[HN Gopher] A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English ...
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A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village
Author : simonebrunozzi
Score : 128 points
Date : 2021-02-08 10:00 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (medium.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (medium.com)
| yboris wrote:
| Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_(baboon)
|
| Jack was acting as an assistant to a disabled railway signalman
| in South Africa.
|
| > in his nine years of employment with the railway company, Jack
| never made a single mistake.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| I grew up very near to Uley yet had no idea about this. I'm
| amazed how quickly it seems to have been forgotten. I wonder why
| it was? It seems some people did know about it so maybe no one
| thought it was noteworthy. Perhaps the demographic changes in the
| countryside made it harder for that sort of history to be passed
| down. Or maybe it wasn't really forgotten at all but it just
| wasn't widely known or talked about.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| This kind of thing is fascinating to me. I don't think we really
| know the extent to which primate behavior in relation to ours is
| cultural vs. genetic; after all, things like this haven't often
| been tried! Obviously the genetic differences are huge, but
| stories like this make me think that our cultural development
| over time may be a bigger factor in the difference between our
| species than many assume.
|
| And humans don't do much better absent human society:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child
| rob74 wrote:
| Yup... I mean, you wouldn't keep a wolf around your house
| either, but dogs (if well-trained and with responsible owners)
| are usually no problem. So who knows, if humans would breed and
| train chimps (gorillas are too big) the same way as dogs, in
| time they probably could be "integrated" into society. Of
| course, that would bring with it a whole new set of moral
| issues...
| matt_f wrote:
| Most interesting line if this article for me:
|
| > The ape cost PS300, about PS25,000 in today's money (or about
| $34,000USD).
|
| Holy cow, has there been a 10,000% inflation of the value of a
| pound in one century?
| joshAg wrote:
| Not as bad as 10,000%, but the bank of england estimates an
| average inflation rate of 4.2%[1], so it's within an order of
| magnitude. (25M - 300) / 300 is only like 8200%, but bank of
| england puts the current value of 300 1917 pounds at 21283.44
| 2020 pounds, which is "only" 6994% ([21283.44 - 300] / 300).
|
| [1]: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-
| policy/inflation/in... 300 pounds, 1917, and 2020.
| TazeTSchnitzel wrote:
| Well, there were two world wars in the meantime?
| NeutronStar wrote:
| We also decoupled the dollar from gold.
| 0-_-0 wrote:
| A similar case where a chimpanzee was raised as a human child by
| scientists:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gua_(chimpanzee)
| domano wrote:
| I swear everytime i click on a medium article there is a new way
| they have thought of to keep me from reading it. Is reading
| without an account not possible anymore? I didn't read anything
| on it in the last few weeks, so i should not have hit any limit.
| beervirus wrote:
| Just use incognito mode.
| keiferski wrote:
| If this topic interests you, I recommend this paper and book by
| linguist and psychologist Michael Tomasello. He explores how
| human babies differ from other young primates and the role that
| collective human knowledge plays in the development process.
|
| http://www.biolinguagem.com/ling_cog_cult/tomasello_1999_hum...
|
| https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674005822
| rangibaby wrote:
| This article and the Sun article linked within it are extremely
| similar, I wonder why
| ignoramous wrote:
| Good call sending the Gorilla away (though it didn't end well for
| the Gorilla), because there is no controlling a 200-pound angry
| wild animal when its upset:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_(chimpanzee)
|
| And Bears, too:
|
| > _Even though it may appear that the bear attacked for no
| reason, there was a reason. "You can train them and use as many
| safety precautions as you can, but you're still taking a chance.
| It's still a wild animal"_
|
| Indeed. https://archive.is/BsriF
| dTal wrote:
| Would you have the same reaction towards a mentally retarded
| orphan growing into a very strong man? Lenny, from Of Mice And
| Men?
|
| My immediate reaction is horror at the unspeakable cruelty of
| selling a person - a participant in society - into caged
| slavery in the circus. Imagine the feeling of confusion and
| betrayal he must have felt. Imagine the trauma from suddenly
| having personhood privileges withdrawn. I don't see any
| justification for that. The article rather lightly glosses over
| the gory details of that shameful episode.
| ewmiller wrote:
| I think you can acknowledge the evils of the circus during
| that time and still also acknowledge that a gorilla is far
| stronger than most adult men, and more difficult to reason
| with should it get angry or violent.
| watertom wrote:
| Wild is applied because animals behave in way we don't
| understand and it's much easier to chalk it up to the fact that
| they act without thought or reason, which we know is not true.
|
| Animals think and reason, just because we don't understand
| their process doesn't mean they don't have a process.
