Hysteria.

[ParraCida]

Seven people died in an accident today.
People are crying, others are praying, the president made a touching speech, CNN gave it full coverage, people reportetly 'stunned' as they heard the news.

Now I am quite sure more then seven people died an unnatural death today in the US. I'm even sure more then 7 people died in carcrashes alone. How can you justify this kind of reaction, it makes no sense.

Why are we not crying for all the children in the world that died during child labour, why are we not praying for those that died because of hunger, why is there no speech by the president for the uncurables of Africa, where is the CNN coverage for innocent bystanders getting shot, why are there no stunned people who just found out a girl two blocks was raped and murdered.


We accept the facts of life, daily suffering doesn't count half as much as the occassional suffering. Apparantly if you were in space, you deserve more pitty when you die then if you were in rehab.

If a space shuttle would fall out of the skies once a week, nobody would care enough to miss 'seinfeld' for it.

[W]

It's because the matterial loss of one out of four functional space shuttles is a serious setback for america, but

1. People don't want to admit that
2. People can avoid any gloating by pointing out that people died, and who'd dare be anything but sad about something involving death
3. People think it's more "moral" or "worthy" or "dignified" or whatever to feel sad about humans dying than about matterial goods

Basically, it's collective projection/displacement.

[Gayle29uk]

Originally posted by W
Basically, it's collective projection/displacement.

I disagree. The space program is something that's bigger than we are, the astronauts are the men and women who (to pick a corny line) are challenging the 'final frontier'. It's hard to care about someone you don't know, apart from the usual morbid fascination I was bored of the whole Diana thing in a very short space of time but these were the heroes and heroines of a new future. They were part of something so much bigger than themselves and that makes all the difference.

I guess I'm enough of a geek to love space and dream that one day (not in my lifetime sadly) we'll all go, seeing people who were helping make that dream real get killed makes me sad, so sue me.

[Nodrog]

d. People really really like the idea of space travel and want to see things done in space by humans within their lifetime, and see this incident as being a serious setback.

[Azof]

I'm quite sure you all ready know this, but most people are stupid. As a result of this, they tend to succumb to their first emotion whenever they know about something. This does not, however account for things that are a daily fact of life, as you said. This has been pointed out before, and will continue to be pointed out until people get it.

[IncubusGod]

Spacetravel is generally the ideal and goal of most kids in the past and nowadays.

I remember when I was a kid there was nothing more I wanted to do than be an astronaut.

Space travel is one of the few things left that is an advancement of the human species,there's no land masses left to expolore on earth,the ocean is there but few care.

Space is romantic,vast and the object of many a person young or old.
Astronauts are ppl who dare to weigh the risk's of rocket propelled flight into a harsh and unforgiving environment to advance the progress of mankind.

When something so large and globaly significant as the space program has such a catestrophic failure as today,people are upset and affected by the loss of the people,in that large metal box that broke up,whos goal was the furtherment of human knowledge and the advancement of our species as a whole.

At any rate it's quite horrible to think that people can die in such a manner,be it a nasty car wreck or the space shuttle exploding.
With a car wreck the debris and bodies aren't spread over thousands of square miles of Texas.

It's a quite graphic reminder of our frailties and limitations and our attempt's to overcome these.

It's gonna get more press than starving children,car crashes,murders,kidnappings,rapes and so on for the reasons above.

Its global impact on our psyche is immmense.
Im not american,none of the astronauts were my countrymen yet..
/me mourns the loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia

[ParraCida]

Thank you for disproving exactly what western society supposedly stands for. Freedom and equality for all, apparantly not.

People are not worth more or less then others, these 7 astronauts were important, but who is more important? A surgeon or an astronaut. Everybody has different roles in their lives, nobody should be judged by us and people keep forgetting this.
Western society, humanity, is a big joke. We tell ourselves things we want to believe in but not live by. Here the lying starts, we tell ourselves we uphold certain values, however when it comes down to this we in fact are far from those. Because we cannot admit this to ourselves we end up living a collective lie where everyone pats eachothers back and all are happy.

The work these astronauts were doing may have been more 'important' from a look at the 'bigger' picture, but then again is that exactly NOT what we should pass judgement on?
No, the reaction to this event has been nothing but a collectivly induced self sustaining burst of mass histerya that followed in the emotional wake of the 400 times worse incident with the Twin Towers.

[Gayle29uk]

Originally posted by ParraCida
<snip>

If you really believe that I feel sorry for you

[Ditcher]

Are car crashes every day events? YES
Are space travel accidents? NO

Should be reason good enough....

[Scoot951]

ParraCida, you're obviously not geek enough to hang out here anymore.

No offense to the families etc, but the astronauts themselves were not important. I'm sure there's a whole list of people ready to take their place right now.

The thing making this is a tradegy is the terrible blow this is to NASA. While it's unlikely, something like this could end up killing the space program, or at least giving it major setbacks. Politicians looking for budgets to cut will call for space flights and projects to be cancelled (after the people on the ISS are taken care of anyhow), and since America pretty much has a monopoly on space travel, that means space exploration itself is at risk.

And for those of us here, that is worth grieving over.

[Monkeypimp]

because it cost them heaps to do that mission.