Daniel Butler
I'm a Singapore where is my boat
Member # 1689
posted
Well, agree to disagree on this one. It depends a lot on definitions too. I mean, like Nim basically said, try defining love.
Registered: Jul 2005
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Teh PW
Self Impossed Exile (This Space for rent)
Member # 1203
posted
i went out on a date yesterday eve... after a hour fiaco at Starbucks (where is she?)[In the Car, nervous](why didnt she call?)[She texted you twist, dumb shit but the phone was in your pocket with the tomtom which abosorbs vibrations when you engroosed on yuotube, you stupid dumb shit!], we waited an hour for to see 'teh expendables' which ended up being 5 good guys vs 5 bad guys instead of the 10 good guys vs the planet. still glorious mindless violence... and after the giggles and laughter, when we parted... and i got home, traded textes making sure we both gots the home safes... i got into the house, to be interogated by Trouble, who thought [We going out/you gonna make a hamjd sandwich for me to share/ kitty crack 4 me?]...
im pretty sure lady just perked her ears, listened, lawned then went back to sleep...
quote:Well, agree to disagree on this one. It depends a lot on definitions too. I mean, like Nim basically said, try defining love.
What I said was that when it comes to that, we are more like animals than animals are unlike us. It might seem trivial to you but in social anthropology, it's certainly a big deal. ;
But the main point here was "What's the big fuss about one cat, when humans are more important?". That's a bit of a blind spot, it's only half of the issue in this case. What if it hadn't been an old lady, but a 30-year old kindergarten teacher? What if the garbage bin had instead been a lidded waterfilled barrel? And what if this wasn't the first time?
What affects people in news like this isn't just the victim but the perp, hence the picketing outside her house. Lack of empathy is a really bad road to go down, especially when combined with disgust towards trusting creatures, too often these are a gateway to sociopathy. That's why animal rights organizations have an important part to play in society (even though they get portrayed as soft and melodramatic by some), because they are just as much protecting humans as animals, by confronting and holding to account behavior that, if unchecked, lessens us as a group. [/sermon
As for people not caring about human suffering in the news, that's media desensitization, one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century.
Registered: Aug 1999
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Teh PW
Self Impossed Exile (This Space for rent)
Member # 1203
posted
or simple mathmatics...
as long as Mother Nature/the bad guy with the gun & loose morals/evil dictator bent on world reconstruction keeps reminding us that, regardless of our so-called high morals & belief systems that we estemm to achieve, survivors of the fittest will still toss all your religious devices into the fire to keep it going during the zombie fail-nation/dead-to-the-world/aliens attack...
but yeah, nobody cares what happens in Boreno... they are too busy worried about whats going on Boreno Street...
quote:Originally posted by Nim: As for people not caring about human suffering in the news, that's media desensitization, one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century.
Read some early 19th century papers sometime- lovely photographs of bullet riddeled bodies propped up like prize-winning fish trophies.
We may actually be more sensitive than we were back then- if only because most of the murders we wintess are not real.
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
I do remember seeing a few news photos of executed mexican freedom fighters (and the excited people posing with them), but what I meant specifically was media desensitizing viewers/readers, not themselves. News shows and magazines have covered misery and tragedy in developing nations for empathy value ever since the 1970's tv revolution (mostly thanks to Vietnam), but instead part of the population loses the ability to differentiate between countries and tragedies, simply writing off all of asia and africa as "hopeless" and ignoring it from then on, subconsciously or not.
This phenomenon stems partly from the fact that there are relatively few solutions being showcased in daily foreign news, you'd have to look into very specific monthly news literature to see constructive articles (detailing projects and programs) regarding the developing nations.
On the destructive side, I remember a particularily reckless broadcast from Fox news a few years ago, where Bill O'Reilly embraces and even promotes indifference regarding third world problems, saying to his guests (paraphrased) "If I have to watch one more clip of brown people crying to the camera about something, I'm going to puke".
quote:We may actually be more sensitive than we were back then- if only because most of the murders we wintess are not real.
I'm not sure that's the main cause, but yes, I'm sure there are more humanitarians alive today than any other century, between better education, higher living standards and freedom of thought (coinciding with the slipping grasp of the church as a domineering institution).
But assuming simulated murder (in books, theater, movies and TV) makes us conscious of it in a positive way, would you then say that video games improve people's humanity?
(for the record, I don't believe games create murderers, what few deaths there have been through games like Counterstrike and World of Warcraft have come from frustration, jealousy and "sore loser" rage, and those people would've done the same thing if they got cheated out of a trophy in a dart contest too, the computer game is not the culprit)
Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
While I certainly dont thnk games or movies cause people to commit murder or violent crimes, I do think that when people see images of real bloodshed they have no empathy or careing over it- not when they've seen graphic sadism through the lens of things like the Saw movies.
On a possibly related note, there were two incidents of gun violence wherein teens used machine guns to indimidate others- leading to a stray shot shooting a mother in her own home. The shooting incident was several teens waving guns at each other's faces and threatening to shoot each other- leading one to go get an AK-47 and up the ante.
Registered: Aug 2002
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Teh PW
Self Impossed Exile (This Space for rent)
Member # 1203
posted
I had a feeling someone would link that. Part of me was holding off on linking it until news of identification and manhunt of the responsible had come up, but like the soldier who threw a puppy over the side of a cliff and that asian girl who stepped on a kitten's head with her stiletto heel, they probably won't be found.
Registered: Aug 1999
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Teh PW
Self Impossed Exile (This Space for rent)
Member # 1203
posted
Evil is always easier to be than Good. Why do you think Evil thrives in 3rd world countries?
posted
I have a amail-person: and she's succulent and beefy. All that walking makes those calves a prime cut, methinks.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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