The value of human life

[Meshugger]

The reason that i care about a celebrity's death or the victims of 9/11 at the world trade center, is that i have cultural or imaginary bond with them, strengthened by my belief in the american dream about freedom and rock 'n roll.

 

I could care less about people dying in africa; there's people dying in my homecountry everyday as well, nor do i care a slightest about that either. I do not really think that many here really do.

 

Or maybe it is time for us to discuss which one's suffering is objectively worse than the other?

[Rostere]

I agree 100% with the OP. I sincerely don't care about whether a dead person is famous of not. Of course it is a different thing if someone you think is important would die. For example, if Michael Jackson, Tina Turner (lol! trying to come up with celebrities) or an to me unknown person in africa would die, I probably would not bother to read the news. If someone like Obama would die, I would probably read about it but I guess I wouldn't feel it was a great loss in any way. Then if a close friend would die I would be sad, but that is of course another story.

 

To be honest I don't really understand this "celebrity thing". Why do people care to read about famous persons?

[Blarghagh]

Wha the hell...distracted from... what?

 

Okay, you know what? You're right! I WAS distracted!

 

I mean, I was going to give ALL THAT MONEY to charity! And I forgot because I put on Thriller, a part of my youth's musical soundtrack! If it hadn't been for Michael Jackson's death, I would have helped children in Africa! I mean, I didn't give them anything! And I had my whole day planned on giving them SO MUCH.

 

 

 

 

 

Seriously, man. You disgust me (for purposes of this thread). You're using somebody's death to guilt people into your own agenda. It doesn't matter if it's a good agenda, because the end doesn't justify the means. For all your posing and posturing, you're using a strategy fit only for the worst of the species.

 

EDIT: Okay, so maybe I was a little harsch, but I'm keeping this post as I originally wrote it. A high horse begets people wanting to climb on even higher horses.

 

Not that it matters, because apparently Lord of Flies is only bothered by this being the case for Americans. And I'm not.

Edited June 29, 2009 by TrueNeutral

[Walsingham]

LoFler seems like my evil twin, constantly banging on the same drum.

 

Reading the other posts, it occurs to me that the point is that when a politician dies it can mean the end of certain developments in the outside world. They give us material leadership. hence if Obama died it would mean a lot, whether you agree with him or not.

 

I guess the point with an artist is that they form a crucial part of our personal development. Art changes what is within, rather than that which is without. So when they die, part of us dies with them, or never grows for want of them.

[213374U]

This thread does not belong to bourgeoisie clowns, it belongs to the people.

Lol

 

/sigged

 

 

LoFler seems like my evil twin, constantly banging on the same drum.

Yeah, your evil, trolling hypocrite and demagogue twin... that doesn't have a point.

 

Nah.

[Hurlshort]

Exactly, people connect with celebrities, and when that connection is severed it is a loss for that individual. There are plenty of celebrities I don't connect with, and it wouldn't matter much to me if they passed away. But I'm not going to tell someone who is feeling that loss that "kids are dying in Africa." Why don't you start protesting funerals next?

[lord of flies]

Threats to America you racist! Iran = big threat... Ethiopia v. Somalia... Maybe I've missed something but I don't know how this conflict is a bigger threat to America than the other events.

Yes, the Iranians will... what? Invade us? Shoot us with their nonexistent nuclear weapons? Iran is not a threat. Iran is not a threat. Iran is not a threat.

You give examples trying to back up your racist viewpoint and you mention Iran. LOTS of white people in Iran.

As time goes on, the classification "white" in the US has consistently gotten larger and larger. At first, it encompassed western europeans, much of the populous there was not considered "white," and ethnic conflicts were very major. Then we added "Irish" and "German" to the list of ethnicities which are proper whites, and we treated the Japanese as though they were white in 1905 (speaking internationally, of course). At present, Americans tend to see the world in two primary shades - white and brown. Persians are beginning to be considered "white" because of their light skin and moderately advanced country.

 

PS: technically arabs are white in America, even if folks don't tend to think of them that way.

Yet we spend so much money giving to foreign aid and we still have problems in the US. You are right though. We DO give way too much to foreign aid when we should be focusing more on our own back yard.

