[HN Gopher] The dead children we must see
___________________________________________________________________
The dead children we must see
Author : jbegley
Score : 78 points
Date : 2023-11-28 20:35 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newyorker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newyorker.com)
| baz00 wrote:
| I think it's dangerous to publish things like this at the moment
| due to the amount of dreadful journalism and carefully misquoted
| titles out there. We are literally in the middle of a
| misinformation war.
|
| Harsh reactions with consequences result every time the press
| print things. Adding dead children weaponsises this as the final
| taboo push.
|
| It takes one mistake, one misquoted image or one manipulation and
| there's just going to be more dead children.
|
| Edit: to clarify I am NOT against publishing these things. Just
| now is a really bad time due to rife misinformation and poor
| journalism. All it does is inflame already terrible situations
| for people all over the world. Its divisive and dangerous.
| ziddoap wrote:
| This same argument could be made about publishing anything, at
| pretty much any time in history.
| simonw wrote:
| If journalists can't talk about this, the only people who will
| talk about this are the propagandists.
| baz00 wrote:
| The two are difficult to distinguish at the moment which is
| the problem.
| krunck wrote:
| I'm sure propagandists(of which there are many) would love
| nothing more than to be able to show pictures(real or not) of
| dead babies. And so would truth tellers. What do do?
| adhamsalama wrote:
| Are you implying there aren't any dead Palestinian children? Or
| are you saying that no one should talk about it?
| baz00 wrote:
| No I'm saying that sources should be verified carefully
| rather than rushing photos of dead children to the front page
| and then correcting articles later quietly. The gap between
| these two events tends to result in more people getting hurt.
| This has actually happened from major press outfits in the
| last couple of years (not just Israel/Hamas conflict)
| gillytech wrote:
| 100% agree. Right now, when something "happens" I leave it
| alone for a couple days until the real information comes
| out. Remember the "terrorist attack" at the Rainbow Bridge
| on the Canadian border a couple days ago?
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| Fox News never was and still isn't a reputable news
| source.
| baz00 wrote:
| The problem is that the BBC was and now isn't.
| firebaze wrote:
| I think you have no idea how bad, utterly bad, this world can
| be. How much force is behind the hate that leads people to kill
| babies.
|
| I don't either. But I think it gets worse by _not_ showing the
| reality.
| jasmes wrote:
| I think you're correct.
|
| This topic is breaking my soul. So much suffering and death.
| Why?
|
| Ungh. I need to watch Firefly and drink.
| baz00 wrote:
| I don't think we shouldn't show it. Now is just a bad time.
| The social media misinformation networks are quite frankly
| more organised than the organised media and the organised
| media's press standards are low because they want to get the
| first story out of the door if it's accurate or not.
|
| It's a disaster zone.
| dralley wrote:
| I agree with you in theory. In practice I wonder if the refusal
| of traditional media to publish these things surrenders too
| much ground to social media, which has zero restrictions on
| "weaponizing" these things to an a degree that would have been
| difficult to conceive of a few years ago. And on top of that,
| everything can be layered with the seductive narrative "here's
| what _they_ refuse to show you ", which is often just used as a
| primer to suck people down some rabbit hole of even worse
| conspiracy and propaganda.
| baz00 wrote:
| Actually making social media networks and the posters
| accountable for misinformation rather than threatening it
| would be a first step.
| rightbyte wrote:
| How about just not having engagement self enforcing
| algorithm feeding people stuff from people they don't
| "follow" or don't want BS from? Censurship of
| "misinformation" will kill any actual discourse worth
| anything. Not that Twitter, Facebook et al. have it
| anymore.
|
| But before the algorithm changes discussions were actually
| sane.
| noirscape wrote:
| (speaking as a non-american) I don't think that the press
| publishing pictures of dead kids after school shootings will
| change anything in how the US views that issue specifically. All
| it will do is throw a bunch more gross photos out there on social
| media.
|
| People in the US are too politically encamped for pictures of
| dead kids to move the needle on gun rights at this point. It's
| not happening; it's been made clear over and over again that no
| matter the cost in human lives, "muh guns" is what triumphs over
| everything else for Americans. The consequences are obvious and
| the stalemate is so eternal that "a school shooting happened in
| the US" doesn't even make the local news here anymore in 99% of
| the cases.
|
| From an ethical perspective, publishing those pictures will only
| harm the relatives of the victims - once it's been normalized by
| a regular outlet to try and push this needle, there's a whole
| array of sleazeballs out there with less ethics that will do it
| for every shooting, regardless of the wishes of the family,
| whether that's to move the needle or to just be a dick to the
| relatives.
|
| It's also not comparable to the horrors of war in this case -
| there the needle can be moved with that kind of shock imagery
| because people are so used to the sanitized view of war. School
| shootings are already bloody - it won't move any needles.
| 01100011 wrote:
| I think the pro-gun side is convinced that there will be many
| more dead kids in a world without guns, so showing them
| pictures of actual dead kids isn't going to do much.
|
| > People in the US are too politically encamped
|
| I think politics is the wrong label for this. Politics is the
| forum in which the underlying worldviews express themselves.
| There are a few, strongly developed worldviews at play here and
| reducing it to just politics misses the depth of the
| disconnect.
