more than 24000 people dead ...

As of this morning, the reported death toll just rose to 44,000.

For anyone making jokes about this, shame on you.

If this is an indication of the maturity level of the members of this board, I don't think I'll be coming back here any time soon.

That's all I have to say.

See yas. If you are gonna leave every message board/forum/room because of some off colored joke or comment, I would advise you to cancel your internet connection now and save that money. I'm on boards where their are way worse things said than this. All you can do is either leave, or ignore them. Anyway we all know that ppl sometimes joke about things that make them highly uncomfortable as a way to cope. And some ppl are just asshats. what ever.

LOl @ sermon.

You know, this is terrible and all, but it just happens. Nothing you can do about it. Its a damn shame those people died, but i don't know them personally.
And i think a lot of you will agree that from a western/1st world standpoint, it will naturally get less attention then a similar disaster happening in ie. Europe of The States. We perceive things differently, if there is a great difference in culture or heritage, so logically, we will care less when something happens 10.000 miles further, across multiple oceans, and to some anonymous fisherman trying to meet ends on 4 dollars a week. All this, and indeed the fact that it was a natural phenomenon.
And don't think to much peeps will lose sleep over this, as it didn't happen to us and ours.

Dying sucks.

While we're on the subject of catastrophies, in the year 2029 the most probable way of dying could statistically be "dying by meteor impact". Or asteroid or what have you.

As the chance of one hitting earth was 1 in 40, i believe. Don't know where its at now though.

The idea that discussion can change a man, although somewhat far-fetched, is not nearly as ludicrous as hoping that discussion could potentially stop massive earthquakes, or (as implied in the article i posted) the phenomenon of death itself.

I don't think that's what igorschmigor was suggesting - seems like you're missing the point. Acknowledgement is all. What happened just seems so unfathomable. And maybe he just thought it odd that no one made mention of it.

And don't think to much peeps will lose sleep over this, as it didn't happen to us and ours.

So, so, sad, and unfortunately true, and even more disturbing. That some see us as seperate simply because we live in a different place. That we should care less because we don't know them or because it was a "natural" disaster. [sigh]

I dunno....

Yes, it is disturbing. i'm not saying we should care less, but i'm just stating the obvious (i think)Why do you think people in Europe will care more about 4000 people dying in NY, then about a million people in your random central-african genocide?

My father is Indonesian, and i can tell you, he will care more about 20 people dying in The Netherlands, then a 1000 in Indonesia. But he will also care more about 10 people dying in this city, then the 20 in a city across the country.

Its great of igorschmigor to bring this up. I am from India. We have seen lots of complacency from the world towards our tragedies. We being the 3rd world country and all. This was nature, but even if it was man made tragedy, if it did not involve oil or nukes, the '1st world counties' would only help for the name sake. Its just good to see people like igorschmigor showing emotions for people he don't even know. We will get out of it. We always have.

So, so, sad, and unfortunately true, and even more disturbing. That some see us as seperate simply because we live in a different place. That we should care less because we don't know them or because it was a "natural" disaster. [sigh]

I dunno....

welcome to the human condition. people die every moment, natural disasters and murder just get all the press. if we cared about every death, or even just every death by murder or catastrophe, we'd be unable to function.

what's even more amazing to me is to look at things like this macrocosmically, to look at the human condition from outerspace. 45,000 people dead at once is such a huge number to me, and yet assuming a worldwide human population of approx. 6,502,225,483 the percentage of life lost from the tidal waves and earthquakes is approx. 0.000006920707397436774% of the entire population. assuming a usa population of 290,000,000 a loss of 45,000 would be 0.0001551724137931035% of our national population.

it's quite amazing that we can find any signifcance in our lives at all with those kinds of numbers, and quite inspiring that we do.

We care because we are human.

As compassionate beings we are sympathetic when someone dies - we feel for those that are suffering. Whether someone was murdered or died from a natural disaster is irrelevant. A lot of children's lives were cut short by this tragic event. It's callous to say 'hey they live over there, so what.' (paraphrase)

Would parallax care if his father died? Would we feel for him because he lives over there?

Word.

Some of the posts are so cruel i wish i never had started this thread. It's nice to see that some people do care though.

Now its estimated to be about 52,000 people dead there. Anyone know of any way of donating some money to the disaster releif?

superegophobia posted a large list of relief organizations on the first page of this thread.

I somehow get the distinct impression that my point didn't get across that well.

I do care, i just wanted to point out that some people really care less then they like to think. I'm not talking about someone specific, but just in general. The level of compassion with such a tragedy is really arbitrary, and isn't as obvious as some people would like to believe. Remember the earthquake in Iran? That was barely a few years ago, but it's nothing more then a vague memory in most people's minds.

I can name you 10 tragedies that cost tens of thousands of lives that are happening right now. That doesn't make this less worse, it just makes it yet another tragedy.

I somehow get the distinct impression that my point didn't get across that well.

I do care, i just wanted to point out that some people really care less then they like to think. I'm not talking about someone specific, but just in general. The level of compassion with such a tragedy is really arbitrary, and isn't as obvious as some people would like to believe. Remember the earthquake in Iran? That was barely a few years ago, but it's nothing more then a vague memory in most people's minds.

