Young Gorillas Observed Dismantling Poacher Snares
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And imagine what it must be like for these people to see some foreigners come in and spend tons of money and energy on saving gorillas and basically treat you as the enemy. I'd probably be thinking, why the hell aren't they helping me instead, is my life worth less than a gorillas to them?
I don't have any great answers to all this. Like everything there is a lot of gray area to this story. But hopefully while we cheer on the survival of the gorillas, we should also spare a thought for the survival of the local humans as well. This article certainly didn't. In fact it pretty much cast them as the villains who were heroically thwarted by a couple brave young gorillas.
Maybe I am reading this wrong but I am getting a sense that you think Africa is filled with "noble savages" who are getting corrupted by western influences. Having grown up in Africa, let me hasten to assure you that there are enough Africans who care a lot about making sure that their beautiful flora and fauna is protected for future generations. Simultaneously it is Human nature that there will be people who either out of desperation or malice wish to kill and plunder wildlife. I don't buy the way of life argument when one gets to use sophisticated weaponry (guns may or may not be used in this case but there are enough cases where guns are used to wipe out wildlife) to plunder the wealth of the country. I hate to use a straw man here but I could very well use the same reasoning to argue that one shouldn't interfere in the Hutus vs Tutsi's war because tribal strife has been going on for centuries.
> And imagine what it must be like for these people to see some foreigners come in and spend tons of money and energy on saving gorillas and basically treat you as the enemy. I'd probably be thinking, why the hell aren't they helping me instead, is my life worth less than a gorillas to them?
> But hopefully while we cheer on the survival of the gorillas, we should also spare a thought for the survival of the local humans as well. This article certainly didn't. In fact it pretty much cast them as the villains who were heroically thwarted by a couple brave young gorillas.
You are arguing a false dichotomy here. Helping people by pouring money into Africa hasn't exactly been useful. The entire clothing industry in Africa is hosed because some wise people had the bright idea of donating a ton of used clothes there. Same with the agricultural industry where local farmers can't compete with "free aid".
He is reacting to the implied (though I didn't think it was very strong) characterization of local hunters as poachers. They're hunting to eat and using (presumably) the same type of traps that they're used for generations. That fact makes gph feel some sympathy or solidarity with them and I think a lot of people agree.
I'm absolutely not a relativist. That said this is the extreme example were not looking at things relativistically at all is absurd. You're expecting people who haven't changed their lifestyle and environment in recent generations and live off the land to assign similar values to animal conservation as you do.
That is not too far from telling a remote indonesian tribeswoman to cover her breasts because she's been immorally immodest.
>Maybe I am reading this wrong but I am getting a sense that you think Africa is filled with "noble savages" who are getting corrupted by western influences.
I wasn't trying to make that impression. I just thought that most of Rwanda is still rather undeveloped and especially after the war/genocide a lot of people there still depend on the land for subsistence. Maybe I'm wrong, I've never even been to Africa, so if I am I apologize.
>I hate to use a straw man here but I could very well use the same reasoning to argue that one shouldn't interfere in the Hutus vs Tutsi's war because tribal strife has been going on for centuries.
Well this one is tricky. I'm not trying to sound like an isolationist where we shouldn't interfere with anything. But there does seem to be something morally wrong in my mind if we interfere on behalf of nature to the detriment of the local people. Especially since we've already decimated most of our wildlife en route to our current living standards. Kind of hypocritical to then turn around and use that wealth to stop others from following in our footsteps.
Also just as an afterthought, it was my understanding that the war/genocide was largely manufactured by policies enacted by the retreating Belgians. Before we were there the two tribes got along for the most part.
>Helping people by pouring money into Africa hasn't exactly been useful. The entire clothing industry in Africa is hosed because some wise people had the bright idea of donating a ton of used clothes there. Same with the agricultural industry where local farmers can't compete with "free aid"
Yea, I know the track record on African Aid is not good. My comment was more that we should be at least thinking about their situation and empathizing with it. We should at least be understanding in our comments and behavior. But the tone in this article and likely also in the comments being sent to their facebook page makes the locals out to be the bad guy. I just don't think that's very helpful or deserved.
But to your point about giving aide, there have definitely been some mistakes made, mistakes that should probably have been avoided. It was stupid to ever assume dumping material goods or money into Africa would fix the situation. "Give a man a fish and the local fishermen are out of a job", that should be the proverb we learned from this. I don't really have great solutions other than the obvious ones: Education and stable just governance.
