Hacker News Reader

Comment by RcouF1uZ4gsC | Hacker News Reader

From the article: "In the year since the elephants left, Feld says circus attendance dropped precipitously."

This is a great lesson to businesses in general - know if your critics are actually your core customers. The overlap between people who protested elephants and the people who attended the circus was pretty small. The company ended up listening to a very vocal minority and then lost a lot of business from the quiet group of customers for whom the elephants were the major draw and who then stopped buying tickets.

This also applies to open source projects and brings to mind DHH's article http://david.heinemeierhansson.com/2012/rails-is-omakase.htm...

View on HN

I understand what you're trying to compare it to, but I don't think that this is always a valid argument. If what attracts the core customers is wrong in and of itself, it's not an excuse to continue it.

I have fond memories of the Circus Parade in Milwaukee when I was a child, but it was relying on the animals to draw people in for the most part, and the training done for the animals really isn't good. Vocal critics not being attendees is somewhat irrelevant in this case (and in many cases), because the core activity is what is wrong; it's not just a matter of preference.

When it comes to invidivual preferences, there is some wisdom to "appease the core audience, ignore the rest". But there are a lot of cases that aren't as neatly covered by such sentiment as some seem to think

> If what attracts the core customers is wrong in and of itself, it's not an excuse to continue it.

Tell that to all the illegal renters on AirBnB.

Edit: sorry that was a bit flip, but I don't think the conundrum is as easy as either of you have posed it.

I'm sorry but I don't even know what you're referring to, else I'd respond more completely. I can't really see the relationship between what you quoted and what you wrote.

There are several cities (NYC, Berlin?) where it is/was illegal to rent your apartment/condo for a short term, because then you're acting like a Hotel, but you're probably not meeting any of the hotel regulations, and you're not paying taxes that are specific to Hotels.

So. > If what attracts the core customers is wrong in and of itself, it's not an excuse to continue it.

"Being cruel to elephants" is to "Running a circus" as "Breaking Hotel laws in your city" is to "Running an AirBnb listing"

Both of these things are something "Wrong" that are done as a core part of a business.

Now, I have no idea what jgalt's actual conclusion is, his post was wrapped in some combination of sarcasm and "well they do it too!!!". But his conclusion is probably to open a single-man copper mine in the mountains.

Thank you for your take on it. I won't try to argue it since I feel it unfair to make you defend a conclusion you yourself don't actually know.

Well here's a data point for you. Before they announced that they were shutting down, they started to sell discounted tickets via Groupon - my circle of friends and I were happily sending each other links to the deal. But because some of the top Google results for Ringling Brothers were links to the websites (PETA?) with videos of elephants being struck or shocked with cattle prods, my wife and I decided against buying tickets. We're not PETA supporters or vocal on this topic, we just silently decided against visiting the circus.

It's the same thing with Sea World, after watching Blackfish on Netflix we decided against visiting Sea World during our trip to Florida. We didn't write letters or post about it on Facebook, just silently declined to visit it.

That's a whole industrial complex in of itself. Their thirst to shut things down is unquenchable, as they aren't to just going after circus, sea worlds, and farms, but they are also going after zoos and such.

and of course they will never be satisfied, making 'documentaries' and collecting donations is big business. they wont ever say 'well there is no more good to do, lets close doors'. They will just take their agenda to the next victim.

Here's another data point. I've never been to one of their shows. I don't plan on it. I'll go if I have time. Elephants or no elephants does not contribute to my decision.

I'm not sure if you can call the people torturing animals on tape 'victims' but sure.

It can both be an industrial complex and the morally correct thing to do.

Who is "they" in this comment?

To me, PETA is neither friend nor foe.

I am a beekeeper. PETA says I exploit the bees and steal honey from the rightful owners. So we disagree.

Nonetheless PETA does a public service by working to expose behind-the-scenes treatment of animals. You can derive your own moral conclusion of their findings. Most people find this treatment abusive. I agree with them.

Circuses, farms, and zoos are hardly "victims." Aside from a handful of zoos that do good (by protecting and breeding endangered animals), most just profit from the existence of other living creatures. Hard for me to shed a tear about them shutting their doors.

yes, go after those nefarious zoosters making copious profits.

I would I think a more valuable lesson would be to not start a business that relies on animal cruelty for success. Vocal minority or not, what's right is right.

Unless you are a vegetarian you are being hypocritical.

Good ol' Whataboutism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_is_the_enemy_of_good

One could also characterize your (and GP) view as NIMBYism. I want animal happiness, and they should give up what they like for that.

