Millions of people die everyday.
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Random Homeless Person Dies Today.
- Thread starter CynthiaCypher
- Start date
And another 25 000, mostly children, died from starvation.
CynthiaCypher
Well-Known Member
Yes they do.
Awkward Fingers
Omphaloskeptic
Hi Saint,
I have to ask then, in your opinion, do you value your friends and family members more than, say, the owner of your local movie theater?
Are your friend feelings and opinions valued more than a random person who you see walking Doreen the street?
If so, why? What causes you to value a close friend more than a stranger?
CynthiaCypher
Well-Known Member
Of course people value their family and friends more. What of it?
Warbird
Member
It's all about the fact that we 'know' the celebrities. No, we're not friends, no, we're not close, no, they do not know of our existence, but we know about their existence. We know their names, what they do, or did. They might have touched us in some way deep down inside with their own actions, and many can relate to that on the inside.
Can also follow the money. The newspapers care a ton more about celebrities dying because they know it will sell the newspapers, webpages will get visitors, ad-sense will make a ton of money, etc.
That's why you won't see people mourning for the homeless tramp, or the baby born with aids in Africa. They don't know about them. It's not news worthy to the agencies as it happens so much, every day around us. Most will never truly understand the true horrors that are happening, and still exist, in this little world of ours.
If they did though, they would likely be more inclined to mourn over them on an equal footing. Just look at whenever an act of terror happens in the world, we suddenly mourn for people we never knew existed before.
Is it right, fair, just, <insert synonym here> ... no, but that's just how the world continues to revolve around and around.
Anyway, that's just my 2 cents on the subject.
Can also follow the money. The newspapers care a ton more about celebrities dying because they know it will sell the newspapers, webpages will get visitors, ad-sense will make a ton of money, etc.
That's why you won't see people mourning for the homeless tramp, or the baby born with aids in Africa. They don't know about them. It's not news worthy to the agencies as it happens so much, every day around us. Most will never truly understand the true horrors that are happening, and still exist, in this little world of ours.
If they did though, they would likely be more inclined to mourn over them on an equal footing. Just look at whenever an act of terror happens in the world, we suddenly mourn for people we never knew existed before.
Is it right, fair, just, <insert synonym here> ... no, but that's just how the world continues to revolve around and around.
Anyway, that's just my 2 cents on the subject.
Awkward Fingers
Omphaloskeptic
CynthiaCypher
Well-Known Member
It's called familiarity. What of it?
RitalinOhD
Heathen Humanist
However, I will also say this:
It's sad when practically anyone dies. People are not mere statistics. They are living souls who have friends, families, dreams, and fears. When most people die, someone will be affected.
That being said, the difference being between a homeless person dying and someone like Mr. Williams is that we (at least to some degree) know the personality of the latter and feel as if we know them. As such, when a celebrity dies, we mourn them, because what we think we know of them is gone. We have an attachment to them rather than the millions of people around the world we will never meet.
Not that the death of anyone isn't sad, but it's all about context. People will mourn something that they know (even if it's on a superficial level), but won't think twice about the fact that death occurs every day. Everyone does this.
It's not hypocritical or "idol worship"sarcastic), it's just an apparent part of human nature. Whether one likes it or not.
Exactly +1
RitalinOhD
Heathen Humanist
I think it's a tad weird you are seeming to bash people for not mourning this random homeless person that no one knows about. Had you provided some form of information on this imaginary homeless person, you probably would have gotten a better response.
Everyone is aware that homeless people die everyday. However, it would be insane to expect anyone to acknowledge this every second of every day. It's not realistic. Not to mention, the media doesn't report this info, so it's moot really.
As far as Robin WiIliams is concerned, he wasn't just a celebrity. Outside of his movie and TV career, he also worked with charities, as well traveled overseas to warzones to perform for the USO. He has a wide and reaching impact on peoples lives. He chose to spend his time bringing happiness to peoples lives. He deserves to be mourned. To minimize that because you don't like the celebrity culture, while your right, is absurd.
