4 ms·
"We Zimbabweans are left shaking our heads, wondering why Americans care more about African animals than about African people." That's on point.
by leothekim 11y ago
"We Zimbabweans are left shaking our heads, wondering why Americans care more about African animals than about African people."
That's on point.
- leothekim 11y agoAlso worth mentioning this comment, which I unwittingly duplicated: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10009832 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10009832
- mhurron 11y ago> That's on point. Aid provided to Zimbabwe is not reaching the people because of Zimbabwe's government, not because it's not being sent.
- leothekim 11y agoTrue, and someone commented this: http://www.usaid.gov/zimbabwe http://www.usaid.gov/zimbabwe There's also PEPFAR which is notable for how many lives it has saved for Africans with HIV. Still, I'm pretty sure that the average American neither knows nor cares about either program and wouldn't raise a finger if either went away. But they care a shitload about the lion.
- mhurron 11y ago> But they care a shitload about the lion. If we're going to use 'Average American' as a measure, they don't give any more shits about lions, or any other animal, than the Zimbabweans do.
- leothekim 11y agoApparently they care enough s.t. a native Zimbabwean went out of his way to write an op-ed complaining about it, and the good people at the NY Times obliged themselves to publish it.
- badmadrad 11y agoI sincerely believe that people would rather humans die than animals. Its really bizarre and should be studied. Is that people see other people as a competition for resources? It's really fascinating the stir over the death(or murder) of 1 animal vs death(or murder) of hundreds or even thousands of people per day.
- akilism 11y agoI know what you mean but it really on extends to certain animals and only at certain times and only in certain cultures. I think human life in general is held in higher regard than animal life by the majority of the humans on the planet if you really stop and think about it.
- fredkbloggs 11y agoObjectively, lions and other apex predators do a lot of good in maintaining species population balance in their respective ecosystems. And, objectively, humans are extremely destructive forces, both to every ecosystem into which they've expanded their range and to each other through excessive population density, wars, oppression, loss of frontier, and in many other ways. This is simply another form of ecosystem imbalance; we kill lions, we use medicine to encourage unfit humans to survive and reproduce and intensive agriculture to produce many times more food than could be grown using natural methods. The effect is the same as with any other predator-prey imbalance: the prey animal populations expand far beyond the ecosystem's carrying capacity, leading to stress, disease, weakness, starvation, and numerous other ills among the prey population. Eventually the prey population is reduced dramatically as nature kills off huge numbers of unfit animals. You're welcome to call me callous, but I choose not to cry for humans, African or otherwise.
- badmadrad 11y agoI don't think you are alone in your perspective. But I do cry for humans. There is nothing more powerful that I know of then the human brain. The potential for humans to do destructive things is great but so is the potential to do incredibly positive things. I mourn that lost potential.
- 11y ago
- pvaldes 11y agoIt is fortunate for this reasoning that the new Ebola vaccine has not been created at all by those evil white people. ... heh, wait a moment...