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A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village

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Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village

#11

Post by ptsneves »

krageon wrote: post #6
chmod775 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 an…

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.

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.

Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village

#12

Post by bregma »

ofrzeta wrote: post #7
Ensorceled wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

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.

Blaming the violence on the race of dog tells us more about the reporter than the news story.

Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village

#13

Post by mechnesium »

chmod775 wrote: post #5
ignoramous wrote: post #3

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 stil…

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 an…

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.

Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village

#14

Post by ryukafalz »

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

Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village

#15

Post by user-the-name »

secondcoming wrote: post #8
ofrzeta wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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?

Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village

#16

Post by naringas »

ptsneves wrote: post #11
krageon wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 profes…

> 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.

Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village

#17

Post by keiferski »

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

Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village

#18

Post by chmod775 »

ptsneves wrote: post #11
krageon wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 profes…

>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.

Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village

#19

Post by garbagetime »

zrail wrote: post #10
ofrzeta wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

> people are scared of pit bulls so the media reports on them more.

How do you know this?

Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village

#20

Post by wolfhumble »

bregma wrote: post #12
ofrzeta wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Blaming the violence on the race of dog tells us more about the reporter than the news story.

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?
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