Is it just me or does Medium actively not want me to read the article?
A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village
131–140 of 142 posts
Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village
#132Karl Pilkington would love this
Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you mean by “we”?
Slave suppliers - those at the start of the chain - often sell those from their region. Across centuries, humans from all parts of the world have enslaved each other.
An infinitesimal fraction of humans have ever owned a slave.
I know how the pronoun was intended to be used, and I’m not attributing any ill-intent. It’s perfectly appropriate to use “we” when referring to humans in general; such as “back before we discovered nuclear power” or “back when we discovered antibiotics.”
But, for something as recent (and ongoing) as slavery, you may want to think twice before using such a sweeping pronoun. A good portion of the US, for instance, have great-grandparents who literally fought in a war to abolish slavery. More subtly, the use of “we” seems to impute blame or responsibility on those living for actions taken by a very small group of people. It’s neither accurate nor useful.
Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village
#134Is it just me or does Medium actively not want me to read the article?
I get you. They really like to eat up screen space to let you know what website you're on.
Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
Trying to hold my 15kg toddler when he goes crazy has given me a fairly good idea of what that would be like.
I would have said the same when my kids were young. When my sister went crazy in exactly the manner described, I learned that I was wrong. Totally wrong.
That’s potentially true, I have no experience with that.
What I was really trying to say though was that I can barely control him now. I can’t imagine I would be able to when he’s 80kgs.
Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess this was true when we were still practicing slavery? The owner would be held strictly liable for slave inflicted attacks, so humans would be wild animals by that definition.
What do you mean by “we”?
Humanity?
I guess given my origins you can also read it as either country or race, but that wasn’t the intent since it isn’t that exclusive. It’s been a fairly consistent theme throughout history somewhere.
Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
Slave suppliers - those at the start of the chain - often sell those from their region. Across centuries, humans from all parts of the world have enslaved each other.
An infinitesimal fraction of humans have ever owned a slave. I know how the pronoun was intended to be used, and I’m not attributing any ill-intent. It’s perfectly appropriate to use “we” when referring to humans in general; such as “back before we discovered nuclear power” or “back when we discovered antibiotics.” But, for something as recent (and ongoing) as slavery, you may want to think twice before using such a…
> More subtly, the use of “we” seems to impute blame or responsibility on those living for actions taken by a very small group of people. It’s neither accurate nor useful.
Saying that it was a very small number of people sounds a mite ridiculous to me. Multiple cultures throughout history have supported/accepted it.
It is also a reminder. These weren’t storybook monsters, they were humans, and we should be reminded of that lest we regress.
We’re certainly not to blame, but we are responsible for not going back there.
Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 tak…
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 be…
I’m sorry. To clarify, the entirety of a mouse’s interests are less than the interests of a child. This includes external interests, like the interests of the parents, etc.
I agree regarding the generally higher capacity of healthy humans to experience tremendous suffering, and also the human ability to cause tremendous suffering. I do see a tension between those facts and my contention that saving a human results in less suffering. In my mind, human experience falls on a 3D plane, with positive/negative on the y-axis, severity on the x-axis and complexity on the z-axis.
The human ability to experience complex emotions like inspiration, jealousy, etc. make our interests slightly unique and weigh more as compared to most animals. Add on top of that the social aspect of interests (eg a parent has an interest in the well being of their child), and suddenly the value of human life can take on exponential degrees.
With that in mind, I think an individual should have the choice to end their life if society finds that the net suffering of their continued existence is greater than if they ceased to exist. To that end, human extinction is antithetical to my understanding because it implies forcing individuals to end their lives involuntarily. It’s the same with a pig. I wouldn’t eat a pig unless he somehow gained healthy adult-level sentience and told me he wanted me to eat him and that that would fulfill some deep desire of his. I know that example sounds absurd, but consequently, because no animal has a level of sentience complex enough to consent to being murdered, I refrain from eating any animals at all.
If you still want to engage, I have a question. I’m curious why, if you feel that humans are such a huge cause of suffering to, as you put it, innocent animals, you aren’t vegan or vegetarian?
Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village
#139Is it just me or does Medium actively not want me to read the article?
I get you. They really like to eat up screen space to let you know what website you're on.
It's not just that. They won't let me read it without an account. I don't want a medium account. The only workaround is to clear cookies or open it in a private window and I don't care enough to bother doing either of those things.
I really don't understand why people use a mediocre blogging platform that seems to be dedicated to inconveniencing their users as much as humanly possible.
Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village
#140Earlier 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…
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…
I'd say that foxes are well on their way to domestication.
I've been watching some SaveAFox videos on youtube, and their foxes display a whole range of social skills. Some like Finnegan love being handled, but others not as much.
Those specific breeds of foxes don't really make for indoor pets though, as they like to mark their territory.