
Orangutan with Human Rights Begins New Life in Florida - brudgers
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49856859
======
mellosouls
Speaking as a layman and aware of the tendency to anthropomorphise,
nevertheless:

The time for animals of this cognitive and social level to be granted special
protected rights and respect seems _long_ overdue.

~~~
ianai
Agreed. Look, the glaciers are disappearing, the Amazon rainforest has been
lit on fire and almost eradicated by humans, and the climate radically
altered. All because humans think they own the world and may do as they like
with all of it, unilaterally. They don’t need to think about long term
consequences because only their immediate needs matter. They don’t need to
take any life into consideration other than themselves. They don’t even need
to take humanity beyond their own person into account. It’s solipsism taken to
a global, permanent scale because there are people who could unilaterally
decide to end all life on earth as we know it through mass destruction.

It’s time to open the blinders.

------
elboru
Are they taking her with her consent? Did she decided to go to Florida?

Deluding the meaning of what a person is or what is not doesn’t look like a
good idea in the long run.

~~~
linuxftw
People have decide many things have all new meanings in recent years.

This statement you're making today might be constructed has hate-speech toward
non-human people in the future.

~~~
JetSpiegel
IANAL, but if this animal is legally a person, he was kidnapped, since there
was no consent in being taken to Florida, as the grandparent mentioned.

Or is this a person without the full breadth of human rights?

~~~
linuxftw
> legally a person

It's not enough to say 'legally a person,' you must say 'person' without any
qualification whatsoever.

> Or is this a person without the full breadth of human rights?

Rights are for peoples or persons, not humans.

------
trevyn
Ironically, said rights were granted by an Argentine court, so presumably do
not apply in Florida.

~~~
stebann
Ironically?

~~~
trevyn
_incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal
or expected result_

Orangutan is granted rights, and as a result is moved to a jurisdiction where
the rights do not apply.

------
dmix
> Florida's Center for Great Apes

Sounds like a fun place to work

------
subsaharancoder
By determining that all animals are sentient beings, would putting a plough on
a cow to farm a piece of land then be viewed as a form of indentured
servitude, what about harvesting honey from beehives, spraying bug spray could
be viewed as some form of genocide? Where is the line drawn?

------
danschumann
But with his credit score he can't get a car...

~~~
DangitBobby
Neither can a child

------
op00to
I wish my government wished peace for me, instead of endless anxiety, fear,
and strife.

------
snagglegaggle
This is definitely not as bad as the Saudi robot that is a person. Though
despite the intelligence of nonhumans I am not sure I can support granting
personage to things and property at this time.

I think the Old Testament has interesting things to say on this topic:
"Everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea are under
your authority. "

In a lot of ways Judaism and what it evolved into is the unreligion religion.
Events in it, like the plagues of Egypt, are digs at the asinine nature of
contemporary customs. E.g. the frogs were a plague because the frogs were
sacred and could not be killed. In general the Abrahamic God doesn't want you
fettering your wealth away on complicated rituals.

In the West, you can usually see a split between people who view animals
largely as property and those that don't. The latter concern me, because
although I can oppose wanton cruelty -- when it comes down to it, there are
people, and not people. And if I need to get rid of property because I can't
maintain it, I should be able to do so.

~~~
mellosouls
I'm unaware of the Saudi robot but as we are a long way off AI, that would be
a _thing_ with no inner life.

This is a sentient creature, and - leaving aside the clear ethical questions
that raises - considering our not always entirely inspirational stewardship of
the planet and the creatures on it, I question your support for consigning it
all to the cold classification of "property".

~~~
snagglegaggle
It is not intended to be cold. I still appreciate nature, enjoy the company of
animals, and want to work towards conservation. But a line _does_ need to be
drawn and that is where I think it should be drawn. Giving not-people the
privileges of people is a slippery slope and I think best reserved until we
achieve a greater understanding of intelligence.

~~~
mellosouls
That's a fair argument - but I would counter that in the context of animals
that behave in what appears to be clearly intelligent and social behaviour of
a higher order, higher order rights should follow. They don't need to be the
same level, just indicative of a special status.

~~~
snagglegaggle
I agree, just not that the special status should be codified as law (yet).
There are plenty of people problems to solve.

~~~
mellosouls
See the above thread in response to the poster making the same argument, tho
in a somewhat more crass way.

~~~
snagglegaggle
I saw them but am not sure they made a point. Can you add anything?

They're appealing to emotion by (re)stating that bad things can happen to
nonpersons and that the nonpersons have some capacity to feel bad about those
things. Which is true and not really disputed.

But the counterargument of the relative importance isn't being addressed. Why
should we have laws on this?

As an extreme example, if someone kills puppies for fun they're probably not a
great person. At the same time I do not know of a good legal framework to
handle this. Relying on people thinking to themselves "that guy kills puppies
for fun and may not be a great person" seems the more robust solution. Even
then, what is fun? People selectively breeding dogs sometimes kill litters. If
you keep people from killing puppies (for potentially good reasons) you have
in a roundabout way made certain animal husbandry illegal.

~~~
mellosouls
The comment I'm referring to is the one saying we shouldn't grant rights
because bad stuff happens to humans so we should solve those problems first.
There are multiple replies to that, including mine, which I refer you to.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21100715](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21100715)

~~~
snagglegaggle
Hmm... I think you are misreading his point. He seems to be pointing out that
there are other things that are more important and that this seems to be a
waste of time. Broadly I agree.

One problematic reply I think is:

>We should fix both immediate problems and the fundamental ethics issues that
perpetuate an exploitative mindset. Animal rights are part of that.

Until we have a _really_ good test for animal intelligence and some tractable
way to map that to utility I think this is seriously misguided. At the end of
the day the wants of a human supersede the wants of an orangutan, even if only
by force. Do I think there is much utility in how this orangutan was treated?
Not really. But am I _allowed_ to exploit the orangutan? Yes, to the same
extent I have a right to life.

