with the phobic object. Got cynophobia? We'll stick you in a room with a giant Rottweiler, lock the door, and by the time you come out maybe you won't be afraid of dogs anymore. Sound barbaric? Maybe so, but more important it didn't really work. You could spend all day in the room with the Rottweiler, the Rottweiler could fall asleep or lick your face or do something else that should have been sufficient to convince you it wasn't scary, and by the time you got out you'd be even more afraid of dogs than when you went in.
Nowadays we're a little more careful. If you've got cynophobia, we'll start by making you look at pictures of dogs - if you're a severe enough case, even the pictures will make you a little nervous. Once you've looked at a zillion pictures, gotten so habituated to looking at pictures that they don't faze you at all, we'll put you in a big room with a cute puppy in a cage. You don't have to go near the puppy, you don't have to touch the puppy, just sit in the room without freaking out. Once you've done that a zillion times and lost all fear, we'll move you to something slightly doggier and scarier, than something slightly doggier and scarier than that, and so on, until you're locked in the room with the Rottweiler.
petfree
May 14, 2025 · Original source
One easy answer would be cynophobia, the pathological fear of dogs. I don’t think this is true. The people on /r/petfree mostly don’t seem afraid, unless they’re sublimating it in some really weird way. And I know people with actual disorder-grade dog phobia, and they’re not angry about it. Many of them are apologetic, or agree dogs are cute, or at least don’t spend all their time fuming about the existence of dogs. You would really have to stretch the definition of phobia here. You can do it - witness “homophobia” for people with normal political or religious objections to homosexuality - but it would feel wrong.