Dumb Bitch Climbs Into Polar Bear Pen, Nearly Dies

HotShotX

HotShotX

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If you ever needed a photo image as to the kind of person dumb enough to be eaten by a bear:

BERLIN, Germany (CNN) -- A polar bear attacked a woman at Berlin Zoo Friday afternoon after she climbed a fence and jumped into its habitat during feeding time, police said Saturday.

art.polar.bear.jpg
The bear attacks the woman during feeding time at the zoo.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/04/11/polar.bear.attack/index.html#cnnSTCVideo

One adult polar bit her several times after she plunged into the moat, police said. Zoo workers tossed rescue rings toward the woman to hoist her out and distract polar bears swimming nearby, said Goerg Gebhard, a Berlin police officer.

"They saved her life," Gebhard told CNN.

The woman was severely injured and was being treated at a hospital, police said. It's unclear why the woman entered the bear habitat, but police issued her a citation for trespassing.
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Pity. Would have been a good Darwin Award Candidate.

~HotShotX
 
Maybe she's mentally ill? Luckily you decided not to wait for more information before you called her a dumb bitch.
 
best thing on CNN today is this woody harrelson quote: "With my daughter at the airport I was startled by a paparazzo, who I quite understandably mistook for a zombie,"
 
[quote name='rickonker']Maybe she's mentally ill? Luckily you decided not to wait for more information before you called her a dumb bitch.[/quote]

Dumb Bitch / Mentally Ill, I think at the end of the day, when you're nearly eaten by a polar bear because you chose to hop over a clearly marked fence, the minor details really don't amount to much.

But, let's assume she was mentally ill, where the hell was her handler / caretaker? Also, for a "mentally ill" person, she certainly found those life rings rather effectively once she realized her little "adventure" wasn't going to be as kickass as she "thought" it was going to be.

Dumb or Retarded, this situation shouldn't have happened, I do believe some criticism is in order.

~HotShotX
 
why's it okay to make fun of stupid people but not really stupid people?

we all have different levels of cognition.. yet for some reason it's okay to mock someone with an IQ of 71 but not someone with an IQ of 69


i disagree with hsx on that she deserves to be mocked, but i agree with him that it shouldn't matter whether or not she was "mentally ill".. "mentally ill" just means she's really fucked in the head, the only difference between a "mentally ill" person and a jackass worthy of ridicule is the extremity of their deficiency.. so why draw any sort of political correctness line between the two?

you can say it's not their fault, the mentally ill, but is it an idiot's fault they're dumb?
 
[quote name='HotShotX']Dumb Bitch / Mentally Ill, I think at the end of the day, when you're nearly eaten by a polar bear because you chose to hop over a clearly marked fence, the minor details really don't amount to much.

But, let's assume she was mentally ill, where the hell was her handler / caretaker? Also, for a "mentally ill" person, she certainly found those life rings rather effectively once she realized her little "adventure" wasn't going to be as kickass as she "thought" it was going to be.

Dumb or Retarded, this situation shouldn't have happened, I do believe some criticism is in order.

~HotShotX[/QUOTE]

I agree that the situation shouldn't have happened, but if she was mentally ill and her caretaker was somewhere else, who deserves the criticism?

[quote name='Koggit']why's it okay to make fun of stupid people but not really stupid people?

we all have different levels of cognition.. yet for some reason it's okay to mock someone with an IQ of 71 but not someone with an IQ of 69


i disagree with hsx on that she deserves to be mocked, but i agree with him that it shouldn't matter whether or not she was "mentally ill".. "mentally ill" just means she's really fucked in the head, the only difference between a "mentally ill" person and a jackass worthy of ridicule is the extremity of their deficiency.. so why draw any sort of political correctness line between the two?

you can say it's not their fault, the mentally ill, but is it an idiot's fault they're dumb?[/QUOTE]

I draw the line between 1) people who understand there are huge drawbacks to doing something like this and do it anyway, and 2) people who do it without being able to understand that or who have some other mental problem which impairs their decision-making ability. The latter is what I mean by "mentally ill". So it's not as simple as "stupid" vs. "really stupid", because both #1 and #2 are commonly described as stupid, although I see a real difference between the two (even if the line isn't always clear).

It has to do with a reasonable expectation of responsibility, not political correctness.

This probably applies even among people you know. Do you call your friends stupid just for having a low IQ, or do you call them stupid when they do something dumb and you think they "should've known better"?
 
