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Comment by option_greek | Hacker News Reader

Strength doesn't come into the picture with monkeys. They attack by biting and scratching and often from hidden places like tree tops or rooftops. In many parts of India, the dogs are afraid to even bark at them.

That said, adult monkeys are pretty big (3.5-4 feet) and aren't all that light weight.

Anecdotally, a baby monkey fell into our neighbors house through bars on the roof and a group of almost 100 monkeys surrounded the house and took them all hostage till the baby was given back.

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That is some "planet of the apes" level situation

Add a mysterious global virus to the mix and you have a movie. Oh wait, that's reality.

well, the anxious animals got the baby back.. I am certain the monkeys did not ask nicely! but let's look at it differently, the monkey pack acted together right away for the safety of the smallest one.. did they hurt the humans? the story does not say that; a more aggressive animal would certainly hurt a human right away for the sake of a small one.. but those animals have been hunted and removed.. +1 monkeys from me

The story does say: Now, villagers reported that the monkeys are targeting small children which has created a panic within the village.

We don't know the whole situation. Article says "villagers began attempting to rescue the dogs". But how? May be villagers tried to attack monkeys and they felt threatened.

But how do other monkeys know they participate to a legitimate cause? They don’t have language to express reason, facts, inferences or values.

Which strikes me, because they really did “ask nicely”, not attacking humans and behaving in a measured way. Where I’m coming from is:

Is language necessary? Human crowds are most often fair (doing a revolution is quite fair, even if individual events are a bit… messy. But crowds stuff up sometimes, ie Jesus vs Romans). Might we (humans) act about as fairly if we didn’t have language at all to express our griefs? All that bullshit that goes on in courts, sometimes fair sometimes not; all the bullshit that goes on in companies about metoo: Does it “average out” the same as a crowd of angry monkeys, or are we effectively more efficient at delivering justice? Is our language a vehicle for reason, or is it just a vehicle of feelings and anger that happen to translate itself into words that seem rational?

> But how do other monkeys know they participate to a legitimate cause?

The legitimacy of a cause depends on your value system, and who is to say what sort of value system the monkeys have. Perhaps their value system places "stick up for other monkeys" before other considerations like impartial assessment of guilt or blame.

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