(I'm new and I saw complaints about new commenters being dickish, so I'm gonna preface this by saying it might seem callous but I'm still trying to give my practical take without being unkind. If i miss the mark, holler! This has been driving me nuts so I'm still chewing on it.)
The migrant shipwreck and the missing sub were both horrific…
(I'm new and I saw complaints about new commenters being dickish, so I'm gonna preface this by saying it might seem callous but I'm still trying to give my practical take without being unkind. If i miss the mark, holler! This has been driving me nuts so I'm still chewing on it.)
The migrant shipwreck and the missing sub were both horrific tragedies.
I can't speak to media coverage, but (again as a layperson, experts correct me) if you put a gun to my head, I would want to be assigned the missing sub rescue/recovery 1000000%:
"Five identified victims, all in the same place, with a known travel plan and known resources and a rough timeline for survival. If they're alive rescue will be technically challenging, but if they're not, we can provide closure to their families"
vs
"Overloaded ship with unidentified 350-500 individual souls, no way to triage dehydration/crush injuries/etc, probable panicky crowd dynamics, little/no flotation devices per person, which is important because again, we cannot confirm how many victims need assistance or how many bodies need to be retrieved"
Look. I KNOW I'm being mean and callous, but I just feel like one of these disasters was a lot easier to manage than the other disaster, and I don't really think the logistics came down to wealth or race, yknow? It's a lot harder and a lot grimmer to manage a rescue of a few hundred people than it is to attempt a rescue of a few people.
Amy, I would also like to extend a welcome. Your honesty and forthrightness is refreshing. I think we've gotten a lot of trolls lately, probably drawn in by the circumcision discussion. The usual pattern is that they come and go pretty quickly.
Thank you both -- I was a little nervous that I'd been too Firm in my opinions over the last couple of days, but I've been lurking a while and really enjoying the conversations. ❤️
Welcome. Isn’t it a refreshing thing to be able to post an opinion? Now that I’ve alienated all my former social media friends by being “on the wrong side of history”, I find this group to be generally respectful and open minded.
Yes, one feels more like a movie and one feels depressingly real. Also, one feels fun and exciting and has a simple solution (find the submarine thingy!) and the other has no good solution.
I don't think it's mean or callous at all. I think it's valuable to consider these things which surely factor in. I also wondered what kind of reporting could or should be done from the ground in that situation. It wasn't that it wasn't covered here.
I hope you don't have the sense this is a particularly sensitive community. That you even prefaced your comment like that means that you probably won't, say, respond to anyone asking if they're a "retard." Welcome!
I think I had a little attack of nerves because actively engaging in an established community can be a little stressful - you want to calibrate to the existing ecosystem without causing too many waves. 😅 You guys have been great!
Not 'dickish' at all (hello, I'm pretty new, too) and a very measured take. There was an excellent article (academic) on reactions to danger, I think it was centered around the Charlie Hebdo attack, and some were saying 'why so much concern for a small space of journalists when ISIL is in Tunisia, etc.' or similar. What Katie surmised was right, that location is a factor; people are going to empathize most what they're familiar with, include geographically and culturally. And as you say, the magnitude of tragedy. Both are tragic, but 5 is a more cognitively manageable loss than hundreds, including dozens of children, both hard to imagine/bear, but the latter more so.
If I were a young healthy man, I’d choose the ship, especially since my financial prospects, should I survive, would be much better in Europe. If I were a sixty-something billionaire, well shoot. I’d buy a yacht! But if given only two choices, I’d go for the submersible.
Oh God, i was originally thinking "which rescue operation would i have wanted to be involved with".
If it's "which situation would I personally want to participate in" yeah, if I was a young and very fit man, maybe the ship?
The submersible?
Personally, no victim blaming or shaming at all: you could not have physically gotten me into that thing. (I feel the same about all extreme tourism, this isn't me trying to Be Smarter than the victims, I just grew up on all the Death In [Park] books and a family member saying "if you fuck up in the wilderness, expect a helicopter in 12-36 hours IF weather and terrain permit," so my immediate response is always "okay sure, sounds fun, and if everything goes wrong, what does Plan B look like?")
