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If a journalist dying influences someone's behavior but thousands dying in Yemen didn't do it I'd be curious to know why.

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Everything is built off of norms and expectations. An example people have a little bettwr tendency to understand is that if a bunch of soldiers get shot in a war it's less of a big deal than if a bunch of people get shot in the suburbs because the soldiers getting shot is more normal and expected. Killing a journalist, especially a journalist working for a major US newspaper is hugely against international norms.

International norms are exactly the problem when you're talking about a country like Saudi Arabia. The normal thinking is, so long as they are a cooperative US ally, so long as they aren't communists, any kind of barbarism goes.

I think the norm in this scenario is, people pretend to be shocked that the regime that stones women to death also murders well-connected journalists, then we return to routine normality.

Because daily screaming in the media about one but not the other?

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