Everyone is aware that homeless people die everyday. However, it would be insane to expect anyone to acknowledge this every second of every day. It's not realistic. Not to mention, the media doesn't report this info, so it's moot really.
As far as Robin WiIliams is concerned, he wasn't just a celebrity. Outside of his movie and TV career, he also worked with charities, as well traveled overseas to warzones to perform for the USO. He has a wide and reaching impact on peoples lives. He chose to spend his time bringing happiness to peoples lives. He deserves to be mourned. To minimize that because you don't like the celebrity culture, while your right, is absurd.
I think that's the point being made. Whilst not having personal contact with Robin Williams, he has played a small role in people's lives. This familiarity means people feel his loss more than a hypothetical homeless person, or even a real homeless person that they've never met.
Ultimately, we can't feel the loss of a homeless person we've never met, and never been exposed to. We can (of course) feel compelled to act against the problem of homelessness, but that's not quite the same thing.
So...I would feel the loss of an RF member more than a complete stranger whose name is in the obituary column of the newspaper, even though I've met neither of them.
I'd feel the loss of a family member or friend more than an RF member.
Like you said, familiarity.
s2a
Heretic and part-time (skinny) Santa impersonator
I encourage any and all who "care" to do whatever they may.
I know my efforts in this realm are small and insignificant, but I volunteer my free time in building habitat houses, and seeking to provide shelter, clothing, and food for all "homeless" folk, be they veterans, single families, or just kids...none of which "chose" to be homeless. Poverty is not laziness, nor detachment. Anyone that lives paycheck to paycheck knows that fear, and one less check may lead to living in the streets.
Welcome to America.
CynthiaCypher
Well-Known Member
That sense of familiarity we feel regarding celebrities is an illusion and a confusion of the senses. I am not saying that you shouldn't mourn the death of another human being, you should but for other reason. I don't know if you are familiar with John Donne but he believed that all loss was a loss to the greater whole, that every death we experience in our greater humanity is a loss for all. And Terrence taught us that there no human being that should be thought of a foreign or abstract to other human beings.
And as in regards to seeing some people as brighter, as more important than others, one of my spiritual teachers taught me this:
"Every man, woman and child is a star"
And we should all consider them so.
CynthiaCypher
Well-Known Member
Speaking for myself, I'm certainly not arguing that the value of a life can be measured based on our familiarity with that person, whether it is real (eg. my wife) or illusionary (eg. Robin Williams). I do agree that our familiarity with celebrities is illusionary, or at least largely so, by the way.
However we mourn those who have impacted on us. This is something Robin Williams has clearly achieved with some people. Your hypothetical homeless person has not.
If your argument is that the deaths of the homeless is a more important and bigger societal issue than the death of celebrities, then you'd get no argument from me.
Namaste
I have mixed feelings about random homeless people dying (in the street, or other places).
Sometime in the 1980s, I was helping out a "fellow good doer". He led up his own "feed the homeless" effort, he lived in Berkeley CA. I met him at a Hindu temple, he was a Hindu white guy.
So he got a few of us to come by his "operation" to help collect food from grocery stores (expired food, vegies that were going to be tossed), we would chop up the carrots, potatoes, etc,, he had a big cooking opreation with large pots in a kitchen he would rent.
So this was vegetarian meals extravaganza, not for any temple or religious group, no it was strickly just to feed the homeless though he would only give out vegie food, fruits and deserts because he was a Hindu. But we would also heat up big batches of tea (yes with caffine and all).
He had this van, which had these logos on the side about his feed the homeless agenda. So he got about 6 of us involved to help, but all I would do is cook and sometimes bring rice as a donation.
So the operation wasn't in motion too very long, he convinced me to hop in the van and help distribute the food. The food would be spooned onto two paper plates one on top of the other to reinforce the plate for each homeless meal, and heavy duty paper cups or styrofoam cups were used for the tea - these paper products were not cheap and we would buy a lot of them out of our pocket.
The van was filled with these, and along with big buckets and pots of food, we were taken to the Civic Center Plaza lawn area in front of the San Francisco Mayors Office on Polk Street.