|
| Conversely unless we completely explain all of 'civilized'
| societies rules to these animals and secure agreement that they
| will follow all these rules, their is little chance they will
| behave within those guidelines.
|
| I spent time with outlaw motorcycle clubs, and I would consider
| many of those groups the same as a gorilla or bear, the only
| difference would be that the bikers usually know the laws of
| society, but they reject hem.
| wendyshu wrote:
| Fascinating to hear about Travis. Allegedly he could drive a
| car! But there's speculation that the Xanax he was given that
| day might have been the cause of the attack. I also wonder if
| he was getting a proper diet.
| sbmthakur wrote:
| Reminded me of a story from Bangladesh where a person took in a
| tiger cub as "pet" after killing its mother. Years later the
| tiger, now considerably grown, escaped from captivity and
| killed the owner(the same person). So the warning applies for
| Tigers too.
| glitchc wrote:
| It sounds like justice to me :)
| malloryerik wrote:
| I'm not sure it's fair to call a gorilla a "wild animal" when
| they've been so socialized that they live in a human home, use
| the light switch and the bathroom, go on walks with the local
| kids and have deep familial relationships with humans, the only
| other animals they know. That's not to claim that I have any
| idea how dangerous or not the situation might have been but
| "wild" really sounds like the wrong word here. Human culture
| was all the poor fellow knew, despite not being human.
| lurquer wrote:
| On the multistate bar exam there is a invariably a version of
| this question:
|
| "Susie raised a pet squirrel from birth. It was very well-
| trained, calm, and seemed to think it was a dog. It would
| come when called, could do tricks, etc."
|
| There would be some scenario that would follow where the
| test-taker would be asked to decide whether this indubitably
| gentle creature was a "wild animal." The answer is always
| yes... training, temperament, etc. has nothing to do with it.
|
| (The issue comes up in legal cases -- albeit, rarely -- due
| to the different levels of responsibility one has towards
| others when one's pet or livestock causes damage or injury.
| For a "domesticated animal", the owner usually needs to be
| negligent in some way. But, for a "wild animal", the owner is
| always strictly liable.
|
| Which is odd in many ways... you may have less liability when
| your vicious pit bull attacks than when your pet sloth lashes
| out at someone tormenting it. For, the sloth is by definition
| "wild" and the dog is, by definition, "domesticated."
| StavrosK wrote:
| Possibly, but consider how often people hit others or throw
| things when they get mad, and now imagine the person is a 350
| lbs bundle of muscles with reduced higher faculties.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Also, people tend to "hold back" unless they're in a true
| rage or have some other diminished capacity (temporary like
| from drugs and alcohol or permanent). Animals tend not to,
| which is why, pound for pound, they're a bit more
| frightening to deal with. I'd rather be in a fight against
| my 200lb BJJ training partner (who was all muscle, after
| some sessions I was sore for days as it felt like I'd been
| hit repeatedly by a truck) than the poorly trained (or
| poorly socialized, maybe it was trained) 80lb German
| Shepherd that chased me into my apartment building (he got
| loose from his owner who had it on a lead, fortunately I
| had a head start). At least I'd have confidence my training
| partner wouldn't latch on and deliberately tear flesh from
| bone.
| vagrantJin wrote:
| > German Shepherd that chased me into my apartment
| building
|
| This is a story I want to hear.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| I never figured out if the guy got a dog that was ill-
| tempered, or if he made it ill-tempered. But my apartment
| building (loved the building, hated the neighbors) had no
| weight limit on dogs (learned after moving in, I had no
| pets so never even checked the policy). My first
| encounter with this particular dog was walking from my
| car in the parking lot back to the building. I heard it
| growling, guy held it on the lead while I made a brisk
| walk (not run) to the building.
|
| My second encounter was actually inside. I lived on the
| first floor, not sure where he lived, but he was coming
| the opposite direction with the dog. It started dragging
| him, I hustled up the stairs (I was next to them,
| fortunately) while he regained control and got it
| outside.
|
| The third encounter was the one I mentioned. I had
| returned from the gym (I walked there, it was a mile
| away) and was at the entrance when I heard the dog to my
| left. I looked and it was pulling on him, then it was
| free from him. Fortunately it had about 100' to cover
| before it would get to me and I got inside in a hurry
| (keypad entry, so at least there was no fumbling with
| keys and locks).
|
| I really never wanted to be within 100' of that dog
| again, but they wouldn't evict him even after that
| incident. I moved a couple months later.