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| You're speaking for other people, which is dumb and a dumb
| position.
| gillytech wrote:
| Speaking as an American, I can tell you that pictures of dead
| kids is not going to do anything to further the gun control
| agenda. Nobody but a madman supports murdering children. In
| fact, murder is illegal in this country, as is assault and
| brandishing firearms. These laws don't stop insane people from
| using weapons to murder people. Just like strict knife laws
| don't stop stabbing. The problem is society is degrading to a
| point where people are willing to take lives.
|
| The more I see dead kids from a school shooting, the more I
| will advocate for armed guards at schools to help dissuade
| would-be shooters from attempting anything. I would also
| advocate for the abolition of "Gun-Free Zones" as they only
| advertise to criminals that nobody is likely to be armed in
| these areas.
|
| Unfortunately history has shown us time and time again that
| oppressive leaders disarm their populations before subjecting
| them to horrific abuses of their power. We aren't falling for
| it again.
| baz00 wrote:
| Um, fine over here in the UK. I mean our entire yearly list
| of shootings is a bad Saturday night in Chicago.
|
| And before anyone says "what about the stabbings", our per
| capita stabbings are about half the US!
| RobertRoberts wrote:
| You can go to jail in the UK for a drunk tweet on X
| (twitter). That is not a free society at it's core.
|
| Your other freedoms are breath away from being all gone.
| baz00 wrote:
| Amazing that a US colleague of mine was fired for saying
| "fuck" to another US colleague. Really free country that
| with protected speech...
|
| When people say freedom in the US it tends to be people
| free to be assholes to their fellow countrymen.
|
| Edit: I have freedom from not being shot in the face in
| Costco too! That's my favourite freedom.
| RobertRoberts wrote:
| Freedom of speech is about liberty of life, not liberty
| of opportunity. Two totally different things.
| baz00 wrote:
| What do you think I can't say here?
|
| And why was my colleague fired? Surely his speech was
| protected?
| vdqtp3 wrote:
| Why don't you just Google "uk man arrested for tweet" and
| you'll find plenty.
|
| From the Verge[1]: Section 127 of the Communications Act
| makes it an offense to send public messages of a "grossly
| offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing
| character,"
|
| [1] https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/7/22912054/uk-
| grossly-offens...
| baz00 wrote:
| Yeah actually read the tweets. They were grossly
| offensive, threatening violence and nasty as hell.
|
| You think that's ok? One of them for reference:
|
| _" kill yourself before I do; rape is the last of your
| worries; I've just got out of prison and would happily do
| more time to see you berried."_
| vdqtp3 wrote:
| Do I think threats are acceptable, no - and true threats
| aren't considered protected free speech. ("true threats
| first amendment" would be your search term, should you
| like to learn more)
|
| Do I think offensive, nasty, hateful speech is free
| speech? Absolutely.
|
| Here's an example of one that I think is an egregious
| violation of the principle of free speech:
| https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/31/23004339/uk-twitter-
| user-...
| baz00 wrote:
| I don't think you have the context for that one to
| understand it and the sensitivity around it. Think
| Northern Ireland.
|
| Any absolutist position is a problem. This is fairly
| balanced and the outcome is proportionate.
| vdqtp3 wrote:
| You get that there's a difference between the men with
| guns coming to put you in a cage, and your employer
| deciding they don't like you anymore, right?
| foldr wrote:
| I think most people in the UK are more worried about
| getting fired than they are worried about going to jail
| for a tweet, FWIW. (Although of course, in the UK your
| employer can't fire you just because they decide that
| they "don't like you anymore".)
| gillytech wrote:
| Sorry this really is a weak argument. First of all, "free
| speech" is not and shouldn't be considered absolute.
| Freedom to express your ideas, yes. Freedom to be
| obscene? No.
|
| We are not granted rights by the Government. We have
| natural rights and they are not to be infringed by the
| Government. That's how our Constitution is supposed to
| work and that's why we left England in the first place.
| manuelabeledo wrote:
| > You can go to jail in the UK for a drunk tweet on X
| (twitter). That is not a free society at it's core.
|
| You could go to jail in the US for a myriad of things
| that aren't even crimes in the UK. Public urination, for
| instance. And the US incarceration rate is 4x that of the
| UK.
|
| Not sure which country is more "free".
