Lions, swarming migrants, and offensive tweets

The latest target of the internet shaming machine is a hunter who killed an African lion. Don't these people realize that if the lion lived, it would have hunted and killed other animals?

Or that tourism, including hunting trips, is a major incentive for countries like Zimbabwe to preserve lions?

Reuters reports that no one in Zimbabwe even cared about that lion. "Are you saying that all this noise is about a dead lion? Lions are killed all the time in this country."

Here in California, we have too many mountain lions as a result of anti-hunting prejudices. The more lion hunting, the better.

Also offending people was this:

A human rights group has condemned David Cameron's description of "swarms" of migrants, calling his language "irresponsible, dehumanising" and "extremely inflammatory" as desperate migrants continue to attempt the dangerous journey across the Channel to the UK.

The Prime Minister, speaking from Vietnam as part of his tour of South East Asian nations, said migrants illegally entering the UK would not be offered a "safe haven" and reassured British holiday-makers that authorities would ensure they had a “safe and secure holiday”.

But his comments were condemned by the Refugee Council, who criticised the PM's "irresponsible, dehumanising" language as "extremely inflammatory".

Cameron will reveal himself to be a cuckservative if he apologizes and allows name-calling to intimidate him into making UK a safe haven for the migrants.

There was just a TED Talk on internet shaming:

Twitter gives a voice to the voiceless, a way to speak up and hit back at perceived injustice. But sometimes, says Jon Ronson, things go too far. In a jaw-dropping story of how one un-funny tweet ruined a woman's life and career, Ronson shows how online commenters can end up behaving like a baying mob — and says it's time to rethink how we interact online.

He described IAC firing Justine Sacco, but gave only the weakest defense of her. In essence, he argued that the humiliation of her for an un-funny tweet was excessive.

No, her tweet was funny. And it was clearly meant as a joke. It included "just kidding". She should be congratulated. Twitter is intended for clever jokes like hers.

Pseudoscience philosopher Massimo Pigliucci defends Islam and Communism:

all we need to do is to look at the relatively recent comparative history of Islam and other Abrahamic religions to be convinced that there isn’t anything especially pernicious, in the long run, with the former when compared to the latter [11]. ...

It would seem, then, that Maher & co. simply haven’t bothered to study history, and that it is a combination of social, economic and political factors that is creating a special problem for Islam in the contemporary world ...

Take, for instance, the rise of “communist” countries during the 20th century, particularly Stalin’s Soviet Union and Mao’s China. Unlike, say, nazism and fascism — which I think truly are irredeemably bad ideas — communism as developed by Marx and Engels [12] is not even close to being in the same ballpark. It may be unworkable, and even undesirable, but it isn’t intrinsically evil.

He has a lot of leftist opinions, and badmouths everyone else as being ignorant or worse. I have occasionally commented on his site, but nearly always either blocks my comment or denounces me as being ignorant or wrong. Here was my last blocked comment, and I am posting it here because because he does not allow this sort of criticism on his site:

Yes, Islam and Communism are intrinsically evil, as much as nazism and fascism. You found something that Sam Harris is right about. Just look at the history of countries dominated by those beliefs. Tell me if you would want to live in any of them.

MacDonald and Ayme explain some of the problems with Islam. None of that applies to Christianity, as Labnut explains well. Alex tries to rebut that by saying that Jesus cursed a fig tree! Just compare the Jesus and Mohammed stories and you will see that one of them was a monster.

Saying "the quotation game can easily be played" is just a way of denying the established meanings of the Bible and Koran. Just look at how those books are taught. Christians are taught to love their enemies. Moslems are taught that suicide bombers get a free ticket to heaven.

I don't know how someone can be a philosopher and be so hostile to other views.