Today something truly terrible happened.

My heart goes out to the families of those 31 killed in the bombings and the 300 wounded. Don't forget to tell your friends and family that you love them.

Oh, the death count is up to 64 =/

a 9 man shebab suicide squad attacked mogadishu court house.

Not funny Piggy. People dying in Boston and in Mogadishu shouldn't be something you make a sarcastic thread about. Grow up.

Even if i do agree with dead piggy's point at hand. I must condone the method of exposing it.

Although, strictly speaking, it's quite impossible to explain, without being a little rude, that people are dying every day and no one usually gives a damn about it until it's in their backyard, without actually exposing it bluntly when it occurs.

Also, warlight forum might not be the best place to engage in these debacles. People come here to play games read silly rants, not talk about who has the biggest real death tolls.

I wasnt being sarcastic.

Although, strictly speaking, it's quite impossible to explain, without being a little rude, that people are dying every day and no one usually gives a damn about it until it's in their backyard, without actually exposing it bluntly when it occurs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kin_selection

Like Somalians give a fuck about Bostonians.



What in fact is abhorrent about it is the media vultures whose pupils turn into $ $, and the bathos which narcissists feel the need to telegraph all over Facebook etc.

i'm pretty sure you could find some somalians which, when properly explained the situation that occured in boston, would manage to empathise for the friends and families of folks involved. personal tragedy doesnt make people indifferent to tragedies occuring to others. in some cases it might make them sad and bitter that no one cared about their tragedy while everyone seems to care about someone elses, but that doesn't take away empathy. if anything, it enhances it: since it has happened to me, i can understand better why you would be devastated by it occuring to you.

Read the link, baby. It's the selfish gene, not the empathetic individual.

subconsciously favoring the more known does not imply a total disregard for the less known.

There's a missing factor in the Hedonic Calculus. Luckily we fill in the gap instinctively. You would rather save an animal than a plant, a mammal than a reptile, your child than a distant cousin. A compatriot than a foreigner. It's okay to admit.

Also [chuckle] at A Man's response - there's nothing to indicate irony in Piggy's post, but someone giving a fuck about Africans? Has to be a joke! It's a beautiful troll when it is the trollee who is shown to be the ugly one. Bravo.

subconsciously favoring the more known does not imply a total disregard for the less known.

Firstly, it's not subconscious - try answering the questions in the last thread. No, the one does not imply the other: my statement about the lack of fuck-giving is a posteriori rather than a priori. We each have but a few fucks to give, one must prioritise.

Here's what happens when one tries to give more fucks than one humanly can: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_R._Price#Helping_the_homeless

It is an evolutionary fact that the fuck demand outstrips the fuck supply. Rations are rational. Humanist logic isn't, sorry atheists! :'(

And trust me, Somalians have even fewer fucks to give about Bostonians than vice versa.

Price gave away all his fucks to the homeless. The homeless kept the fucks they had to themselves, and in fact gave anti-fucks about him. Humanism and logic are often mutually exclusive. Life's a very funny proposition, after all.

all priorities are subjective to context. although what you're saying is obvious: most of our genes tell us to when in danger one saves yourself first, then maybe the ones we care about, then others who we might empathize with.

but it does not preclude that you wouldn't care a rats ass about saving others if it happened to cross your path.

some people simply don't care about strangers, they are too busy caring about themselves first. others might even care but are unsure their help wouldn't actually just prolong or exacerbate the problem.

others just feel like they need to help whenever they can. it's also a personality trait. most of these folks end up in medical, firefighter or charity/shelter programs.

regardless, it's all still subjective to context.

for example a person who didn't give a damn about helping others could quickly donate to a cancer research program once one of their parents got cancer.

why the hell are we still discussing this anyways?

Well I'm discussing the evolutionary theory of altruism as it relates to conventional notions of morality, because I find it fun*. I'm not sure what you're discussing or why. You provide a helpful illustration of the logical fallacy that is referred to as "straw man", though.

You said that it was impossible to explain, without rudeness, why more fucks are given about intra-backyard deaths than inter-backyard deaths. I gave what I hoped would be a sufficiently polite explanation, but suddenly "what [I'm] saying is obvious". Read the other thread, it certainly isn't obvious to Aranka et al.

I was having fun until it transpired that you are too dense to follow an argument. I prefer to construct an argument than to deconstruct one. Where's Gui when you need him?


*It becomes significantly less enjoyable when the tiresome word "subjective" is introduced to the conversation.

oh, you're one of those. nevermind then, have a good life.

Like you understood a word I said. Are French people born this way or do you have to take classes?

Catty Kitty

Please read the following. I believe that I make some good, un-yet-spoken points on this subject.



Okay, my response to many of the earlier posts is that while, yes, it is terrible that innocent people were killed and wounded, the main issue is that it was an attack on American soil.

For example, in the 9/11 attacks, as catastrophic as the deaths were and the loss of the World Trade Center was, the main thing that kept people up at night was that people hijacked American planes and made an attack on America itself.

The smallest battles in WWII that nobody has ever heard of might have caused more people to die and more destruction than the 9/11 attacks. The American economy wasn't temporarily crippled because people died or two buildings fell over, but that the entire American population felt truly unsafe and exposed for the first time in literally generations.

guys lol ,this is a conspiracy by the zionist media lol

-jmoney

Today I learned about the word 'bathos'. Thank you kitty for expanding my vocabulary one rant at a time.