The 'You people care about Robin Williams more than Gaza' comments

epicdwarf

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Apr 9, 2014
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Yeah those kinds of comments are terrible. It implies that should not care about anything when something bigger is going on. It also implies that you are unable to care about two things at once.

Plus, the Gaza conflict is just going to be one of those things that will exist for A LONG time. No amount of complaining about it on the internet will stop it. If people want to REAL help end the Gaza conflict, they would take up roles as negotiators or supply aid to civilians being killed.
 

Jadak

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Nov 4, 2008
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I don't particularly care about either, but I have no problem admitting I care more about the loss of Robin Williams. Objectively, I will acknowledge Gaza as being more important, but personally? It has about as much relevance to my life as if you told me that aliens on the moon were killing each other. I simply do not find myself able to give a single emotional fuck about things that are so far removed from my life and occurring on such a small scale.

Robin Williams, on the other hand, while I still don't tend to get emotionally attached to celebrities and find the idea rather silly, he's at least a figure that has had a presence and impact on the culture I grew up in and therefore on my life. I wouldn't say his death makes me sad, but he is a man who lived a life that, on some small scale, shaped my own. Gaza has not.
 

Siege_TF

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May 9, 2010
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zelda2fanboy said:
War sickens me and war over religion doubly sickens me. The behavior of the people fighting these wars disgusts me. I can never imagine myself picking up an automatic weapon to kill someone who believes in a different imaginationland than I do, or sending an order to throw missiles at another country. It's unfathomable and I can't put in a context I can wrap my brain around. However, I have had suicidal thoughts when I was younger and went through a severe depression. I also love comedy. That's why Robin Williams matters more to me.

Yet, I can't really do anything about either matter, so there's a significant amount of apathy for both news stories. I'll just try to enjoy my own life and the people I love for as long as I possibly can.
Religion? No, religion is a tool to help people create an illusion of 'the other', mollifying their consciences because the people they're shooting aren't THEIR people. Palestine is a prime piece of real estate, and people have been fighting over it for as long as there has been people (youtube This Land Is Mine).

It's tragic that we can't all just get along, but wherever there has been resource issues people have been fighting over them. Speaking in really general terms when Reds and Greens fight and one side wins it doesn't take long for them to split into Oranges and Pinks or Olives and Deeps so they can keep fighting without feeling too guilty about it.
 

SweetShark

Shark Girls are my Waifus
Jan 9, 2012
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I will be honest, If I care for every single problem the world had, maybe I wouldn't call myself a human anymore....
A single human have it own limits how he/she can handle some things into his/her life.
It seems the only reason we "care" about Robin Williams, is because we knew him as a talented actor [most of us]. Nothing more, nothing less. I hope his friends and family be ok after this tragedy.

But I would like to talk about something:
I get sick to get judged why I didn't felt bad for something. I am sorry, I can't. I don't feel sorry for R.W.
I know he was a memorable actor and I respect that, but that it. I don't feel sad.
I can imagine every single day around the world, many people commit suicide and I don't feel sad because I don't know them.
Or many even get raped somewhere and them they kill them. I don't know them and I DON'T want to hear about this. I don't want my life to get filled whith sad/terribles news to f*ck up my Personal Life. I move on.

"You people care about Robin Williams more than Gaza." F*ck you. Do you care about MY problems? Do you know me? I want to have my sanity in check to go on with my life. I will be the one which things are important for me to feel bad, not for the others.
 

lSHaDoW-FoXl

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Jul 17, 2008
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You people care more about robin Williams than the 58 billion animals that die pointlessly so you can stuff your face, the 30 million animals that are pointlessly made into fur coats so someone can inform us that they're a terribly shallow human being, and the countless animals that die pointlessly to be some hunters entertainment. Bringing up separate problems to undermine the death of someone isn't really insightful, it's just incredibly obnoxious and self-righteous. And sooner or later, it's even hypocritical because eventually these people wills suffer through a problem that's relatively minor and I'm sure someone will be pulling that same nonsense on them in turn.

