All of which makes Vint Virga's project — sustaining that illusion, by incremental changes in how the animals are treated — seem more than a little quixotic. Last August, the Costa Rican government announced it was closing all its zoos. The new policy, the government declared, was "no cages." (A court ruling has so far kept the zoos open.) I think we're moving slowly toward the same sensibility. In 25 years, there will likely still be some way for Americans to see exotic animals. But I will be pretty surprised if those places have cages, mirrors, smoke machines, and conference-room tanks for 12,000-pound whales. There may be nature preserves. But it seems to me that we're pretty rapidly reaching the end of the era of the modern urban zoo

Last August, the Costa Rican government announced it was closing all its zoos

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that in some way the animals understand that the world around them is an artificial one, that these phobias and psychotic episodes represent reactions to that artifice, or subversions of it.

A giraffe who freaks out about men with large cameras, a brown bear whose cage door is the subject of his obsessive compulsive disorder, a 5,000-pound killer whale who shows her trainer who is boss by dragging him underwater for just about as long as he can live, before letting him go

In the first two years of her life, my daughter has seen more of the savannah, via National Geographic's website, than I did in the 30-plus years before she was born

I think these fabrications comprise a great deal of what zoos depend upon, and what has begun to fail: a kind of double illusion, in which the people are convinced that they are seeing animals in something like their natural state and the animals, most of whom have never lived in the wild, are convinced that they are at home

Samuels also visits the set designers who fabricate the present-day exhibit spaces, and learns about the tricks they employ to make the enclosures seem more realistic: smoke machines, "half-slivered" mirrors, native American trees that kind of resemble those in postcard versions of the Congo

But I found

Now we understand that animal cognition and social behavior is for many species pretty sophisticated, and there is a new form of intelligence to define ourselves against: Not what makes us different than a chimpanzee, but what makes us different than Siri? Perhaps this is pushing us toward a closer identification with the animals and helping to shape some of the discomfort with zoos

For a very long post-Enlightenment period, human beings asked themselves what made them different from the apes, and fixed on logic and reason as the highest human characteristics; zoos were a way to engage that question while emphasizing that there was a great distinction indeed.

t got attention mostly for a discovery Samuels made, in the archives, that the leading figure in the early history of the Bronx Zoo was a eugenicist propagandist named Madison Grant who corresponded with Hitler, and saw his work at the Zoo in the same vein, as rescuing the perfect form of a species before it declined. (Grant once exhibited a human pygmy named Ota Benga at the Zoo; crowds of 40,000 greeted Ota Benga by jeering and poking him; eventually, he committed suicide.) The Grant story caught on in part because it highlighted what is anachronistic about zoos.

"This is the worst thing I've seen in a long time," Virga says.

He spends time alone with the giraffe so she might grow comfortable with him, feeds her branches when visitors are around so she grows more comfortable with the scenario. He teaches zoo technicians how to medicate animals without freaking them out. Occasionally, for the most stubborn cases, he prescribes Prozac.

A giraffe develops a compulsive fear of men with large cameras. Halberstadt writes, "Disorders like phobias, depression and OCD, documented at zoos, don’t appear to have analogues among animals living in the wild

But most of the issues are hard to imagine arising in the wild. A brown bear develops a form of obsessive compulsive disorder, repeatedly, almost ritually, smashing his head into a metal door in his enclosure. A harbor seal is uneasy about being treated by the vet

Libby can be kind of a jerk," a zookeeper tells Virga, speaking of a quarrelsome sheep — no wonder other sheep have been fighting with her.

Called in by zoos to assess a psychologically troubled animal, he tries to understand the source of the stress and alter it

a gentle soul with some weenie strains.

though whether that actually happens still seems a little unclear to me — but this was a more modest case, that zoos are doing much less harm to animals than they once did, that they deserve credit for being re-conceived from the zoo animal's point of view. As for what the zoo animal's point of view is, that's the province of Vint Virga, the behaviorist subject of the Times Magazine piece.

