This viewpoint is misguided and inhumane, I’m sorry to say. We don’t get to pick and choose who’s lives have value, even if they do something risky or stupid.
I don’t see why I should then have a huge amount of sympathy when these people inevitably die.
I think there’s a difference between choosing whose lives have value and choosing who to empathize with. I’m not celebrating their deaths, but aside from the teen who was on there, I can’t say I feel much about it one way or another. They knowingly chose to take the risk, signing waivers saying that they knew the trip could result in death, and it ended badly.
Looking at it from a different angle, I can also see why people would be frustrated that an incredible amount of attention and resources are being spent on people who intentionally put themselves at risk for a pleasure jaunt, while if a fraction of that (on a per capita level) was spent on everyone who was at risk of dying from issues brought on or exacerbated by poverty, we’d be saving a lot of lives.
We don’t get to pick and choose who’s lives have value, even if they do something risky or stupid.
But isn’t that exactly what happens? Was there as much of a rescue effort to find the hundreds of missing Pakistani migrants who went missing off the coast of Greece last week? Was it even as widely covered in the media as 5 missing rich people in a sub? Have you even heard that they were missing before this comment?
What about the 5,000 missing and murdered indigenous women who disappear every year? Are we mobilizing the military to find them?
We absolutely pick and choose whose lives have value. That’s the problem.
Have you even heard that they were missing before this comment?
How could anyone who’s been on beehaw in the last few days not have heard about the Pakistani migrants?
How could anyone in this thread not have heard?
We absolutely pick and choose whose lives have value.
I don’t know who you mean when you say “we”. If you mean governments and power structures then yes, I agree and it’s one of the biggest flaws in our society. If you mean individuals, then yes, some people do, but it’s wrong to do so whether it’s billionaires, migrants, or anyone else. And I know a lot of people have a hard time with this.
We have to choose where to spend the limited material and human resources we have.
These people made their own bed. Those rescue resources were wasted on them. Don’t kid yourself that poor people in a boat accident would’ve got a 10th of that attention.
The US military spends 2 trillion a year. I’d much rather see those resources go into rescue operations than the opposite. Poor people in a boat should absolutely get access to the same resources, and the crime here is not that billionaires did, but that the migrants didn’t.
These weren’t people on the job, or people doing anything remotely necessary. This was a joy trip for spoiled richies, and I don’t see any justification for spending societal effort on it.
Not to mention rescue was most likely doomed from the start considering how far beyond the depth of any successful rescue, ever, that this was.
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This viewpoint is misguided and inhumane, I’m sorry to say. We don’t get to pick and choose who’s lives have value, even if they do something risky or stupid.
Ugh
Lol, on an individual basis, yes we do
Fair, let me amend…
We don’t get to pick who’s lives have value unless we want to be hypocrites and no better than “them”
I think there’s a difference between choosing whose lives have value and choosing who to empathize with. I’m not celebrating their deaths, but aside from the teen who was on there, I can’t say I feel much about it one way or another. They knowingly chose to take the risk, signing waivers saying that they knew the trip could result in death, and it ended badly.
Looking at it from a different angle, I can also see why people would be frustrated that an incredible amount of attention and resources are being spent on people who intentionally put themselves at risk for a pleasure jaunt, while if a fraction of that (on a per capita level) was spent on everyone who was at risk of dying from issues brought on or exacerbated by poverty, we’d be saving a lot of lives.
But isn’t that exactly what happens? Was there as much of a rescue effort to find the hundreds of missing Pakistani migrants who went missing off the coast of Greece last week? Was it even as widely covered in the media as 5 missing rich people in a sub? Have you even heard that they were missing before this comment?
What about the 5,000 missing and murdered indigenous women who disappear every year? Are we mobilizing the military to find them?
We absolutely pick and choose whose lives have value. That’s the problem.
How could anyone who’s been on beehaw in the last few days not have heard about the Pakistani migrants?
How could anyone in this thread not have heard?
I don’t know who you mean when you say “we”. If you mean governments and power structures then yes, I agree and it’s one of the biggest flaws in our society. If you mean individuals, then yes, some people do, but it’s wrong to do so whether it’s billionaires, migrants, or anyone else. And I know a lot of people have a hard time with this.
We’ll be sure to let the U.S. Coast Guard know about their lackluster presence in the Mediterranean Sea
We have to choose where to spend the limited material and human resources we have.
These people made their own bed. Those rescue resources were wasted on them. Don’t kid yourself that poor people in a boat accident would’ve got a 10th of that attention.
The US military spends 2 trillion a year. I’d much rather see those resources go into rescue operations than the opposite. Poor people in a boat should absolutely get access to the same resources, and the crime here is not that billionaires did, but that the migrants didn’t.
These weren’t people on the job, or people doing anything remotely necessary. This was a joy trip for spoiled richies, and I don’t see any justification for spending societal effort on it.
Not to mention rescue was most likely doomed from the start considering how far beyond the depth of any successful rescue, ever, that this was.