Yes, because rich Americans need money way more than people in Latin America do. :roll:

Not that it matters, because apparently Lord of Flies is only bothered by this being the case for Americans. And I'm not.

Your country was built on the backs of the people of Indonesia.

You think the problems can be solved by applying marxist formulas which to me make as much as sense as arguing we should solve world hunger by learning to photosynthesise. Can't be done with a mk1 human.

Of course, we see yet another person viewing my leftism as "Marxism." Marx was a big dumb baby. There, I said it. I am anti-imperialist, I am a socialist, but I am not a Marxist. His theories were built on false facts (bourgeoisie getting smaller as time went on) and ludicrous idealism. It took actual statesmen to make communism a cohesive ideology.

My top choice for helping Africa:

 

1) Prove that we can help a nation in real trouble by seeing through our commitments to Afghanistan.

My top choice for helping Africa:

1) Recognize the political and economic sovereignty of its peoples, and target aid at countries with better human rights records (rather than the other way around, like it currently works).

 

2) Stop the ****ing neo-colonialism in Afghanistan, killing civilians in droves in some vague idea of "war" and try to acheive some kind of non-victory scenario by replacing the tribal chiefs and fundamentalist government with tribal chiefs and a new fundamentalist government.

[Rosbjerg]

lord of flies, if you had actually thought this through for a moment you would realize that throwing money at Africa will have just as equally horrible ramafications as colonialism did.. you'll create a culture of dependency, which will for all intents and purposes be like economical slavery..

 

For starters, the biggest problem today with charity is that we simply dump obsolete (but still working) equipment on Africa (like tractors and medical equipment) in order to help them.. what happens of course is that these machines break like they always do, but now you have a piece of machinery which will be too expensive to repair, since the parts are no longer being produced, or are not readily available, and they will be thrown away - only to create a new problem -> pollution..

 

Imagine instead that you make it profitable for companies to invest in a country.. have them produce cheap and easy to operate machinery using old technology, which could be sold cheaply and directly to farmes and local companies, preferbly by producing them on site to create jobs.. then you help the local population by providing micro-loans, with favourable rents, which they can use to invest and build up their own buinsess, and pay back when they have a stable economy.. Now you have a foundation for a growing society instead of a system that mearly keeps people in poverty..

 

I very much for lending a helping hand to developing countries, but that helping hand isn't a crutch! the best way to heal a broken bone isn't by expensive medicine, it's allowing the body to heal itself..

 

Now this system needs to be guided and monitered so that companies don't exploit the poor (like we do with charity organisations already), but I believe that this is a much better way to help a country than simply giving them HUGE amounts of cash.. We've seen that dissapear into corrupt hands way too often anyway.

[Morgoth]

I totally agree with Rosbjerg. It should also be made more encourages for farmers, social workers, constrution workers, teachers, doctors etc. to send them down to Africa and teach the locals how to get their economy up and running. Of course you'd have to pay them 3-fold as much, but since employers are not even willing to pay our people enough for survival (a Chinese or Indian costs me 200€ less a month. Think of the profit!), I doubt this will ever happen.

Edited June 29, 2009 by Morgoth

[kirottu]

Hey, guess what, going into a thread where people are discussing the life and death of a public figure and pointing out that people die all the time doesn't make you morally superior, it makes you an insensitive douche.

 

The point of celebrity is that many people connect with them, trying to make people feel bad about that connection isn't necessary.

Every death is a tragedy, but the death of a bourgeoisie clown whose sole purpose in life is to distract the proles from the US' imperialism is not as bad as that of the African child whose father died mining Coltan so you could watch low-quality Youtube videos of Michael Jackson's song on your own computer.

 

You made me smile. Thank you. I like these kind of humor threads.

[Walsingham]

First off, I've checked and I owe LoF an apology for accusing him of being a marxist. I got confused by all the references to colonialism and capital, and conflated someone else's comment that you were one. I therefore apologise completely.

 

I stand completely by my comment about finishing in Afghanistan what we started. If we are going to experiment with helping a wartorn country let it be one that we helped tear! It will also help us learn some important lessons.

