When there's a tragedy there's also "those people"

[[Kira Must Die]]

Yeah, I very much dislike it when people go that route. To me, It's much less the fact that they don't care, and more the fact that just comes across as incredibly rude and disrespectful towards the victims and for those grieving over their lose. Even if you don't necessarily care, at least have the decency to convey your condolences to those who do and be respectful, or if that's too hard for you, just don't post at all. Otherwise, you're not being cool nor smart for stating it.

 

[Xangba]

Yeah, those people suck. But what I hate more are the people who use these tragedies. People who pretend to care, but in reality use it for their own agendas. In this case gun control. No, I'm not saying everyone bringing up gun control doesn't care about the kids, so don't even start raging at me, but there are plenty of people who don't care and use things like this for their own ends. Those people can rot in hell

 

[Palademon]

I don't care because I simply don't.

It doesn't help when it seems forced on me. There are bad things that've happened in my country where nobody gave a fuck. I may be driven to be "that guy" when people make statements like "the whole world is in shock".

People say the gravity of it is "It could happen to you". I kinda doubt that since I'm in a country where guns are harder to get your hands on. I'm not against America having guns since removing them now would onyl cause problems and make it impossible for people to defend from the people still with them.

 

[Gormech]

I think I kind of qualify as one of the "I don't care." group but hear me out before all the torches and pitchforks get going.

I at first felt bad that this thing happened. Really, the families had probably already bought the presents for the kids and stuff. The problem is the over-saturation of the event.

It's been a few days now and like one of the guys who posted earlier, I acknowledge it, process, and move on in about the 10min timeframe due to lack of personal investment in the event.

Today, I have woke up, got mentioned about it by my family, heard it on the tv while eating breakfast, the radio on the drive to work, on the tv at work during break, lunch, second break, and getting my stuff to go home, the radio again on the way home, the tv again when I am home, the internet when I get online to check my e-mail, the forums when I go to see what else is going on. See the pattern?

Honestly, I am annoyed at this point. It has basically overtaken my outlets for information and is being thrown up in my face every time I turn around. I'm kind of waiting to see how long till Family Guy decided enough time has passed to make a parody of the whole thing.

Please, let it die. We're just dragging this on to the point of insanity.

 

[Twilight_guy]

It's a matter of empathy. We don't understand but we know its tragic and we can feel bad. Some people don't have empathy and feel anything for the event. Although the natural reaction is to feel bad and empathize its not the only reaction. Of course I'd be careful as too little empathy might imply sociopathic behavior. Not that that's what this behavior always implies. Some people just don't feel anything for events not directly related to them.

I feel that a lack of empathy is one of the biggest problem in human society... ever. If we all could try and put ourselves into our fellow man's (or woman's) shoes, I don't think we would have quiet as many atrocities and social problems. Killing a blank slate that you have no attachment to is easy, killing someone who you can somehow care for and feel for, is hard.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

I prefer people who are honest over people who pretend to care.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that the people who don't really care (this includes myself) post those things just to oppose to the people who act like they really care.

The truth is, most of us don't -really- care, but we think we're supposed to.

except they aren't being honest. they're pretending not to care when really they're champing at the bit to demonstrate what a cold, emotionless badass they are. they're giddy about the opportunity to exploit a tragedy for their own self-aggrandizement at the expense of people who are capable of actual empathy.

If you think someone is being insincere about it, then go ahead and call them out if you can prove it. But let's dispense with all this "i don't care" nonsense. the people who actually don't care wouldn't have bothered commenting.

Untrue. You can not care about the deaths of 28 people, but care about the fact that people pretend to.

It's not a matter of having to prove anything.

No one that posts on these forums is going to cry themselves to sleep because of what happened (Unless they were directly involved). Their lives continue as usual and I doubt they spend much of their day caring about something that happened on the other side of the world.

