Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Warriors Against Rational Choice - Kangaroo Edition

Every once in a while, something appears on the scene that really makes you stop and wonder what on earth could have gotten into someone to do something like that. Most people in Ireland will have seen the story at this stage of the kangaroo let loose in a Dublin nightclub as "Skippy" plays on the sound system. This is just baffling. Like the recent incident of the people who stole a penguin from Dublin Zoo and released it in O'Connell street, it looks very much like something that people thought of as funny while stoned. However, particularly in the case of the Kangaroo, they would have had to follow up and execute the plan. Think of the possible chain of events. Some guy is sitting staring vacantly into space when his eyes light up and he starts to laugh. The basic germ of an idea has been established. "I will steal a kangaroo and let it loose in a nightclub". I can see at first glance why this fleeting thought might be humorous for a minute but surely then it must just pass off into the realm where all such ideas usually dwell. It is very unlikely that the person could have executed this idea alone. So the person formulates the idea in a little more detail and then explains it to someone else. This is when the amazing thing happens - the other person (possibly people) agrees that this is a good idea. They then have to actually precure a kangaroo, which I know is not as impossible at it first appears as it seems we do have some kangaroos in Ireland. But surely it is not completely trivial both to find one and to devise a method of claiming it, transporting it and so on - it is trickier than letting the neighborhood dog loose. All of this process must have taken sufficient time for at least some doubts to be raised about whether this was a sensible thing to do e.g. its cruel to the animal, the animal might go mental and really hurt someone, its illegal and we might get arrested, its a lot of bloody hassle and its not that funny a joke. Yet still they bring the full plan to fruition, culminating in the release of an unfortunate animal into a Dublin nightclub, which are disturbing enough places to be for humans never mind the poor kangaroo. The serious side of the story is that it appears from reports to RTE that the animal died afterwards and it is plainly bloody stupid on an amount of levels to do something like that. Whoever they are, perhaps we are fulfilling their wishes by even focusing on them but they have definitely earned a place in the WARC archives.

4 comments:

Liam Delaney said...

technically I am breaking the rules here by confusing rational choice with ethical choice - these guys in some sense appear rational as they carried out a plan to fruition and technically speaking I can't judge their tastes, risk preferences, levels of altruism and so on.

Kevin Denny said...

One has to wonder what was going through their minds: were they unaware of what this might do to the animal or simply indifferent? Either way it was unspeakable.

Michael99 said...

Nice account of a fairly sad/disturbing story.. though on the plus side at least "Nellie the Elephant" wasn't their song of choice..

Liam Delaney said...

"In the jungle the mighty jungle .....oh bleedin jaysus"