Killing Cecil The Lion

[PP67]

For those new to the forum and before dental horror stories proliferate, note that MangoMan and his daughter-in-law I believe are dentists and would probably appreciate focusing on the topic at hand (animal hunting for pleasure in general , potential poaching and the newsworthiness of this story vs other topics)) than the unfortunate vocation of the accused Cecil killer...

[Stewardship]

My own personal experience with dentists is that they can do more harm than good.

I'm beginning to suspect the same.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n7-Ry1bBCU

[moda0306]

Neither of them have been very good for my teeth.

My own personal experience with dentists is that they can do more harm than good. My previous dentist for example was crazy about fillings--she'd drill and fill everything. My current dentist has had to redo a few, and says that small areas sometimes heal themselves, so being overzealous is pointless and expensive. Doctors, too. I definitely prefer to take care of myself as long as nothing's overtly broken. It seems that when you have the attitude of "check me out and find anything wrong!" the pressure to find something wrong is intense. I've been to see a doctor precisely once in the last 8 years.

Do you perhaps think you're taking the balance too far?  In my mind, there's nothing wrong with having a checkup so long as the doctor is someone whose opinion you respect and it's not simply an automatic pill popping solution.

Without much knowledge of medicine, I'd want to make sure that my "numbers" look good (including nutrient deficiencies, blood chemistry ratios, all that good stuff), as well as running diagnoses for certain potential illnesses that are much better to catch sooner than later.

[Pointedstick]

Do you perhaps think you're taking the balance too far?  In my mind, there's nothing wrong with having a checkup so long as the doctor is someone whose opinion you respect and it's not simply an automatic pill popping solution.

Without much knowledge of medicine, I'd want to make sure that my "numbers" look good (including nutrient deficiencies, blood chemistry ratios, all that good stuff), as well as running diagnoses for certain potential illnesses that are much better to catch sooner than later.

That's exactly it: without having some domain knowledge myself, how can I evaluate whether or not my dentist is doing what's right? As we all know, there is a great deal of disagreement in all kinds of medical fields regarding what "numbers" are good or bad. If my dentist says, "ooh, this looks like it's a cavity. We'll have to drill it"--and that's what my previous dentist did. But how do I know that the decay is big enough that it's a reasonable interpretation? Maybe it'll heal itself over time. This has happened to areas that my current dentist has decided to watch instead of instantly drill. I'm glad that I've found someone who has a nice light touch, but I'm still made uncomfortable by the fact that I have to 100% take a professional's advice without having any knowledge of my own to verify whether or makes sense or not.

In every other professional field in which I have any domain knowledge, I would NEVER trust any relevant professional 100% on anything. Complicated fields allow for multiple interpretations of the same data, and multiple ways to do things, some of which may be appropriate for a given set of circumstances, and some of which may not. The idea of a disinterested expert who can be totally relied on so you can avoid learning anything about the subject yourself is a total myth--and I say this myself as someone who is himself an expert in his field whose judgement is relied upon by others. Don't instantly believe on what I say. Get a second opinion. Learn up on the subject yourself. Understand the details. I'm good, but I'm not infallible.

[moda0306]

Do you perhaps think you're taking the balance too far?  In my mind, there's nothing wrong with having a checkup so long as the doctor is someone whose opinion you respect and it's not simply an automatic pill popping solution.

Without much knowledge of medicine, I'd want to make sure that my "numbers" look good (including nutrient deficiencies, blood chemistry ratios, all that good stuff), as well as running diagnoses for certain potential illnesses that are much better to catch sooner than later.

That's exactly it: without having some domain knowledge myself, how can I evaluate whether or not my dentist is doing what's right? As we all know, there is a great deal of disagreement in all kinds of medical fields regarding what "numbers" are good or bad. If my dentist says, "ooh, this looks like it's a cavity. We'll have to drill it"--and that's what my previous dentist did. But how do I know that the decay is big enough that it's a reasonable interpretation? Maybe it'll heal itself over time. This has happened to areas that my current dentist has decided to watch instead of instantly drill. I'm glad that I've found someone who has a nice light touch, but I'm still made uncomfortable by the fact that I have to 100% take a professional's advice without having any knowledge of my own to verify whether or makes sense or not.

In every other professional field in which I have any domain knowledge, I would NEVER trust any relevant professional 100% on anything. Complicated fields allow for multiple interpretations of the same data, and multiple ways to do things, some of which may be appropriate for a given set of circumstances, and some of which may not. The idea of a disinterested expert who can be totally relied on so you can avoid learning anything about the subject yourself is a total myth--and I say this myself as someone who is himself an expert in his field whose judgement is relied upon by others. Don't instantly believe on what I say. Get a second opinion. Learn up on the subject yourself. Understand the details. I'm good, but I'm not infallible.

With regards to doctors and dentists, I think there is a realm of things they can identify that are 1) not intuitive for me to know, 2) given the tests and observations a doctor can run, they can find it, and 3) if they do discover it, I'll be very glad I got a review done, and know that the logical next move might not be 100% clear, but will at the very least be very different than continuing to pretend there is no problem.

I'm not saying all doctors will serve this role, but don't you think that certain cancer screenings and checkup items ARE worth getting another look at, especially considering those checkups are usually free or cheap?  I have to think that there are certain areas where at the very least your doctor will give you important information with which you can seek out a second opinion.

