I've been skimming this thread this morning and one post really stuck out to me. It was in response to Blackvette94's statement that he wasn't impressed with this kind of hunting, because Trump's sons used overwhelming weaponry and other technology rather than their bare hands or a knife:
I don't get why people keep making this argument. Why is using weapons an unfair advantage when it comes to humans killing animals? Our natural defense mechanism IS the ability to craft weapons and tools. We don't have thick hides or giant claws, we're absolutely weak physically, our advantage is our brains, much like a bear's advantage is its size and claws.
It's like saying it would impress me and be okay if a bear could kill a guy if it was 200 lbs lighter and didn't have those great big claws and teeth.
Every animal uses cheap advantages to kill other animals all the time. Why is dirty and rotten when we do it?
I'm gonna take some time to respond to this, and indirectly to other posts of its nature, even though it's a few pages back. I don't necessarily even expect SpectreFire to read this, but just in general, I hope that there are some that can see where I am coming from. If you're at all interested in why you might think some hunting is "impressive" and some is not, or if you are conflicted about how you feel about the Trumpsons, I implore you to read this even though it'll be long.
SpectreFire, you are absolutely right that the advantage of the human hunter is her brain. It's what makes us the ultimate apex predator; it's why no species on Earth is even close to threatening us for dominance.
We're the Batman of the animal kingdom: given adequate prep time, we can absolutely obliterate any species in a "hunt" (including other humans). We can take down a full-grown bear in a one-on-one fight through the use of ingeniously crafted tools. We can lay waste to an entire hive of 2000 bees (against which many species including the bear would be almost defenseless) from a distance with the orchestrated use of fire. We can train and use
other predators to hunt
for us in incredibly effective ways. We can hunt and kill a great white shark despite being completely out of our natural element in deep water and laughably outclassed in terms of innate weaponry. We could massacre a hundred stampeding wildebeest without breaking a sweat from behind a machine gun battery. And we can, it seems, use technology to instantly murder more than 100,000 of the only animals that are a substantial match for our skills- fellow human beings. We're just
that good at killing things.
But also like Batman, there are many of us that realize that it's
not always a good idea. We understand that there are reasons not to use every tool at our disposal just because we can. And not to overextend the superhero metaphors too much, but with the great power afforded to us by these enormous brains comes great responsibility.
After using nuclear explosives one time, the majority of the human race collectively agreed that the cost of such indiscriminate, wanton destruction (as made possible by our eternally innovative minds)
was too great; that such weaponry should not be used again, despite its capacity to essentially end any individual armed conflict in a manner of seconds. On a smaller scale, after the realization that human beings could cause and have caused the ultimate extinction of a number of animal species, we now coordinate efforts to classify and protect endangered ones, to stop it from occurring again. These are very unusual actions for an apex predator; individual members are not just taking any action possible to maintain status at the top of the food chain- instead we have collectively decided to do certain things that we are only capable of doing due to our brains, but are about protecting rather than killing.
But I still haven't exactly addressed SpectreFire's points about the Trumpsons' hunting. There are basically two things to cover: whether or not it's impressive, which was Blackvette94's complaint; and more generally, whether or not it's right.
1. Is it impressive that Donald Trump's sons killed these animals (such as an elephant and a leopard) using a combination of ingenuity and tools?
No. Not at all.
SpectreFire, your statement about what makes humans impressive hunters is absolutely true at face value. It's incredibly difficult to imagine a species that would be better at hunting. Indeed, most attempts to depict one in fiction basically start with the intelligent human brain, invent new and even more sophisticated technology to be used for killing, and add a body with enhanced physical characteristics that would fare better in an unarmed hunt: enhanced strength, stature, and natural weaponry like claws or fangs (
sound familiar?).
But let's just contrast different
individual human hunters.
Native Americans hunting bison, having isolated one from a herd. They tracked the herd themselves, probably for days or weeks before being able to strike. They crafted and may have even invented the specific designs of the tools they are using for this purpose. They are hunting a creature much larger and more powerful than they are, and with many others of its own kind, without any of the advantages of modern science that would make such a kill trivial. After they make the kill, they will feed themselves with every edible part of the animal, and use its hide and hair to make clothing and protection for the winter, and potentially even camouflage to aid in further hunts. Many tribes also had rituals following a hunt that thanked the creature for the bounty it provided despite having been killed. They were relying on human ingenuity and crafted tools and coordination, those things that we owe to our brains, in order to
survive, and succeeding. This is incredibly impressive.