Zachary Amaranth said:
Vault101 said:
you know what? yeah we probably DO feel worse over Robin Williams than we do Gaza....

and why wouldn't we? the guy was obviously incredibly talented and full of life....he was in many of some of our childhood movies, he was an icon and being such I'm sure we in some way felt a certain connection...so when he dies yes we felt it more than Gaza

whats going on in Gaza is sad yes...but its abstract to most of us, just another thing happening in one of "thosr" countries that we feel no control over

there is preasure to feel a "certain" way or the "right" way over things and I think its unfair...especially to children

...that said we shouldn't be jerks about it, thats a very important disinction
More to the point, it's easier to care about a person than people. People are amorphous, maybe even theoretical, but a person? You know a person. Or you know about a person.
And in a nutshell, this is why we care about Robin Williams. People and animals suffering far off in a country is really only just a vague concept to us, meanwhile Robin Williams was something we probably grew up with. As screwed up as it may sound, we'd probably care a lot more about a well written book character in Gaza than an actual human being simply because we'd have an emotional bond with them.
 

venom_steve

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Jun 8, 2010
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I personally find I difficult to care about people killing each other over which version of a fairytale is best, especially considering how long it's been going on. Robin Williams brought joy and happiness to many so it stands to reason that they will care about his death more.
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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lSHaDoW-FoXl said:
And in a nutshell, this is why we care about Robin Williams. People and animals suffering far off in a country is really only just a vague concept to us, meanwhile Robin Williams was something we probably grew up with. As screwed up as it may sound, we'd probably care a lot more about a well written book character in Gaza than an actual human being simply because we'd have an emotional bond with them.
Ayup.

I grew up on Williams' stuff. My dad apparently watched Mork and Mindy when I was really young, and it was syndicated only a few years layer, so Williams was pretty much always around in my life. I watched his standup, his comedy, his dramas. His good films, his not so good films....

I mean, I also care about what's going on in Gaza. Hell, I know people with family there, I've worked (somewhat tagentially) with reporters who have been there, at least one of which was shot at. So even while Gaza has a human face to me, I get why people care about Williams.

Hell, I continue to care about his death while shit's going down in the much closer locale of Ferguson. Which is the other part of this, yeah. Just because you care about one thing doesn't mean you don't care about others. It's not like caring is a finite resource (for any intents it matters here, at least).
 

Vegosiux

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May 18, 2011
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To be cheeky here, are people mourning Robin Williams or Adrian Cronauer (sue me, that's the role I remember him most by)?

I can say rather certainly, none of us actually knew the man. We knew the many masks he put on. Oh, he sure could wear those masks really well, and even made people laugh with them. But knowing him? Mourning him? No, that's something that's reserved to his inner circle.

Still. Good night, Vietnam. Rest well.
 

Nieroshai

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Aug 20, 2009
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Maybe it's because we can't even talk about Gaza without everyone supporting Israel being called evil and heartless while everyone supporting Hamas has to justify suicide bombing and explain how that missile assembly had good reason for children to be herded around it, or the debate about who shot first as though this conflict started this year instead of decades ago with countless ceasefire breaches by Hamas? The point I'm trying to make is that reminiscing about a celebrity who made us happy is a LOT safer and calmer. Do we now HAVE to be miserable when ANYONE else in the world is also miserable? I don't think spreading depression around helps anyone. This isn't "first-world problems," it's escapism. It's why we're here on this site, and it's not like we can't type in multiple threads.
 

Battenberg

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Aug 16, 2012
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EternallyBored said:
It's called a fallacy of relative privation, or "whataboutism", also known as the starving kids in Africa defense. We just had a Critical Miss strip about it due to Jontron attempting to use it as a defense against people criticizing him.

It was dumb then, it's dumb now, and it always will be dumb. It falls into the same category as basically telling people to shut up because they are talking about or caring about something that that person doesn't care about. It's a dumb argument because it can be applied to pretty much anything that can't be called a crisis or "serious" issue, and the person making the argument always seems to think they are the sole arbiter of what issues are important enough to care about.

It's also an issue of presumption, it's an argument that assumes the opponents position on issues unrelated to the current topic and then casts moral aspirations on anyone that dares to defy the invokers moral standards. Its an issue that also tends to warp the concept of how much people are actually caring about an issue by trying to frame the less important issue as much larger than it actually is. I.E. people will care about and post sympathies over Robin Williams death, but far FAR more cash, volunteer hours, attention, care, and effort will go into the Gaza crisis because despite what people on the internet claim, the vast majority of people do indeed realize that the Gaza situation is the bigger crisis, and react accordingly.

I see this argument in regards to everything, pretty much any complaint that isn't the absolute worst atrocity in human history will receive an argument of "whataboutism" at some point, I've even seen it applied to murders, rapes, and kidnappings, usually with some yahoo commenting about why the news is commenting on some individual tragedy whilst wars and massacres are going on.

It's a particular pet peeve argument of mine because of just how presumptuous, inane, and useless it is.

