this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2023
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Azmeh Dawood told NBC News that her nephew only agreed to go on the expedition because it was important to his father

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (13 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (7 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (6 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 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.

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