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Lemming Suicide Myth: Disney Film Faked Bogus Behavior

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Re: Lemming Suicide Myth: Disney Film Faked Bogus Behavior

#51

Post by jakevn »

deltateam wrote: post #18

upon reading the whole article, it is mostly true. "mass dispersal" occurs when the population grows too much and the food runs out, sometimes it can be very directional, and sometimes they will pile up on the shore until they gets too packed and they try to swim across frigid waters. the Disney mass suicide documentary says this can be observed every 7 - 10 years, and then they over dramatized how it looks edit: rem…

Suicide is deliberate. Any unfortunate death due to overcrowding attributed to suicide is simply false. There is no evidence of intentional death or racing towards a cliff, merely that when faced with no other apparent route of escape, they have a great chance of dying when trying to cross a body of frigid water. That's entirely different from the portrayal by Disney and the associated myth.

Re: Lemming Suicide Myth: Disney Film Faked Bogus Behavior

#52

Post by mchahn »

And myth explanations spawn more myths. I had read (forgot the source) that it was a myth and that the lemmings were really jumping off cliffs to swim to an island people weren't generally aware of.

Although swimming to an island is closer to the truth of swimming across a river than suicide is.

Re: Lemming Suicide Myth: Disney Film Faked Bogus Behavior

#54

Post by lemmicide »

hexscrews wrote: post #45
paulie_a wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tldr: Disney committed lemming genocide

Wouldn't xenocide be a more apt description? A quick search for genocide gives the definition of: "the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation." While xenocide is described as: xenocide (plural xenocides) The killing of a stranger or foreigner. (science fiction) The genocide of an entire alien species. (US, colloquial) The intentional killing of an entire…

[dead]

Re: Lemming Suicide Myth: Disney Film Faked Bogus Behavior

#55

Post by biztos »

cnasc wrote: post #49
dmix wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> lemmings are quite cute creatures The most important attribute for animal rights causes it seems. If Facebook campaigns are any measure...

I had an environmental ethics professor in college. Her pet cause was the plight of the atlantic bluefin tuna. She frequently lamented that only the cute animals get any real support.

And yet we eat both bunnies (cute) and pigs (arguably not cute).

Fish, though, yeah, they're not getting any cuteness bonus. Not much outcry about "factory farming" in aquaculture.

I have recently, and irrationally, stopped eating octopus because they're so smart. Maybe some viral videos of tuna doing amazing things would help...

Re: Lemming Suicide Myth: Disney Film Faked Bogus Behavior

#56

Post by nck4222 »

freeflight wrote: post #36
paulie_a wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tldr: Disney committed lemming genocide

Why the downvotes? From White Wilderness, as the movie shows drowning Lemmings, put there by Disney employees, the narrator goes: "And so is acted out, the legend of mass suicide and destruction of a species." https://youtu.be/xMZlr5Gf9yY?t=2m50s

>Why the downvotes?

Probably because it's inaccurate/exaggerated in a couple ways.

1. Genocide refers to humans, not animals, and requires the act to be targeted at a group of people that share some sort of traits (typically race, or cultural identity).

2. Disney imported "no more than a few dozen lemmings," which doesn't really meet the numbers the word typically is used for.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/white-wilderness/

Disney killed lemmings, and unless they attempted to wipe out all lemmings that share a particular cultural identity, it's probably pretty insensitive to use it in this context.

Re: Lemming Suicide Myth: Disney Film Faked Bogus Behavior

#58

Post by codycraven »

biztos wrote: post #55
cnasc wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had an environmental ethics professor in college. Her pet cause was the plight of the atlantic bluefin tuna. She frequently lamented that only the cute animals get any real support.

And yet we eat both bunnies (cute) and pigs (arguably not cute). Fish, though, yeah, they're not getting any cuteness bonus. Not much outcry about "factory farming" in aquaculture. I have recently, and irrationally, stopped eating octopus because they're so smart. Maybe some viral videos of tuna doing amazing things would help...

Only you can prevent blob fish hatred.

Re: Lemming Suicide Myth: Disney Film Faked Bogus Behavior

#59

Post by musage »

dmix wrote: post #34
forkLding wrote: post #27

Talk about unnecessary cruelty, lemmings are quite cute creatures, can't imagine what was going thru their heads ("the Disney filmmakers") when they threw all those lemmings off a cliff to their deaths for a film.

> lemmings are quite cute creatures The most important attribute for animal rights causes it seems. If Facebook campaigns are any measure...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuteness

Even animals react to it. A live and let live attitude (if not one of protectiveness) towards harmless/cute living things is perfectly healthy it seems.

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