| gillytech wrote:
| Remind me why we should be like England? We left there
| and fought a war with you for our independence. We
| celebrate it every year on 4 July.
| paulddraper wrote:
| Could that be the result of different socioeconomic,
| racial, and cultural circumstances?
|
| Or is just hardware?
| wharvle wrote:
| > Unfortunately history has shown us time and time again that
| oppressive leaders disarm their populations before subjecting
| them to horrific abuses of their power. We aren't falling for
| it again.
|
| I would (no sarcasm) love a link to any resources you know of
| that catalogue or chronicle the role of private arms in
| preserving liberal democracy. Big bonus if the resources are,
| or lean, academic.
| Loughla wrote:
| You do understand you are a literal example of what OP was
| talking about, right?
|
| The Politics in this one are just too strong to sway anyone
| at all, regardless of what the argument is. You prove their
| point entirely.
| theonething wrote:
| I didn't read the GP comment as political, but using logic
| and referencing facts to support their point.
|
| e.g.
|
| > I will advocate for armed guards at schools to help
| dissuade would-be shooters from attempting anything. I
| would also advocate for the abolition of "Gun-Free Zones"
| as they only advertise to criminals that nobody is likely
| to be armed in these areas.
|
| That seems logical to me. Who will adhere to Gun-Free
| Zones? Only law abiding citizens. The murderers will walk
| in there with a gun or a machete and do their thing knowing
| there won't be anyone equipped to effectively stop them.
|
| Yes, the population at large will politicize these issues,
| but in the context of this discussion here on HN, why not
| try to be better and avoid politics as much as possible.
| Instead, discuss on the basis of logic and facts. I think
| HN in general, does this better than other online forums
| (e.g. Reddit). Not perfect of course, but better.
|
| That you right off the bat accuse the GP of being political
| for expressing a viewpoint and supporting their arguments
| with logic and facts inhibits open discussion and
| ironically is the catalyst for politicization of the issue.
| Loughla wrote:
| It's literally an argument about guns. The poster
| literally said pictures of dead kids wouldn't change
| their minds, and then made pro-gun comments.
|
| On a thread that was supposed to be about how guns are so
| political that no one will ever change their minds.
|
| That was my point. I don't care if they argued with
| logic.
|
| They were making the point for op by just entirely
| skipping past the original argument (gun is political and
| no one is changing their minds) to talk about their
| stance on guns.
|
| That was my point. I think maybe you missed it?
| robin_reala wrote:
| "'No Way To Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This
| Regularly Happens"
| User23 wrote:
| Perhaps you should get your information someplace other
| than lying left wing partisans masquerading as comedians?
|
| Here[1] is the actual data. The USA's firearms homicides
| are higher than I'd like, but are by no means the world
| leader.
|
| [1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-
| death...
| twixfel wrote:
| Pretty sure they're talking about school shootings, which
| have been totally normalised in the USA, and arguably now
| as core a part of USAnian culture as apple pie or
| baseball.
| foldr wrote:
| The Onion article is talking about mass shooting
| specifically. And I don't think the map really helps your
| case here.
| alistairSH wrote:
| lol ok. The US is better than some of Latin America and
| Greenland. That's a low bar.
| paulddraper wrote:
| > Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens
|
| You have a very interesting understanding of geography if
| you believe that.
| gillytech wrote:
| Mass killings happen in MANY other countries. But you got
| your degree at CNN university so I don't blame you.
| highwind wrote:
| oppressive leaders -> disarm their populations
|
| doesn't imply
|
| disarm their populations -> oppressive leaders
|
| I can think of 2 oppressive leaders who tried to disarm but I
| know of dozens of democratic countries that disarmed their
| population without any abuse.
| bitwize wrote:
| The Second Amendment was passed to allow primarily southern
| militias to put down slave rebellions.
|
| That supposedly God-given, constitutionally-protected right
| to own an instrument of death is a vestige of the right to
| oppress black people.
|
| Meanwhile, it exacts a cost: a protected right to own a gun
| means guns are plentiful and easy to access, which means more
| crazy people can get their hands on one to conduct their
| killing sprees.
|
| It's the guns, stupid. The second amendment is past due for
| repeal. Owning a firearm should require a costly, difficult-
| to-obtain federal license.
|
| And I'm speaking as an American. An American who has known
| friends who got shot by crazy people who got their hands on
| legally purchased firearms.
| manuelabeledo wrote:
| > Unfortunately history has shown us time and time again that
| oppressive leaders disarm their populations before subjecting
| them to horrific abuses of their power. We aren't falling for
| it again.
|
| Oppressive leaders have historically used armed paramilitary
| guerrillas in order to topple legitimate governments and
| establish brutal dictatorships, so what is your point here?
