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A virus isn't comparable to people hijacking planes and flying them into buildings. For one thing, it should be easy to prevent the latter whereas it's far fro

A virus isn't comparable to people hijacking planes and flying them into buildings. For one thing, it should be easy to prevent the latter whereas it's far from clear whether there's much we can do about the former.

mellow2020 7y ago
> A virus isn't comparable to people hijacking planes and flying them into buildings. Being dead is absolutely comparable with being dead though, no matter what lead there. It's the absence of a person that matters, to the people who miss them, not what people removed from that think about it in the abstract. I lost my father through a completely stupid accident, made possible through carelessness on his behalf I think. If he had been murdered by someone, I would have felt a lot of hate, and that would have sucked and damaged me no doubt -- but the grief of missing someone is still the same, and I'd say the difference between murder and an accident are both tiny pebbles compared to a person being gone. Even if he had died to save 1000 million people, I would miss him exactly the same.
- leftyted 7y ago
  Denying that we can make worthwhile distinctions between different ways that people die is absolutely nonsensical. If a serial killer murders your father, we're going to react differently than if your father dies of a heart attack.
  - mellow2020 7y ago
    > If a serial killer murders your father, we're going to react differently than if your father dies of a heart attack. What matters, to me, is that I can no longer speak to a person. How that came about is very, very minor compared to that. Even knowing that we all will die some day does not change the simple, banal, them-shaped gap someone leaves. That gap is what remains, what created it does not. I'm just speaking for myself, but that I do. How and why people die is no doubt very important when it comes to very removed people using tragedies, which was very much the case with 9/11. For them it's the other way around: the gap never really mattered and is soon utterly forgotten, while that evil deed none of us most forget remains as long as it's useful. I remember families of victims speaking out against war after 9/11, and mostly being ignored by a nation angry on their behalf. The dead were exploited more than honored, if you ask me.

mellow2020 7y ago

> A virus isn't comparable to people hijacking planes and flying them into buildings. Being dead is absolutely comparable with being dead though, no matter what lead there. It's the absence of a person that matters, to the people who miss them, not what people removed from that think about it in the abstract. I lost my father through a completely stupid accident, made possible through carelessness on his behalf I think. If he had been murdered by someone, I would have felt a lot of hate, and that would have sucked and damaged me no doubt -- but the grief of missing someone is still the same, and I'd say the difference between murder and an accident are both tiny pebbles compared to a person being gone. Even if he had died to save 1000 million people, I would miss him exactly the same.

leftyted 7y ago
Denying that we can make worthwhile distinctions between different ways that people die is absolutely nonsensical. If a serial killer murders your father, we're going to react differently than if your father dies of a heart attack.
- mellow2020 7y ago
  > If a serial killer murders your father, we're going to react differently than if your father dies of a heart attack. What matters, to me, is that I can no longer speak to a person. How that came about is very, very minor compared to that. Even knowing that we all will die some day does not change the simple, banal, them-shaped gap someone leaves. That gap is what remains, what created it does not. I'm just speaking for myself, but that I do. How and why people die is no doubt very important when it comes to very removed people using tragedies, which was very much the case with 9/11. For them it's the other way around: the gap never really mattered and is soon utterly forgotten, while that evil deed none of us most forget remains as long as it's useful. I remember families of victims speaking out against war after 9/11, and mostly being ignored by a nation angry on their behalf. The dead were exploited more than honored, if you ask me.