I can name you 10  tragedies that cost tens of thousands of lives that are happening right now. That doesn't make this less worse, it just makes it yet another tragedy.

precisely parallax. there is no denying the horror of the current tragedy, but as always, life will go on. i'm sure everyone on on this board cares, and everyone in the world cares... but our care, our compassion, is really like paralax said, arbitrary, because here we are posting on mograph.net while the survivors of the tsunamis are living the horror as we speak. they could care less whether it is being chatted about on an internet design forum, or whether there are people who care or not, because nothing will bring back those who were lost. everyone who has lost someone knows this, halmark sympathy cards are nice, but a tad precious.

Out of site - out of mind. For some, if it doesn't have a direct impact on thier lives then it doesn't seem to matter that much. It only becomes real when it hits close to home. The sentiment, "Ahh, people die all the time, whatta ya gonna do, cry about it?" seems so "I'm trying to sound cool by not caring."

[Paraphrase] When you look at the numbers on a cosmic scale, 50,000 dead isn't so bad. We're all insignificant anyway.

Fred are you serious? I mean, that's one way to look at it [the numbers are large and quite impressive] but jeeesh.....

I realize that we can't walk around like morose mutherfuckers 24/7 just because people die, but when we hear about something like this....I mean, it has to affect you in some way...right?

of course i'm serious zug. and i wasn't using the cosmic scale to make the lives of those who died any less significant, just pointing out the nature of the world we live in. certainly death, tragedy, and all that plagues humanity, and suffering in general effects me, but events like this (and the discussions that spring from them) give all of us a chance to examine what life really is and how we can continue with such insurmountable odds set againts us. it's just a perspective, a way to look at life. like i said before, nature has no conscience, so any of us are vulnerable... with that in mind, why do i go on? hell, i live in southern california... the same thing could happen here at any moment... why do i go on? the survivors of the tsunamis, those who have lost their children, families, friends... why will they go on?

no one really knows why. but they will go on. all of us will.

i appreciate that igor brought this up, but not for reasons he may have initially imagined... this discussion gives us a chances to examine what it is to be alive. we each have different opinions.

I somehow get the distinct impression that my point didn't get across that well.

I do care, i just wanted to point out that some people really care less then they like to think. I'm not talking about someone specific, but just in general. The level of compassion with such a tragedy is really arbitrary, and isn't as obvious as some people would like to believe. Remember the earthquake in Iran? That was barely a few years ago, but it's nothing more then a vague memory in most people's minds.

I can name you 10 tragedies that cost tens of thousands of lives that are happening right now. That doesn't make this less worse, it just makes it yet another tragedy.

It's true that we constantly hear about tragedies in the third world, especially Afrika. But damn, don't let this make you totally indifferent towards human lifes. Some make it sound like we were talking about ants. They have a different lifestyle and live a few thousand miles away - alright. This will make many people care less than if it happened to the richer countries. But you really have to care MUCH less to come up with coments like "i don't care about earthquakes unless they have deer heads, rainbows or paint drips." or "World Death Rate Holding Steady At 100 Percent" or "And don't think to much peeps will lose sleep over this, as it didn't happen to us and ours."

I believe that this unconcerned attitude is extreme in America. Americans travel less abroad, so they have no emotional feelings about places other than America. Like the world outside of the US only exists in the news. I strongly believe that it's this attitude that made many americans have no pity with iraqis, and still keeps them from protesting about what is happening at Guantanamo. Didn't happen to one of us. Shit always happens to the third world, why care about them?


P.S.: it wasn't my intention to start a "who cares most"-contest thread. I just wondered why nobody had mentioned it yet and what other peoples thoughts were.
The cruelty that really annoys me is not the fact that some don't care much. It's the fact that they let them know that they don't care much. Please keep in mind that somebody who really did loose a loved one might be reading your posts.

It's true that we constantly hear about tragedies in the third world, especially Afrika. But damn, don't let this make you totally indifferent towards human lifes. Some make it sound like we were talking about ants. They have a different lifestyle and live a few thousand miles away - alright. This will make many people care less than if it happened to the richer countries. But you really have to care MUCH less to come up with coments like "i don't care about earthquakes unless they have deer heads, rainbows or paint drips." or "World Death Rate Holding Steady At 100 Percent" or "And don't think to much peeps will lose sleep over this, as it didn't happen to us and ours."

I believe that this unconcerned attitude is extreme in America. Americans travel less abroad, so they have no emotional feelings about places other than America. Like the world outside of the US only exists in the news. I strongly believe that it's this attitude that made many americans have no pity with iraqis, and still keeps them from protesting about what is happening at Guantanamo. Didn't happen to one of us. Shit always happens to the third world, why care about them?

as an american, i think you are wrong, and stereotyping... but i'll comment more later.

i think im honestly sick of bashing america and america bashing.. theres to many people in this country to try to fit one stereotype of action to.. after the election i think it was pretty evident that theres a huge difference in majority opinion..

when those school children were killed by the terrorists in russia not to long ago i was pretty moved by that shit.. natural disasters just dont have the same effect on me i guess.. i cant for minute imagine that train of 1,000 that was knocked over by the waves that drowned everyone (as mind blowing as it is), having the same lasting emotion.

i also just read that israel was sending help to sri lanka and were turned away.. wtf is up with that

Everyone is always quick to criticize America, but it seems like America is almost always the first to offer aid and does so on a much bigger scale than anyone else.

If you want to criticize the bad at least have the decency to acknowledge the good.