Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

Post by trollsund » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 2:50 PM UTC

Tomte wrote: post #46

WilliamEdward wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the biggest philosophical questions is whether helping people because you see it benefiting yourself is still a good deed... Ask yourself, does it really matter what his motivations for helping were? At the end of the day he was prepared to help. If someone volunteers at the soup kitchen not because they want to help people but because they need community service hours, are you really going to complain about t…

If the volunteer was telling other people constantly in all kinds of situations that he was helping the poor, many people would turn the other way, somewhat embarrassed.

Post by jcranmer » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 2:53 PM UTC

rusk wrote: post #16

bmmayer1 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk had no business being involved. Really, 'inventing' a MVP prototype of a submarine which he 'tested' in a swimming pool and then intended to test for real on live children, when an existing rescue effort underway was working? This was egoism at its finest, taking public credit for 'helping' with a rescue he wasn't invited or asked to help with. And the media ate it up hook, line and sinker.

I thought the sentiment was fine, in particular sending engineers given that his latest subterranean endeavours. On the one hand there's a whiff of publicity off it, but the initiative is to be commended. I wouldn't go talking up the part he played beyond that though.

Post by sparkie » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 2:54 PM UTC

throwawayqdhd wrote: post #110

You really have to love Wikipedia. It's barely a week old and you already have a page with so many references and detailed information. Thank you, all the anonymous contributors.

Post by JeanMeche » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 2:54 PM UTC

macintux wrote: post #152

msvan wrote: post #50

It turns out that if your suffering is spectacular enough, people will come save you. Maybe if we throw all the poor children of the world into caves people will start caring about them.

12 kids and 1 adult trapped in a cave is a discrete, solvable problem. Millions of kids in poverty much less so. We're much better at dealing with time-bounded, localizable problems. Stalin's quote about tragedies and statistics comes to mind.

Post by stared » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 2:57 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #150

msvan wrote: post #50

It turns out that if your suffering is spectacular enough, people will come save you. Maybe if we throw all the poor children of the world into caves people will start caring about them.

It does become easier to focus on situations in which imminent death is anticipated and possibly observable. Think of the resources and attention devoted to the exoneration of death row inmates as they near execution, versus the attention given to them in the years/decades leading up to the execution. Nevermind the many, many more people who may be unjustly sentenced to life imprisonment.