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Comment by Hydraulix989 | Hacker News Reader

Yet still things like Harambe happen, where the Mom was clearly negligent, not noticing her child climbing a three foot fence into a gorilla cage the entire time she was right there in front of it.

It's a shame, the outcome ended up costing the innocent gorilla's life instead of the Mom's:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py_1aCt2c0s

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And this could have just as easily been your mom (or guardian). You'll argue the point, but I will bet my entire life savings she's had her eyes off you at least 100 times in public for more than 30 seconds while you were growing up.

It's simply called life. It happens. 99.99% of the time nothing bad happens whatsoever, and you never even think twice about it. Actually both parties probably didn't even realize it happened.

Was she negligent? Who really knows. Calling her clearly negligent is just being completely disingenuous to the point of more or less full on dishonesty. Taking 20 seconds to inspect a map or tap out a SMS is not negligence, and is all the time that would have taken.

You're the reason the attitude in this article exists, unfortunately. Even if you think you're being reasonable in this instance. Try living under the constant threat that you can't divide your attention for less than a minute 24 hours a day. It's an absurd thing to demand from anyone, and is not reasonable.

The way "society" expects you to raise children in the US has to be the most unhealthy in the world. It's becoming absolutely absurd how much we coddle children and expect parents to stop having an adult life.

I have 3 kids under 3.5. It only takes seconds to have stuff happen.

The three year old throws his sunglasses on the ground and starts fussing for something and you turn to deal with that and then boom your 2 year old is 15 feet away and running the other direction or making national news headlines.

If you don't have multiple kids you literally have no clue what it's like, especially if you happen to be outnumbered at the time.

Now, I'm not saying she wasn't negligent because I wasn't there- but I also know that you can be on point 99.99999% of the time and still wind up with a serious problem or worse.

And, frankly, why is the gorilla's life worth more than the mom's? Why is his life worth more than the child's? Was Harambe going to cure cancer, lower the world's greenhouse gas emissions, or become an astrophysicist that could help us colonize other planets? Was Harambe going to lead the charge on saving all the other gorillas in the world?

It sucks that he had to get killed because of an accident, but what kind of person actually thinks that in a decision between a fucking kid and a gorilla that the gorilla should win? That kid literally represents the continuation of humanity.

Most people value (some) animal life above human life. Could be because nature is sold as an innocent paradise free from sin, or that every animal is the noblest creature on Earth or just because we all have experience with assholes, while our only experiences with animals are them being majestic on the National Geographic Channel. Try giving people the trolley problem with 5 golden retrievers and one adult human male.

Edit: or as one internet meme put it:

A child has fallen in the gorilla enclosure. You hold a gun with one bullet and you can choose to shoot the gorilla to save the child. If you do so, he will make national headlines and lead to discussions that question our morality. If you don't, the child might will be rescued and the gorilla will live out his days in peace in the gorilla enclosure, completely unknown to the world. He will not be as famous. In the end, what do we value more: Harambe or the idea of Harambe?

> Most people value (some) animal life above human life.

/me puts on flameproof gear

Since this started with a gorilla... From a purely numbers-based point of view, it actually makes sense. Death of a single member of near-extinct species has a negative impact on the viability of that species. A death of a single human (or even few of them) will not make a difference. Not on a planet where human overpopulation is an increasingly pressing problem.

Even if you disagree with the idea of conservation, at least have some sympathy for the future Epicureans. By driving species into extinction, we are depriving those future society members of experiences they might otherwise have.

[insert end-of-sarcasm tag here]

I get that you're making a sarcastic comic but the funny thing is that I don't even hear people making as eloquent a point as your joke is pretending to make. Most of them are just "because animals and horrible mom".

Because the gorilla had no choice, he was a prisoner put there for the amusement of tourists.

The child probably didn't have a choice to go the zoo that day. He also probably didn't WANT to fall into the gorilla cage. I'm positive he didn't want the gorilla to be killed either.

If there was a way you could guarantee that the gorilla and child make it out of that cage unscathed I'm absolutely all for doing that. After that, if you're saying there's a chance the child gets hurt, I don't care who's kid it is, I'm okay with pulling the trigger. I'm not being metaphorical, I'm saying I am so okay with the idea that I would be okay if I personally had to pull the trigger.

I love animals, even ones most people don't like. I love the continuation of our species' future more than I love animals though.

The thing that is crazy to me is that people push the idea that animals are pure and free of evil and we are the bad ones in every situation. Can't you push that same image into our children as well? Shouldn't an innocent child be at least equal in the eyes of the public as an innocent animal? And if they start out equally, doesn't the child win because without children we literally cease to exist?

I think this is a case of 'observation bias' (as mentioned elsewhere here). The media hammers such sad events in our brains 24 hours a day, so we overestimate the real danger, since they fail to mention that the extreme low probability.

Maybe there should be a law that flags news with colours of a probability scale so that there is at least a chance to correctly classify bad events.

Yeah, she was not looking at her child for 5 out of 30,000,000 seconds of his existence. What a fucking horrible mom.

It takes more than 5 seconds for an infant to climb a gorilla cage fence.

Still, it is an extremely unlikely, rare case. How many children are killed by car accidents vs. gorillas in a zoo?

I don't know if this is true. We haven't tried a gorilla cage but my infant can clear half a flight of stairs in 5 seconds.

A) it wasn't an infant, it was a toddler. Toddlers can be pretty quick B) the fence was not substantial, a toddler could easily walk through it (and did); then there was a couple feet of ground until the slope down to the moat. C) the mom had more than one child there. D) it's not socially acceptable to put leashes on children (except for the cutesy backpack ones, but that's not really going to help)

The gorilla enclosure was built to prevent the gorilla from getting out, not to prevent people from getting in.

Edit: Before and after of the fence https://www.dailywire.com/sites/default/files/uploads/2016/0...

I totally plan on using a child leash when I take my 2 year old to a massively crowded place like a zoo or amusement park. Is that really frowned upon?

You have obviously never taken a toddler to a public place. Try taking a toddler to a zoo, park, childrens museum, just about any play area...and see how quickly they dash from one area to another. Having 2 toddlers, it's easy to have one child go in a direction and the second in another. Unless you have reasonable cause for neglect, it's easy to be at a zoo, look at an animal for 10 seconds, and then see your child is suddenly 10 feet away from you. Anyone who says "what a horrible parent" does not have children.

Somehow thousands of children visit that zoo everyday, and nobody else let their kid go swimming with the gorillas.

Poisson statistics.

I managed to die in about 15 seconds, while my mom bent to fasten the shoe for my little sis. I was standing right in front of her and when she bent down I just made a few steps forward, that was enough.

That's a horrible strawman. We don't have a gorilla pit at home. Nor do most cars come with one.

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