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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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".
Many deny that all the time in practice. Even openly.
These kinds of pieces help us reify the incredible gut-wrenching gravity of human loss.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
And some less accomplished, if those matter at all...
I always felt it outed its creators as lacking theory of mind; why does a large group of people have different shared beliefs than me? They must lack the ability to think independently like everyone else in my cliquey subculture!
Group cognition (from a quick skim of a Wikipedia article about it) doesn't seem to justify lack of individual critical thinking though. It seems to be more like a term to describe a process, like "memes" and "idea viruses". It doesn't substitute for individual critical thinking.
As with any idea, the danger is in misapplication. For example, if someone simply stops trying to change others' minds when it's really still possible but the NPC meme causes them to ignore that possibility, then it doesn't help improve the world. Or if a misguided individual who doesn't distinguish meme from reality uses it to dehumanize people in their mind, then that's a problem.
Obsession with other people’s life stories leads to hero worship and constant comparison with them, making you unhappy because you couldn’t check off as many checkboxes as them. This is another form of unhealthy thinking, the inverse of narcissism.
You can live a life that concern only yourselves. Yes! Life is impermanent, obsessive with oneself and pain is everywhere. As a branch of Buddhism would said.
You can also note if that is so all religion and all givernment can disappear as love thy Neigbour, be empathy and still with the world instead of going to nirvana himself, many governments are bad but anarchy may not be good either.
No one sure what is the best approach for one life. But what you said seems odd.
May those died live in peace now. Let the living continue. We will continue do evil and good thing. Choose. Every seconds of it. That is life. RIP ultimately we all know.