How To Argue With Someone Who Says 'Pandas Deserve To Die'

A baby panda was born last week at the National Zoo. The National Zoo, and many people not associated with the Zoo, celebrated, because the panda is a very endangered animal and has become an emblem of the conservation movement, and it is very difficult to get pandas to produce surviving offspring in captivity. But because it is 2013, and because it is easier and garners more pageviews to be boldly wrong than boringly right, many internet publications and people who like to argue began a well-trodden argument: the panda deserves to die.



Breeding pandas is "prolonging the existence of a hopeless and wasteful species the world should've given up on long ago," writes Timothy Lavin in Bloomberg. After the death of a panda named Hsing-Hsing, in 2009, David Plotz of Slate wrote: "Pandas are not ill-natured. They are worse: They are no-natured. Drearier animals you cannot imagine. They are highly anti-social, detesting interaction with other pandas and people." Plotz concluded, "Good riddance to the semi-bear." Brian Barrett and Sam Biddle, phenomenal writers both (and friends and former coworkers of mine, full disclosure), wrote in Gizmodo that "Nature has made it clear in no uncertain terms that pandas need to die. Now."

READ MORE AT: https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-08/how-argue-someone-who-smirkily-says-pandas-deserve-die

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