3 ms·

This is called the fallacy of relative privation. You can't dismiss the lived experiences of people simply because someone has it worse. It doesnt matter if t

This is called the fallacy of relative privation. You can't dismiss the lived experiences of people simply because someone has it worse. It doesnt matter if theres a genocide going on in every single country in the world - its still going to hurt when you get dumped, cheated on, fired, break your leg, get in a car accident, suffer a loss in the family, etc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_relative_privation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_relative_privation

akiselev 11y ago
I wasn't dismissing anyone's pain or suffering outright, I was simply responding to an absolute assertion of fact ("Words are the most hurtful things there are", emphasis mine). The GP's post said unequivocally that offensive speech is worse than everything else and I found that to be a very selfish and ignorant statement, entirely disconnected from a reality where hundreds of millions of people don't so much as have access to clean drinking water (literally an order of magnitude more than there are college students in the United States [1][2]). I'm not saying that one group's suffering is irrelevant just because another's is more dire and life threatening, I'm just trying to put things into perspective in the face of a ludicrous statement. [1] http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372 http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372 [2] http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2012/drinking_water_20120306/en/ http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2012/drinking_w...