This is
Samuel Baker. While you may have gathered from this post that I generally oppose game hunting in general, I cannot argue with the fact that he is
impressive. His era was the cauldron of modern sport hurting. He made a name for himself by hunting stags and wild boar armed with only a knife. Though he did use guns, benefiting from tools created by other humans, he wrote extensively on the science of ballistics for hunting, modifying their designs and determining what weapons were better suited to which hunts. He influenced the selection of firearms that were undoubtedly provided to the Trumpsons on their excursions. Before the frontier was even settled, he forged the path that can now be followed by basically anyone who feels like killing something and has the money to do so. Which of course brings us to:
Donald Trump's sons paid an agency called Hunting Legends to take them on a trip to shoot and kill game. They did not craft, let alone invent, any of the technology that enabled them to hunt so easily and effectively. They did not track the animals themselves, nor did they face any substantial danger during their trip- by this I mean that they were at all times surrounded by professional hunters with what I'm certain was an even more overwhelming array of weaponry than the sons themselves were using on their targets. They benefited from the ingenuity, skill, and expertise of other human beings, while contributing comparatively little of their own. They also benefited massively from the entirely human concept of wealth, in that, of course, they have it. Here's a line from the Daily Mail article:
Though the pricing for the trip is not publicly available, it was certainly a costly endeavor.
I'll bet. The company showed them where to go, gave them the luxury of hunting safely, probably told them what guns to use in every case. In this case, having lots and lots of
money essentially enabled them to kill these animals without expending any notable amount of effort.
The reason Blackvette94 would have been more impressed if the Trumpsons had made these kills with only a knife or by wrestling the gator to the ground, even though he couldn't quite put his finger on it, is that human game hunting has become
so effective that just being rich is essentially all it takes to be able to kill whatever you want. Since we've reached this point, it then becomes impressive for the human hunter to place artificial restrictions on himself, using skill and resilience and more basic tools to accomplish someone that not just anyone with a Plantium Card can pull off.
To make this concept more relatable for this forum, I'll use a quick videogame analogy. Hopefully some people reading this have played
Demon's Souls and/or
Dark Souls. I consider them both very difficult games and was proud of myself for completing them both. But what really
impresses me is that some people on this forum have become so ferociously good at these games that they have completed them fully at Level 1. There's no incentive for them to do this beyond the challenge; the games will just be way harder with no increase in reward. They're imposing limits on
themselves to accomplish something remarkable.
In this analogy, Donald Trump's sons are two guys who paid $1000 to get Level 700 characters with every completely maxed-out weapon immediately available, and NPC phantoms that know the way around every level constantly following them, protecting them from harm and showing them exactly where to go.
No, this does not impress me at all. In fact, it's pathetic.
2. Is it morally wrong that Donald Trump's sons killed these creatures for sport?
Yes.
Now, on this point, you are free to disagree with me and I am sure there are those among you who can make a rational case for why it is morally sound. On the "impressive" front I believe I was arguing from a hard, factual stance, but I concede that here I will be making an emotional appeal.
There is no reason to shoot and kill these animals just because it's fun. "I wanted to try it" or "it'll look cool hung up on my wall" are not adequate justifications for taking the lives of unsuspecting creatures that stand absolutely no chance in these circumstances. The flimsy excuse that they gave the meat to villagers is basically an insult wrapped in the guise of generosity- along the lines of "I just wanted to shoot this stuff for fun, but I'll be having lobster and caviar on the plane ride home- here, you guys eat it." In the case of the elephant and leopard it's particularly disconcerting.
The enormous amount spent on this trip- tens of thousands, I would wager- did not translate into notable impact on the health or well-being of the villagers they're claiming to have fed. The cost of this trip could likely have fed a village for a year if spent wisely- one meal of gator fritters isn't what they need. So that point is effectively moot.