 

I don't believe good intentions are what Africa requires. You can pour as much aid money as you like into the place but so long as destruction is being wrought on a daily basis by gangs of youths, groups of guerrillas, and government officials then there's sod all point. What isn't wrecked will be siphoned off to finance further violence or nice homes abroad. Unfortunately this means an armed force. If Africans are going to do this themselves then there needs to be a tectonic cultural shift away from kleptocracy and general corruption in the ruling classes who govern the armed force.

 

I would elaborate but since LoF cavlierly disregarded my last attempt at clarity in the thread about warfare I shan't bother.

[alanschu]

It's not newsworthy because people aren't interested in hearing about it.

Wrong again. People might be interested in hearing that Michael Jackson is dead, sure, but bam, I just informed you that Michael Jackson is dead without distracting you for days from the world around you.

 

The fact that people are buying up and discussing the Michael Jackson news contradicts your statement.

 

 

It's been months since I last bought a video game, and I give most of my disposable income to charity. What now?

 

Then stop wasting the opportunity cost of spending time ranting on a message board, and actually do something about it.

[alanschu]

This thread does not belong to bourgeoisie clowns, it belongs to the people.

Lol

 

/sigged

 

 

LoFler seems like my evil twin, constantly banging on the same drum.

Yeah, your evil, trolling hypocrite and demagogue twin... that doesn't have a point.

 

Nah.

 

 

Perhaps by twin he meant "Polar opposite?"

[lord of flies]

lord of flies, if you had actually thought this through for a moment you would realize that throwing money at Africa will have just as equally horrible ramafications as colonialism did.. you'll create a culture of dependency, which will for all intents and purposes be like economical slavery..

"If you give people universal health care, you'll create a culture of dependency." "If you give people unemployment subsidies, you'll create a culture of dependency." Some things are worth the cost.

For starters, the biggest problem today with charity is that we simply dump obsolete (but still working) equipment on Africa (like tractors and medical equipment) in order to help them.. what happens of course is that these machines break like they always do, but now you have a piece of machinery which will be too expensive to repair, since the parts are no longer being produced, or are not readily available, and they will be thrown away - only to create a new problem -> pollution..

But the machinery was obsolete, so we'd have thrown it away otherwise??? This doesn't make sense...

Imagine instead that you make it profitable for companies to invest in a country.. have them produce cheap and easy to operate machinery using old technology, which could be sold cheaply and directly to farmes and local companies, preferbly by producing them on site to create jobs.. then you help the local population by providing micro-loans, with favourable rents, which they can use to invest and build up their own buinsess, and pay back when they have a stable economy.. Now you have a foundation for a growing society instead of a system that mearly keeps people in poverty..

Then the companies will use their enormous influence on local economies and their ability to easily manipulate the US congress and make them give concessions in terms of the locals' workers rights, et cetera. Then, when the locals inevitably realize the one-sidedness of their situation and rightly seize the industries, they will use their influence on the government to create yet another CIA backed coup.

Now this system needs to be guided and monitered so that companies don't exploit the poor (like we do with charity organisations already).

Like that'll happen :roll:

 

Honestly though, the problem is that USAID targets countries with jerkoff rulers. Why? Let me explain. USAID targets countries which are good places for corporations. Places without workers' rights and union suppression are good for corporations. Places without workers' rights and union suppression are generally ruled by corrupt kleptocrats. There. I explained it.

[Rosbjerg]

The US isn't the only country that provides aid you know..

[Walsingham]

Nice to see my apology was so graciously received.

[Blarghagh]

Not that it matters, because apparently Lord of Flies is only bothered by this being the case for Americans. And I'm not.

Your country was built on the backs of the people of Indonesia.

Indonesian backs is better than Native American blood, you arrogant, trolling sob.

[lord of flies]

Indonesian backs is better than Native American blood, you arrogant, trolling sob.

We were done with killing American Indians in 1890. Took you until 1949 to give up in Indonesia. Maybe you should think about that?

The US isn't the only country that provides aid you know..

Neo-colonialism is not the sole purview of the US, either, I just know more about it because I live there.

Nice to see my apology was so graciously received.

I accept your apology. There, happy now?

[Cycloneman]

LoFler seems like my evil twin, constantly banging on the same drum.

