[eridius]

It's insane how many people we lose to tragedies like this.

Every person is valuable. We shouldn't just lament the loss of people with notable accomplishments. We should mourn every single person, and do what we can to prevent this from happening again.

[hombre_fatal]

The point is that "50 dead in Christchurch" can be hard to internalize, especially when these tragedies are arriving so hot on the heels of other tragedies. Our human brain is really good at remaining distant. We tend to take our own lives for granted until we're in dire straights.

These kinds of pieces help us reify the incredible gut-wrenching gravity of human loss.

[alexandre_m]

"Every person is valuable"

That's a truism, no one would deny that.

But stories make a larger impact and are most valuable when you hear these tragic events. Otherwise all you're left with is number of death counts, which brings far less consideration for distant people, sadly.

[benj111]

I think a good point is raised about why this guy. There were 50 people that all had lives, but we picked on the tech guy. It ends up feeling mildly disrespectful. Like we aren't remembering this guy because of his achievements, we're remembering him because of how he died, and now he's been reduced to his achievements.

I don't know. You could make a case that people in the community knew him, so it makes sense to remember him. Maybe its 'good' that he had any positive achievements worthy of note at all. Most deaths don't warrant even a footnote.

[krapp]

>There were 50 people that all had lives, but we picked on the tech guy. It ends up feeling mildly disrespectful.

Let's be realistic - there being a "tech guy" is the only reason this story is on topic. Hacker News is not supposed to be a place to discuss mainstream events, however tragic they may be, or the deaths of people not relevant to the tech community.

[eridius]

My comment wasn't complaining about HN focusing on the tech guy. It was specifically a response to the sentiment

> It's insane how many really, really, good people we lose to tragedies like this

A story about the tech guy is a reason to be on HN. But statements like the above just serve to trivialize the deaths of those not deemed "really good people".

[coldtea]

>That's a truism, no one would deny that.

Many deny that all the time in practice. Even openly.

[whyx5]

Losing the people in that way - people that were part of a bigger community and people who contributed to that community - is very tragic, it causes so much pain.

But when you say every person is valuable - can you define valuable.

What about people that are more like psychopaths, just take, abuse and exploit... what is their value?

For example, I don't really see myself as particularly valuable to this planet - I don't contribute anything meaningful, nothing that advances us forward in a positive way.

All I do is try to reduce the damage I do on this planet (climate change etc).

So how do you define valuable?

[etse]

Speaking from the perspective of a monotheistic believer, my sense of universal human value goes back to the concept of "God created mankind in his own image", and the way over history that has lead to inalienable human right such as "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights".

One might argue that people who choose a destructive life path diminishes their inherent reflection of (a good) God, and should a lesser value, for which I can sympathize with. However, the concept of a God that makes good on covenants with unfaithful people forms this opinion of mine: each person in this world, despite doing wrong, was initially created equally by being in God's image. So long as God continues to treat mankind with equal value, so must I (and others who believe this God-based attribution of equal human value).

Hope that helps, at least from one angle of it.

[whyx5]

Thanks for your perspective.

So the way I understood it is that every person has the potential to be like God (even if they are the Christchurch killer, Hitler and the likes), so that's why they are valuable.

I get that concept, I just don't see how we can be practical about it. For example, I think most people would probably say that mass murderers, child rapists etc don't bring any value to our society or habitat and that those people are 'beyond repair'.

I just had a problem with the statement "Every person is valuable" - first what is Eridiu's definition of valuable and also it needs to be a bit more specific or not be so absolute.

[etse]

Sure, thanks for the thoughtful response.

I agree that being practical is hard. It makes me think that the "leap of faith" isn't the belief in God's greatness and that we each have a bit of it, but actually treating others as valuable as God would consider them. Some rare individuals practice a radical forgiveness which attests to the authenticity of their faith or principles, but certainly these stand out because they are so incredibly rare.

What you mentioned, about the thinking that there are those beyond repair, who have caused so much destruction that they seem to have lost all of the image of God that they were created with–I can sympathize with that, too. If someone takes the image of God and commits evil (especially when it's irreversible like death or trauma), that is certainly negative value. That would deserve eternal punishment, while which is something that is also hard to understand practically, seems helpful here.

An interesting way to put it would be that God exists as the ideal, and while people aspire to any number of ideals, they resort to living "practically" since they are not "actually" God, but just in his image.

Sorry if I'm beating a dead horse. I appreciate defining or at least contextualizing and framing things, too. Talking with you has helped me articulate my own beliefs better as well. Thanks.

[int_19h]

To put this in perspective, over 150 thousand people die every day. About 2 die every second. You can't mourn them all, and you'd probably get severe depression if you genuinely tried your best.

[headsoup]

I'd guess the point is that saying that a tragic event takes away some 'accomplished' people appears to diminish the loss of the unaccomplished people. So the statement would refer to all people lost in that tragic event, not that we should consider all people when one/few die...

[int_19h]

But conversely, if you mourn only the people lost in that tragic event, doesn't that diminish the loss of people who die in no less tragic events that don't get publicity? (which is the vast majority of them).

My point was that it's all cherry picking, because you can't mourn everybody, and we don't even try. Draw a line far enough, and beyond that death and suffering is all very abstract, even if we do know about it. And mostly we do not - although we know where to go if we wanted to find out, we don't want to find out; events of comparable magnitude and depravity happen in some areas of the world with far more regularity.

So it feels a tad hypocritical to focus on this particular way to cherry pick as disrespectful.

[headsoup]

I agree, I only refer to when a particular event is noted (cherry-picked by the media) that we don't call out the 'smarter' people as a greater loss within that context.

[tchaffee]

Then write posts about those people too. Someone took the time to write about someone who meant something to them. Without someone like you taking the time to do the same we aren't going to know about the others. Be the solution you want to see.

[CryptoPunk]

I think every death is a tragedy, whether it's from a terrorist attack, or from aging-related disease.