It is complicated. Rwanda is still undeveloped and there are a lot of people who do depend on the land for subsistence. Having said that, the bushmeat issue has gone beyond subsistence farming, there is a systematic plundering of Gorilla families going on (most probably with the connivance of government forces) where the gorilla mothers are taken for bushmeat and the young ones are taken to become pets.
> Well this one is tricky. I'm not trying to sound like an isolationist where we shouldn't interfere with anything. But there does seem to be something morally wrong in my mind if we interfere on behalf of nature to the detriment of the local people. Especially since we've already decimated most of our wildlife en route to our current living standards. Kind of hypocritical to then turn around and use that wealth to stop others from following in our footsteps.
Fair enough, you are entitled to your ethical standards. The reason I was pointing out that this is a false dichotomy is that it is not as if people are pouring all money into conservation at the cost of helping the local population. Money, believe me, is not the issue with Africa.
> Also just as an afterthought, it was my understanding that the war/genocide was largely manufactured by policies enacted by the retreating Belgians. Before we were there the two tribes got along for the most part.
I am rather unsympathetic to this viewpoint. Yes, admittedly regional issues 60 + years ago were exacerbated by colonial forces. I frankly think it is time to move on and start treating people like adults and expect them to grow up and solve their problems the mature way. We see the same issues in South Asia where people are engaging in Nuclear brinksmanship over a silly piece of scrap land.
> Yea, I know the track record on African Aid is not good. My comment was more that we should be at least thinking about their situation and empathizing with it. We should at least be understanding in our comments and behavior. But the tone in this article and likely also in the comments being sent to their facebook page makes the locals out to be the bad guy. I just don't think that's very helpful or deserved.
I think the "locals" are not a homogenous demographic. Sure there are starving people out there who are trying to get their next meal through hunting in forests. There also are several hungry armies using the forests as their pantry. We also have the "noble savage" (Pygmies) who spend most of the time in the forests and also get discriminated against (by fellow Africans, I might add). Another demographic is a group of poachers who systematically use sophisticated technology to hunt down endangered animals and transport the resultant products to markets in Asia. I think some of these groups definitely deserve sympathy, the others I could care zero fucks about. Also the discussion we are having is due to the complicated nature of the issue: It is extremely hard to try to get a macro perspective broadcast to the lowest common denominator (the Facebook commenter) in a way that easily understandable. Unfortunately, we kind of need to break it down so that conservationists can get money to fund their programs. The problem in doing such an approximation is that abstraction is rather leaky and leads to bike shedding.
> But to your point about giving aide, there have definitely been some mistakes made, mistakes that should probably have been avoided. It was stupid to ever assume dumping material goods or money into Africa would fix the situation. "Give a man a fish and the local fishermen are out of a job", that should be the proverb we learned from this. I don't really have great solutions other than the obvious ones: Education and stable just governance.
My personal opinion is that Africa would be fine if people didn't try to fix it every five years or so. Practically speaking, I know this to be a pipe dream considering the amount of weapons flowing in there and the next generation colonialism being perpetrated by China/India there.
There are ways to describe it that don't attribute human motivations to gorillas. I don't really believe this is a reputable source.
This is a bit more reliable: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/07/120719-young...
you can't say that animals are "impassionate" about anything because you have no clue how they actually think, or what they think, or what their motivations are.
I'd also like to point that in the case of great apes and some other mammalians, the brain structure is not very different than a human brain. We can reasonably expect that a similar emotional state is acheived when a similar external display is observed. I mean that for instance, when they cry, we can assume that they are sad, because their brain is quite similar to ours.
You'd think that the act of "smiling" (twisting the corners of your mouths while baring your teeth) conveys a state of happiness, like it works in humans. You'd see a monkey "smile" and think: That monkey is happy.
But in most other primates, the act of "smiling" is an act that's likely to be followed by violence, so it's actually seen as a threat. So if you're in the wild, see a monkey smile and think "oh he's happy, I'd better smile back" he might assume you're "threatening back" and attack you.
And why do you think that monkeys cry like humans? We are the only primates that shed tears as a sign of emotional distress (source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=are-humans-...).
