Azmeh Dawood told NBC News that her nephew only agreed to go on the expedition because it was important to his father

  • BootlegHermit@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    This whole “rich people’s problem” newscycle is about as newsworthy as the fact that I had eggplant parmesean for dinner.

    • socialjusticewizard@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      I’ll give you a counterpoint, much as I also don’t care.

      Usually a story like this would be incredibly sad. Similar stories about refugee ships sinking are awful and heartbreaking.

      Most of this story is about rich people who signed up to do a phenomenally stupid thing with an incredibly, comically terrible person in charge. It’s actually more funny than tragic, and so people are able to read the story without feeling terrible after.

      Caveat: I feel awful for this kid. Only sympathetic character I’ve seen so far.

      • BootlegHermit@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Strangely, I consider both events - the submarine and the refugees - to be equally heartbreaking, in the sense that both are pointless losses of life that could have been avoided.

        However, I also consider both events to be equally stupid - billionaires being cocky stupid, and the refugees being desperate stupid; the kind of stupid wherein we make bad decisions with likely bad outcomes, on the gamble that it’ll work.

        Looking at it from a more emotional standpoint, I think I might be biased in that I feel like that there are a lot more important events occurring around us, that effect us in a much larger way, that simply gets swept under the rug by these types of “news” stories.

        I’m not lacking sympathy for the kid’s loss. Losing a parent for most people is terrible. But I’m not going to feel any more sympathy towards them, than I would you - being a complete stranger to me. Certainly not because “news” tells me to. It would be fair to say that the thoughts and feelings I have towards the negative impact of what it takes to accumulate that sort of wealth override the casual sympathy for the submarine situation.

        The refugee situation is a whole 'nother can of worms. But as desperate a move as it may have been for them, I do in fact respect them for taking that risk for what I’ll assume to be trying to have a better life. That takes some amount of courage, so as individuals it’s mainly sympathy. Long way about it, those in the submarine represent why there’s a refugee situation.

        As far as the eggplant parmesean goes, while I regret to inform you that it wasn’t fresh from a garden, I can make it up to you and vouch that the “heat n eat” in the frozen section at Aldi’s is pretty okay.

        • HarkMahlberg@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          …the negative impact of what it takes to accumulate that sort of wealth override the casual sympathy for the submarine situation.

          Long way about it, those in the submarine represent why there’s a refugee situation.

          This statement very well sums up where my sympathies lie on the subject. A “philanthropist billionaire” is an oxymoron: nobody fairly accumulated a billion dollars without exploiting somebody else for it - their time, their labor, their resources.

          Those billions could materially improve the lives of tens of thousands of people. If they distributed that wealth equitably, philanthropically, they would no longer be billionaires.

          • Turkey_Titty_city@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            the migrants deaths are an indirect product of the billionaires hoarding of resources.

            neither should have happened. people should’ve have that level of wealth and if it was more properly redistributed it’s likely that the migrants would not be so starving and penniless.

        • keeb420@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          I feel worse about the refugees as they are just trying ti move somewhere to survive and have a better life. These people went on a giant ego trip. They are not the same.

          • Maeve@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Yes, as I read, my heart welled up with sympathy for the young man. He couldn’t help who his parents are.

        • lerba@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Absolutely. These people’s lives ended in unimaginable terror. No matter who they were, it didn’t need to go like this.

      • techno156@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        In fairness, that’s probably more due to the novelty of the disaster, more so than whoever was actually on board.

        A refugee boat sinking is a tragedy, but it’s also not novel in the eyes of the media (and might be difficult to report on, depending on local laws). It happens with enough regularity that it’s considered another tragedy, in much the same way that America doesn’t report all their mass shootings (they tend to have one for almost every day of the year), or how the local paper usually doesn’t report every robbery and homicide.

        The submarine incident is a bit more like a plane crash by comparison, which is rare and novel enough that it’s worth reporting on, irrespective of whoever is on board. Particularly with the other facts being dug up, which only added fuel to the fire.

      • Turkey_Titty_city@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        the media is like 90% wealthy people dude. ordinary working people do not become reporters anymore. at least not for the past 30+ years.

        same with hollywood. you see so many stories about rich people because all the writers in hollywood are upper middle class at a minimum.