Well yeah and anyway, come home safe from submersible and you have a photograph and maybe a teeshirt. Make it to Europe as a migrant and you have a whole new life. Lol that New Yorker article was saying travel wasn’t a transformative experience? She just chose the wrong type of travel lol
(I'm new and I saw complaints about new commenters being dickish, so I'm gonna preface this by saying it might seem callous but I'm still trying to give my practical take without being unkind. If i miss the mark, holler! This has been driving me nuts so I'm still chewing on it.)
The migrant shipwreck and the missing sub were both horrific tragedies.
I can't speak to media coverage, but (again as a layperson, experts correct me) if you put a gun to my head, I would want to be assigned the missing sub rescue/recovery 1000000%:
"Five identified victims, all in the same place, with a known travel plan and known resources and a rough timeline for survival. If they're alive rescue will be technically challenging, but if they're not, we can provide closure to their families"
vs
"Overloaded ship with unidentified 350-500 individual souls, no way to triage dehydration/crush injuries/etc, probable panicky crowd dynamics, little/no flotation devices per person, which is important because again, we cannot confirm how many victims need assistance or how many bodies need to be retrieved"
Look. I KNOW I'm being mean and callous, but I just feel like one of these disasters was a lot easier to manage than the other disaster, and I don't really think the logistics came down to wealth or race, yknow? It's a lot harder and a lot grimmer to manage a rescue of a few hundred people than it is to attempt a rescue of a few people.
Good take-- not at all "dickish."
Welcome!
Amy, I would also like to extend a welcome. Your honesty and forthrightness is refreshing. I think we've gotten a lot of trolls lately, probably drawn in by the circumcision discussion. The usual pattern is that they come and go pretty quickly.
Thank you both -- I was a little nervous that I'd been too Firm in my opinions over the last couple of days, but I've been lurking a while and really enjoying the conversations. ❤️
Welcome. Isn’t it a refreshing thing to be able to post an opinion? Now that I’ve alienated all my former social media friends by being “on the wrong side of history”, I find this group to be generally respectful and open minded.
Same. Too bad your posts do literal violence to trans kids though!
Firm opinions are welcome. As hominem attacks and low effort shit posting less so.
Yes, one feels more like a movie and one feels depressingly real. Also, one feels fun and exciting and has a simple solution (find the submarine thingy!) and the other has no good solution.
I don't think it's mean or callous at all. I think it's valuable to consider these things which surely factor in. I also wondered what kind of reporting could or should be done from the ground in that situation. It wasn't that it wasn't covered here.
I hope you don't have the sense this is a particularly sensitive community. That you even prefaced your comment like that means that you probably won't, say, respond to anyone asking if they're a "retard." Welcome!
I think I had a little attack of nerves because actively engaging in an established community can be a little stressful - you want to calibrate to the existing ecosystem without causing too many waves. 😅 You guys have been great!
Not 'dickish' at all (hello, I'm pretty new, too) and a very measured take. There was an excellent article (academic) on reactions to danger, I think it was centered around the Charlie Hebdo attack, and some were saying 'why so much concern for a small space of journalists when ISIL is in Tunisia, etc.' or similar. What Katie surmised was right, that location is a factor; people are going to empathize most what they're familiar with, include geographically and culturally. And as you say, the magnitude of tragedy. Both are tragic, but 5 is a more cognitively manageable loss than hundreds, including dozens of children, both hard to imagine/bear, but the latter more so.
If I were a young healthy man, I’d choose the ship, especially since my financial prospects, should I survive, would be much better in Europe. If I were a sixty-something billionaire, well shoot. I’d buy a yacht! But if given only two choices, I’d go for the submersible.
Oh God, i was originally thinking "which rescue operation would i have wanted to be involved with".
If it's "which situation would I personally want to participate in" yeah, if I was a young and very fit man, maybe the ship?
The submersible?
Personally, no victim blaming or shaming at all: you could not have physically gotten me into that thing. (I feel the same about all extreme tourism, this isn't me trying to Be Smarter than the victims, I just grew up on all the Death In [Park] books and a family member saying "if you fuck up in the wilderness, expect a helicopter in 12-36 hours IF weather and terrain permit," so my immediate response is always "okay sure, sounds fun, and if everything goes wrong, what does Plan B look like?")
Well yeah and anyway, come home safe from submersible and you have a photograph and maybe a teeshirt. Make it to Europe as a migrant and you have a whole new life. Lol that New Yorker article was saying travel wasn’t a transformative experience? She just chose the wrong type of travel lol