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How did you keep your focus on working for the last several years, while the war has been raging in Yemen? Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in

How did you keep your focus on working for the last several years, while the war has been raging in Yemen? Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in Yemen, with a millions displaced and starved to death - many orders of magnitude greater than the death and suffering that has taken place in Ukraine. Unfortunately it is because "new sources" generate your outrage and decide what you are going to focus on. This is not to say what's happening in Ukraine isn't a tragedy or that we all shouldn't be concerned, but it is to say that there are tragedies and wars raging around the world all the time that are far worse than what is happening in Ukraine today. Many are familiar with Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent" which details exactly this issue. If you are obsessed with Russia's war on Ukraine and barely give a passing thought to the much more deadly and horrific Saudi/US war on Yemen you ought to consider why exactly that is.

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chinathrow 5y ago
> How did you keep your focus on working for the last several years, while the war has been raging in Yemen? Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in Yemen, with a millions displaced and starved to death - many orders of magnitude greater than the death and suffering that has taken place in Ukraine. My question was about recent events - I am not diminishing any other wars ever stated, at all. Disclosure: I am a pacifist.
jacquesm 5y ago
None of those tragedies as you call them had the direct potential to turn nuclear based on the threats of one of the parties involved.
adventured 5y ago
> How did you keep your focus on working for the last several years, while the war has been raging in Yemen? Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in Yemen, with a millions displaced and starved to death - many orders of magnitude greater than the death and suffering that has taken place in Ukraine. Your entire premise is fraudulent: of course all people do not matter to all people equally the same. Family, tribe, city, state, nation, culture, ethnicity, race, class, religion. People choose to care about other people based on such qualifications as a matter of routine throughout all of history, it is normal and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. If you're in Britain and your family is in Ukraine, of course you're going to care more about what's going on in Ukraine than what is going on in Yemen. If you're second or third generation Ukrainian in the US, of course you're likely to care a lot more about what's going on in Ukraine than in Yemen. If you culturally relate to Ukrainians far more than you culturally relate to people in Yemen, of course you're going to be drawn to what's going on in Europe more than in Yemen. That's perfectly normal and entirely moral. You don't have to care about every person on the planet equally, and any claim to the contrary is espousing not only an immoral philosophy but an impossible one: you couldn't follow such a value system even if you tried. Such an impossible value system is only built to drown people in guilt and control, it serves no other purpose.
endless1234 5y ago
Is it somehow weird to be, as an European, more concerned by internationally escalating Russian invasion warfare in Europe than by civil war in Yemen? Of course war is shit always, but I don't see how "oh, there are other bad things also" is a helpful analysis of the situation.
- StanislavPetrov 5y ago
  No, but as an American, it is somehow weird for my fellow Americans to be more concerned with a war between European nations than a war we are actively engaged in.
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chinathrow 5y ago

jacquesm 5y ago

None of those tragedies as you call them had the direct potential to turn nuclear based on the threats of one of the parties involved.

adventured 5y ago

> How did you keep your focus on working for the last several years, while the war has been raging in Yemen? Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in Yemen, with a millions displaced and starved to death - many orders of magnitude greater than the death and suffering that has taken place in Ukraine. Your entire premise is fraudulent: of course all people do not matter to all people equally the same. Family, tribe, city, state, nation, culture, ethnicity, race, class, religion. People choose to care about other people based on such qualifications as a matter of routine throughout all of history, it is normal and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. If you're in Britain and your family is in Ukraine, of course you're going to care more about what's going on in Ukraine than what is going on in Yemen. If you're second or third generation Ukrainian in the US, of course you're likely to care a lot more about what's going on in Ukraine than in Yemen. If you culturally relate to Ukrainians far more than you culturally relate to people in Yemen, of course you're going to be drawn to what's going on in Europe more than in Yemen. That's perfectly normal and entirely moral. You don't have to care about every person on the planet equally, and any claim to the contrary is espousing not only an immoral philosophy but an impossible one: you couldn't follow such a value system even if you tried. Such an impossible value system is only built to drown people in guilt and control, it serves no other purpose.

endless1234 5y ago

Is it somehow weird to be, as an European, more concerned by internationally escalating Russian invasion warfare in Europe than by civil war in Yemen? Of course war is shit always, but I don't see how "oh, there are other bad things also" is a helpful analysis of the situation.

StanislavPetrov 5y ago
No, but as an American, it is somehow weird for my fellow Americans to be more concerned with a war between European nations than a war we are actively engaged in.

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