Zoos have changed incredibly in the past thirty years," a second-generation zoo director named Mark Reed tells Halberstadt. "These days, moats and glass have replaced cages; there are education departments and conservation initiatives. And full-time vets, antibiotics and better diets have doubled and in some cases tripled animals’ life spans in captivity.” Zoo advocates tend to argue that exhibiting animals leads to a stronger conservation movement

Soon, state legislators in California and New York introduced bills making it illegal to keep orcas in captivity. SeaWorld's profits took a hit; CNN and the Times started musing about its long-term viability as a business; protests mounted. But the case against SeaWorld always seemed a little narrowly construed. If it was an abomination to keep a killer whale in a tiny cage, then why was it okay to keep a polar bear in a similarly restrictive enclosure? Sure, SeaWorld's marketing is particularly crass, but if the basic problem is that intelligent, social animals are being kept in inhumane conditions that may be driving them insane, then shouldn't that same principle apply to other species, too? It's hard to think that SeaWorld should be put out of business and not have complicated thoughts about the National Zoo. You can't just stop at the orca; you've got to consider the orangutan

If you were in a bathtub for 25 years, don't you think you'd get a little psychotic?"

hat film's subject is Tillikum, a 12,000-pound male killer whale who had been for years a star attraction at Sea World, a celebrated run that ended when he attacked and killed his trainer immediately following a live show.

ut the whole animal captivity picture began to look decidedly more grim and less defensible (to me, and also to lawmaking bodies) in 2013, with the release of the sublime documentary Blackfish.

Madagascar and Planet of the Apes,

afety, mostly, and access to medical care, and the presence of a team of trained professionals who work very hard to entertain and engage you

one million times the territory that they do in captivity, and zoo polar bears suffer all kinds of pathologies and maladies

One long-term 1983 study of animal mortality at the San Diego Zoo found cannibalism and infanticide, widespread malnutrition, and frequent deaths from tranquilizer use. (An online summary is included in the essay here.

the zoo eradicationists tend to cite a somewhat melodramatic Rilke poem about a panther caged in a Paris zoo: "It seems to him there are / a thousand bars; and beyond the bars no world"

My daughter is not quite 2, and the zoo brings out all of her best and least complicated emotions — awe, delight, empathy

I realize that to even raise this issue makes you sound like some kind of sour, rule-bound vegetarian, so let me make clear my position up front: I love zoos.

whether there is a good reason for zoos to exist at all.

the psychological lives of their animals.

A more united Earth

Everyone connected is part of the next chapter in the story of humanity. All of us have a chance to write it together. A united Earth is coming.

Everyone connected is part of the next chapter in the story of humanity

The problems of every nation shall be our problems — but so will the opportunities and solutions that we can all build together. Every leader, movement, business and organization has a chance to harness the power of this planetary community to move the entire world forward.

But for the very first time in history, instead of listening to leaders speak on behalf of the world, the world shall speak for itself.

Change creates new tensions and problems in society, which must be carefully managed — or progress can be easily reversed

This will not be a utopian future. As millions of people begin to work together to advance a new world, many more will remain mired in the old.

Now technology gives us the chance to take the next big step — to build one great human community

We began as bands of hunter gatherers. But one day we came out of the plains of Africa to make the world our own. Our communities have never stopped growing in size and complexity.

The history of humanity is a story of people coming together in new and different ways

So this is how the internet is uniting the world — in thought, action and institutions

The institutions of the planetary community undoubtedly remains its weakest aspect

ut these movements are organized, and they endure. And that makes all the difference.

barely more than highly organized movements. But these movements are organized

And some of the most powerful institutions of global collaboration are built on the power of the crowd — with weak hierarchies and emphasis on individuals choosing how to contribute to shared missions. Wikipedia or Ushahidi, the crowd-mapping and reporting tool, are perfect examples.

Where multinational corporations once defined global trade and enterprise, the internet has enabled a new class of ‘micro multinationals’ — small, highly dispersed teams of skilled individuals working across borders to build products and companies

ke Avaaz, Amnesty International and Global Citizen have

The internet has no president or parliament. It has no armies or central bank.<img class="progressiveMedia-noscript js-progressiveMedia-inner" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*AezeNHPJR50wa5LAVVhltA.jpeg">Concept for the International Flag of Planet Earth. This ain’t happening anytime soon.But these are the wrong things to look for. The institutions of the future bear little resemblance to the past, because we are dealing with a new form of human community.

The internet has no president or parliament. It has no armies or central bank

They help articulate and defend global interests with a greater voice than any individual or one-off moment.

Institutions are instruments for long-term change

For change to endure, action must assume a stronger and more permanent form

Certainly, many of these acts of change are momentary. After a brief surge, movements disintegrate. The internet’s attention moves on.