|
| Also, various US governments, at several levels, have
| demonstrated over and over again that they don't fear armed
| civilians at all, e.g. the 1985 MOVE bombing [0]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_MOVE_bombing
| paulddraper wrote:
| But think of the children!
| yodsanklai wrote:
| > I don't think that the press publishing pictures of dead kids
| after school shootings will change anything in how the US views
| that issue specifically.
|
| Hard to say. Maybe not overnight, but it can slowly move the
| needle.
| Prickle wrote:
| I want to throw another perspective here. I had a friend on a
| voice call earlier this month. He lives in California, which in
| theory has very strong gun control laws.
|
| While on call, his house alarm goes off, so he grabs his
| shotgun out of the safe and goes to find out what is happening.
|
| We, on the call, waiting for him to come back, heard three
| distinct gunshots.
|
| Turns out some guy, high on some substance was trying to break
| into the house, and opened fire when our friend showed up at
| the door.
|
| This is to my limited understanding, a "strong gun control"
| state. So from our perspective, it looks like you must have a
| gun to be safe; that the law does not help.
|
| And this is after California banned body armour, which he was
| complaining about.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| There is no state in the US that has strong gun control laws.
| It ranges from weak to basically unregulated.
| paulddraper wrote:
| How are New York's gun control laws "weak"? (Or DC for that
| matter.)
| r0ckarong wrote:
| So how many dead babies do I have to look at until they release
| Julian Assange for reporting on that same kind of shit?
| jasmes wrote:
| Woof buddy.
| jtriangle wrote:
| They'd kill him before they released him, just out of principle
| at this point.
| mandmandam wrote:
| Ha, as if they have principles.
| jasmes wrote:
| I wasn't aware society had agreed that war journalism or
| photojournalism should be neutered.
|
| Maybe I challenge the premise of the article in the sense that...
| Yeah. No shit?
|
| Honestly... These days I'm so emotionally exhausted that I just
| see an article like this as a way to get a good by line. Shut up
| we know kids are being blown up.
|
| Right now I just want to eat maple syrup greek yogurt and listen
| to pop music while I browse HN. I just can't with the dead kids
| 24/7 any more.
| op00to wrote:
| If you feel like that, an internet break could help.
| jasmes wrote:
| You're not wrong.
| gillytech wrote:
| Anything these papers publish has an associated agenda. Big
| Journalism is not simply funded, it's purchased as an investment
| product.
| bee_rider wrote:
| All media has some sort of bias or agenda. This is pretty
| clearly an opinion piece, it isn't as if they are hiding some
| secret anti-school-shooting agenda.
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| The biggest lie is whenever someone(s) claim to be "unbiased"
| or "neutral".
|
| Not all agendas are created equal. Some positions on issues
| are obviously existential essential: economic inequality,
| pollution, climate change, legal system reform, policing
| reform, and healthcare costs. There are many other issues
| that are lower priority than existential threats that are
| debatable. And finally there are partisan cause celebres that
| largely amount to bikeshedding. It's when those who benefit
| from espousing a particular issue position deny reality and
| legitimacy of an existential threat or suffering of a group
| makes them intellectually dishonest and morally bankrupt.
| tptacek wrote:
| The choice of which dead children we must see is political and
| commercial. AP has many dozens of journalists staffed in Israel,
| and allegedly only a couple stringers in Syria, where over
| 300,000 civilians have died in the last 10 years. The children
| killed in Tigray (tens of thousands) are through the lens of this
| article less important for us to see than those of Uvalde.
| sockaddr wrote:
| I suspect it isn't political but rather that being a journalist
| in Israel is safer than being a journalist in Syria. So
| naturally one will be represented more than the other. No
| politics there.
| hubb wrote:
| try telling the family of shireen abu akleh about how safe it
| was to be a journalist in israel
| bhouston wrote:
| It is safe to be a Western journalist in Israel, but if you
| are Arab reporting on Israel from an Arab perspective, it is
| quite dangerous.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/20/world/middleeast/palestia.
| ..
|
| https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/30/reuters-al-
| jazeera...
|
| https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-
| territory/...
| mminer237 wrote:
| That was in an area administered by Palestine. It can't
| really be considered "in Israel" at all. I think it
| strengthens his point that it's hard to get comprehensive
| journalism in an area either controlled or actively
| contested by terrorists.
| Gabriel54 wrote:
| The Palestinian Authority administers the West Bank. No
| country in the world considers them a terrorist
| organization.
| polytely wrote:
| yeah and being a journalist in gaza is extremely deadly
| (because Israel appears to specifically target any
| journalists and their families reporting in the area)
|
| https://cpj.org/2023/11/journalist-casualties-in-the-
| israel-...
| paulddraper wrote:
| That is probably true.
|
| Doesn't change the consequence, but probably true.
