Random Rants XLIII: So Much Whinging Your Head May Explode

[Synobun]

Electromagnetic signals in our brains? Our inability to comprehend the combined depth of emotion of all humanity and thus our tendency to compartmentalize? Nothing? I liked his music?

Should the African mother mourning her child that just died in her arms cry out for Rupert Murdoch's mum? Maybe she should?

Maybe death is unimportant?

I guess I'm just suggesting there is not a logical progression from "celebrity death mourned with great fanfare implies lack of empathy with starving African child".

I don't see anyone mourning the statistics. I see everyone mourning a person they have never met. What sets the two apart?

Fame.

 

[JohannaK]

I don't mourn Rupert Mursoch's mum. I couldn't care less about her or this Dave Brubeck person. But Niemeyer was a great architect, and I mourn him because it means that no more buildings will be built as he did.

 

[Synobun]

I don't mourn Rupert Mursoch's mum. I couldn't care less about her or this Dave Brubeck person. But Niemeyer was a great architect, and I mourn him because it means that no more buildings will be built as he did.

So you mourn the loss of talent, but not the person?

 

[JohannaK]

I can't mourn the person, I didn't know him.

 

[Tee Kay]

So you mourn the loss of talent, but not the person?

Can't really divorce the two.

 

[azzaman333]

So you mourn the loss of talent, but not the person?

Do you suggest that we should extract talent from famous people so when they die we don't mourn them over random starving African kids?

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

I don't see anyone mourning the statistics.

Then I'd respectfully suggest you're not looking hard enough. Every day hundreds of millions of people recognize suffering in (or simply the chance to help out) strangers (statistics?) and without hesitation, do their bit. Maybe the way we "overmourn" celebrities and people we care about just allows us to put a face to the anonymous people we share a common feeling with everyday. It's like our little reward for doing our bit to prevent us from descending into some depraved, ego driven cess pit which we'd be quite capable of.

 

[Synobun]

Do you suggest that we should extract talent from famous people so when they die we don't mourn them over random starving African kids?

No, I suggest that there is absolutely nothing different between the two people besides fame for a talent they possess (or lack of talent, depending). For all you know, there are 100 Einsteins alive in Africa right now that are incapable of utilizing their talents because of poverty.

So are we basing our mourning off of exhibited talent? Should we then mourn the likes of Gadhafi, Bin Laden, Hitler, Stalin, etc because of their talent to control people? After all, it's a well-exhibited talent. Or is that not a talent worth mourning?

Then I'd respectfully suggest you're not looking hard enough. Every day hundreds of millions of people recognize suffering in (or simply the chance to help out) strangers (statistics?) and without hesitation, do their bit. Maybe the way we "overmourn" celebrities and people we care about just allows us to put a face to the anonymous people we share a common feeling with everyday. It's like our little reward for doing our bit to prevent us from descending into some depraved, ego driven cess pit which we'd be quite capable of.

I'm well aware. I'm the Lead Writer and Screener for a charity. However, they too choose a face to mourn rather than everyone. They too, eventually, choose a pawn to mourn rather than everyone.

Mourn them all or mourn none. Otherwise you're just being a hypocrite. Picking and choosing who you mourn for based upon an acknowledged talent or level of fame is despicable.

 

[The_J]

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin

The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.

He got it right. You just can't relate to numbers.

 

[_random_]

esus didn't take a month to be born.

Going through an intact hymen is actually quite an ordeal.

Should be a fine few years in Purgatory for that one.

 

[JohannaK]

So are we basing our mourning off of exhibited talent? Should we then mourn the likes of Gadhafi, Bin Laden, Hitler, Stalin, etc because of their talent to control people? After all, it's a well-exhibited talent. Or is that not a talent worth mourning?

There are talents and talents, and talents for evil don't qualify.

On the other hand, does one actually mourn a person because of his talent or because of the person itself? This is very badly worded, but nevertheless puts an interesting question.

I can tell you I'm not mourning Brubeck or Murdoch's mum, and I can say that I mourn Niemeyer, but do I actually mourn him? Certainly as TK said, he cannot divorce the talent from the person. It is true, the talent is part of the person as the person influences the way in which his talent is expressed.

This brings me to a personal conclusion: there are two reasons to mourn somebody: because you appreciate his talent, and because you appreciate his person, his way of being. We could add "because you know him and love him", but that would be included under appreciation of the person.

In any way, you are mourning his loss as both a person and as a talent, because they are both indissociable from each other, but for one of the two reasons. One cannot mourn a "statistic" because one cannot reduce the magnitude, the scale of it to the sum of the individuals, and cannot identify himself with it, whereas the death of a person of proved talent and/or great personal value allows for the person to identify the loss, because without said identification, mourning is not truly possible.

 

[Borachio]

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin


He got it right. You just can't relate to numbers.

'Twas Remarque ( The All quiet on the Western Front guy) who made the remark (!)

And it is incorrect.

One man's death is a tragedy. A million are a million tragedies.

If it's about the fact that an individual can't relate to a million tragedies, then there is no true scale of value to tragedy in any case. So a million tragedies are still not a statistic but a single tragedy, equal in intensity to the tragedy of one man's death.

Perhaps.

 

[Peck of Arabia]

Oh god, that bloody Christmas skin is back. It's only the 6th!

I just wish those American atheist would get on with that war on Christmas. Christmas has invaded much of December and needs to be stopped! Jesus didn't take a month to be born.

I've already changed it back to the non-Christmas version; I can't be looking at happy frolicking snowmen and whatnot for nigh on a month!

Also, what's with the Christmasification of the "frown" similie? It made my last rant seem cheap and meaningless (the one that wasn't about dead people), and it really isn't- today should be one of the proudest days of my life so far but instead here I am, being disgruntled on the internet.

 

[JohannaK]

Yeah, I hate this Christmas skin. Which is why insta-changed back to the normal skin.

 

[Takhisis]

Raaant: toxic spill.

REMAIN INDOORS

Rupert Murdoch's mum died too. I appreciate that this is in questionable taste, however I couldn't help but think of this ad

<jiffy condoms vid>

It should be Mrs. Roberts, mind.

Oh god, that bloody Christmas skin is back. It's only the 6th!

I just wish those American atheist would get on with that war on Christmas. Christmas has invaded much of December and needs to be stopped! Jesus didn't take a month to be born.

Hmmmm. Any biologist would tell you that it takes around nine months for someone to be born, after conception has happened, so we should celebrate Christmas from about March/April until late December.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin


He got it right. You just can't relate to numbers.

That was certainly the philosophy behind his misgovernment, but I should remind you that there's lies, damned lies and statistics.

 

[salty mud]

I find myself in the exact same situation as a poster before me (I forget who, sorry) but I find myself needing to know for certain if a girl is taken or not. I've spoken to her quite a bit and I think if she is spoken for she would have mentioned it by now, but... I don't know. I need to find a way to ask her.

 

[Borachio]

Just ask her out.

How about the old hypothetical? What would you say if I asked you out?

 

[sophie]

I find myself in the exact same situation as a poster before me (I forget who, sorry) but I find myself needing to know for certain if a girl is taken or not. I've spoken to her quite a bit and I think if she is spoken for she would have mentioned it by now, but... I don't know. I need to find a way to ask her.

Yeah, what Borachio said. Just ask her if she has a boyfriend. Or, if you're too timid to do it yourself, ask one of your friends to do it for you, particularly a girl-friend.

 

[madviking]

or facebook stalk her

 

[salty mud]

Perhaps I'll ask her about her family back home. Then it won't seem like I am asking completely out the blue.