Perhaps she was trying to feed the bears... herself.

[quote name='Koggit']best thing on CNN today is this woody harrelson quote: "With my daughter at the airport I was startled by a paparazzo, who I quite understandably mistook for a zombie,"[/quote]
Haha, oh wow.
 
[quote name='KingBroly']That picture looks like a really bad photoshop.[/quote]

Perhaps, but then in the "real" photo what would cause someone to give off that expression in the water?

That's right. Alligators....or sharks.

Big improvement, right? Either way, the accompanying video shows this is very likely no 'shop.

~HotShotX
 
[quote name='rickonker']Maybe she's mentally ill? Luckily you decided not to wait for more information before you called her a dumb bitch.[/quote]

If you climb into a polar bear cage, mentally ill or not, it's a sign of natural selection in action.

Stupid fucks rescued em... had to go and fuck with nature.
 
[quote name='rickonker']This probably applies even among people you know. Do you call your friends stupid just for having a low IQ, or do you call them stupid when they do something dumb and you think they "should've known better"?[/QUOTE]
i think the point is "should've known better" never applies.

"should've"?

=\

i disagree. can i do that? can i disagree with the word "should've"?

the point is people are born, people think, people do. at what stage do you assign personal blame? you don't blame a retarded person for the way they think, but you blame a more intelligent person for having a similar thought?

this gets a little philosophical in "do we control what we think, and if so, in which manner can we change it?" but that's a separate issue: my argument is not that it's unfair to assign blame for a thought, but rather that it's unfair to have a double-standard for stupid people and really stupid people. IQ of 70 is the threshold for mental retardation... but that's pretty arbitrary. a person with an IQ of 85 is half-retarded, so to speak, and constitutes about 15% of the world. is that 15% held to a different standard than the retarded 2%? if so, what about the next 5% lower? if not, what about the next 5% higher? where do you draw the line, and why is there is a line at all?
 
[quote name='mykevermin']Can, I too, join the judgmental-despite-a-lack-of-facts club?[/quote]

I doubt somebody pushed them in, so my comment stands.

Enter a bear cage, that's called natural selection.
 
[quote name='HotShotX']Dumb Bitch / Mentally Ill, I think at the end of the day, when you're nearly eaten by a polar bear because you chose to hop over a clearly marked fence, the minor details really don't amount to much.

But, let's assume she was mentally ill, where the hell was her handler / caretaker? Also, for a "mentally ill" person, she certainly found those life rings rather effectively once she realized her little "adventure" wasn't going to be as kickass as she "thought" it was going to be.

Dumb or Retarded, this situation shouldn't have happened, I do believe some criticism is in order.

~HotShotX[/quote]

Who do you blame though? You clearly can't blame the bear. I mean, it's clear to me that the bear wants something at 16 seconds of the video, and it ain't food.
 
[quote name='KingBroly']Who do you blame though? You clearly can't blame the bear. I mean, it's clear to me that the bear wants something at 16 seconds of the video, and it ain't food.[/quote]

You know what though? I'd like to now propose a more logical question:

When a cheetah chases down and eats a gazelle, who do we blame?
When two male lions fight and one kills the other over a mate, who do we blame?
When a smaller fish unknowingly comes within range of a bigger fish and is eaten, who do we blame?

I know a human is involved in this, but quite frankly the laws of nature still apply. Do we really care in the above examples who is to "blame"? Humans themselves have a soft spot for saving those (and rightfully so, i.e. preservation of the species) who are much more prone to death, but at some point, in your 100 efforts to preserve the life of yourself or another, 99 will succeed.

So, who's to blame? I think that's the wrong question to ask here. Both creatures survived the encounter, but which one is ailing much more in survival instinct and genetics?

~HotShotX
 
[quote name='Koggit']i think the point is "should've known better" never applies.

"should've"?

=\

i disagree. can i do that? can i disagree with the word "should've"?

the point is people are born, people think, people do. at what stage do you assign personal blame? you don't blame a retarded person for the way they think, but you blame a more intelligent person for having a similar thought?

this gets a little philosophical in "do we control what we think, and if so, in which manner can we change it?" but that's a separate issue: my argument is not that it's unfair to assign blame for a thought, but rather that it's unfair to have a double-standard for stupid people and really stupid people. IQ of 70 is the threshold for mental retardation... but that's pretty arbitrary. a person with an IQ of 85 is half-retarded, so to speak, and constitutes about 15% of the world. is that 15% held to a different standard than the retarded 2%? if so, what about the next 5% lower? if not, what about the next 5% higher? where do you draw the line, and why is there is a line at all?[/QUOTE]

I already answered this question. I'm not using the 70 IQ standard. I explained where I'd draw the line.
 
