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

111–120 of 142 posts

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

#111

Post by Aeolun »

yencabulator wrote: post #90
rbanffy wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Absolutely. However, that is a different criteria than wild/not wild. Bulls are domesticated animals, after all.

I guess it just means we have a fairly good idea of what will set them off, and can prevent that.

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

#112

Post by m463 »

type0 wrote: post #106
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…

Usually gorillas are considered peaceful compared with chimpanzees and humans.

gorilla and mirror videos are a trip. (or the leopard + elephants and mirror)

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

#113

Post by Aeolun »

btilly wrote: post #66
rbanffy wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Trying to hold my 15kg toddler when he goes crazy has given me a fairly good idea of what that would be like.

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

#114

Post by m463 »

yboris wrote: post #72

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.

> The baboon was paid twenty cents a day, and half a bottle of beer each week.

I don't know what part of the sentence is more amazing, the beginning, middle or the end.

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

#115

Post by jbay808 »

gnramires wrote: post #68
silicon2401 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Minor point: Chimpanzees are our relatives, not our ancestors.

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

#116

Post by Chris2048 »

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…

> You wouldn't lock up a human either for having the capacity to harm someone else.

If a toddler could rip your hands off, I wouldn't imagine it would be free to roam society as usual.

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

#117

Post by lurquer »

Aeolun wrote: post #110
bmlzootown wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, I'm not entirely sure that humans shouldn't be classified as "wild animal(s)" as well if that's the case.

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”?

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

#118

Post by bredren »

ewmiller wrote: post #95
dTal wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

This worry over the potential for harm was the justification used in the killing of Harambe.

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

#119

Post by codechicago277 »

dTal wrote: post #93
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…

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…

Humans have been exhibited in this way too in exhibits praised by the scientific community. The practice only died out after the horrors of the holocaust made scientific racism unfashionable.

The low point may have been the New York zoo displaying a black man in a cage with monkeys in the early 1900s. The black clergymen who protested were shut down by the city’s mayor. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_zoo

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

#120

Post by 1e-9 »

Ensorceled wrote: post #4
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…

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...

32 of the fatality descriptions identify a breed. 26 of them list "pit bull."

So, 81% of fatality descriptions that identify a breed list "pit bull."

That's a much higher rate of pit bull involvement than I had heard of in the past.

Post reply on HN