Cecil the Lion killed by American poacher

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by DiracSpike

Really good article from the New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/05/op...ions.html?_r=0

It's an interesting perspective, but the fact that it's written by someone from Zimbabwe doesn't necessarily make it right. He brings up the fact that in the US, mountain lions were once hunted to near extinction; exactly right, and that was because of the same sort of narrow-mindedness he's displaying. That any predator that is a potential threat to humans must be killed. Parks programs (and the US deserves major credit for being a world leader in establishing parks programs) introduced a new perspective toward how humans and potentially dangerous predators can co-exist. And that is part of the purpose of national parks in a place like Zimbabwe: to ensure that lions and other potentially dangerous animals can be given a large range, while not directly endangering locals.

[The Yen Man]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Ya, liked this part...
http://www.cbc.ca/news/trending/sabr...otos-1.3178579

So I decided to kill it. Because when I see amazing things, my first instinct is to shoot it, or spray paint graffiti all over it, or smash it (hitchbot).

also...
Yes, you are a brave warrior. Congrats on surviving.

Don't kid yourself Jimmy. If a giraffe ever got the chance, he'd eat you and everyone you cared about. -Troy Mclure

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by octothorp

It's an interesting perspective, but the fact that it's written by someone from Zimbabwe doesn't necessarily make it right.

I also would not expect somebody who's village was traumatized by one lion to have sympathy for another lion being killed. And had this young man completed his doctorate, become an American Citizen, and used the proceeds of his successful career to go trophy hunting for a lion- I don't think the outrage would have been the same. I also don't think under those circumstances he would have engaged in the same kind of baiting that the American hunter did.

Along the same lines, if the American hunter had sought out a village that was under threat by a lion, and then gone out and killed that lion, the hunter would have been a hero. I also think the trophy would also have had more meaning. As it stands it's like a Far Side comic I recall where a hunter shoots a bear as it's drinking from a stream, but positions the bear in a threatening pose to have mounted in his home.

Edit:

Spoiler!

[CliffFletcher]

Some Westerners have recently extended their circle of empathy to include animals. The rest of the world still regards them as resources or nuisances. I doubt this story has gone viral in China, India, Latin America, or even Eastern Europe. While I happen to be one of the Westerners who feels empathy for wild animals, we shouldn't pretend our values are shared by other societies, or underestimate how much our lofty indignation is resented by the average person in those societies.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Some Westerners have recently extended their circle of empathy to include animals. The rest of the world still regards them as resources or nuisances.

Yes, this is a very good point. I'm not sure how this happened though. How have our brains been re-wired in this fashion?

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Yes, this is a very good point. I'm not sure how this happened though. How have our brains been re-wired in this fashion?

I think the domestication of animals has had a lot to do with it. Not as prevalent in other cultures.

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by KootenayFlamesFan

It just says they returned the next morning. Didn't say they immediately found and shot him.

Right. But to make it 40 hours, they would have not been able to find him that entire next day, given up again, and return a third day where they finally found and killed him.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by rubecube

I think the domestication of animals has had a lot to do with it. Not as prevalent in other cultures.

I wonder if the anthropomorphic treatment that animals get in western popular culture has something to do with it. We all grew up with talking animals in movies and on TV and in books.

That could I guess just as easily be a symptom as a cause and probably is to some extent both.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Yes, this is a very good point. I'm not sure how this happened though. How have our brains been re-wired in this fashion?

On our expanding circle of empathy, I recommend Steven Pinker's Better Angels of Our Nature. The rationalism fostered during the Enlightenment planted the seeds. Widespread literacy, and the way it encourages us to step out of our own POV, has been important. There's also a strong Anglo tradition of personifying and romanticizing animals in children stories. The rights revolution of the 60s and 70s increased the momentum for animal rights. And as rubecube suggests, the common practice in the West of keeping animals purely as social companions no doubt played a part.

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

I wonder if the anthropomorphic treatment that animals get in western popular culture has something to do with it. We all grew up with talking animals in movies and on TV and in books.

It absolutely does. It started in Britain with the Victorians. Beatrice the Rabbit, Wind in the Willows, Winny the Pooh, etc. You didn't see that stuff in the rest of the Europe, let alone China. At least not in the sentimental way it's shown in our culture. I once heard a Benneton executive comment in a documentary about advertising that the surest way to an Italian's heart is through food, the way to a Frenchman's heart is through lust, and way to an Englishman's heart is through a cute, furry animal.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by octothorp

It's an interesting perspective, but the fact that it's written by someone from Zimbabwe doesn't necessarily make it right. He brings up the fact that in the US, mountain lions were once hunted to near extinction; exactly right, and that was because of the same sort of narrow-mindedness he's displaying. That any predator that is a potential threat to humans must be killed. Parks programs (and the US deserves major credit for being a world leader in establishing parks programs) introduced a new perspective toward how humans and potentially dangerous predators can co-exist. And that is part of the purpose of national parks in a place like Zimbabwe: to ensure that lions and other potentially dangerous animals can be given a large range, while not directly endangering locals.