[quote name='Koggit']i think the point is "should've known better" never applies.

"should've"?

=\

i disagree. can i do that? can i disagree with the word "should've"?

the point is people are born, people think, people do. at what stage do you assign personal blame? you don't blame a retarded person for the way they think, but you blame a more intelligent person for having a similar thought?

this gets a little philosophical in "do we control what we think, and if so, in which manner can we change it?" but that's a separate issue: my argument is not that it's unfair to assign blame for a thought, but rather that it's unfair to have a double-standard for stupid people and really stupid people. IQ of 70 is the threshold for mental retardation... but that's pretty arbitrary. a person with an IQ of 85 is half-retarded, so to speak, and constitutes about 15% of the world. is that 15% held to a different standard than the retarded 2%? if so, what about the next 5% lower? if not, what about the next 5% higher? where do you draw the line, and why is there is a line at all?[/quote]

I don't understand your complaint. It's the difference between inability and irresponsibility. The distinction is made there, not between "stupid" and "really stupid." People don't generally base things off of IQ numbers, those are just so that people can have a seemingly-objective measure for classification. Most people would judge based on an assumed level of normality or a comparison of past and present decision-making.

The difference in treatment is based on the belief that a person who is "mentally ill" (in this context) is less capable of controlling their behavior/analyzing a situation than someone else, so they shouldn't be held to the same standard as someone who is. It's the same reason why you wouldn't hold an 8-year-old responsible for following the rules in a lease - you don't believe they are capable of making that kind of decision or understanding its consequences.

And also, you don't blame people for thoughts, you blame them for actions - you have a person who is capable of making a better decision and doesn't compared to a person who is incapable of making a better decision and doesn't. It's obviously not something that clear-cut or easily determined, but treating people with different levels of capability differently makes sense.

[quote name='xycury']why don't we fence the bears in so it's impossible how stupid you are, you're not getting in.[/quote]

Why do we capture dangerous animals and have people walk around looking at them? It's not really the best idea in the first place, but I think they base their precautions on keeping the animals from attacking the people rather than keeping people from jumping in with the animals. They probably try to keep the fencing to a minimum to make it more "natural." You don't want a fence obstructing your view of polar bears in their artificial natural habitat.
 
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alright, i'll try this again, staying away from intelligence since that seems like a bit of a hot button.

i agree with you in one respect: our judgment depends mostly on our expectations. i agree with it, but argue that it really isn't fair.

my point is, simply, a person acting is proof enough that they thought they should. it doesn't matter why they thought they should, does it? they did it, so obviously they thought they should do it. saying someone "should've known better" is baloney, in my view... that's just a way of saying "i didn't expect them to do that". the person could not have done things differently. beyond thinking, they cannot control how they think, they can only think.

if you, like most people, have had a moment where forethought lapsed, think back to the mistake you made: how could you have avoided it? by thinking more? by thinking differently? how could you have known you should have thought more or differently? do you really think you could have come to a different conclusion, if not for some fundamental mistake you had control over?

if i wake up tomorrow and, for some reason, it feels like a good idea to jump in a polar bear pit.. why would those actions be any more my fault than if they had been done by someone who has such ideas every day?

i understand the need for fault & responsibility in order for society to maintain order, and i understand that it'd be rather inhumane to hold the insane & retarded to the same standard as the rest of us, but at the same time it feels unjust to make distinctions between "really insane, too insane to have responsibility for actions" and "insane enough to do stupid shit, but not insane enough to avoid fault".

we hold on to these ideas of fault & blame and allow illogical exceptions only because we need it this way for society to operate. i don't object, really, i just observe.
 
My guess is that when we understand better how the human brain works, it will be more obvious that there is a distinction to be made.

If I understood SpazX right, he and I had similar responses to you Koggit, so I'm not sure how else to explain it to you.
 
I was saying pretty much what you were rickonker, just in a more long winded way I'm sure.

