# Human beings are worth more than Gorillas

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-beings-are-worth-more-than-gorillas/756203>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [June 1, 2016, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-beings-are-worth-more-than-gorillas/756203 "2016-06-01T01:34:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 65

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![spamforbrains](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@spamforbrains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spamforbrains)\
**Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-beings-are-worth-more-than-gorillas/756203/65 "2016-06-02T02:49:34Z")

</div>

> [@](#):
>
> If an adult human were endangering the kid and there was no likely way to stop that adult he would have been shot also. In this case the species of the animal shot was irrelevant, and it has nothing to do with their comparative worth.

Now this is a good point, unlike most of the rest of the inane comments.

If you think about it, though, there are very few gorillas left. The loss of a single healthy adult male gorilla is a devastating blow. The loss of a small child in a world teeming with people? Not really much of a problem. The loss of a healthy young adult vigorously contributing to society is a bit of a problem. The loss of a troubled teenager who has been committing crimes since he was 11 isn’t much of a problem. The loss of a healthy adult bull with prize qualities of an extremely rare breed is a problem.

It doesn’t have anything to do with sentience or species; it’s all about rarity and value. Unfortunately, humans are not rare and human children are not valuable except to their parents even when viewed through a human-centric lens. I’m sure your Disney-esque sensibilities will be offended by these statements.

---

_[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-beings-are-worth-more-than-gorillas/756203)._