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| further, if one has the opportunity to talk to people working
| in a forensic psychology unit, they might discover the
| presence of the "wild animal" in the human and that all of us
| are still a lot closer to that wild animal than we like to
| admit.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| I wish there was more literature about this, both academic
| and fictional. I've always found it amusing how far people
| go to believe that we're detached from the wild animal in
| us. From conception to some young age I'd say we barely
| differ from animals (hence why some animals are compared to
| humans at various, usually single-digit, ages). Then even
| once we're grown, there are many situations where I think,
| surely this is what a regular animal experiences too:
| looking for something and absentmindedly searching, having
| fun running around with friends, identifying a dangerous
| situation and either taking action to defend loved ones or
| flee, etc.
| gnramires wrote:
| I recommend Jane Goodall's memoirs (In the Shadow of Man,
| The Chimpanzees of Gombe, and more), I think they provide
| a fairly balanced view on our relationship with our near
| ancestors (what Chimpanzees can and cannot do).
| rbanffy wrote:
| Still, a raging 80 kg human can be a handful to deal with.
| A raging 200 kg gorilla is much worse. There is a lot that
| can be done to assimilate a gorilla into a human society,
| but they aren't human and the differences, while possible
| to understand at a certain effort, may end up surprising
| you.
|
| My cat still tries to hunt my foot when bored. If she were
| a tiger, I would have a very serious problem to deal with
| (it's hard to buy shoes individually)
| btilly wrote:
| _Still, a raging 80 kg human can be a handful to deal
| with._
|
| Exactly how big a handful becomes much clearer when
| someone close to you spends long enough manic and without
| sleep, then goes psychotic.
| wsc981 wrote:
| _> My cat still tries to hunt my foot when bored. If she
| were a tiger, I would have a very serious problem to deal
| with (it 's hard to buy shoes individually)_
|
| But how about a lion?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btuxO-C2IzE
| yencabulator wrote:
| Absolutely. However, that is a _different criteria_ than
| wild /not wild.
|
| Bulls are domesticated animals, after all.
| throw2838 wrote:
| How about other peoples rights? Not everyone can be around
| adult gorillas in modern city.
| aezakmi wrote:
| They seem to do well in Europe with all the subsaharans.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| Domesticated dogs attack and maim on a regular basis and kill
| someone pretty much weekly in North America[1]. It's bizarre
| that we would expect non-domesticated, larger, more dangerous
| animals to be not be, well, dangerous.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_dog_attacks_in_t...
| ofrzeta wrote:
| It's interesting that the vast majority of them are pit
| bulls. That might suggest that neither domesticated dogs nor
| wild animals are as likely to attack as are animals
| specifically bred to attack.
| zrail wrote:
| > Below are lists of fatal dog attacks in the United States
| reported by the news media, published in scholarly papers,
| or mentioned through other sources. In the lists below, the
| breed is assigned by the sources.
|
| It's because you're looking at a biased slice of data.
| There's no national database of fatal dog attacks and
| people are scared of pit bulls so the media reports on them
| more.
| garbagetime wrote:
| > people are scared of pit bulls so the media reports on
| them more.
|
| How do you know this?
| etempleton wrote:
| It is also because Pit Bull is not a breed and so anytime
| a dog bites and a dog has an unclear breed, but looks
| vaguely like a terrier it is easier to write down that
| the attack was by a Pit Bull.
|
| It is also likely that owners who desire a dog that was
| bred for fighting want their dog to be aggressive and so
| train them to be.
| criddell wrote:
| Some data does exist:
|
| https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305270428_Charac
| ter...
|
| > Pit bull bites were implicated in half of all surgeries
| performed and over 2.5 times as likely to bite in
| multiple anatomic locations as compared to other breeds.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| And also because pitbulls were created to fight other
| dogs, and descend from bulldogs, which were created to
| fight to the death against bulls.
| bregma wrote:
| Blaming the violence on the race of dog tells us more about
| the reporter than the news story.
| wolfhumble wrote:
| Without knowing anything about the owner and the dog, I
| would rather meet an unleashed Golden Retriever than
| unleashed Pitbull. Am I wrong thinking like that?
| ramblerman wrote:
| Of course not, and this age-old argument in defence of
| pit-bulls comes up again and again, with the same point
| being missed.
|
| Pitbulls could be the sweetest breed in the world, the
| point is that "when" they attack, it ends up much much
| worse than your super aggressive chihuaha. And in some
| cases 1 to 1 a man can not win the fight.
|
| There a few breeds like that (e.g. mastiffs) but pitbulls
| are one of the most popularly owned dogs in this
| category.
| etempleton wrote:
| I will agree with this. I don't think Pit Bull types are
| inherently more likely to bite. I just think that they
| cause a lot more damage when they do bite. Most minor
| bites are probably unreported. House cats bite and claw
| all the time and no one reports it because the damage is
| minor.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| > House cats bite and claw all the time and no one
| reports it because the damage is minor.
