"We Zimbabweans are left shaking our heads, wondering why Americans care more about African animals than about African people."

And the paragraph directly after:

"And please, don’t offer me condolences about Cecil unless you’re also willing to offer me condolences for villagers killed or left hungry by his brethren, by political violence, or by hunger."

"Please don't care about the animals in my country more than you care about me and my countrymen" is a reasonable request. I don't see anything terrible about it. I'm not sure why you dropped the surrounding context.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_authoritarian_regimes_...

However, when it came to Vietnam, we merely fought a war to keep Vietnam on our side. South Vietnam was not free and democratic, so there was impossible to "keep" it that way.

It's possible, maybe even likely, that a victorious South Vietnam would have eventually opened up and turned to democracy, as happened in South Korea and Taiwan. But I think it's important to recognize how two-faced US policy was in these places, fighting "for freedom" by propping up dictators.

freedom and good life for vietnamese people was not considered much when that war was planned (beginning by staged US Tonkin gulf accident to get a foot in situation, in good ol' Gleiwitz nazi style). it was all about influence, having foothold out there so soviets don't take it all around, keeping armed forces trained in real life scenarios (train your forces in small war to be prepared for big one) etc. US was very much anything but a good guy there. Saying North vietnamese did worse things doesn't make you automatically a good guy, does it.

Nah, Vietnam is just another topic in US history americans should feel ashamed of. Quite a few I met that are not teenagers actually do. And look at result - they lost the war, they screwed up that country really bad (ie many birth defects many years after the war thanx to Agent Orange spraying), and at the end, country found its way to +-democracy in peaceful way, although it took some serious time. But you can't make that much money from selling arms in peace, can you

You can't easily compare "unprovoked cruelty against animals" with "everyday life below the poverty line".

the animals are defenseless objects of our actions. While people get the life they've built, and specifically what i understand about the Zimbabwe situation - a lot of the issues there are recent (couple decades) self-inflicted by the government upon their people with support of the people. Should US change the government there?

What are you going on about?

A lion will hunt where there is food for it. Even if there's a single village in all of Zimbabwe, it will go there and take the easy meal. There's nothing easier than eating livestock. The livestock is trapped, defenseless, and absolutely tasty.

> There are no condolescence for those deaths caused by one's own mistake.

What mistake? Existing?

> Here at least American's are being right to care about 3000 tigers or lions instead of over 7 billion humans.

Can you help everyone out? Please go to Zimbabwe and feed yourself to a lion. It will help the lion out. It will provide several days worth of sustenance. You're a bit more bony than a cow, but I'm pretty sure the lion won't complain too much. On top of everything, there will be one less human around! Win/win!

What is a human's rightful land?

Do realize there is no "rightful land" in nature, which is the only sphere in which lions operate?

It simply IS ignorance at the root of his childish complaints. It's ignorance to the fact that one problem - lions - is of a vastly smaller scale than another problem - human rights issues in Zimbawabe - and thus the solutions to said problem are far, far easier to apply. In short, we want to help where we actually CAN help. But decades of failed US intervention have proven one thing time and time again: our help never sticks until you start helping yourself.

http://www.globalhumanitarianassistance.org/countryprofile/z...

Imagine a world where the US economy is reduced to ashes and people are starving in the streets of New York, and the rest of the world is only outraged by somebody shooting a specific moose in Alaska.

Secondly, suffering happens everywhere every day. Are the American people supposed to maintain a constant level of outrage about every single instance of suffering?

The analogy looks spot-on to me, just substitute 'Zim' for 'US' and 'Harare' for 'New York'.

OK the first one is open and shut ad hominem attack. Unless I'm totally sleepy and missed something obvious.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

I'm too low on caffeine and sleep right now to absolutely decide if the second one is Ignoratio elenchi or Illicit major. It could be an example of both arguments at the same time. I think the illicit major argument is stronger as in more closely targetted whereas the ignoratio elenchi argument is broader so the Illicit major argument fits "tighter" which makes it more accurately descriptive. On the other hand he's clearly leading at a I.M. attack but he definitely did a I.E. attack so ... Maybe the right way to phrase it is "it is an I.E. logical fallacy attack that appears to be intended as a I.M. logical fallacy attack".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignoratio_elenchi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illicit_major

I've toyed with the idea of tags for social discussion sites that include individual logical fallacies as tags. You know, like venerable ole slashdot and "+1 informative" it would be interesting (for a startup?) to have a social media discussion tagset of the usual logical fallacy arguments, so people can +1 or -1 depending on their personal tastes. I tolerate I.E. attacks in general better than I.M. yet I.M. are so funny they show up in comedy so I'm not even certain which I'd upvote or downvote. Probably a mod like (-1 Ad Hominem) is not too controversial. I would guess the second statement would get both tags, actually the whole comment would get all three tags, most likely. Also this post was a good example of having to handle tags that are both "intended" vs "actual". This makes it hard to figure out how to deploy as a social discussion site modset, and being hard yet obviously useful would make it a good startup germ of an idea. As usual it'll all be in the execution not the mere simple idea.

http://www.globalhumanitarianassistance.org/countryprofile/z...

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/jul/15/ai...

More like: don't criticize others for not learning from their mistakes when you're making a point of not learning from making the same mistakes yourself.

He's pointing out the hypocrisy of berating others' treatment of nature when you live where everything natural has been bulldozed and paved over for hundreds of square miles.

Instead of using their time in the spotlight to draw attention to what they would consider to be more worthy pursuits, they are indignant that we are not already familiar with their country's most pressing issues and equally outraged about them.

This article is import, even if it isn't particularly well-written or well thought out. It's important because it resonates a very important idea that the west is psychologically disconnected from Africa and Africans in the cruelest of ways. It reminds us that Africans must really scratch their heads as they struggle to figure out our unique branch of apathy/concern that's both cruel and emotionally unbalanced.

Comments like this violate the HN guidelines, which say:

When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3.

The comment would be better if shortened in this way, and perhaps also if it made its substantive point (about learning from mistakes) a bit more substantively.