| rngname22 wrote:
| Yep. And I wonder why we don't see more childhood cancer death
| images linked to the multinational chemical conglomerates and
| industrial corps that pollute our waterways and air
| continuously, it couldn't possibly have to do with corporate
| donors (sorry, advertising customers) to media or the incentive
| for media to only cover deaths that generate reader engagement
| and subscribers.
|
| Kill 10,000 people 5-15 years earlier than their otherwise
| natural trajectory for death by dumping PCBs in the river
| (ignoring that additional cohorts will have an increased
| disease burden going forward for....decades? Centuries? Who
| knows if you can un-shit this bed), no one gives a shit apart
| from a symbolic fine of 1% of annual revenue 20 years later.
| Certainly no actual punishment for those involved.
|
| Kill a couple thousand with a plane into a building and the
| world's most powerful country starts a war.
| rightbyte wrote:
| I know nothing about the case, but you got the lurking
| benefit of doubt for those more abstract killings. Like the
| poor guy that thought it was a good idea to put Freon in
| refrigerators. Oh, and also put led in gasoline.
|
| Some people can more or only feel sorry for small children or
| animals, because they are obviously innocent, while a grown
| up could have done something to deserve it. I think that is a
| failure to the extreme of having a hard time dealing with
| more abstract (maybe indirect is a better word?) crimes.
| sctb wrote:
| Yes, surely. I'm curious if you have more to say about this.
| Semi-relatedly, one could read this article as a journalist
| attempting to convince the public to normalize a more
| emotionally potent form of journalism.
| tptacek wrote:
| I feel generally defensive of journalism, especially on HN,
| and I'm a little reluctant to dissect it too much. I worry
| about the utility and unintended effects of emotionally
| potent journalism on a consumer public so locked into
| narratives, and with such superficial, social-media-mediated
| connection to actual journalism.
|
| I'll just add that when I say "commercial", I mean exactly
| that. This is AP's former Bureau Chief in Jerusalem:
|
| _Matti [a former AP journo and critic] states that the AP's
| Jerusalem bureau - like all other major news operations based
| in Israel and the Palestinian territories - employs too many
| reporters because of this hostile obsession with the Jews.
| The truth is the story of Israel is that of a nation rising
| from the ashes of the worst genocide in human history, being
| attacked from all sides upon its inception. Depending on your
| point of view, it's also a story about the persecuted
| becoming the persecutors. All of this, of course, is
| happening to the people of the Bible, the descendants of the
| Hebrew slaves who were led out of Egypt by Moses and from
| whose ranks emerged Jesus Christ. It's as if a new chapter of
| the Bible is being written in our times. Whether you think
| the Bible is mythology or the word of God is beside the
| point. The point is we are all human beings who love a good
| story, and this one is particularly good._
|
| I read that a couple days ago and it's been pinging back and
| forth in my head ever since.
| rightbyte wrote:
| > "It's as if a new chapter of the Bible is being written
| in our times."
|
| It's debatable who fits in as the slaves in Egypt in the
| allegory ...
| bhouston wrote:
| The main difference with Syria is that those who are doing the
| killing are not funded by the US. Israel on the other hand is
| funded by the US government, especially its military. On the
| other hand, it is estimated that 90% of the deaths are by the
| Syrian government, which is not funded at all by the US
| Government:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Syrian_civil...
| tptacek wrote:
| See, this is exactly what I mean.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| > Israel on the other hand is funded by the US government,
| especially its military
|
| Generally speaking, Israel is part of the West and we expect
| them to have a higher standard than some dictatorship.
|
| That being said, how many deaths can be attributed to the US
| in Iraq or Afghanistan? I assume order of magnitude higher
| than what we're witnessing in Gaza. It seems Israel doesn't
| get the same free pass for some reason.
| differingopinio wrote:
| The Israelis have killed more children in two months in
| Gaza than the US killed in 20 years of war in Afghanistan.
| tptacek wrote:
| There's a reason it's Afghanistan people cite here, and
| not Iraq. Even counts of dead children aren't neutral.
| There's no way around taking time to learn about things;
| you can't sum things up with a grisly picture or a grim
| scorecard. Or you can, I don't know, maybe it works
| great. It's what we've been trying to do up 'til now.
| How's it going?
| differingopinio wrote:
| The Israelis have also killed more kids in Gaza than the
| U.S. did in Iraq from 2008 to 2022 (according to UNICEF).
|
| https://www.unicef.org/iraq/press-
| releases/more-9000-childre...
| tptacek wrote:
| I'm really not interested in lining up and correcting the
| scorecards, so much as I am in the broader point that
| what people suppose to be simple, clarifying jolts of
| information --- body counts, horrible photos, whatever
| --- don't so much clarify as nudge people towards a
| preferred narrative.