And even if other causes attract less attention, fundraising and awareness campaigns for global issues from climate change to Ebola all depend on the internet

And for every effective campaign, the internet is now an essential part of the strategy

n 2008, a 33 year-old engineer called Oscar Morales created a Facebook page, One Million Voices Against FARC, to protest against the Colombian terrorist group. Over the next month, hundreds of thousands of people from around the world Liked his page and joined his movement. And in February 2008, millions of people marched in more than 100 cities worldwide to demand that FARC come to the negotiation table. They did

They did.

Liked

for refugees and fighting intolerance against them.The internet has also shown its ability to demand dramatic political change.

As politicians admitted, it was this single image — amidst a vast humanitarian crisis — that pushed governments to act. And the internet itself mobilized using hashtags such as #refugeeswelcome and #refugeecrisis, raising funds for refugees and fighting intolerance against them.

This summer, the tragic image of a drowned Syrian boy mobilized the internet to demand action on the refugee crisis.

All these individual acts of compassion are changing people’s lives. But the internet also drives action for much larger causes.

The extraordinary story of Abdul, the Syrian refugee, is repeated almost daily thanks to online communities. In July, donations poured in for a Filipino schoolboy pictured doing his homework on the streets. A crying Greek pensioner, unable to withdraw money during the debt crisis, was sponsored by a generous Australian. A New York bus monitor received more than $700,000 from 30,000 people in 84 countries after a YouTube video showed her being bullied

The extraordinary story of Abdul, the Syrian refugee, is repeated almost daily thanks to online communities.

And far from simply generating empathy, the internet is mobilizing action.There are countless examples, large and small, of what this looks like.

There are no more faraway countries.

Where mass movements once stood for local or national interests, now online communities are moved by global interests far beyond people’s immediate lives and communities.

ound. But th

This summer, hundreds of thousands of Europeans demanded action on the #refugeecrisis. For Pride Month in June, more than 26 million people changed their Facebook profile pictures to support the LGBT community.

And the internet is shaping culture.

At moments of crisis, the internet erupts in solidarity — at moments of joy, in celebration.

A century ago, Britain and France were lobbing shells at German soldiers on the frontlines of Europe. Today, online friendship networks tie together millions of Brits, French and Germans, and countless other peoples with historical enmity.

w.

g. B

But here’s what we know.

Prague is not so distant now.

ith more than 80 million photos shared daily

With Facebook and Twitter, you can build friendships and relationships that cross borders, and share news and information from anywhere. With Instagram, you have a real-time window on the world,

First, the internet is changing the way the world thinks.In 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain famously declared German aggression towards Czechoslovakia as “a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing.”Prague is less than 800 miles from London.Today, planetary scale internet services allow us to connect with people everywhere to a degree never previously possible.

Prague is less than 800 miles from London.

Global empathy leads to global interests

Planetary thinking

And as the international community descends into chaos, a rising planetary community is changing lives and communities everywhere — and bringing the world together

As the internet drives social and economic progress, it strengthens the middle class in all nations and brings them into a global middle class, connected by shared tools and knowledge.

This is how the internet creates the foundation for a more united world.

But the internet isn’t just serving the existing middle class — it’s expanding it. Research by Deloitte also finds that if more people were connected in developing countries, 160 million people could escape poverty, 140 million new jobs be created and 600 million children receive education.

Throughout history, the middle class has been the greatest driver of social, economic and political change. The middle classes are opposed to the inequitable concentration of power and resources, against violence, and supporters of civil liberties and the rule of law.

Certainly, the international community has never seemed more divided since the Cold War.

How does a post or a Like stack up against the armies of ISIS, or a column of Russian tanks?

The internet is uniting the world. And it’s going to change all our lives

one example of a much larger global shift taking place today.

as big as the global population in 1960. It crosses every border and culture

On August 25, a Syrian refugee was photographed selling pens on the streets of Beirut, clutching his sleeping daughter.

internet creates the foundation for a more united world

As the internet drives social and economic progress, it strengthens the middle class in all nations and brings them into a global middle class, connected by shared tools and knowledge. And as the international community descends into chaos, a rising planetary community is changing lives and communities everywhere — and bringing the world together

Around 1.5 billion people use Facebook, more than a billion people use Google and 900 million people use WhatsApp.