[Tyler]

My own personal experience with dentists is that they can do more harm than good. My previous dentist for example was crazy about fillings--she'd drill and fill everything. My current dentist has had to redo a few, and says that small areas sometimes heal themselves, so being overzealous is pointless and expensive. Doctors, too. I definitely prefer to take care of myself as long as nothing's overtly broken. It seems that when you have the attitude of "check me out and find anything wrong!" the pressure to find something wrong is intense. I've been to see a doctor precisely once in the last 8 years.

IMHO, there's a big difference between not trusting a doctor or dentist 100% and trusting them 0%.  Make the effort to find one you like and trust.  It's worth it.

[Tyler]

[LC475]

Who cares about a stupid lion?

How in the world is this national news?

[LC475]

Makes me want to go kill a lion.

[Reub]

To many, lions are more important than people. Much more important. Dentists don't even rank with these types. Homeless and illegal immigrants might be equally important.

[Tyler]

I now know how I want to commemorate Cecil.  With a $2500 gold plated cell phone. 

http://tinyurl.com/ngbg6m3

[dualstow]

Hah, wow. Very tacky.

[Stewardship]

A gold-plated hunting rifle with Cecil's image on it, for example, would be tacky.

rofl

[dualstow]

Makes me want to go kill a lion.

Email from cnn:

The brother of slain Cecil the lion, named Jericho, was killed today in Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe, a senior park official told CNN.

Jericho was gunned down by a hunter operating illegally, said Johnny Rodrigues, head of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force.

{Eyes LC475 suspiciously... }

(dualstow) Hah, wow. Very tacky.

(Tenn) Nah.  Just opportunistic.

A gold-plated hunting rifle with Cecil's image on it, for example, would be tacky.

hahaha! Well, supposedly some proceeds go to a good cause but that is tacky. I suppose everyone is pouncing on this for their own profit or agenda. There's a vegan calling out anyone who eats meat as a hypocrite if they feel bad for Cecil, and so on.

[LC475]

Email from cnn:

The brother of slain Cecil the lion, named Jericho, was killed today in Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe, a senior park official told CNN.

Jericho was gunned down by a hunter operating illegally, said Johnny Rodrigues, head of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force.

{Eyes LC475 suspiciously... }

You can't prove anything!

[Reub]

Some are saying that Jericho is still alive. We can only hope so.

[Kriegsspiel]

Yea.

[Stewardship]

I still don't see what the issue is.  People can still go see Cecil.

[moda0306]

Color me conflicted. On the one hand I do think some animals need legal protection and should not be hunted. On the other hand this guy seems to be a big game hunter with a long track record that suggests he has been careful to stay within the bounds of the law until now. I think we need to wait for his side of the story.

On a side note; I don't hunt but have no moral objections to the practice, provided you eat what you kill and you do it as humanely as possible. I am not however a big fan of killing purely for the sake of mounting a head on your living room wall.

just an FYi in case it hasn't been mentioned before.. trophy animals get eaten... sometimes by the shooter but often by the nearby local village, also the big money that gets payed to do one of these hunts gets put back into the local economy conservation and so on.. also culling a herd is often beneficial for it, and much thought and number crunching goes into figuring out the amount of tags given to hunters..

I hear that "money goes to conservation" piece a lot, but I'm not sure how much I believe it. We're talking about Zimbabwe here. Corruption runs rampant. I'd like to see where that money goes to qualify as "conservation."

i suppose a "quantity and quality may vary" caveat is justified depending on country in question and the political turmoil and corruption in the time period you are looking at..
still no matter how messed up they are i believe most of these countries understand that wildlife and conservation are important to their survival, future and ability to get legitimacy internationally... all but the feudal warlord, anarchist, war torn, utopias do anyway..

[dualstow]

.. also culling a herd is often beneficial for it, and much thought and number crunching goes into figuring out the amount of tags given to hunters..

There's definitely a balance in some countries, with eco-tourism over here and animals raised to be hunted over there.

[Mountaineer]

Why is everyone so upset about the death of Cecil?  He was 13.  Lions only live 10 to 14 years in the wild.  It was merely a case of euthansia for the old.  That is OK for humans in some states, why not for lions?  Next thing people are going to get twisted knickers over is aborting lions that "might" have shorter than average manes, an extra toe, or not be able to jump tall boab trees in a single bound.  Good grief people, get a grip!

... M

[dualstow]

Trophy hunting. The Onion breaks it down:

PRO

Gives animal kingdom stern reminder about who’s top dog
Get to be one of very few people to experience raw, primal exhilaration of being reviled by tens of millions of people
Lot of empty wall space in apartment
Killing fun
Chance of being killed by lion drastically reduced once they are extinct
Part of time-honored tradition that dates all the way back to humankind’s earliest assholes

CON

Shoulder pain from recoil of elephant gun
Already hard enough for female lions to find decent mate
Taxidermists often get eyes wrong
Bizarre sexual gratification of murdering large game can only satisfy for so long before you must turn to humans
Lion’s next of kin only get small portion of hunting fee
When people ask “Do you shoot defenseless animals with metal arrows, wait until they bleed out, and then stuff their remains for decoration?” the answer is “Yes”

http://www.theonion.com/graphic/pros-an ... ting-51006

[dualstow]

Lion mauls to death tourist guide in Cecil the lion's park in Zimbabwe
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-26/l ... we/6724806

[Reub]

Lion pleads self defense.

[MachineGhost]

At the same time, I don't feel too bad about the internet backlash he is currently receiving.

Serves that useless protoplasm right!