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Comment by wvenable | Hacker News Reader

> But it seemingly was no match for Pokemon Go and a generation of kids who desire familiar brands and YouTube celebrities.

I hate how stuff is just thrown into articles like this as if it's fact. The circus was passé when I was a kid 30 years ago.

I could throw out unsubstantiated garbage like this as well and claim that kids today are actually much more understanding of animal welfare and would rather see animals in their natural habit on Youtube than see them perform tricks on a stage.

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Back at the beginning of of 2016 my circle of friends in their 30's was excitedly forwarding each other links to a 50% off Groupon [1] for this circus. We all have small kids, ages 4-10 and probably never considered the circus before - I don't think most of us went as kids. The excitement died pretty quickly after someone found the PETA website with videos of the animals being abused [2] and that was the end of that.

[1] https://www.groupon.com/deals/gl-ringling-bros-and-barnum-ba...

[2] http://www.ringlingbeatsanimals.com/

Personally, aside from something passive like a zoo, I don't care for anything that relies on animal performance for entertainment. That includes dog racing, horse racing, and things like circuses and even Seaworld.

I know many people don't care but it bothers me.

Zoos are inhumane for many animals in my personal opinion. Many animals should be ranging a territory in the wild, not confined to a tiny plot of land to be gawked at.

I don't find the 'conservation' excuse all that acceptable either. What if the millions spent on Zoos were instead spent to conserve the native territories of the animals and to improve the lives of the people who live near them so they won't resort to poaching or habitat destruction.

Yes, some animals get stressed out living in zoos. That being said, it is probably the least stressful way that people can appreciate animals in real life. There is some value in bringing people face to face with animals, I think it reconnects us with the basis of our humanity, and leads us to treat animals better overall. Does the moral math work out in the end? I don't know, but it isn't a one sided issue.

This is my thinking as well. Zoos are kind of a necessary evil so we don't completely concrete all jungles, etc.

Humans are horrible caretakers of this planet.

Some zoos are actually centers of research and teaching.

http://www.omahazoo.com/conservation/

>What if the millions spent on Zoos were instead spent to conserve the native territories

A lot of zoos are funded 100% off ticket sales. How do you generate those millions of dollars without some business model supporting it?

I dont know where this idea comes from that animals in the wild are happy. Most live short brutal lives. Living in a zoo, free from predators, plenty of food, and veterinary care when they are sick. Its sort of like an animal utopia.

> Living in a zoo, free from predators, plenty of food, and veterinary care when they are sick. Its sort of like an animal utopia.

Replace "zoo" with "modern society", and vets with hospitals. Sounds pretty similar to what a lot of people strive for.

The common argument against that comparison is animals don't have a choice in the matter, while we are free to flee.

> or habitat destruction

Doesn't this come mostly from clearing land for agriculture?

True, but - there wouldn't be any millions if these (poor imho) animals weren't confined in small places.

Planet 1: "Hey there, long time no see, how are you doing? :-)"

Planet 2: "not too good lately... :-( I got infected by humans..."

This is a funny joke.... But ultimately nonsense. Any other planets with any life?

At best, it is looking like most life dies off. Conway's game is incredibly fitting in that.

Zoos really differ in their treatment of animals too btw.

NFL Football and boxing are perhaps more inhuman than those activities. You should add sports that fry the participant's brains to the list of things to not support

I don't think they're more imhumane, simply because people get to choose whether or not to participate in them, unlike the animals. And in fact now that we have this information, support for football is starting to decline at the high school level at least. Not by much yet but it could be a trend.

Many children start playing football because of peer pressure and parental pressure. It's not as much of simple choice as you think.

If the bar was "the kid could technically decide not to", then we would allow advertising cigarettes to children.

Nobody's going into the NFL because of peer pressure.

Yeah, the population definitely doesn't idolize NFL players and provide so much viewership that they get millions of dollars annually just to play.

Is this a joke?

I agree that some people, especially in the highschool level, will play football because of peer pressure.

Who do you believe is putting in the work required to play football professionally, but doing it purely out of peer pressure?

I view the pool of people that get into it professionally as including the set that got into it at the school level.

That is, I viewed it as two different points. I will agree that there is unlikely anyone staying in professional football from the peer pressure. However, that they got into football at all is probably attributable to that.

So, you're saying that nobody is going into the NFL because of peer pressure?

Someone with no job prospects is offered millions of dollars to cause himself brain damage. You think you can make the right decision?

Not even comparable.

First, people make these choices voluntarily and are not in servitude.

Secondly, even as science is revealing the horror of the consequences, a lot of these people still choose to do it.

For example when you tell star college football players the NFL has a 40% chance of brain damage, most will still go. It's hard for me to understand, but the fame, fortune, glory, adulation some believe is a fair trade off.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/04/1...

It's almost as if it's like a drug or gambling when the rational choice is not what people make.

No one is forced to play football or box.

Nice to think that. Not really true. Meet some college football players sometime. Most could have at best got a job as a janitor.

Way ahead of you on that one.