|
| Just jumping in here to say that if your house cat bites
| you and draws blood you should absolutely go to a doctor
| ASAP because cat mouths are nasty and cat bites often get
| very seriously infected (like, "lose your hand" infected)
| very quickly.
| sojsurf wrote:
| +1. One of my clients got scratched on her wrist by a
| house cat she had nurtured for years. She ended up
| spending a significant amount of time in the hospital
| with a serious infection that nearly resulted in
| amputation.
| aceofspades19 wrote:
| I have been around house cats for almost my entire life
| and have been bit and scratched countless times and I
| never have had any wound that has had an infection as a
| result. So would like to see the actual statistics on how
| often people lose their hands from their pet cat biting
| them.
|
| Not that I am saying one shouldn't use applicable wound
| care but find it difficult to believe that you must visit
| a doctor right away or else you will get a bad infection
| and lose a limb.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| cf. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15456433/
|
| "Appropriate early treatment of cat bites of the hand is
| the key to success. Treatment with antibiotics, surgical
| drainage, debridement and copious irrigation, and use of
| corticosteroids in some cases, proved to be effective.
| Hand elevation and intensive physiotherapy after a short
| period of immobilization is critical. We believe that
| prophylactic antibiotics should be given even in case of
| a minor infection following cat bites of the hand. Clear
| guidelines for clinical recognition of infection,
| hospital admission and management are provided in our
| study."
| themaninthedark wrote:
| I have been attacked by 2 packs of dogs...neither were
| wild, just dogs that were not leashed up and formed a
| pack in the neighborhoods.
|
| One pack was formed of smaller dogs, mostly of the
| puntable size. The other more medium size, family
| friendly dogs.
|
| Neither packs contained pit-bulls. It does not matter
| about the breeds in the pack, just the size and number.
| 5-10 Jack Russel terriers can mess you up just as easily
| as 3-4 Labradors.
|
| I notice that the discussion of dangerous dogs now is
| focused on pit-bulls, I remember as a kid that the German
| Shepherd and Rottweiler always seemed scary.
| dmos62 wrote:
| At first I was completely agreeing with you and found
| parent's sentiment misguided. But, then I thought what if
| we took this to an extreme and generalized about humans?
| Human violence isn't always uniformly distributed amongst
| the races, but we try not to jump to conclusions about
| supposed racial genetic predispositions. I think the dog
| deserves the benefit of the doubt is what I'm saying. But
| that's also not accounting that some dogs have been bred
| for violence. So I guess you are right in some ways and
| wrong in others.
| secondcoming wrote:
| I wince when I read about pit bull owners proclaiming how
| their dog is harmless and 'one of the family'. They've
| clearly not watched the videos I have. And I don't accept
| that when a pit bull it's the 'fault of the owner'. There's
| something inherent in them that causes their brain to
| switch into attack mode for any reason. And once they do
| attack it's very difficult to get them to stop.
| etempleton wrote:
| Nuture over nature in my opinion.
|
| Dogs are like people in that childhood trauma never
| really goes away. If a dog was mistreated at any point in
| their life. Even before you owned the dog years ago, it
| could manifest in aggression.
|
| We had a dog growing up, medium sized poodle mix, that we
| had adopted at one year and were told had been abused by
| the husband. Not typically an aggressive dog. However
| certain unfamiliar men, not all men, but some skinny,
| white men it seemed were liable to be met with aggression
| and family guarding behavior.
|
| Every dog I have raised since puppyhood, including a 115
| pound mixed breed and a 100 pound husky have had zero
| aggression issues. That is not to say one can be
| careless. There is always the chance, and you have to
| have the space and be able to handle any dog you own.
| user-the-name wrote:
| So you watched some videos, and now you know much better
| how the animal behaves than those who have lived with it
| for its entire life?
| secondcoming wrote:
| I know an unnecessary risk when I see one. Those breeds
| are banned in some countries for good reason.
| user-the-name wrote:
| Do you though? People with a lot more information than
| you have disagree strongly with you.
| brandall10 wrote:
| I know I had two rather fearless pug dogs for 15 years,
| and the only scary incidents we had during their lives
| were with pits and mixes. There was one dog park in
| particular where there was a higher than normal
| concentration of them that I had to stop going to
| altogether due to the number of scary incidents. One in
| particular where I had to physically step in and was bit,
| fortunately the damage was minor.