|
| That doesn't make them wrong. There is truth and there is
| falsity and for every important, complicated truth, there
| are people who "prefer" the narrative that conveys it.
| But it's not the body count that establishes the truth,
| it's the underlying work that went into revealing it.
|
| The truth of the situation you're intent on nudging us
| about is intensely complicated.
| krembo wrote:
| Sir, you are posting fake news.
| differingopinio wrote:
| You may be right. I can't find exact statistics, but I
| saw a few sites giving numbers of 20,000 - 30,000 (for
| Afghanistan). The rate of children being killed in Gaza
| however is far more.
| kej wrote:
| Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from the afterword of
| Howard Zinn's _A People 's History of the United States_:
|
| >But there is no such thing as a pure fact, innocent of
| interpretation. Behind every fact presented to the world--by a
| teacher, a writer, anyone--is a judgment. The judgment that has
| been made is that this fact is important, and that other facts,
| omitted, are not important.
| sctb wrote:
| This is also a feature (the defining feature, IMO) of causal
| narratives.
| tptacek wrote:
| Right. It's a thing to be aware of, not a disqualifier; if
| you simply filter out any content delivered with an agenda,
| you can't learn anything.
| sctb wrote:
| I'm going to agree harder: it's a thing to be aware of as
| a fundamental mechanism which may or may not be related
| to agenda or judgement in any given instance.
| hackeraccount wrote:
| True enough but the poison is in the dose. Too much and
| you're left with Nihilism.
|
| The trouble revolves around how much judgement is required on
| any given subject. On the right subject people can come
| perilously close to laying out facts devoid of
| interpretation; on the wrong subject either no one can or no
| one believes anyone can - which is pretty much the same
| thing.
| dingnuts wrote:
| Can a fact not simply exist without presentation? pi does not
| need an agent to exist; it simply is. Circles and the
| relationship between their circumference and diameter existed
| before minds existed to comprehend them.
|
| Behind every human presentation there is a judgment, sure,
| but many facts simply exist in nature, ready to be observed
| and judged without a preexisting agenda.
|
| I'm naturally suspicious of people who put "People's" in
| front of words where the word should be implied. It's like a
| People's Republic, you know? What's Zinn's agenda? Perhaps he
| is telling on himself, in this quote.
| tptacek wrote:
| Yes. Perhaps Howard Zinn has an agenda.
| paulddraper wrote:
| That is brilliant.
|
| Also why "unbiased" reporting can never truly exist (however
| wonderful that would be).
|
| The choice to report is itself a judgment of the topic.
| throwawaybeets wrote:
| Why is this on HN?
| 01100011 wrote:
| Because this is what the folks submitting and upvoting to HN
| feel is important, and the mods haven't removed it(yet).
|
| Online communities are more or less representations of the most
| active participants.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Because is important
|
| And also because is relevant for us in the current discussion
| about AI regulation. Most of this children were killed by
| "allegedly smart machines" sent by humans.
|
| And "But the other did it also, so I want to kill children too"
| is not a valid excuse. We know where it leads.
|
| We need to stop and think if we want or not to normalize this
| system. If is a yes, the same treatment will be applied tor our
| own children in a near future. 100% of probability. We as
| species may want to discuss how to develop a way out to stop
| this machines if "insane people" hypothetically grab the power
| and starts commiting war crimes.
|
| If our "smart" machines are not smart enough to refuse to fall
| over an hospital or a refugee camp, or to obey the
| international war laws, then is imperative that we learn how to
| design better machines... ASAP.
|
| Laws of robotics were laminated in the last decades and are
| totally useless now.
| Probiotic6081 wrote:
| why are you writing stupid obtuse comments when you could just
| not engage with the post?
| paulddraper wrote:
| If I wanted to not engage with posts, I'd use 4chan.
| xoa wrote:
| This argument is not at all a new one, and I think dates back to
| the dawn of modern media, the idea that "if only the public knew
| the horrors something more would be done". Frankly I'm really
| skeptical. Humans have known intimately the horrors of far more
| death and violence throughout the majority of our history, and
| still do in much of the world. It's only very recently that some
| areas have happily managed to make it to the point where "the
| vast majority of us have never seen actual carnage". And looking
| back through millennia of history, I don't see any particular
| sign that knowing it made it particularly less likely. On the
| contrary, mass exposure to _any_ stimulus physiologically and
| psychologically tends to have an inuring effect. Outrage and
| shock are (and to maintain a healthy state of mind _need_ to be)
| transient in nature. If it 's just steady state it's not special
| it becomes the new normal.