I haven't seen that video but the one circus with animals that I've been to, I felt pretty uncomfortable watching the animals perform, because the animals seemed so tired and traumatized.

There's no videos of them beating animals in that link.

I hope you all don't eat meat, eggs, cheese, or milk. The animals that those come from would love to be treated as well as circus animals.

And do you understand that these animals are absolutely vicious and cruel with each other in the wild? A tiger will start picking at your guts while you're still breathing. A male lion will kill all of the existing cubs of its new mate.

Which, I guess, is ample justification for humans to treat these animals cruelly? Not really following the logic of your argument here. Though I definitely agree with your point about cruelties inherent in the meat and dairy industries.

Not a justification, just highlighting the hypocrisy of happily eating meat while complaining about circus animal treatment.

There are much better, more constructive ways you could frame that message. Ways that are much more likely to be received well.

Just to toss one possibility out, maybe something along the lines of "Hey, that did bother me. Check out this other thing that bothers me about X farming."

None of them bother me actually.

You don't think it likely that a significant proportion of the loudest opponents are also vegetarians?

I love people who make silly counter arguments. Watched a hunter challenge someone protesting their hunt: "Do you wear leather?"

"I'm a vegetarian" was the entirely predictable response.

(Actually, I now remember it was the other way around. "Do you wear leather" was the next step after asking the protester whether he ate meat and getting the vegetarian answer. As if a vegetarian would go out of his way to avoid meat, protest hunts, and still not be aware where leather came from.)

I suppose the key insight is this: it's human nature to want those who disagree with us to turn out to be hypocrites. Much easier than dealing with the possibility that our moral code is broken.

Identifying hypocrisy is not just about dismissing opponents, it's about getting them to reconsider their views, which are possibly not well-founded and contradictory.

Striving for ethical and compassionate behavior toward animals need not be and should not be an all or nothing prospect. For example, a vegetarian who wears leather may very well cause less harm to animals than an omnivore who wears leather.

Restricting one's consumption to vegetables can promote animal welfare despite engaging in other practices that harm animals.

Demoralizing people who strive to promote animal welfare by pointing out their contradictory behavior is less desirable, to my mind, than encouraging people to do as much as they can.

Why not reconsider your own views and encourage such people to promote animal welfare in all the ways they could rather than demoralizing them to give up altogether?

EDIT: spelling, rewrite final sentence, formatting.

I don't think you get me. I'm not concerned about animal welfare and I don't think other people should be either. It is all the way down on my list of concerns, right below the least important human concern.

Actually, I do think I get you.

I'm asking you to reconsider your position. I understand you're unlikely to do so.

One thing you should consider is the very strong possibility that "the least important human concern" is not distinct from what you consider to be "animal welfare".

Living beings on this planet are probably deeply intertwined and interdependent in ways we poorly understand. For one example, take the growing research around gut flora and microbiomes.

As individual beings, we are crucially dependent on bacteria that, in fact, extend the boundaries of what we consider to be our bodies far beyond what we have understood to be the case for millennia.

Separating the human condition from "animal welfare" is a grave mistake. For your own good, I think you should reconsider your position regarding the care of non-human organisms.

You're conflating two totally separate things. The treatment of circus and farm animals is completely unrelated to supporting biodiversity.

The thread starts with the treatment of circus animals, but we (your digression) moved quite a bit beyond that with vegetarianism and leather.

"circus and farm animals"

That's unfortunate on many levels.

>As if a vegetarian would go out of his way to avoid meat, protest hunts, and still not be aware where leather came from.

You'd be surprised.

> And do you understand that these animals are absolutely vicious and cruel with each other in the wild?

Human society is built on not behaving like animals to each other. Sounds like a good idea to extend this to other sentient beings.

I do eat meat and i do see the point in eating less/no meat. But eating meat affects my daily live a 1000x more than a circus show i'm normally not watching.

Besides that, i also think it is a different thing: You do have to eat, we are eating meet for 10000 years and we need it much more than watching a circus show. Also killing an animal quick and fast is also a different thing than dominating an animal for a show.

"It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes." -- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19562864

"A healthy vegan diet can meet all your nutrient needs at any stage of life including when you are pregnant, breastfeeding or for older adults." -- http://www.dietitians.ca/Your-Health/Nutrition-A-Z/Vegetaria...

No, you don't need meat; You want it.

It's also very difficult to have a "well-planned" vegetarian or vegan diet, especially for children. The chance that you get it right is pretty low.

A vegan diet for children is borderline child abuse in my opinion.

In fairness, the chances of most North Americans getting it right are pretty low when you consider the obesity epidemic, lack of physical activity, and all their orbiting ailments.

To your point though, difficult in what respect? I've been doing this since I was 9 and haven't had any issues. The most common concerns I hear are nutritional (protein, iron, calcium, B12) and convenience (restaurants, grocery stores, birthday cakes, etc). But I'm curious as to what your specific concerns are.

Thank you! I totally agree! I found this too be odd for the same reason. And I think you are absolutely right. I never thought about it before but passé is extremely accurate.

