LISTEN: The Day They Hanged an Elephant

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If the podcast is anything like the story I previously read, I would recommend to stay the hell away from this story if you have any empathy at all for animals. It disturbed me for years.

I dont know why anyone would want to share this.

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Hanged right down the road from where I live. Something I believe the locals should still be ashamed of.

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It’s important to bear witness. I would just rather not be the witness. I wish I never clicked.

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Nope, I don’t need to know anything more, no way I’m listening to that!

Now if you can find a podcast/video of The Day The Elephants Hanged Mankind, now that I’ll watch.

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Yeah, wish I taken your advice, foolishly decided to rubberneck instead. The guy telling it did sound like he wasn’t sure he should.

Human animals are definitely the worst animals. :pray:

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What the fuck is wrong with you, BoingBoing? Was it REALLY necessary to post a thumbnail so that anyone who comes to main site has to see it, whether they want to or not?

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San Francisco murdered an Elephant on Ocean Beach and buried him in the sand in the 1930s, I think he stomped a few zookeepers or circus clowns which was what sealed his fate.

This trigger-warning way of thinking just does not make sense to me. I see that some people may be seriously affected by hearing about certain things, so it may make sense for them, individually, to avoid them but

… because we don’t live in a world of roses and unicorns and I can accept that some people are unable or unwilling to face that, but I also think it should be pretty obvious that advising avoidance and ignorance to others is detrimental to any kind of progress in these matters, or even discourse, and should not be tolerated. So IF you have any empathy for animals (whatever that binary question is supposed to mean here) MAYBE you should listen to that story. Just saying that putting your head in the sand is not a solution to everyone, and certainly not good advice.

What the fuck is wrong with you? On what grounds do you demand from a web site not to put up photographs of things that disturb you? Maybe people need to be disturbed when disturbing things are happening.

For example, I have never seen anything basically wrong with having animals in a circus, provided they are well fed, housed, and treated, but this very image you complained about shocked me enough into thinking that maybe we shouldn’t keep wild beasts in captivity and then blame and punish them when the situation gets out of hand.

I definitely do not want the internet, nor the world, to be turned into a padded cell from which any reference to anything cruel or shocking is carefully censored. Some people seem to be rallying toward that end, but should I listen to them, lock my doors, and put a box over my head?

I have fears, too - sometimes I don’t manage to face them and as a result not perform seemingly simple, everyday tasks! But I try to face them, and where I can’t, I certainly do not lobby to turn the world into a mirror of my anxieties! Damned!

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I think that this is a slightly different matter to unexpectedly coming across a photo of something you fear, such as a snake or a spider, that many other people don’t find upsetting or frightening. Sure, the world isn’t all roses and unicorns, but the unmissable display of the elephant on the main page seems to be going out of its way to be deliberately vulgar.

Just because the world is crap a lot of the time doesn’t mean I want to unexpectedly come across images of death and injustice to “toughen me up”. I’d prefer it if the world could just stop being crap instead (not likely, I admit, but it’s the hope that counts).

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In the past BB used to frequently post such stuff “After the jump” - so you’d click to see more, if you were interested in the topic - I guess we don’t have the attention span or time to click through anymore, so to help the image is right there on the home-page.

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to “toughen you up” would seem to imply to dull you, or to make you think less about these things. but the contrary can also be the case, no? sometimes a shocking confrontation with reality helps realizing things that we otherwise would choose to ignore. although I do admit that lynching elephants is still not one of my primary concerns when it comes to social issues.

take a look at the gallery of pulitzer price winning photographs. trigger warning: there’s a whole lot of gruesomely murdered humans in there. most of these are from conflicts that at the time nobody in the western public was aware of or liked to talk about until around the time these photographs showed up. if the trigger warning squad had been in charge at that time, maybe there wouldn’t even have been a protest movement against the vietnam war (not that i compare that to a hung elephant, gruesome and senseless as that is, I abhor peta).

thankfully, we have a broad consensus today that censorship is a bad thing. curiously a new flavour of censorship attempts has appeared not for religious or for (apparent) political reasons, but to protect peoples’ good feelz.

some people have mental issues or sicknesses or have been hurt, and need to protect themselves, I get that. but I think most people from the trigger warning squad don’t really have any serious issues. they demand the right to live in a bubble, and there is no such thing. as if the western world and by extent its middle class kids wouldn’t be living in more than enough of a bubble already. unless someone is seriously ill, these bubbles need to be popped, people need to be forced to face the social issues of our time. edit: like an elephant lynching in 1916.

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Hung like an elephant,eh? It turns out my wife wants me dead after all!

There is a grey area between the walled palace and enlightment. I would say this story is more sickening than it is enlightening.

What about humanity did you learn from the story, that you didn’t already know?

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