|
| As with many things there's probably a spectrum not binary, and
| there are legitimate debates around to what extent people get
| disconnected from physical reality basics. I can perfectly well
| believe getting too abstracted is bad, but at the same time
| getting too close seems to clearly be not good either, resulting
| in higher stress or flat out PTSD and then cynicism/nihilism on
| top if no progress can be made because the situation simply isn't
| reactive to individual outrage. In general I'd say the biggest
| hardest aspects of politics and geopolitics are that way
| precisely because they're incredibly complex with large numbers
| of powerful competing very entrenched interests and arguments,
| _good_ arguments on multiple sides even, it 's not something
| where the public being upset for awhile necessarily means it just
| all gets cleanly resolved.
|
| And even if public outrage and shock does manage to spark some
| political movement, that absolutely may or may not be a positive
| thing. Plenty of horrors in history have been committed in
| response to "DO SOMETHING!!!"
|
| --
|
| _Edit to add:_ Despite having commented and upvoted, I do agree
| with others that while in principle there are interesting
| intellectual and more specifically technological discussions to
| be had here, this prompt in particular is not a productive one
| and doesn 't look to be producing something good for HN. A lot of
| the same well worn circles, ignoring complexity, adding a helping
| of mutual flagrant disrespect and condescension that turns people
| off, done in at least one case while _also_ actively decrying
| people being too "politically encamped" without a shred of
| irony. So here I am having commented, upvoted, and then flagged.
| Doh :(
| zthrowaway wrote:
| Can we please stop posting emotionally driven political garbage
| on this site?
| asynchronous wrote:
| Agreed, anything from the times or the Post basically falls
| into this category.
| hot_gril wrote:
| And New Yorker, but at least they put an arrogant twist on it
| drivers99 wrote:
| That's what the flag feature is for.
| paulddraper wrote:
| Let's get more people to click that.
| Loughla wrote:
| I'm with you. And the comments here are very quickly devolving
| into unrelated, or unproductive political nonsense.
| mistermann wrote:
| [delayed]
| KaiserPro wrote:
| Its not about seeing pictures of dead people, its about empathy.
|
| Large parts of the USA cannot empathise with their own dead
| children in their own school shootings. Not because they don't
| have empathy, because its been shaped to not allow any kind of
| dissent from "accepted"(accepted by which team you support) view
| points.
|
| There are almost no uniting subjects for the USA anymore.
|
| It is far to profitable to seek division than unity for almost
| anything, be that guns, health, education, the constitution, the
| supreme court, equality, civil rights.
|
| the Democrats are incompetent, and the GOP has ceased to be a
| political organisation.
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| America has too much anomie and normalization of violence.
| Australia addressed the matter while America insists on putting
| intransigent philosophical utopian ideals ahead of solidarity
| and life.
| mandmandam wrote:
| > the Democrats are incompetent
|
| They're reasonably competent when undermining progressives,
| feathering their nests, and holding on to power.
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| In mainstream Western media, it largely depends on group victim
| and privilege points of individual actual victims. You're not
| going to hear about the suffering of any individual Palestinian
| child while you are going to see a 30-minute biopic of an Israeli
| child playing nonstop. And "Support for Palestinians is
| antisemitism" screams Likud and ADL, while _Jewish Voice for
| Peace_ and _Combatants for Peace_ urging nonviolent solidarity
| and _peace_ are banned, silenced, and ignored. This is the
| insanity of so-called liberal neoliberal left media beating the
| drums to war with authoritarian hardliner war hawks who want
| endless cycles of violence where only a political solution can
| lead to the lasting peace ordinary people need and deserve. This
| response to the "third intifada" is repeating the historical
| failures of America in Afghanistan and Iraq by a corrupt leader
| who was on his way to prison with a convicted racist in tow.
| Every civilian life lost is a tragedy, but unfortunately some
| lives are deemed more equal than others in the eyes of the
| mainstream media who have the power to put their thumb on the
| scale.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| People have an enormous inertia for almost anything, no matter
| how trivial. It's a wonder anything gets done. I'll pick an issue
| out of a hat.
|
| Let's say I show your average member of the United States a photo
| array of one hundred seventeen (117) dead infants. I tell you
| they all died of a single cause. People make sounds. I say "This
| happens every year, to roughly this degree." Wow! More noises are
| made. People _sound_ like they want to do something about it.
| Write to senators, pass laws, protest.
|
| But when I get down to brass tacks and say, "Hey, those are all
| boys. That's how many die from circumcision each year, roughly,
| in the United States. And by the way, the NNT (number needed to
| treat) is pretty high, you need a least a hundred circumcisions
| to prevent just one urinary tract infection." And it all will
| just _stop_.
|
| New noises, about religious freedoms, and tradition, and the son
| looking like his father, and "won't he be made fun of?" appear in
| place of the original noises. And I could say, "It's only done
| maybe one in ten times in Europe, civilization hasn't ended
| there" and it won't make a lick of difference. It's not about
| guns or anything else, people just don't like to change, even
| over some fairly trivial business. I'd be willing to lay odds
| that nobody reading this comment who was pro-circumcision has
| changed their minds. And I would not be shocked for almost any
| issue that I selected would have a similar outcome.