So he would park a good distance away, we had to lug this stuff over back and forth a couple of times while one stood by the pots and buckets of food in the lawn area, but you couldn't leave another alone with the buckets of food very long before homeless would start to get a little rash about "what's you got? ... any hotdogs?"etc..
So this was strickly a vegetarian deal. My friend in charge would bang a pot to attract more homeless. I would help scoop up the food onto plates and then hand the doubled up paper plate with food on it to the homeless person who would come to partake, balancing the plate in one hand and the cup of tea in the other as I would hold it out to hand it to the homeless person.
So the first guy I hand the plate to was in his 20s, bearded, that homeless look but sort of "what do I care" tone, he says, "what is this?" while sort of nodding down his nose to the plate and picking up some of the food with his hand instead of the plastic spoon I gave him (oh yeah, forgot to mention the expensive plastic utensils and those expensive "contractors" black garbage bags to put all the dirty plates in for garbage).
"Corn, fried pototoes with butter, rice, carrot curry and oatmeal cookie and tea", I say. As he just put a fingers full of the food into his mouth he suddenly throws the entire plate of food violently onto the ground with a scrowl and food spitting out snarling "I don't want this ******! Don't you have any ********** chicken or something?!?!".
I tell him "we are vegetarian".
"You're a ****** head then! Don't any of you have decent food!"
Another one says he wants "money, not this ******". Some of the food the other threw down was on my shirt. I start to wipe it off.
Another then goes over to one of the buckets and starts to scoop out ladles of carrot curry without proper distribution into his shirt pulled out untucked from his pants and used as sort of a catch net without sharing with others.
"Hold on! " says one of the food distributors, "we will distribute it evenly! Don't just take over that bucket..."
"F*** you, man! I'm gonna chow!" says the homeless man.
Then some rather obnoxious homeless lady with a pot belly and a lit cigarette starts to try and hang on my arm and shoulder. "Wanna be my boyfriend?" she says.
I decided I had enough. Luckily, my guy in charge did too, something about the cops are "over there" and he "doesn't have a permit" to distribute food.
India is my second home away from home. Kolkata (Calcutta) is one of my home turfs. Sure I have seen homeless. Some with no home, but seem to be very homey in their little area on the street of Calcutta. Some also very bad off. There is death, too.
I would rather help them.
It's not exactly how some imagine. It's "complicated". Some things, there never is, or will be, an "answer". There is no utopia. Even the world trade center can come down on top of you any moment, rich or poor, ****** happens, evil people, rude, even rude and evil homeless.
The guy who was in charge of this feed the homeless project? He went to prison later for a serious violent act. The white Hindu gone bezerker.
I am proud of my Hindus. My white Hindus like me. The Indian Hindus. All my Hindu brothers and sisters. Including some celebs from India.
When one of those old Hindu celebs die, I sort of feel sad. "He was a funny guy" and such is said. A million homeless also died. Wish I had an answer, but maybe there is no answer, and maybe not all died but just sort of killed themselves slowly. And some died because others are cruel and all kinds of reasons and evil.
It's complicated. But you are not necessarily guilty. Don't give up trying to be good, and don't let guilt trips be put on you to weigh you down so much that one day you just can't get out of bed. Avoid those pills too, and don''t "ask your doctor" like the ad says.
Om Namah Sivaya
I have mixed feelings about random homeless people dying (in the street, or other places).
Sometime in the 1980s, I was helping out a "fellow good doer". He led up his own "feed the homeless" effort, he lived in Berkeley CA. I met him at a Hindu temple, he was a Hindu white guy.
So he got a few of us to come by his "operation" to help collect food from grocery stores (expired food, vegies that were going to be tossed), we would chop up the carrots, potatoes, etc,, he had a big cooking opreation with large pots in a kitchen he would rent.
So this was vegetarian meals extravaganza, not for any temple or religious group, no it was strickly just to feed the homeless though he would only give out vegie food, fruits and deserts because he was a Hindu. But we would also heat up big batches of tea (yes with caffine and all).
He had this van, which had these logos on the side about his feed the homeless agenda. So he got about 6 of us involved to help, but all I would do is cook and sometimes bring rice as a donation.