[quote name='Koggit']alright, i'll try this again, staying away from intelligence since that seems like a bit of a hot button.

i agree with you in one respect: our judgment depends mostly on our expectations. i agree with it, but argue that it really isn't fair.

my point is, simply, a person acting is proof enough that they thought they should. it doesn't matter why they thought they should, does it? they did it, so obviously they thought they should do it. saying someone "should've known better" is baloney, in my view... that's just a way of saying "i didn't expect them to do that". the person could not have done things differently. beyond thinking, they cannot control how they think, they can only think.

if you, like most people, have had a moment where forethought lapsed, think back to the mistake you made: how could you have avoided it? by thinking more? by thinking differently? how could you have known you should have thought more or differently? do you really think you could have come to a different conclusion, if not for some fundamental mistake you had control over?

if i wake up tomorrow and, for some reason, it feels like a good idea to jump in a polar bear pit.. why would those actions be any more my fault than if they had been done by someone who has such ideas every day?

i understand the need for fault & responsibility in order for society to maintain order, and i understand that it'd be rather inhumane to hold the insane & retarded to the same standard as the rest of us, but at the same time it feels unjust to make distinctions between "really insane, too insane to have responsibility for actions" and "insane enough to do stupid shit, but not insane enough to avoid fault".

we hold on to these ideas of fault & blame and allow illogical exceptions only because we need it this way for society to operate. i don't object, really, i just observe.[/quote]

I think you're either oversimplifying behavior or have a much more deterministic outlook on it, which is why we're coming to different conclusions.

People don't usually do things just because the idea popped into their head. If somebody thinks about an action they want to perform they certainly can change their minds about doing it. And it is entirely possible that thinking about something a little more can be the difference between making a mistake and not. That's actually the main way that people make the distinction between maturity and immaturity or responsibility and irresponsibility. People can also not do things they think they should and they can do things they think they shouldn't.

The "should've known better" part is about more than simply expectations, but about the level of understanding a person has about the consequences of their actions. Like I was saying before, the reason why people make a distinction in fault between someone with a mental disability and the average person, or between children and adults, is because the groups being compared have different capabilities of understanding consequences.

When someone performs an action that has a negative consequence (for themselves or others) it can either be because they don't understand that there will be that consequence or because they do and they choose to do it anyway. When someone does understand or is capable of understanding that there will be a negative consequence and performs that action anyway, that's when people would say they "should've known better" - they either knew it was going to happen or acted without using their capabilities to understand it. And others would come to the conclusion that the person did/could understand the consequences by asking them, comparing past understandings and present actions, or through assumption. There are a million reasons why somebody might perform an action with a negative consequence that they're fully aware of - they don't have to have any mental disability. So again, the distinction isn't between the stupid and really stupid, or insane and really insane, but between those who can understand the consequences of their actions and those who can't. It's not that people can't make mistakes in determining who fits in what group or that there's absolutely no in-between, but the distinction is between those two general groups of people and that's how fault is determined.

The only ways that there is no distinction are if you think that everyone is always at fault, that nobody is ever at fault, or that simply performing an action with negative consequences is proof that a person is incapable of understanding those consequences - and therefore they aren't at fault any more than someone with a defined mental disability. From my understanding of your argument, it seems to be going more with the third option, which I think is an oversimplification of motivation and behavior.

I've probably written too much again.
 
it's not wholly deterministic, just unavoidable. it's not that events cause events, it's just that a person will decide what they decide regardless of any sort of free will. "free will" is a human construct and, when you really think about it, it's down right cruel to judge in a world without it.

that's really where the disagreement seems to be: do we control our actions. i like to avoid the idea of fate when possible because it implies that events (and all cognition behind them) have been predetermined.. that's not my stance, i view them as undetermined but immutable. a person who believes in fate believes a murderer is destined to make the mistake of murdering, i don't believe in any sort of destiny but am of the opinion that the murderer could not have prevented the murder.

thinking back on my own mistakes, i can't see any way to avoid them. a person can't make themselves think differently, even if it were possible for them to know they should...
 
[quote name='Koggit']"free will" is a human construct and, when you really think about it, it's down right cruel to judge in a world without it.[/QUOTE]

Without free will, why bother labeling any action as "cruel"?
 
I think everyone is missing the real reason she went in there.

She was either thirsty for a Coke, or hungry for a Klondike bar.
 
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Has there been any followup?

The last I heard was that the woman was trying to make friends with the bear. That doesn't tell me if the woman was crazy, stupid, both or neither.
 
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