The latest death toll from Bangladesh is 2200 and this number will almost certainly rise. Chris Mooney knew this was coming last Wednesday and he warned everyone to expect a disaster [Still No Weakening for Cyclone Sidr]. Why didn't CNN dispatch its crack team of hurricane reporters to the scene? And why, even now, is the news media treating this so lightly?
Yesterday I watched while the CNN anchors reported on the dead and injured and the millions of people who lost their homes. They then switched immediately to light-heated banter about elderly women playing basketball. We didn't see that kind of insensitivity during Katrina, did we?
Should there be a difference just because one hurricane is killing Americans while another is killing people in Bangledesh?
UPDATE: Death Toll Might Reach 10,000.
[Photo Credits: AFP: Bangladesh cyclone dead number 2,200, millions destitute]
Should there be a difference just because one hurricane is killing Americans while another is killing people in Bangledesh?
ReplyDeletePerhaps not, but that's human nature for you; Americans are most interested in what's happening in America. Bangladeshis are most interested in what's happening in Bangladesh.
Most of the people I've heard complaining about this just seem to be using it to self-righteously score political points anyway.
Also, if the present criteria of national newsworthiness were applied globally, the news would just be a series of reports on minor and major accidents, murders and other miscellaneous felonies from one country after another.
"Larry Moran, keeping them honest."
ReplyDeleteIt's not always evident that news is a business, except in such cases.
This also is in evidence in American foreign policy, where enlightened self-interest is the norm.
Regards,
Lee <- Not sure what light can shine from self-interest
Huh? If only American foreign policy were really based on enlightened self-interest.
ReplyDeleteBut I think it would be quite difficult to argue at the moment that it is.
Well, the point I was after here was if the root is self-interest, we will see such inconsistencies as Larry Moran points out.
ReplyDeleteNow said enlightenment I take to be being willing to help people in order to help ourselves. However, in various ways, the wolf will show itself through the sheepskin, you're not going to get really unselfish behavior with self-interest at the root. But what is required for really helping others consistently and impartially is unselfishness--is my view here.
True, but short of building Utopia, a world in which countries like the US accurately perceived their long-term interests would still be a big improvement over the one we live in now. There would not, for example, be a war going on in Iraq...
ReplyDeleteyou're not going to get really unselfish behavior with self-interest at the root.
ReplyDeleteHuh? Tit-for-tat with slight forgiveness is the most efficient single player strategy around in repeated social games (only beaten by maffia style gangs with sacrificial patsies). If everyone was guaranteed to be non-social and effective (i.e. enlightened), you would certainly expect to see a dominant proportion of "golden rule" style (treat others as you want to be treated) behavior, with a positive twist (randomly forgive a small percentage). And this is consistent with our observation of society.
AFAIU it is the basis for the evolutionary mechanism of reciprocal altruinsm, albeit I don't know if it has been tested in the social and biological context as it has been in the gaming one.