3 ms·
We have and we haven't. There's been a lot of apathy about the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, interventions in Syria and Libya etc which have resulted in the deaths
by throwawaylinux 5y ago
We have and we haven't. There's been a lot of apathy about the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, interventions in Syria and Libya etc which have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands probably millions of people. Millions of children dying of easily preventable diseases. If we dismiss that and say oh well we're not sensitive to deaths of others, only our fellow countrymen that's also not true. Deaths caused tobacco, obesity, alcohol, and drugs cause an entire COVID pandemic of deaths every 9 months or so, ongoing, forever (in the US). Even deaths caused by flu kill one of those 50k wars worth of people every couple of years and people are pretty blase about that. Staggering gun murder rates among black American communities (often times I see these discussed it's dismissed with "oh that's mostly gang related"!!).
So I don't think we're necessarily all that sensitive to death, although we I suppose if it's highly publicized and pushed (like war deaths or non-gang-related murders). We're much more sensitive to fear, which is perception of risk (which obviously includes mortality), but it is also very strongly driven by the amount and tone of news coverage, politicians, social media, etc.
Not to comment on the merits of the response to covid or any of these other issues or whether fear is justified, but the reason why economies were shut down for covid was because of fear not deaths.