I remember, I went to the Ringling Bros circus, once, as a child [almost] 30 year ago. Before the internet, before [ubiquitous] computers, before cellphones, before iPads, before YouTube, before pokemom [even the card games], and even before Tamagotchis. I had an very small world at that time, I had the library and I had tv. I was also very easily entertained as a result.

I was excited because "circus" and you hear a lot about "circus" on TV and pop culture. Sounded exciting because of media.

I remember it as just odd. The reason why it is so memorable is because it was so odd.

First there were the protesters, I couldn't even begin to understand at that time why they were protesting but the idea that some people didn't approve of this didn't sit very well with me. Before my trip to the circus I've never seen any protesters ever in my life.

Then the show. It was... OK. Animals didn't impress me, they were more interesting on TV and in books than performing. Seemed unnatural and almost distracting and not at all impressive. I don't really remember the other performances because they seemed to REALLY want to showcase the animals.

I kinda felt, even as young as I was, that this was just outdated. Even though I wasn't able to articulate it or even understand it then. My mom said she felt the same way too, "well I always wanted to to the circus, I did, now I won't go again." Seem like they were cruzing on nostalgia for half a century.

It's never a good sign when a kid goes in for entertainment and comes out confused.

Seems like they were cruzing on nostalgia for half a century.

"I could... claim that kids today are actually much more understanding of animal welfare and would rather see animals in their natural habit on Youtube than see them perform tricks on a stage." - I think this is probably more accurate. :) I [totally unscientifically] think that most humans enjoy watching big cats with catnip on YouTube more than big cats being coaxed to jump through a fire hoop. (At least I do...)

My experience was 10 or 15 years before yours (I'm older), also as a little child. A lion put a paw in the bars and proceeded to spray a dozen people in the first rows.

So I didn't come back to "circus" until Cirque du Soleil came to Madrid. That's obviously another meaning of "circus".

Cirque du Soleil was designed as a circus without animals. Notwithstanding the points others have made about animal rights and such, it's pretty clear that they have flourished as Ringling has declined. At the end of the day, just because something has been around for a long time is not justification of its existence. All organizations need to adapt to changing circumstances.

They do really risky acrobatics and I think have had some human deaths.

Especially since Circe de Soleil seems to be doing very well. I think circus isn't dead but has moved on. I went to see many circuses in Europe as a child and there one liked best ("Flik Flak") had no animals. Instead they focused on great acrobats and even set up a giant pool for part of their performance. In hindsight they were the circus closest to Circe de Soleil at the time and it worked. So what probably killed Ringling isn't Pokemon Go, but better circus.

I agree. I went to a circus once, as a child, in 1999. I found it to be a mostly disturbing and garish experience featuring tired and exploited performers, humans as well as animals.

I felt the same way a decade earlier. While it's not quite on par with the disgust I feel about something like bull-fighting, cock-fighting, dog-racing, horse racing, etc. I've always been uncomfortable with animals being forced to perform in a context like the circus (or Seaworld).

I think (hope) the leading edge of human ethics is moving toward no longer treating animals as resources to be exploited, at least not merely for entertainment. Most people still look the other way when it comes to animal agriculture, or are even enthusiastic about it, but I think even that's likely to shift with time, as well.

I don't think I saw Ringling Bros. back then but around 30 years ago I saw the Moscow circus when they performed on an American tour during Glasnost. I remember it being very exciting, well worth the watch. For other distractions at the time I had a Commodore 64 and plenty of television. Perhaps there has been a lack of entertaining circuses, but even in the 80s the circus was much different from the version in the 30s. Circuses used to show up almost overnight and pop up hastily. They would promote themselves, make a few bucks, and move on just as quickly. By the 80s they performed mostly in arenas, competing not just for attention but also for performance dates with bigger acts that are cheaper to run.

I was also a kid 30 years ago, and I definitely went to the circus more than once and in more than one part of the U.S. And there were always a lot of people there.

Even as recently as 10 years ago when living in NYC, the circus would come to town and people were always talking about it being in the area. Adults, mind you. So I don't think there was anything passé about it, at least not as you suggest.

Yup, it's more likely that the current generation of parents don't see the circus as interesting, because they didn't like it when they were kids. I know it is in my case - I found circuses a dark, smelly and sad experience when I was a kid, I have no interest in dragging my own kids there now.

I hadn't been to a circus since i was a kid, kind of remember having a fun time. Took my kid to one when he was 3. It was the most uncomfortable, depressing thing I've ever paid to see. Glad to see the practice is dying out.

Couldn't agree more. I was a kid about 15 years ago and I went to circus around that time with a friend's parents. It was extremely boring to me even then (before Youtube and even smartphones). If at any point I'd been offered a chance to go again, even for free, I would have turned it down. I don't consider myself a huge proponent of animal rights (I'm not at all against them it's just not something I think about a lot) but the circus was up there with seaworld for me. It's just sounds excruciatingly boring and I can think of 100 things I'd rather spend my time on.

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