|
| As a consequence of this, I became accustomed to
| immediately assessing the aggressiveness of the dogs by
| eye gazing upon approach, and found the vast majority
| gentle and sweet. So I get the frustration of their
| owners, esp ones who take them in as rescues as the local
| shelters are flooded with them. 9/10 of these animals
| will probably go through life showing no aggression and
| live life as wonderful family pets.
|
| But all these excuses about how it's the owners fault in
| how they raised them, that there is no official breed,
| etc, etc... is bs hand waving. These dogs can be
| dangerous like that pet chimp who ripped that woman's
| hands and face off. There is something instinctual in
| them, and the physical ability, to do real harm.
|
| As to other breeds that can be worrisome, generally bred
| for protection, such as dobies, rotts, and German
| Shepard's, I never sensed the fear that one of those
| would instantly end the life of my dogs within seconds.
| Pits and mixes - easily a "holy shit that was close"
| encounter in the triple digits, probably once a month on
| average throughout their lifetimes. Far too many
| situations where an owner had trouble controlling their
| dog and they got dangerously close.
| secondcoming wrote:
| Fine. Let your children play with a loaded gun. It'll be
| mostly fine.
| cinntaile wrote:
| Another factor is probably the owners themselves, but there
| are likely more than just these two. We don't have enough
| info to disentangle possible partial causes and how much
| each cause contributes.
| glitchc wrote:
| Artificial selection over generations has left pit bulls a
| mentally unstable breed.
| chmod775 wrote:
| I agree.
|
| Though you could make a similar argument for domesticated
| animals like dogs. Especially larger dogs. Or humans! There are
| a lot of things that can be dangerous to humans, especially
| children, when they fly off the handle.
|
| There is always a risk. Most animals function emotionally like
| humans, but have no good way of communicating emotions like
| frustration and anger except through aggression.
|
| But locking up animals in cages - those who easily have the
| capacity to understand what you are doing to them - is cruel
| and immoral. So you either have to live _with_ them or leave
| them be in their natural habitat.
|
| You wouldn't lock up a human either for having the _capacity_
| to harm someone else.
|
| So if you end up with an orphaned gorilla in your care, morally
| you are between a rock and a hard place.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| > Though you could make a similar argument for domesticated
| animals like dogs. Especially larger dogs. Or humans! There
| are a lot of things that can be dangerous to humans,
| especially children, when they fly off the handle.
|
| Dogs, regardless of size are safe to coexist with humans
| provided they are treated appropriately from a sustenance and
| behavior/training perspective. That's the result of traits
| associated with being an animal living in a pack social
| structure, along with thousands of years of breeding. When
| dog behavior crosses a line, the dog is euthanized.
|
| > You wouldn't lock up a human either for having the capacity
| to harm someone else.
|
| We do. When humans demonstrate a lack of control that puts
| others at risk, we apply progressive discipline to discourage
| future misbehavior. Fines, probation in various flavors,
| jail, and finally prison. If you steal a phone from an
| unlocked car, it's usually misdemeanor theft, if you break
| down my door to steal a phone, it's a felony burglary.
|
| > So if you end up with an orphaned gorilla in your care,
| morally you are between a rock and a hard place.
|
| It is really a ranking of priorities. I'm not an ethicist,
| but generally speaking, the preservation of human life is
| usually a primary moral imperative.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| I think you are overdoing it, what OP clearly had in mind
| is that we all have the capacity for harm, yet not all
| humans are locked up simply because of this potential. I
| sure do have capacity to easily kill a fellow human in
| various ways, so does everybody I know and presumably so do
| you. There are multiple reasons why this capacity is never
| utilized, but that's another topic.
|
| You are arguing few steps further about a person who
| realized this capacity and what society does to them.
|
| I don't read much more into that.
| badjeans wrote:
| > Dogs, regardless of size are safe to coexist with humans
| provided they are treated appropriately from a sustenance
| and behavior/training perspective.
|
| Debatable...
|
| "In 1994, the most recent year for which published data are
| available, an estimated 4.7 million dog bites occurred in
| the United States, and approximately 799,700 persons
| required medical care (1). Of an estimated 333,700 patients
| treated for dog bites in emergency departments (EDs) in
| 1994 (2), approximately 6,000 (1.8%) were hospitalized
| (3)."