It never works, and anyone with more than 2 braincells to rub together can pretty much see through the ruse and realize the person making the argument isn't actually interested in getting people to care about the bigger issues, they either just want people to shut up about the current topic, or they are trying to gain a non-existent moral high ground for their own self-gratification.
Well this saves me trying to articulate what I find so frustrating about this kind of argument, well put.

The thing I find staggering about this argument is that I only seem to see it being employed by relatively intelligent individuals. Obviously not geniuses given that they seem to totally lack an understanding of how people actually think but aside from that it always seems to be people who are articulate, knowledgeable, and up to date with world news.

No doubt some of them know it's BS and are just trying to prove some form of superiority but there must also be people who genuinely think they're right. Does that mean those people only have/show negative emotions about whatever the very worst thing occurring in the world is at any one time? How do they decide? Do they just not react to any other tragedies they encounter even if it's something deeply personal? It's just mind boggling to try and figure out how a mind like that even works.
 

Fieldy409_v1legacy

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Oct 9, 2008
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Battenberg said:
EternallyBored said:
It's called a fallacy of relative privation, or "whataboutism", also known as the starving kids in Africa defense. We just had a Critical Miss strip about it due to Jontron attempting to use it as a defense against people criticizing him.

It was dumb then, it's dumb now, and it always will be dumb. It falls into the same category as basically telling people to shut up because they are talking about or caring about something that that person doesn't care about. It's a dumb argument because it can be applied to pretty much anything that can't be called a crisis or "serious" issue, and the person making the argument always seems to think they are the sole arbiter of what issues are important enough to care about.

It's also an issue of presumption, it's an argument that assumes the opponents position on issues unrelated to the current topic and then casts moral aspirations on anyone that dares to defy the invokers moral standards. Its an issue that also tends to warp the concept of how much people are actually caring about an issue by trying to frame the less important issue as much larger than it actually is. I.E. people will care about and post sympathies over Robin Williams death, but far FAR more cash, volunteer hours, attention, care, and effort will go into the Gaza crisis because despite what people on the internet claim, the vast majority of people do indeed realize that the Gaza situation is the bigger crisis, and react accordingly.

I see this argument in regards to everything, pretty much any complaint that isn't the absolute worst atrocity in human history will receive an argument of "whataboutism" at some point, I've even seen it applied to murders, rapes, and kidnappings, usually with some yahoo commenting about why the news is commenting on some individual tragedy whilst wars and massacres are going on.

It's a particular pet peeve argument of mine because of just how presumptuous, inane, and useless it is.

It never works, and anyone with more than 2 braincells to rub together can pretty much see through the ruse and realize the person making the argument isn't actually interested in getting people to care about the bigger issues, they either just want people to shut up about the current topic, or they are trying to gain a non-existent moral high ground for their own self-gratification.
Well this saves me trying to articulate what I find so frustrating about this kind of argument, well put.

The thing I find staggering about this argument is that I only seem to see it being employed by relatively intelligent individuals. Obviously not geniuses given that they seem to totally lack an understanding of how people actually think but aside from that it always seems to be people who are articulate, knowledgeable, and up to date with world news.

No doubt some of them know it's BS and are just trying to prove some form of superiority but there must also be people who genuinely think they're right. Does that mean those people only have/show negative emotions about whatever the very worst thing occurring in the world is at any one time? How do they decide? Do they just not react to any other tragedies they encounter even if it's something deeply personal? It's just mind boggling to try and figure out how a mind like that even works.

It could be that they are people whose minds work differently to the majorities, with things like asbergers, and that logically they can't make sense of our reactions. As emotions are sort of the antithesis of logic. l. Such people have been linked with higher intelligence. My mother always likes to remind me of that when it comes to my nephew who has Asbergers. They can be extremely intelligent. I could see Sheldon from Big Bang theory for example being genuinely bewildered by this.
 

Sean Hollyman

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Jun 24, 2011
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I think it's becase for a lot of us, Robin Williams was there for us in his movies as we were growing up. Yeah Gaza isn't a good thing, but we probably feel a lot closer to Robin Williams than we do Gaza. Like losing a family member... except maybe not as sad as we'd be then but still
 

Roofstone

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May 13, 2010
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I'll just up and say it: I don't give a toss about Gaza. It is sad sure, but it doesn't impact me in any way at all, since I have never been there, I've never met anyone from there, I couldn't even point it out on the map.

For me it might as well be a fairytale location.

Robin Williams, I have "known" since childhood. So his death I do feel sad about.