Plus he doesn't address the source of the outrage, which is trophy killing itself. Killing an animal for food, or killing one that is a direct threat to people is completely understandable. But killing one that is in a protected wildlife reserve and poses no threat to any human is simply bloodlust

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

On our expanding circle of empathy, I recommend Steven Pinker's Better Angels of Our Nature.

I definitely want to read that if I can get around to it. This is also worth a read.

http://bostonreview.net/forum/paul-b...gainst-empathy

Most people see the benefits of empathy as akin to the evils of racism: too obvious to require justification. I think this is a mistake. I have argued elsewhere that certain features of empathy make it a poor guide to social policy. Empathy is biased; we are more prone to feel empathy for attractive people and for those who look like us or share our ethnic or national background. And empathy is narrow; it connects us to particular individuals, real or imagined, but is insensitive to numerical differences and statistical data. As Mother Teresa put it, “If I look at the mass I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.” Laboratory studies find that we really do care more about the one than about the mass, so long as we have personal information about the one.

In light of these features, our public decisions will be fairer and more moral once we put empathy aside. Our policies are improved when we appreciate that a hundred deaths are worse than one, even if we know the name of the one, and when we acknowledge that the life of someone in a faraway country is worth as much as the life a neighbor, even if our emotions pull us in a different direction. Without empathy, we are better able to grasp the importance of vaccinating children and responding to climate change. These acts impose costs on real people in the here and now for the sake of abstract future benefits, so tackling them may require overriding empathetic responses that favor the comfort and well being of individuals today. We can rethink humanitarian aid and the criminal justice system, choosing to draw on a reasoned, even counter-empathetic, analysis of moral obligation and likely consequences.

[Coach]

Don't you need empathy to act on idea that 100 deaths are worse than one? If we are guided by amorality, it could be found that any of those deaths are fine for a variety of circumstances. That one COULD be considered worse than 100 if acting without empathy.

The best example is the President. If there was threats of a nuke on the US, where would the President be? Immediately in the air or in a bunker. Where would the populace of the targeted city be? Fend for themselves. Why? You could argue it's due to an amoral view that it is vital to have consistent leadership voice in a time of crisis. Or you can argue it's that the President is tied to the empathy of all the citizens as a symbol of patriotism and strength.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

You are taking the term "empathy" and assigning a broad meaning to it that encompasses "all compassionate moral behavior whatsoever". What is under discussion is a capacity for identifying with another person (or animal) and putting yourself in their position to some extent.

This can, in many cases, be a good motivator for moral action - if I feel your pain I'm more likely to help you. But it also causes significant problems and is one of the main sources of disproportionate emotional reaction to stories like this one.

[Regulator75]

The Dentists Summer home in Florida vandalized.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Just how rich is this ####er? $50,000 to trophy hunt, $130,000 to pay off a sexual harassment case, $1.1 million vacation home in Florida, big lake house in Minnesota, now hiring armed guards to protect him. Like who knew dentists were filthy rich? Or maybe he's heavily leveraged. Regardless he's flashing as much money as a pro athlete.

[VladtheImpaler]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

Just how rich is this ####er? $50,000 to trophy hunt, $130,000 to pay off a sexual harassment case, $1.1 million vacation home in Florida, big lake house in Minnesota, now hiring armed guards to protect him. Like who knew dentists were filthy rich? Or maybe he's heavily leveraged. Regardless he's flashing as much money as a pro athlete.

That's why my boys are going to dental school. None of this law school crap. The dentists I know buy strip malls - I guess that's how you get the big money.

[Rhettzky]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

The issue isn't that the lion had a name. It's that after 13 years of being part of conservation study in a protected area, he had grown a trust and affinity for humans which allowed tourists to be able to get closer than they normally would. He was semi-domesticated and trusted humans enough to be enticed out of the park by people in a jeep. That's the part that people are finding the most offensive (not that trophy hunting in general isn't bad enough).

I don't buy it. Much worse atrocities happen to animals on this planet than being baited/tricked and killed. The only reason people clung on to this one so hard is because it was personalized. The gruesome details only came out because it was investigated.

[corporatejay]

Originally Posted by DiracSpike

Really good article from the New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/05/op...ions.html?_r=0

So are black, polar and grizzly bears but unlike Silver most people don't think we should exterminate them all.

[Coach]

Seems as good a place as any to put this..



http://www.badartcomics.com/humanity-ltd..html

[PIMking]