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Comment by nerdponx | Hacker News Reader

There's a myth floating around among certain "crunchy hippie" types that predation in nature is relatively humane and usually results in a quick kill. That myth could be dispelled easily by watching just about any wildlife video of course. Life survives because of its tremendous capacity to endure suffering beyond imagination. Life goes on in spite of nature. "Mother nature" is cruel and uncaring. Our survival is all but guaranteed, but our ability to avoid horror and misery hangs in a tenuous balance that we had best strive to preserve.

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Watching a video doesn't tell you what's going on internally. Here's how Dr. Livingstone describes being attacked by a lion:

"Growling horribly close to my ear, he shook me as a terrier dog does a rat. The shock produced a stupor similar to that which seems to be felt by a mouse after the first shake of the cat. It caused a sort of dreaminess, in which there was no sense of pain nor feeling of terror, though quite conscious of all that was happening."

I'm not guaranteeing you'll have similar results in every attack by a predator, but just because soemthing looks horrifying doesn't necessarily mean it'll be experienced as such

That is his memory of the event, something very different than the actual event. Being eaten by a predator is, evolutionarily, the most horrible thing that can happen.

Contagious disease is typically worse from an evolutionary perspective since the damage is frequently not contained to one individual.

Yes, of course, a report of an event is a different thing from the event itself, but do you have more reason to suspect this report than an average one? It seems the difference between pain and a surprising lack of pain would be a salient feature of an experience, which we would normally take to be well-remembered.

And I don't know why you bring in what is bad "evolutionarily". I was talking about how an animal undergoing the experience would feel it. Evolution is an explanation for why we see the diversity that we do in living things, but it doesn't confer an evaluation about what is better or worse. Evolution is fine with you being eaten by a predator, as long as, on the average, you've done enough reproducing first.

Yes, if you're lucky you'll pass out or go into shock or dissociate. But you might not get lucky.

I also wasn't focused only on predators. Actually being shaken around and ripped apart by a lion is probably not the worst way to go. You could die of a skin infection being attacked by maggots, or thirst, or drowning, or be picked at by scavengers while you are in the process of dying from something else. There are lots of ways to suffer on your way out.

Moreover, there are lots of ways to suffer tremendously and not die for a very long time, remaining fully conscious and aware of your suffering the whole time.

I seem to remember that maggots get a bad rap and in fact make a grisly wound cleaner by eating any microorganism-filled dead flesh.

What do you call someone who irrationally fears nature?

Like an irrational fear of deadly predators?

Yes like that

survivor

Fear of being eaten by lions is not irrational. Walking through the jungle thinking you are somehow not on something's menu, that is irrational.

It depends on which jungle though ;)

You are welcome to naively walk into a Lion den and get eaten.

If you do not want to get eaten, don't get eaten.

There's nothing to fear here.

this is stereotyping characterization, and is expressly disallowed when talking about many minority groups.. why is it OK here?

Groups can be defined both by people's intrinsic properties that they can't change (e.g. sex, race, age, sexuality, heritage) and their beliefs which they can definitely change (opinions, philosophy, religion).

It's OK to make fun of hippies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhGuXCuDb1U

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