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Comment by gsibble | Hacker News Reader

6 pointsgsibble8 comments

People tend to be emotional, not cold and statistical about risk and tragedy.

Reminds me of the stat -- "the annual odds that an American child will die in a mass shooting at school are nearly 10 million to 1, about the odds of being killed by lightning or of dying in an earthquake" [0]. And no, I'm not pro school shooting -- one is too many -- but the active shooter drills are a bit excessive. You'd be better off teaching all children how to swim well at a young age.

Overall, I liked the authors hot take. The only thing I disagree with him/her on is whether a real estate crash (commercial or otherwise) would be a bad thing. I think inflating bubbles endlessly and saddling future generations with a lower standard of living is the actual (big picture) bad thing.

[0] https://www.city-journal.org/article/sorrow-and-precaution-n...

To answer the question: A lot of people care when they hear that people’s lives are in danger. They care about other issues too. Caring about something doesn’t mean you can’t also care about other things.

Thousands of other people's lives are in danger every day yet they aren't in the news. It always fascinates me how easily people are distracted by stuff that is meaningless and doesn't affect them.

It’s just novelty. Submarines don’t sink every day. How many times do we hear of a refugee boat sinking? Seems to happen every few weeks.

Because we're Amusing Ourselves To Death.

(I care about it because OceanGate is local and a friend has met the CEO and been on one of their submersibles)

Interesting read. I don't know if I completely agree, but I don't disagree either, and appreciate this kind of bluntness.

I don't really write my stuff with the intention of getting people to agree with me. I write it to get people to challenge assumptions, like why is a submarine the biggest news in the world and now the WSJ's article about how American cities are doomed, which to me is a much more important story and will significantly impact people much more than.........a missing submarine.

I'm glad you enjoy my blunt style. Cheers.

News is entertainment and so the most entertaining story of the hour wins.

All it needed was a kitten onboard to absolutely dominate.

Being a story that everyone can feel smug about in one way or another helps, too.

I was hoping your Embarcadero story had actual machine guns but apparently it’s just boring standard American semiautomatic fire as usual. Lame.

Note that all the depressing news is entertainment, too. Of a different sort.

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