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| I love animals and had dogs and cats living with my family.
| When I had my first kid, my wife had a large dog (a mixture
| between a labrador and a german shepard, and probably others
| - she found it as a puppy attached to a rope in the forest,
| left to die).
|
| The dog was extremely quiet, socialized and what not. When we
| brought our baby from the hospital, he was really curious. We
| left him sniff the baby and the dog apparently understood
| that the thing that was brought in was important and decided
| to protect it (he was sleeping in front of the baby's room
| and would not let any stranger approach.
|
| I had a similar case when I was a baby - my parents left me
| with their dog sleeping next to my crib outside and it would
| just do a "woof" without even waking up if someone would
| approach.
|
| And then, one day, I left the dog alone with my son. My son
| was in that sort of cage made of ropes he can wander in and
| the dog was outside. I came back to the room and I found
|
| ... the dog licking my son face pressed to the ropes
| (unexpected happy ending)
|
| I was really scared because it could have been something
| different (my childhood friend was bit to his face by his own
| dog, a normal one, not pitbull style but Great Dane IIRC).
| Nothing ever happended but still, this was this one time
| where it could have had happen and it would have been MY
| fault, not the dog's one.
|
| I now have a cat. Well, my family has it, we just live
| together. The cat does not interfere with me (except sleeping
| on my laptop when I am not around) and is extremely found of
| my younger son (14 yo). I am telling my son to never get his
| face that close to the cat because she will a day or another
| scratch him (they are running and jumping together, playing).
| She scratched my leg once (and would not left from under my
| son's bed for that day because she was probably scared of
| what she did) - but that could have had been my face.
|
| Accidents happen and animals are animals. This is not
| something bad - just something one has to be aware of.
| jdmichal wrote:
| My parents had a husky when I was born. The moment it bit
| my face was the last moment it spent in the house. Lived in
| the garage until it was (quickly) rehomed. I don't blame
| it; it wasn't like it was trying to rip my face off. I
| think it was just trying to assert itself in the pack order
| ahead of me. Except the pack leaders weren't too fond of
| that idea.
|
| Ironically, I now love huskies. But would also never get
| one, because I live in Florida and would not subject such a
| dog to the weather here.
| mechnesium wrote:
| This resonates with me. It deeply disturbs me that other
| animals still don't have rights on parity with humans.
|
| I can play devil's advocate and make the ethical argument
| that animal lives have more intrinsic value than human lives.
| For one, they are innately innocent due to their (as we
| currently understand) more limited capacity for reasoning.
| This limited reasoning dismisses blame when they do things we
| see as wrong (similar to the way we do for children) and also
| limits their capacity to cause significant harm to the
| planet.
|
| I will always side with other animals over man. If I could
| only rescue one organism from a burning building and had to
| choose between a human or another animal, I'd choose the
| other animal. If I had to choose which species becomes
| extinct tomorrow, it would be humans. We are a plague to this
| planet and solar system.
|
| Selfish humans, obsessed with self preservation, will easily
| disagree with this judgement.
| nefitty wrote:
| As an anti-speciesist vegetarian, I'd like to note that the
| above viewpoint probably sounds as extreme and incoherent
| to me as it does to most other people.
|
| Parity as regards rights should be based on interests.
| There is nothing special about life itself. A mouse's
| interests are not on par with the interests of a child, and
| saving the child would generally result in the least amount
| of suffering.
|
| I did my best to take the parent comment seriously, but I
| really need to stress how ridiculous it is. Please don't
| assume that that is a common viewpoint amongst vegan or
| vegetarians. It ultimately commits the same error:
| devaluing the life of an individual because it happens to
| belong to the "wrong" species.
| mechnesium wrote:
| I'm not a vegetarian or vegan, so I don't know why you're
| conflating my devil's advocate argument with those
| philosophies.
|
| > A mouse's interests are not on par with the interests
| of a child
|
| For an anti-speciesist, this is a very anthropocentric
| and speciesist statement.
|
| I would argue that saving the child would cause greater
| suffering[0], not only because the human condition unto
| itself is rife with suffering, but because we have the
| greatest capacity and demonstrated ability to cause grave
| harm to all species and to the planet, more so than any
| other living being.
|
| The voluntary human extinction movement[1] is a very real
| movement, however ridiculous you find it to be.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffering-
| focused_ethics#Argum...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_Human_Extinct
| ion_Mov...
| mempko wrote:
| Half the people in jails in the USA haven't hurt anyone
| physically. We seem to lock people up just fine without any
| display of harm. We are a strange animal indeed.
| vagrantJin wrote:
| > But locking up animals in cages - those who easily have the
| capacity to understand what you are doing to them - is cruel
| and immoral. So you either have to live with them or leave
| them be in their natural habitat.
|
| I agree completely. I'll go as far as to say the idea of pets
| must perish.
| dTal wrote:
| You don't have to lock up a pet. Plenty of dogs lead happy
| contented lives, with family who take them for walks
| whenever asked, or even have free range of a generous rural
| territory.
|
| "Pet" can simply mean non-human family member.