|
| Are people more callous than they are unwilling to change?
| Perhaps. Are they burned out from hearing Sarah McLachlan's voice
| starting off an ASCPA commercial, and, in a parallel to Terror
| Management Theory, most people will, to some degree or another,
| shut themselves off from a vast and bewildering array of
| suffering against which they could make only the most ineffectual
| showing, knowing that for every bit of effort they expend, it
| will not reach millions of humans and other creatures whose life
| is primarily one of grim endurance and a kind of mute hope? I
| could not tell you.
| porcoda wrote:
| These articles feel like articles written by journalists for
| other journalists so they can give awards to each other for
| "shining a light" on something that they've decided isn't getting
| illuminated enough.
|
| I'm somewhat cynical about a lot of journalism today simply
| because it feels like a large cohort of that profession has just
| gotten trapped in a social-media-attention fueled circle of
| journalists just doing things to generate praise from other
| journalists. Interestingly, this pattern seems to be independent
| of the politics of the involved individuals or venues: they all
| do it.
|
| I'm not sure how useful it is to the consumers of the journalism:
| it's not like anyone is unaware of what's going on. If anything,
| most of us are resigned to the fact that we can't really do much
| about it other than be angry and frustrated, since people from
| all kinds of different places and with different motivations just
| get in the way.
| jasmes wrote:
| Well put.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| Yes, I'm always a bit dubious of this sort of stance where
| people position themselves as a hero. Rushing out stories
| without verifying basic facts? We can't wait, the public
| deserves to know!
| myth_drannon wrote:
| "The past six weeks have made it clear that the world will
| respond to images of slaughtered children, and it's worth asking
| why it's taken this long for people to see what that looks like.
| " Well, despite hundreds of thousands of children being killed in
| Syria and Yemen wars and currently in Sudan, the question never
| came up. Why? Because Israelis defending themselves and in this
| war, Hamas uses Palestinian children as human shields. No one
| likes Jews who hit back, they wish only to pity them.
| seagullz wrote:
| In the case of butchering Palestinians, unlike the others, key
| elements are US murder weapons (material assistance) and Vetos
| at UN SC to shield from international consequences. An US
| newspaper has naturally extra newsworthiness in that. No less
| than they had with "collateral murder" video (cf. Wikileaks).
| myth_drannon wrote:
| So the core issue is the US support/weapons, not the death of
| children? Why then the children that are dying in Yemen are
| ignored? This is US weapons and US support of Saudi Arabia.
|
| But I somewhat agree with you. There is a huge disinformation
| campaign to stop US supporting Israel. Iran/Russia and the
| rest are working extra hard to isolate Israel and then to be
| completely overrun by its enemies around. It's similar to the
| same campaign Russia was spreading to stop NATO involvement
| in Ukraine-Russia war.
| l3mure wrote:
| > Since the beginning of the occupation in 1967, Israeli
| security forces have repeatedly used Palestinians in the West
| Bank and in the Gaza Strip as human shields, ordering them to
| perform military tasks that risked their lives. As part of this
| policy, soldiers have ordered Palestinian civilians to remove
| suspicious objects from roads, to tell people to come out of
| their homes so the military can arrest them, to stand in front
| of soldiers while the latter shoot from behind them, and more.
| The Palestinian civilians were chosen at random for these
| tasks, and could not refuse the demand placed on them by armed
| soldiers.
|
| https://www.btselem.org/human_shields
| graphe wrote:
| Newspapers are beholden to their puppeteers and their profit
| incentive. It is good business to show dead palastinians, and bad
| business to show dead US citizens, not only of children but
| everyone. Death is sterilized for the American taste, it happens
| everywhere except here.
|
| If it was good for business to show dead children who have been
| shot, wed see more.
| mortallywounded wrote:
| It seems the focus of these articles are dead children in Gaza.
| You don't see raw footage and photos of the dead children in
| Israel unless you go looking for it. Why is that?
| mandmandam wrote:
| It's subtle and powerful propaganda.
|
| If showing 'the other' people dying on tv/print/web is
| generally normal, and showing 'our people' dying is generally
| tragic, there's a deep suggestion that 'the others' are less
| worthy of dignity than 'ours'.
|
| Though, statistically speaking, one might expect to see a lot
| more murdered Gazan children, given that so, so many more have
| been horrifically killed, every year.
| honeybadger1 wrote:
| Propaganda on HN
| Georgelemental wrote:
| Many children die before even their births. We must see them,
| too.
|
| https://www.liveaction.org/news/infant-bodies-infanticide-at...
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