-CARING- is more than labeling something as 'bad'. When I read the newspaper with the massive "28 CHILDREN DEAD"-headlines I shook my head. Did I really care? No. And I simply don't kid myself by pretending I do only because I don't like that it happened.

I don't know, I recall tears being shed by me about the Batman shooting.... Particularly because of the 6 year old.

This time I just feel utterly helpless.

 

[Vault101]

I think I kind of qualify as one of the "I don't care." group but hear me out before all the torches and pitchforks get going.

I at first felt bad that this thing happened. Really, the families had probably already bought the presents for the kids and stuff. The problem is the over-saturation of the event.

It's been a few days now and like one of the guys who posted earlier, I acknowledge it, process, and move on in about the 10min timeframe due to lack of personal investment in the event.
.

and thats perfectly normal/fine, you didn't go out of your way to be an ass

I don't care because I simply don't.

It doesn't help when it seems forced on me. There are bad things that've happened in my country where nobody gave a fuck. I may be driven to be "that guy" when people make statements like "the whole world is in shock".
.

I think the difference between not caring, and the difference between what I'm talking about...

its like if your a hard-ass Atheist and somone you know is having a christian funeral with a present and everything...yet the whole time your talking about the evils of relogion and how heavan doesnt exist and how peole need to stop being ignorant. As somone who gets their "arrogant athiest" on now and again I can understand the thinking/motivations behined a person..HOWEVER given the context the person is just being an insensitive dick

 

[Thyunda]

I care about pretty much every tragedy that happens, and if there was something I could do to stop it, I genuinely would. But I can't. So I won't. And no, I won't post on Facebook 'RIP those angels who died in Connecticut'. It wouldn't help anybody, and I don't care if people think I care or not. I care about all the pointless wars in the Middle East and the barbarism in Africa, and I care more than anything about the fact that despite the shootings, America still has legal civilian firearms. That enrages me.

People who post that they don't care are no better than the people who forward pictures saying '1 like = 1 prayer'. They are in fact worse, because at least there's a purpose to the 'mourners' publishing their concern. People who go out of their way to tell everyone that they don't care are just attention-seekers and dicks. They WANT people to call them heartless so they can say "The world is a bad place and I am hardened". They want to spout their 'hard' lives as much as everybody else wants to talk about how sad it is that people get shot.

 

[Waffle_Man]

I don't think that I've ever gone into a thread discussing a recent tragedy and started yammering on about "perspective," (simply not participating is a better decision) and I would agree that many people like to use cynicism and jadedness as a fashion statement. The event was a terrible tragedy and being an ass isn't a sign of wisdom or insight. However, I don't blame people for holding such views or wanting to vent frustration, because much of the sorrow that people feel often comes from the blatant profiteering that happens in the media. There isn't any positive way to spin "20 children gunned down in elementary school," but it's sickening to watch both the emotional manipulation present, as well as the attempts to use the event to bolster viewership.

I shit you not, they fucking plugged Diane Sawyer's show during live coverage on ABC.

 

[eternal-chaplain]

I'll usually just agree with those who say it doesn't matter, and not say anything to those who become hysterical. But, I will begin to express a passionate opinion at times. Like when a bunch of people thought that the shooter liked Mass Effect and blamed it for the shooting. I think the quote that burns in my mind the most is this: "Ban this sick filth and the people who made it." Or. I think it may not have been sick filth, but it was something to that effect. I am trying to forget it was ever said. But the fact still stands. You aren't protecting society by censoring art. You're only making it worse. I have become unbelievably furious over this issue--not because of whatever happened to people I don't care about--but because of the continued practice of using someone's hobby as a scapegoat because these people are so falsely superficial, they hardly understand what it means to be human in the first place.

 

[DarthSka]

That kind of reaction you describe is one I just can't comprehend. I can understand that many things terrible happen everyday, but to have a 'meh' reaction to a bunch of elementary school kids being slaughtered is just completely baffling to me. In the end, I simply file them under the, "people who are cold, heartless assholes," category. After reading some of the responses here, it looks like I have a few more names to add to that list.