| krageon wrote:
| This is exactly it. The argumentation "it is still a wild
| animal" is fundamentally lazy and seeks to banish a random
| class of organism to a space where it is okay to be
| needlessly cruel because understanding how it works is too
| hard.
| ptsneves wrote:
| I cordially disagree. I counter argue that
| anthropomorphizing of animals is fundamentally flawed. What
| understanding are you talking about? That with
| understanding the wild animal will not kill and maim
| randomly? As per other comments it seems evidence is
| against this reasoning.
|
| Highly experienced trainers who understand very well their
| animals end up dead. I think it is quite a high grounded
| statement to call professional zoo-keepers and related
| professionals lazy.
|
| The only understanding i can see is that having wild
| animals as pets should be banned as they normally are in
| most jurisdictions.
| naringas wrote:
| > I counter argue that anthropomorphizing of animals is
| fundamentally flawed.
|
| and I further retort that humans are animals, and that
| classifying humans into "something other than animals" is
| fundamentally flawed.
|
| Why are so many humans wont on forgetting that we're an
| animals too?
|
| > The only understanding i can see is that having wild
| animals as pets should be banned as they normally are in
| most jurisdictions.
|
| I suppose owning humans as pets is already banned in all
| jurisdictions, so I think we agree on this.
| alexvoda wrote:
| I wonder how much religion factors into the belief that
| humans are a fundamentally different category. Abrahamic
| religions certanly rely on this idea. No idea about
| others.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I think it is more fundamental to human nature than can
| be explained by religion. Just hang around in tech
| circles and listen to them talk about other people and
| you'll see they consider themselves to be in some
| fundamentally different category from the rest of
| humanity.
| chmod775 wrote:
| >Highly experienced trainers who understand very well
| their animals end up dead.
|
| Humans who understand other humans also get killed by
| humans - at rates other animals will never match.
|
| In the ballpark of ~20,000 murders are committed every
| year in the US, yet even though there are 90 million dogs
| in that same country, only about 30 to 50 people are
| killed by dogs.
|
| It would be pointless comparing the number of fatal bear
| attacks, because the numbers per year are usually 0-2,
| and usually by _wild_ animals, not ones in captivity.
|
| At the end of the day the most dangerous thing to a human
| is another human. No other animal comes remotely close.
| ivanbakel wrote:
| What is the point being made here? Humans are liable for
| themselves and their actions - animals are not. It
| ultimately doesn't matter if an animal has a
| justification for its actions; being unable to take
| responsibility for them, from a human perspective, is the
| biggest separator between human and animal behaviour.
| mLuby wrote:
| Animals _are_ liable for their actions. The punishment is
| usually death by lethal injection or firing squad.
|
| The stronger argument is that animals aren't _as aware_
| as humans which actions will have consequences. Animals
| do have customs about what 's okay and what's not, but
| they often don't align with human society's laws.
|
| It's "ignorance of the law is no excuse" taken to an
| extreme.
| chmod775 wrote:
| > being unable to take responsibility for them, from a
| human perspective, is the biggest separator between human
| and animal behaviour.
|
| That is true, but also not related to what your GP was
| talking about IMHO.
|
| I understood their comment as coming from a perspective
| of either "you should fear what you can't
| understand/explain - and you can't really understand
| animals" or "it's their nature to be violent, it doesn't
| matter whether you understand them", either of which I
| think is flawed.
|
| You made a much better point.
|
| I just have a habit of picking at reasoning even if I
| agree with the conclusion. Sometimes you end up with a
| more concise and _to the point_ argument at the end of
| that, and in this case it came from you!
| ajxs wrote:
| > "...at rates other animals will never match."
|
| This is because we make the right decision to not live in
| close proximity to lions, tigers, bears, apes and all the
| other menagerie of dangerous creatures we share Earth
| with.
|
| > "...only about 30 to 50 people are killed by dogs"
|
| It's not a coincidence that this number is low. We keep
| domestic cats and dogs as pets precisely _because_ their
| propensity and - in some cases - ability to kill us is
| low. If bears were as commonly kept as household pets as
| dogs you would see a completely different result.
| harperlee wrote:
| And even further, we friggin' engineered them genetically
| through artificial selection to be that way.
| mLuby wrote:
| Culture has done the same to humans, generally selecting
| for pro-social traits. (Yes, there are outliers.)
| ewmiller wrote:
| You can call an animal "wild" without also condemning it to
| a cruel fate like the circus. It's not black and white.
|
| I don't personally know what the solution is, but I'm sure
| there's a more elegant middle ground between "let it roam
| free among humans" and "cage and torture it until it dies."
| slothtrop wrote:
| That is not what it "seeks" at all.
