Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Connecticut school shootings

Some thoughts on the school shootings:

1. My heart goes out to the familes of the children. I have been surprised, as a relatively new parent, just how strong the bond of affection is between parent and child.

2. I liked this piece from the Telegraph. Indeed, it is almost the only thing I have read or seen that I thought was very serious.

3. How sad that we honor the fallen children by having a festival of confirmation bias (and I have in mind both the red and blue teams in this regard).

4. Why don't Americans engage in loud, public displays of emotion about children who die from other causes, or who die in poor countries?

1 comment:

don said...

For whatever reason, deaths that occur individually, even at great frequency, don't bother people nearly as much as multiple deaths, no matter how rare.

Every year in the U.S. tens of thousands of people are killed in auto accidents, and approximately zero are killed in commercial aviation, but it's airplane crashes that people fear. Don't even get me started on the (tens of thousands) deaths from coal versus the entirely hypothetical deaths from nuclear power.