In the production of food from animals, are they cruel treated?

Ever been to a commercial pig farm or looked into the conditions at commercial milk production facilities?

I'm sure there's a range, and I've no strong feelings in either direction on the matter (had great wagyu beef last night), but I do believe there is probably a good bit of inhumane treatment in our food supply chain, sadly enough.

Yes. The chicken industry is the most egregious example, but all industrialised meat production suffers from abuse problems to some degree.

The issue is that cities and entire states (RI and CA) started banning elephants, so the "vocal minority" they listened to was the government. You're making it sound like they screwed up by following the law.

CA is a big market, so harder to write off; Rhode Island is easy to write off.

There are certainly differing opinions on what constitutes animal cruelty and is moral or immoral [e.g., killing and eating them]. So what is "right" is not so clear cut.

> There are certainly differing opinions on what constitutes animal cruelty and is moral or immoral [e.g., killing and eating them]. So what is "right" is not so clear cut.

What does this kind of argument say about the morality slavery in 1860? Opinions were strongly divided, therefore was it not so clear cut?

Not really the same thing. Causing suffering to a sentient being carries a different set of philosophical implications than to a being that operates on instinct.

Case in point: Most everyone is opposed to people owning people, but very few are opposed to people owning other animals.

Arguments are divided on what constitutes a "sentient being" though. There are plenty of science-fiction morality plays around at what points robots/ai should be considered sentient. At one point tribal cultures were seen as pretty much "not sentient" for all intents and purposes.

Can you give me a test that will definitely say if a being is sentient or not that doesn't basically boil down to "is this being a human or not?"

> Case in point: Most everyone is opposed to people owning people, but very few are opposed to people owning other animals.

There have been cultures where "very few people" were opposed to human sacrifice. This is meaningless as an argument.

When we're talking about what is socially acceptable, and making comparisons to slavery as was done elsewhere in this thread, that is the entire argument.

The argument is drawing parallels between slavery (currently not socially acceptable) and treatment of animals as livestock (currently socially acceptable). You're basically responding to this argument by regurgitating what current status quo is. Stating "the status quo is the status quo" isn't an argument on why the status quo is justified. It's just a statement of fact.

It's pretty clear at this point that elephants operate on more than raw instinct.

And even mourn their dead! http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/08/elephants-mournin...

I'd say the better business lesson is that you shouldn't rely on stuff you have to keep secret so people don't get outraged.

I don't know when the circus died, but I think it is more than the elephants missing. I took my kid to see the Circus Extreme show this year, since it's their last tour. That's not the circus, and my parents and grandparents would say the same thing. It didn't look, smell or sound anything like what I knew as "the circus." My kid is never going to know that. He was quite amused and entertained by the show, though. I have to say it was a good show but I came with these old ideas about "the circus."

When we got home I found a copy of [0] and my wife and I got pretty nostalgic.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Greatest_Show_on_Earth_(fi...

Your kid will likely never know many other forms of entertainment: circus sideshows that objectify people with extreme deformities (circuses haven't had these in ages), for instance. Or Wild Bill's western shows. Or ancient Roman gladiator combat shows, with performers literally fighting to the death, and other people getting killed by lions. Do you think your kid is missing out by not seeing these firsthand?

It's a piece of culture that has just always been there (from the perspective of my life), it was passed on to me and when we talk about it, he won't have the same understanding as I.

I've been thinking a bit lately about how nothing's the same for him as when I was growing up. These experiences that we can share between generations are special.

That's a bit like saying that only those who bought lots of cotton were eligible to criticize slavery in the USA.

He's not saying the protesters are wrong. He's saying that listening to them for business decisions doesn't always make sense. If they wouldn't pay you anyhow, then there's not much point in listening to them.

In this case, the people protesting aren't people who would have paid for the show anyhow. If you make the show worse to please them, you haven't actually gained anything financially.

Ethics and morals are a different discussion, but IMO you shouldn't need protesters to know your own ethical/moral stance.

I believe this is exactly an "ethics and morals" discussion, and apparently protesters were needed to stop the practice.

As the negative impact on the circus business in the case at hand shows, you can't separate the ethics and morals from the business model, just like with slavery-based cotton production. "Yeah, you may be right, but let's put the morals of slavery aside while we're discussing the bottom line of my plantation" will not fly.

I think the real lesson is this: if your business model is built on immorality, you should just save everyone the trouble and shut down voluntarily.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com