one death a tragedy

[phanax]

a million deaths a statistic, to paraphrase Stalin (who then tried to prove this)

just found it strange how the near death of one character in the series leads to a complete mental analysis and an entire episode of mental recovery, whilst hundreds of researchers dieing when the big new shiny engine thingy blew-up barely got two minutes.

I find it curious the way people can accept massive disasters, but the thought of one person dieing is almost unbearable

boy, this is a real can of worms... enjoy!

[Indefinite Description]

Well, Hachimaki is a central character... From a narrative point of view he is more important.

I think (emotional and epistemic) distance is probably more important than numbers: one familiar person vs. a lot of strangers.

[G-man]

Not quite strangers, anyone notice the ninjas from wayyyy back in episode 6 working at the research base? And it wasn't exactly just brushed off in two minutes, the accident had lots of repercussions for the debris section, from Dolf (the boss) getting reassigned to Hachi's father deciding to join the Von Braun.

[phanax]

OK, I see your point, I just think it's a quirk of human nature, not just the series, that we can brush off mass death if we don't know anyone involved

[Shounen Zanbatou]

A quirk of philosophy more like (perhaps subconsciously). Not to put too fine a point on it, but it's *very* easy to just treat large numbers of people you don't know as a number and leave it at that. We've never experienced their presence, they've had no discernable impact on our lives. To us they barely existed at all in the first place. Their deaths are hence of little significance to us.

[phanax]

it's sad but it's true

[chemistry tom]

*thread resurrection:P*

If there was an anihilation of an entire sentient species of aliens (which you had never met, obviously, but found proof of), would you still view it as a trajedy?

[phanax]

probably not... have you seen the opening of Transformers the movie?

[Shounen Zanbatou]

If you took the time to attempt to contemplate such an event I think it is possible to be moved but millions of lives is too much for our minds to handle, even two lives (in completeness) is really pushing the limits.

*if* you genuinely understand the meaning of one life that is not your own and extend that to n lives where n is some horrifically large number then I believe you can be moved. But I repeat my point above that we will, consciously or subconsciously, choose not to even attempt such an exercise.

[phanax]

it's just too much to take in, that was my impression upon visiting hiroshima

[Indefinite Description]

Sentient, hm... I wonder whether recognising aliens as 'sentient', especially on the basis of evidence that they had existed in the past, would involve recognising similarities to human sentience that might lead human concerns to be involved, thus making the possible tragedy a less alien one. On the other hand, if they were really 'alien' could we even correctly apply the concept 'tragedy' in any objective sense, or would anyone applying it just be reporting his/her own response to the demise of once-existing things? (Stuff like this comes up in environmental and animal-related ethics: are there objective values in nature? Does the last surviving member of a secies have a special moral status? If we claim that animals have moral status on the grounds that if we have it there's no reason to place them outside the 'moral circle', are we anthropomorphising animals when we perhaps should respect their 'otherness'? Etc.)

My cynical suspicion is that Dead Alien Fatigue would set in even more quickly than Starving African Fatigue: yes, the universe is cruel, such are the vicissitudes of our bleak and all-too-brief experience, when we ask where God can be and, oh look, lasagne for lunch today...