 

[AldUK]

That kind of reaction you describe is one I just can't comprehend. I can understand that many things terrible happen everyday, but to have a 'meh' reaction to a bunch of elementary school kids being slaughtered is just completely baffling to me. In the end, I simply file them under the, "people who are cold, heartless assholes," category. After reading some of the responses here, it looks like I have a few more names to add to that list.

I agree with this completely, if the past few days has taught me anything about America in particular is that they'll go out of their way to state that there's nothing anyone can do about children being killed then in the next breath vehemently defend their out-dated, misguided and backwards 'right' to carry guns around.

When I hear about events such as the school shooting my way of reacting to it is that I get frustrated and angry. But not in the sense of being annoyed or wanting to punish somebody, I get angry because I feel so helpless that I, personally, can't do more to stop innocent children from dying. Because the act of any human being whose life is stolen from them before it's even began, pisses me right off.

 

[klown]

Generally as one of "those people" I find that my attitude toward the situation is misunderstood a lot. It's not that I don't care about those 28 people who got killed, I really feel bad about it. But I don't like the unfair attention those 20 children got versus say the 1000 people who got mass murdered a few months ago in a different country. It's the feeling of "well it didn't happen here, so why should we care" that I find terrible. I feel bad when -any- life is cut shorter than it should have been.

 

[Signa]

To me "those" people are the ones that ask "how could he have prevented this from happening/prevent this happening in the future?" Some people are not willing to accept that some people, despite everyone's best efforts, will fall through the cracks at some point when they should have been loved .

not by the looks of it...they come in,state their "I don't care" and then leave without contributing anything more

I think you misunderstand me. I was using "those" people as in the people that do something that bothers you. "Those" people that always do the same thing every time they or someone else encounters a specific scenario. Like "those" customers that ask if their purchase is free because the scanner had trouble picking up the bar code. You know, "those" people. You're right that being Mr. Internet Toughguy after a senseless tragedy is certainly being one of "those" people, but they don't bug me half as much as the others that start crying in a knee-jerk reaction for the neutering of rights in a society because one person stepped out of line.

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

If it's a tragedy that can be prevented, but isn't though various reasons like LACK OF GUN CONTROL then it doesnt hit me as hard. America seems sort of desensitised to this now, and now mills about in circles. Seriously, if Australia's government acted the way the US government does, there'd be be full on riots. And not the sit in the street kind of riots either; the Molotov cocktail kind.

Captcha: old man winter
Fuck you it's hot as hell down here you asshole!

 

[grey_space]

I just think both sides should spend a little less time trying to second guess the motives of everyone who posts something that they disagree with.

How dare you elicit a plea for reason and empathy.

Look at you there using logic.


I hate you people like you people.

O/T:
I read an article by Mark Twain once commenting on kinda the same phenomena. There was a recent tragedy at the time (can't remember it) and apparently everybody was bewailing about how terrible it was. He questioned why people weren't also still mourning the loss of life in the Chinese Boxer rebellion or the Great Famine in Ireland (both of which occurred many years before the time of his article) which were equally as appalling and had greater loss of life.

His point? either every bad thing that happened is appalling and is fully deserving of our shock and rage and grief, or nothing is.

 

[manic_depressive13]

yeah....because we all didn;t know that already? I call BS on this one, why is it when one bad thing happns people have to point out the million other bad things that happen? what difference does it make? I find it hard to belive anyone flanting their "I dont give a fuck" attitude is wanting to give people perspective

It's different because it's our fault children are dying in the middle east. Australia supported the illegal wars that caused the death of thousands of children and we still insist we're justified in being there. We refuse people asylum and send children to Nauru where they're forced to live in squalid conditions for indefinite periods of time. So it's all well to say "the death of innocent children, how targic!" but it's meaningless when we live under governments that cause the deaths of children and no one gets up in arms about it, and it certainly doesn't get the same news coverage as the massacre in the US is getting.