Let us suppose, for a moment, that I am a troll. I am obviously rather intelligent and aware of the game (if I do say so myself). As such, it seems to me that this hypothetical troll-me would actually be quite well informed of the game, perhaps even to the point of being a regular poster using a proxy. But which regular poster? Well, obviously, Walsingham.

 

Of course, I am neither Walsingham, nor a troll, so this thought exercise is useless... or is it?*

 

 

 

* It is.

[Rosbjerg]

If you give people universal health care, you'll create a culture of dependency." "If you give people unemployment subsidies, you'll create a culture of dependency." Some things are worth the cost.

 

Not the same, I pay for my universal healthcare by taxes - it's not goverment sanctioned charity..'

 

 

But the machinery was obsolete, so we'd have thrown it away otherwise??? This doesn't make sense...

 

Why dump it somewhere where they can't handle it instead of recycling it ourselves? it makes plenty of sense.

 

 

Then the companies will use their enormous influence on local economies and their ability to easily manipulate the US congress and make them give concessions in terms of the locals' workers rights, et cetera. Then, when the locals inevitably realize the one-sidedness of their situation and rightly seize the industries, they will use their influence on the government to create yet another CIA backed coup.

 

This is my fear as well, but it can be solved in an equally flawed way - create a civilian oversight comitte which is in turn overseen by the goverment, which is already overseen by civilians. Thereby drastically increasing the cost and difficutly of lobbying.

 

 

Honestly though, the problem is that USAID targets countries with jerkoff rulers. Why? Let me explain. USAID targets countries which are good places for corporations. Places without workers' rights and union suppression are good for corporations. Places without workers' rights and union suppression are generally ruled by corrupt kleptocrats. There. I explained it.

 

The fundemental problem of having goverments control foreign aid is that they will purposefully, or unintentially, look out for their own national and security interests.. By having private companies set up buisness you somewhat get around this issue, they are more interested in making money and keeping their customers and shareholders happy.. and bad press and corruption isn't they way to do that.. This of course requires 2 things, an independent media and public interest.

[GreasyDogMeat]

I was going to spend time... responding... but really, its just a waste of time. Flies is either trolling for kicks/social experimentation (Sasha Cohen - Borat) or (shudder) an extreme lefty who should move to France and be done with this awful country.

[Rosbjerg]

Or, better yet, he's actually trying to make you think about this issue and discuss it.. By deliberalty taking an extreme view to channel the discussions.

[GreasyDogMeat]

Like I said... Borat(ing).

[Rosbjerg]

Indeed you did..

 

 

Carry on!

[alanschu]

Given the commentary about the June 2009 thread, I'm skeptical that this is much more than trying to stir some ****.

 

 

Unfortunately the OP has stripped humanity from the discussion entirely, ironically while trying to educate those about the inhumanity of conditions in poor countries. Here's why people care about the deaths of celebrities more than the deaths in Africa. The celebrity has, in some way, contributing something to the life of that person. Whether it be entertainment, adulation, or whatever. Many people are affected by the death of Michael Jackson (a rich "white" guy I guess), because they grew up listening to his music. It's not a coincidence that, when I got home from work the day he passed, my roommate was watching the music video for Thriller. I stuck around and watched it too, because I have a ton of positive memories and so much nostalgia attached to it. My friends and I (whom I didn't even know until recently) can still bust out into the dance because we did it so much as a kid.

 

No disrespect to the many lives wasted in Africa, but I have zero context whatsoever for their lives. I haven't perceived them having any influence on my life at all, even if maybe they had. Tragic? Sure? But I'm not going to get self-righteous and begrudge people being affected by the loss of a celebrity. I went "oh" when Michael Jackson died, and watched a Thriller video since it happened to be on. That was the extent of it. Though I grew up watching copious amounts of Michael Jordan and he was my idol growing up, so I will probably be affected with a lot more nostalgia when he passes on.

 

 

Getting on the case of people mourning the death of rich white guys is disingenuous. I am completely unaffected by the death of that discovery channel guy, since he had zero impact in my life. I didn't even know he was dead, and he might as well be a young African child in my books.

Edited June 30, 2009 by alanschu