Also, tears are not necessary to cry. In your source, scientists prefer to conservatively talk about "distress vocalizations" instead of crying. But that's necessary because they are so similar in the first place! That's my point: they express their distress! In everyday life (not writing a paper), I'd just say that "this ape is crying because her baby died". Heck, even my dog, I'd say that he's crying. I don't care that there are no tears. They have a mammalian limbic system, and the rewards it contextualizes have to be evolutionarily sensible!
Btw, and I know that's not a strong argument, but my eyes don't produce tears (following some medication). Does it downgrade my crying into a distress vocalization? If not, is it because you think that you know how I am feeling? How I am thinking? really? How do you know that?
PS: as a_bonobo yourself, you know that what I say makes sense ;).
Just because you use your knowledge of human emotions on your dog's behaviour doesn't mean that your dog is capable of fear (it's likely, but absolutely impossible to prove).
I think you mean Dawkins. Easy to mix those two names up :)
Either way, this distinction is irrelevant. What I was trying to say was simply that you shouldn't assume that human emotions and motivations are very special. We won the genetic lottery by getting a lucky combination of traits which allowed us build civilization. Our ability to communicate using language and art seems to be our most distinguishing feature. But there's not much special about our emotions.
Even rats have empathy as proven in an experiment: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/12/rat-empathy/
We're about 80% the same as animals when it comes down to it. The difference is important, absolutely, but not as significant as you'd think.
> Everything from desire for friendship and love to desire
> for social status and achievement work pretty much
> EXACTLY the same
Which is why behavioural biologists don't even go down that path of "humanizing" animals - all they do is link certain behaviour to certain actions (famous example: anal-sniffing as sexual behaviour in guinea-pigs or dogs). Looking at animals through the "human glass" can lead to some insights, but can certainly lead to terribly wrong results, too:
It's like overfitting a statistical model, you'll get noise where you expect results.
As for emotions, that's a harder thing to prove. Dolphins are intelligent enough they should be classified as sentient non-human persons according to more progressive scientists. They have the richest range of emotions we've seen outside of chimpanzees, and to be honest, chimpanzees are so very nearly human it's quite amazing. They don't seem to lack any faculties that humans have, but some of their emotions are just less pronounced or developed.
Sometimes it seems the only reason that chimpanzees aren't affected more emotionally is that they don't understand the implications of what's happening. It's just ignorance more than a lack of emotion.
What might exist in the way of emotions humans don't have is things that are bio-chemical. Nature has a way of "rewarding" behaviors that are productive with a positive feeling. Do cuttlefish feel something other than love when doing their dances? What does an octopus, which has a nervous system entirely unlike a mammal or fish, feel when going about their day?
I don't really like to hear scientists described as progressive or non-progressive. I would prefer to hear that they are more or less sceptical.
Humans also possess this ability, althought it's limited and weak.
Our Burmese cats actually do seem to be a bit guilty after they do something bad, also they are very social. Having said that, Burmese cats do have a reputation for being amongst the most dog-like of cat breeds.
"But Vecellio said it would go against Karisoke center policies and ethos to actively instruct the apes. 'We try as much as we can to not interfere with the gorillas. We don’t want to affect their natural behavior.'"
It's the Prime Directive in the 21st century.
(Wohoo, Star Trek discussion! On a completely unrelated note: Today sees the US release of Star Trek: TNG season 1 on Blu-ray, which is the result of a remastering effort of unprecedented scale, going back to the original film negatives of live action and VFX elements and essentially repeating most of the post-production process using modern technology - compositing, editing, the works. They've spent a double-digit amount of millions of US dollars remastering season 1 alone, and have dozens of people working in three shifts 24/7 to complete two seasons per year, including several veterans of the original crew. The effect is something as if you had to watch the show through a sheet of smoked, colored glass up to now, when someone has finally taken it away.)
The warp drive rule was a threshold thing. Before a civilization reaches warp drive, they're not supposed to receive any help at all, even with technologies that they've discovered. Once they reach warp drive, then it's time to make first contact and start to tell them about the galactic birds and bees.
Warp drive is a beautifully natural threshold within the Star Trek universe. Unfortunately, in our world today, we don't always have nice boundaries like that. Is trap-disarming for gorillas a threshold event analogous to warp drive, or is it more like a significant but ultimately incremental step in a long journey? I don't think there are any easy answers.