Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 142 posts

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

#61

Post by nefitty »

mechnesium wrote: post #13
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 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 wron…

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.

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

#62

Post by NoOneNew »

Pelic4n wrote: post #52
NoOneNew wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

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.

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.

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

#63

Post by AlwaysRock »

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…

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.

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

#64

Post by sojsurf »

InitialLastName wrote: post #38
etempleton wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

+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.

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

#66

Post by btilly »

rbanffy wrote: post #48
DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 h…

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.

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

#67

Post by wendyshu »

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…

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.

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

#68

Post by gnramires »

silicon2401 wrote: post #45
DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

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).

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

#69

Post by fennecfoxen »

aceofspades19 wrote: post #60
InitialLastName wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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…

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."

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

#70

Post by Jtsummers »

StavrosK wrote: post #53
malloryerik wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. H…

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.

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.
Post reply on HN