Gyroscopic Investing

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ively.html

So a little boy falls into the domain of Harambe the gorilla at the zoo. Harambe is shot and killed by a zoo worker. The child is rescued. Was this the correct course of action?

Well, the first question is how/why the child managed to get into the pen. The best thing would be for his parents to have prevented that.

Once he's in there, it's a hard call. I understand why we'd want to save the child's life, but at the same time, it's not entirely clear that the gorilla was harming him, or would harm him. Some witnesses say it looked as if the gorilla was protecting the child.

I would have liked for there to be a way to rescue the child without killing the gorilla.

I feel kind of misanthropic saying it, even though I'm far from alone: I care more about the gorilla than the kid.
Zoo officials and other experts said tranq darts would have taken too long. Ok then. Dart the gorilla, and if the kid dies, it'll be a great deterrent for the future.

Ultimately, though, I guess they need to make it harder to enter the enclosure. You can't assume that a woman taking care of more than one child at a time will be able to stop them all.

It's not the kid's fault that he was inadequately supervised.

And, kids are naturally curious and will explore things, sometimes in ways that aren't safe. That's why they need adult supervision.

jafs wrote:It's not the kid's fault that he was inadequately supervised.

I don't think anyone thinks it's the kid's fault, do they?
At least, I've never read that opinion.

Your suggestion was to do something that might result in the kid dying, and that would be a deterrent.

If the kid didn't do anything wrong, how/why is it ok for him to die? I get that it might deter parents from being negligent, but it seems like a high price for a child to pay to me.

Think of it this way. You have the ability to make a train derail, killing all 374 passengers aboard, in order to save the same child. Will you do it?

If the answer is yes, does that mean you wanted the child to die? Are you punishing the child for his bad behavior, climbing on the rail, if you save the train full of people?

While I think that the news of a gorilla killing the child might make parents more careful, a kind of stupidity deterrent or negligence deterrent, my main point is how I value the gorilla's life. Note that the gorilla didn't do anything more "wrong" than the child, and that his death was also not a punishment.

If the gorilla didn't do anything wrong, why is it ok for him to die?

This is all about choice, not punishment.

I completely agree about the gorilla.

As I said, I'd like it if they could have saved the child without killing him.

The whole thing is created by human choices, and if we made different/better choices, it wouldn't have happened. Zoos are often inhumane places for animals (I don't really understand why we think we have the right to create them, imprisoning animals in unnatural habitats for our entertainment). A human being designed/built the enclosure, which could apparently be entered by a child, which seems like an obviously bad idea. And, the parents were negligent in supervising their child. That all of this winds up with an animal losing their life is troubling to me (especially since whether it was harming the child or not, it was simply following it's instincts, and thus isn't morally at fault).

But once the child is in the enclosure, there aren't any optimal choices to make - it's too late for that.

Tough call. What is the greater good here, the endangered gorillas or the superfluous human child that has a .01% chance of turning into the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs?

I think the zoo should be sued or whoever actually killed the gorilla. It was clearly a chicken hawk overreaction. Gorillas are very protective of human children.

Maybe the parents should be sued?

All the animal-loving experts, well all but a few, support the killing of the gorilla, while acknowledging that it's sad.
Even if the gorilla has the best of intentions, this one has been seen crushing a coconut in his hand, and since he has had no experience with human children, could have killed this one inadvertently.

The parents are not going to be charged.

I think if the zoo is going to profit from locking these animals up, at least protect them with better fences and enclosures.
The official statement from the zoo is that sometimes you lock something up but people find a way to open, break or circumvent the best of locks. Shrug.

ADDED:

jafs wrote: Zoos are often inhumane places for animals

Agreed.

(I don't really understand why we think we have the right to create them, imprisoning animals in unnatural habitats for our entertainment).

It's been a long journey, this humanity. We start out doing whatever we want, and little by little are paring down what is acceptable. Rape, stoning people to death, kidnapping animals and putting them on display...

I lived near this unbelievable horror show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYYL2LxotA8

I really, really, really wish the owners had been sued into bankruptcy and/or imprisoned for what they did.

Unfortunately, this kind of sick thing is still going on in China at the moment but it's not going to last 20 years with the worldwide attention focused on it.

MachineGhost wrote:Unfortunately, this kind of sick thing is still going on in China at the moment but it's not going to last 20 years with the worldwide attention focused on it.

I was visiting China once, and I remember seeing some kids up in the mountains somewhere. They had some kind of weird monkey in a tiny cage, and they were teasing and torturing it. Tricked it into putting a hot piece of wood into its mouth. Ugh. I have heard the zoos aren't much kinder.

This story really angered me. Terrible judgment by several people - zoo and parents alike. As a pet owner, I can tell you that it's not that difficult to distract an animal with treats. One of the articles mentioned that Harambe had a weakness for pineapple. Why wouldn't they have tried that rather than instantly going for the kill? That's not only inhumane to an extreme, it most likely injured the child as well: this 3 year old boy had to watch while the gorilla standing right next to him was shot dead.

The zoo said they'd not had any incident like this in 38 years yada yada, but I don't think much of their fencing if it was that easy for a 3 year old to get through it. Of course, the mother should have understood that the zoo is not the sort of place where you can just let a kid that age run around unsupervised. If she couldn't control her son in a public place, then keep an eye on him or better yet use a leash. My mother did that with my brother at that age.

The gorilla's family is not going to sue the zoo.

WiseOne wrote: If she couldn't control her son in a public place, then keep an eye on him or better yet use a leash. My mother did that with my brother at that age.

Ha! I recently found out that I was on a harness when I was 3. My wife occasionally threatens to put one back on me.

dualstow wrote:All the animal-loving experts, well all but a few, support the killing of the gorilla, while acknowledging that it's sad.
Even if the gorilla has the best of intentions, this one has been seen crushing a coconut in his hand, and since he has had no experience with human children, could have killed this one inadvertently.

The parents are not going to be charged.

I think if the zoo is going to profit from locking these animals up, at least protect them with better fences and enclosures.
The official statement from the zoo is that sometimes you lock something up but people find a way to open, break or circumvent the best of locks. Shrug.

ADDED:

jafs wrote: Zoos are often inhumane places for animals

Agreed.

(I don't really understand why we think we have the right to create them, imprisoning animals in unnatural habitats for our entertainment).

It's been a long journey, this humanity. We start out doing whatever we want, and little by little are paring down what is acceptable. Rape, stoning people to death, kidnapping animals and putting them on display...

Except for Islamists, of course!

Reub wrote:Except for Islamists, of course!

You mean RIFFF's, right? I think the sell out ones don't do much of anything.