So the operation wasn't in motion too very long, he convinced me to hop in the van and help distribute the food. The food would be spooned onto two paper plates one on top of the other to reinforce the plate for each homeless meal, and heavy duty paper cups or styrofoam cups were used for the tea - these paper products were not cheap and we would buy a lot of them out of our pocket.
The van was filled with these, and along with big buckets and pots of food, we were taken to the Civic Center Plaza lawn area in front of the San Francisco Mayors Office on Polk Street.
So he would park a good distance away, we had to lug this stuff over back and forth a couple of times while one stood by the pots and buckets of food in the lawn area, but you couldn't leave another alone with the buckets of food very long before homeless would start to get a little rash about "what's you got? ... any hotdogs?"etc..
So this was strickly a vegetarian deal. My friend in charge would bang a pot to attract more homeless. I would help scoop up the food onto plates and then hand the doubled up paper plate with food on it to the homeless person who would come to partake, balancing the plate in one hand and the cup of tea in the other as I would hold it out to hand it to the homeless person.
So the first guy I hand the plate to was in his 20s, bearded, that homeless look but sort of "what do I care" tone, he says, "what is this?" while sort of nodding down his nose to the plate and picking up some of the food with his hand instead of the plastic spoon I gave him (oh yeah, forgot to mention the expensive plastic utensils and those expensive "contractors" black garbage bags to put all the dirty plates in for garbage).
"Corn, fried pototoes with butter, rice, carrot curry and oatmeal cookie and tea", I say. As he just put a fingers full of the food into his mouth he suddenly throws the entire plate of food violently onto the ground with a scrowl and food spitting out snarling "I don't want this ******! Don't you have any ********** chicken or something?!?!".
I tell him "we are vegetarian".
"You're a ****** head then! Don't any of you have decent food!"
Another one says he wants "money, not this ******". Some of the food the other threw down was on my shirt. I start to wipe it off.
Another then goes over to one of the buckets and starts to scoop out ladles of carrot curry without proper distribution into his shirt pulled out untucked from his pants and used as sort of a catch net without sharing with others.
"Hold on! " says one of the food distributors, "we will distribute it evenly! Don't just take over that bucket..."
"F*** you, man! I'm gonna chow!" says the homeless man.
Then some rather obnoxious homeless lady with a pot belly and a lit cigarette starts to try and hang on my arm and shoulder. "Wanna be my boyfriend?" she says.
I decided I had enough. Luckily, my guy in charge did too, something about the cops are "over there" and he "doesn't have a permit" to distribute food.
India is my second home away from home. Kolkata (Calcutta) is one of my home turfs. Sure I have seen homeless. Some with no home, but seem to be very homey in their little area on the street of Calcutta. Some also very bad off. There is death, too.
I would rather help them.
It's not exactly how some imagine. It's "complicated". Some things, there never is, or will be, an "answer". There is no utopia. Even the world trade center can come down on top of you any moment, rich or poor, ****** happens, evil people, rude, even rude and evil homeless.
The guy who was in charge of this feed the homeless project? He went to prison later for a serious violent act. The white Hindu gone bezerker.
I am proud of my Hindus. My white Hindus like me. The Indian Hindus. All my Hindu brothers and sisters. Including some celebs from India.
When one of those old Hindu celebs die, I sort of feel sad. "He was a funny guy" and such is said. A million homeless also died. Wish I had an answer, but maybe there is no answer, and maybe not all died but just sort of killed themselves slowly. And some died because others are cruel and all kinds of reasons and evil.
It's complicated. But you are not necessarily guilty. Don't give up trying to be good, and don't let guilt trips be put on you to weigh you down so much that one day you just can't get out of bed. Avoid those pills too, and don''t "ask your doctor" like the ad says.
Om Namah Sivaya
Son of The Gods
Thorsman
Personally couldn't care less, I grew up watching Williams so I feel a connection to his death just like when Dio died.
Wirey
Fartist
Who is Dio? Isn't that God?
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
If you paid more attention to my opinions you might not fail so badly at being clever, and original.