They did this for fun. They did it just to be able to kill things they can't kill at home. They showed no respect- even if the tail-cutting ritual is founded in something tribal and reverent, any such meaning is superficial in the face of the soulless abandon displayed so obviously in these photographs.
Human beings have drastically reduced the populations of countless species through urban development, overcrowding, landscaping, and pollution; there is no reason to add to the body count with killing for sport. And I'll make clear here that I have no moral qualms at all about hunting for sustenance or population control. I don't dispute the evolutionary right of humans to civilize and build and even pollute, to an extent; we are the clear dominant species on the planet and more or less rightly so. But despite dominating them, we
share our ecosystems with an enormous number of plants and animals. And unless we want to run out of animals that are pretty to look at and think it's good enough that we'll always have HD video of them in some barren, industrial future, we need to take some responsibility.
This is an Amur leopard. There are estimated to be 15 and 20 adults in the wild today. Under 200 total, mainly because of populations specifically bred in captivity.
Maybe that seems like plenty to you, but keep in mind that there are likely over 50,000 leopards of all kinds alive in the wild today, meaning that the Amur leopard accounts for a total of 0.05% (not 5%, point zero five percent) of the leopards we have left.
Their habitat in western Russia has been decimated by the intentional burning of forests and development projects. But the main threat the species faces is poaching. In other words, despite having the amount of land their can safely occupy drastically reduced over the years, what they have to worry about most right now is people walking up to them and shooting them. There are protection efforts in place and plans to reintroduce captive members into the wild. But there's really no guarantee that these creatures won't be extinct in the wild within our lifetimes.
These are Addaxes. Writings from ancient times describe them exactly as they are today, only they were all over the place. They were domesticated and as such there was no need to hunt them in the wild, as is the case with cows in modern life. But now almost exclusively due to overhunting, they are also critically endangered. Some people want those cool skulls for their ranches. Their leather is highly prized as well, and they're slow and easy to hunt. Much of the killing of these extremely gentle animals has taken place from within a vehicle a lot like a dune buggy, with a mounted automatic weapon.
The killing of these creatures is reprehensible. And I'm not saying that Donald Trump's sons are or should be role models (heaven knows their father wasn't much of one to them). But they, and posts like this
Nature gave animals sharp claws and sharp teeth/tusks, man gave himself guns, man wins, it's not our fault that people are more intelligent and that we like to murder things. Animals don't care whether or not you're intelligent or empathetic, if they sense you're a threat, they'll fucking kill you, they should blame evolution for dealing them a shitty hand when a hunter carves LOL on their dead carcasses.
are part of the problem. We humans are smarter than them, and more than capable of wiping them of the face of the Earth. That doesn't mean it's natural for us to want to. And it doesn't mean we should.
The capability we have to destroy is not the same as license to do so; instead, it is a charge to show restraint and exercise- dare I say it- humanity.
hu·man·i·ty   [hyoo-man-i-tee or, often, yoo-] Show IPA
noun, plural -ties.
1. all human beings collectively; the human race; humankind.
2. the quality or condition of being human; human nature.
3. the quality of being humane; kindness; benevolence.
Doesn't it strike you as at all significant that we chose to ascribe that meaning to that word?
Now, with regard to the specifics of the Trumpsons, I imagine two arguments will be made against what I'm saying here:
1) They didn't kill anything endangered, and
2) The species I described above were killed mostly by poachers, and the Trumpsons hunted in completely legal ways.
I respond to these claims quite simply:
no species on Earth was always endangered. Killing something just because there are plenty of them to kill sounds to me more like a reason to be evaluated by a psychiatric professional than a justification of sport hunting. And if we can all agree that poaching is a bad thing (and just hop over the argument some might make that they're entitled to kill whatever they want just because they're human, regardless of the law), then why would it ever be a good idea to add to the pile of carcasses legally? Making children cry isn't illegal, and in most cases would actually be protected under the law in the United States by the First Amendment. That doesn't mean it isn't a shitty thing to do.
Exerting dominance through the use of force over a creature that cannot defend itself is an act of cowardice. In this respect, the thread title is accurate.
TL;DR:
Every animal uses cheap advantages to kill other animals all the time. Why is dirty and rotten when we do it?
Because we
know better.