| jmkni wrote:
| I got a dog recently, and read lots of things online about
| 'crate training', and had lots of people advising me it was
| the way to go, so I got a 'crate' and tried it.
|
| What a load of shit lol, it's a cage. They should call the
| process 'cage conditioning', the dog was fully aware he was
| locked in a cage and didn't like it.
|
| Abandoned it very quickly, had a lot more success with just
| patience and positive reinforcement.
| NoOneNew wrote:
| https://youtu.be/4dwjS_eI-lQ
|
| In that video they show how far they still are from
| domesticated foxes compared to modern dogs. Well,
| domesticated pretty much means, "desirable traits for human
| benefit" when you think about it, the same applies to humans,
| but we call that civilized or sociable. Theres a joke in the
| comments, something like the fox goes "I'm okay with you
| being a meter away from me... but let's keep it that way."
| The dog, "you cant ignore my love!"
|
| But I fully disagree on the assessment that larger dogs are
| more wild. Smaller dogs tend to be complete violent assholes
| for little to no reason. Larger dogs tend to need more reason
| to become aggressive, unless they came from an abusive
| environment. I volunteered at an animal shelter for about a
| year (admittedly to pick up women originally). But I gladly
| hung out with pits and shepherds from abused pasts so they
| can be rehabilitated for new homes. I could never do the same
| with anything smaller than a border collie. Just never worked
| out. Large working breed dogs are crazy easy for me to calm
| down, and I am generally not a brave man. Dogs have been bred
| the last 40k some odd years to genetically want to be with
| humans. Then some assholes the past few thousand years
| decided to breed for looks and tiny sizes instead of
| companionship. That's what makes the larger working dogs
| great. Listen to and love humans, and have a job to do is
| their breeding line. Not just looks, which can breed out the
| friendly part.
|
| Caveat though, there are some pit lines that are a bit whack.
| Sadly, originally they were bred for fighting other dogs, but
| super strong friendliness for humans, to avoid the owner
| getting bit. Which is why they're cuddle bugs with people and
| are dicks to other dogs. This breed attracted a bunch of
| dipshits that bred them for just pure aggression, then add on
| the abuse. So yea... those are the sad cases.
| kemayo wrote:
| If nothing else, people tend to to put more effort into
| properly training large dogs out of any human-aggressive
| tendencies. It's a lot easier to view your Chihuahua
| nipping at someone's ankles as cute, compared to your
| pitbull doing the exact same thing.
|
| Honestly, the biggest problem I've had with large dogs is
| poor socialization in how to play with humans. A dog doing
| properly-social play by dog standards (play-bows, carefully
| light nipping, etc) can still be a really worrying
| experience for an adult if the dog is 100lbs.
| Pelic4n wrote:
| A big reason that little dogs tends to be more violent is
| that they have to compensate their size by agression and
| appear larger than they are to fend off predators.
|
| My bodeguero (spanish terrier) is the most cuddly animal I
| have ever met but he will 1v1 the sun if I let him.
| NoOneNew wrote:
| My thing is, I've never been bit by a dog bigger than a
| border collie. I've been bit by chihuahuas, Scottish
| terriers and whatever those small scraggly white dogs
| are. I can never remember their names. And these were
| considered home ready dogs. I feel safer around an abused
| pitbull than by a "well behaved" chihuahua. I'm not being
| funny or macho about it. I'm dead serious. While an adult
| guy like me doesn't care about the little rat bite,
| that's going to traumatize a little kid away from liking
| dogs. Not to mention the breeding of extremely poor body
| traits that torture some of these dogs. They may look
| cute, but these poor things succumb to a wide range of
| abnormalities... I guess I'm just bias in general. That
| whole tea cup dog craze made me really polarized on the
| issue. I hate self interested, abusive breeders.
| war1025 wrote:
| > While an adult guy like me doesn't care about the
| little rat bite, that's going to traumatize a little kid
| away from liking dogs.
|
| Our neighbor has a "scraggly little white dog" as you
| describe.
|
| It bit my (then three year old) daughter while she was
| riding her bike a year ago.
|
| It certainly didn't do any favors for her trust of dogs.
|
| Doesn't help that everyone and their mother seems to
| leave their dogs off leashes and then just say "oh don't
| worry, he's nice" as my kids are screaming their heads
| off while a creature roughly as big as they are sniffs
| and yips at them.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Exactly. My first thought was of stupid things I did when I was
| angry as a teenager. Then I thought of a Gorilla having a
| similar burst of anger.
| sunnyujjawal wrote:
| I don't think we really know the extent to which primate behavior
| in relation to ours is cultural vs. genetic; after all, things
| like this haven't often been tried! https://kyoo.in/cat/full-
| forms/
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