11 replies to this topic

[General]

I am thinking about this for a long time but after I see the reactions of my fellow citizens on the flood subject in Istanbul which killed around twenty persons.
So my point is :

Aslong as I know; approximately every second a people die for various reasons and this make up : 86400 in a day, so why should I care about 20 if I should not care about those thousands of persons ! And I find the comments of those who act like they care not sincere.

Edited by Gabriel Angelos, 09 September 2009 - 16:35.

[Ghostrider]

It's hard to mourn for someone you don't know, as you never establish a connection to that person. Therefore it doesn't make a difference in your life if they die or not.

The reason it's worse than most deaths is that the majority of people die from old age, sickness, etc. while these people taken by the flood died before their time.

[General]

Ghostrider, on 9 Sep 2009, 17:41, said:

[color="#FFA500"]It's hard to mourn for someone you don't know, as you never establish a connection to that person. Therefore it doesn't make a difference in your life if they die or not.

Thats what I mean, you think people who act like they care is actually care ? I mean look at what they do after one minute when the conversation is over, thats why I tend to not make a comment on such events, peoples over-reacting for a minute then at the following minute they are cheerful, maybe thats what makes life so good and bad at the same time

[Sgt. Nuker]

Ghostrider, on 9 Sep 2009, 12:41, said:

It's hard to mourn for someone you don't know, as you never establish a connection to that person. Therefore it doesn't make a difference in your life if they die or not.

The reason it's worse than most deaths is that the majority of people die from old age, sickness, etc. while these people taken by the flood died before their time.

To add to your last statement, it's the number of people that were killed in that instant, be it 20 or 200. Gabriel's statistic, while it varies, is likely that it's 86,400 spread around the world and it's likely only one person in a specific area. Therefore the one's to care are those who were family or friends to that person.

Dying of sickness or other non-natural causes can be considered "before one's own time", particularly if that person be an infant or "young" (those in their 60's and 70's are still young).

[Golan]

Quote

You know what I noticed? Nobody panics when things go "according to plan"…even if the plan is horrifying. If tomorrow I tell the press that, like, a gang-banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics...because it's all part of the plan.

While only few people are truly aware of their mortality and that of those around them, most have an understanding of what is a natural death - mainly, everything that is more or less predictable. Your statistic of 86400 deaths per day is a good example. However, when things don't go according to plan or statistic, it shows people that they might not have the statistically average 30 years left to handle their affairs and that whatever plan they have can get screwed in an instant.

I dare say that most people (as in 95%+) don't even get remotely close to mourning over such things, but it isn't an issue I want to offend anyone with.

[Ixonoclast]

We humans are tribal animals. Our "love" only extends to a "reasonable sized" tribe, of around 100 people.

You don't care what happens to people outside your "friend tribe".

Sure, you don't like it when people die in place X, but that's your brain thinking, not feeling.

It'll take either a couple million years or some years in the laboratory before we can really start caring for humanity as a whole.

[Major Fuckup]

people only care about people they know who died pure and simple

[Ion Cannon!]

Ixonoclast, on 10 Sep 2009, 0:27, said:

We humans are tribal animals. Our "love" only extends to a "reasonable sized" tribe, of around 100 people.

You don't care what happens to people outside your "friend tribe".

Sure, you don't like it when people die in place X, but that's your brain thinking, not feeling.

It'll take either a couple million years or some years in the laboratory before we can really start caring for humanity as a whole.

That won't ever happen. If we reacted like we had lost a loved one anytime there was a natural disaster or the like we would end up being a wreck most of the time. If your a wreck, you can't do many jobs effectively. For the purpose of being able to live properly, while we care - we don't really care, and never will.

[BeefJeRKy]

Obviously when a tragedy occurs, it would be inhuman to simply brush it off as if nothing happened, but neither should anybody enter a depression that affects his lifestyle.Even if say a sibling or parent was involved in said tragedy, one shouldn't carry on the mourning such that his life cannot carry on as normal. My point is that as humans, we can express our emotions and to an extent care about each other, but if we really do care about each other, we let life progress as normal.

[General]

Scope, on 13 Sep 2009, 23:31, said:

Obviously when a tragedy occurs, it would be inhuman to simply brush it off as if nothing happened,

Why should I be inhuman just because I do not act like I care about someone I never knew died, maybe he/she deserved it, I can't know that. Problem is and what I am really talking about is; People who ' act like they care ' but they actually won't, just in their words, I can see that very clearly and thats what annoys me, and oh , for sure that doesn't means you can't be sadden for someone you don't know die, you may but that occurs not so often, and it can be understood if someone really cares or not.

[BeefJeRKy]

Yes I know what you mean. People who update their facebook status when some celebrity dies and/or mope for a week. For example during MJ's death. I loved that man's music and was disheartened to think I'd never be able to see him perform live. But after that I was fine. A couple of my friends claimed to be depressed

But when something like 9/11 or the 2004 tsunami happened with such massive loss of life, I couldn't help but feel a mild grief upon the massive loss of life. Of course life went on for me as usual, but if I told someone about this and simply answered me with a meh, I would feel suspicious.

[deltaepsilon]

I think most of us have become generally apathetic to these kind of things simply due to the fact that they happen so often. There's no doubt there is some degree of grief and sorrow with incidents of mass death and suffering, but there's always going to be a couple of deaths that you'll hear about in the daily news, and due to their frequency, you get used to ignoring them (to a degree) and not letting them affect you too hard.

Edited by deltaepsilon, 27 September 2009 - 03:30.