quexoticJun 23, 2023
Tom Maxwell
This reflects my feelings.
“Titan and Adriana are two vessels recently lost at sea, four days and 4,000 miles apart. The five men who lost their lives on the Titan have been getting wall-to-wall coverage in the media worldwide. Meanwhile, the estimated 700 who died when the Adriana sank off the coast of Greece, mostly women and children, have been essentially forgotten.”
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/6/22/a_titanic_disparity_in_how_the
A Titanic Disparity in How the World Responds to Maritime Disasters

By Amy Goodman & Denis Moynihan All travelers, whether migrants or millionaires, deserve rescue. The global response to the Titan’s disappearance should be the model for how we respond to migrant vessels in distress.

Democracy Now!
Jun 22, 2023 at 9:23pmWeb
Show threadKenJun 22, 2023
@tommyyum Same. The entire #MSM is no longer interested in humanity, just web-clicks and content!
Show threadMagical CatJun 23, 2023
@Turntwo363 You wanted to say "web-clicks and ads displays"?
Show threadLilyshomeJun 22, 2023
@tommyyum those are also my thoughts.. what should matter is People.
Show threadTom MaxwellJun 22, 2023
@artesianspring 💯
Show threadakgirl49Jun 22, 2023
@tommyyum The Titan vs Adriana is such a sad but vivid example of the waste of wealth and excess vs human suffering. The fact that probably $50 million (just my best guess) has been spent on the Titan recovery is such a glaring example of the inhumanity when contrasted against what that money could have done for the disadvantaged seeking a different and hopefully safer, better life. Or at the very least, provided rescue and support services.
Show threadCIWS-30Jun 23, 2023
@akgirl @tommyyum Yep, as people are saying more often, we're already living in a "boring dystopia". The megacorps are here and have been here for a while, and we're basically living in a Cyberpunk world, except without the Cyber and neon lights.
Show threadFrances WhiteJun 22, 2023
@tommyyum There's no mystery about what happened in Greece. No suspense.
Show threadKatLSJun 23, 2023
@franceswhite @tommyyum right. Displaced people are disposable and thrill seekers are precious.🫤🥺😓sigh
Show threadJMcDJun 23, 2023
@franceswhite @tommyyum No mystery or suspense and it is easier to have empathy when it is a small number of people whose story we’ve gotten to know. When it is many people who are killed, they tend to become just a number. It’s the same reason we are more invested when one or two people are murdered than when a dictator commits mass genocide.
Show threadTom MaxwellJun 23, 2023
@McD1979 @franceswhite There’s something else going on.
Show threadJohnPJun 23, 2023
@tommyyum #democracynow…I miss them. #birdsitemigration
Show threadhaifischJun 23, 2023

@tommyyum being fully transparent I was sorta surprised news networks didn’t start a countdown timer. There’s was the implication due to the air supply but honestly it just seems strange to me that it got as much coverage as it did, not that it’s not deserved necessarily just sort of strange.

I tend to see it as news networks just profiting off of speculation rather than facts.

Show threadPaco HopeJun 23, 2023
@tommyyum I want to be careful because I’m not trolling. But this same thing is true of terrorism. Dozens lose their lives to a terror attack and we get wall to wall coverage. Thousands die daily from covid, or being homeless, or malnourished, or lack of health care and it goes unremarked. It’s not just a commentary on the subject of the articles, it’s revealing editorial choices and what certain people think deserves coverage.
Show threadDanJun 23, 2023

@paco @tommyyum it's the same with transport accidents...
4 people die in a train crash here and it was headline news for weeks. (was the first fatal crash since 2007)

A similar number of motorists die every single day in vehicle collisions but it barely makes news unless it causes majorly traffic disruption

Show threadcrugeleyJun 23, 2023
@tommyyum sadly, this is true.
Show threadSamsamrosJun 23, 2023
@tommyyum the civilization crisis not only shows as climate change, nonsensical wars, collapse of urban and rural systems, but also as a crisis of ethics. It is profoundly and outrageously immoral how social wealth is spent on making society even more inhumane.
Show threadEk Ong Kaar K MichaudJun 23, 2023
@tommyyum And this is why Mastodon outshines Twitter and Facebook. Within a minute of logging on, I read something important, that matters, that mainstream media is not covering.
Show thread🇨🇦 Maverick ✊🇲🇲🇺🇦🇻🇪🇬🇱Jun 23, 2023
@tommyyum One can judge a civilization based on how they treat the poor and disadvantaged. Lets hope the aliens or God (your choice) weren’t watching us this week as I fear we have failed miserably and deserve whatever fate they choose…
Show threadxs4me2Jun 23, 2023

@tommyyum

It really does and shows the state of ethics and lack of empathy in media and society… for God‘s sake, have pitty…

Show threadGerbrand van DieyenJun 23, 2023
@tommyyum what makes the whole story a bit more tragic "Most or all of Adriana’s roughly 100 survivors were helped not by Greek authorities but by a private yacht that had responded to the distress call."
Show threadMartijn VosJun 23, 2023

@gerbrand @tommyyum

Is that the private yacht whose captain is now facing 20 years in prison for saving 100 lives?

Show threadGerbrand van DieyenJun 23, 2023
@mcv @tommyyum presumably yes.
Show threadnilsmielke ⁂Jun 23, 2023
@tommyyum THIS!
Show threadHammer ArmadaJun 23, 2023
@tommyyum
Show threadBradley StowersJun 23, 2023
@tommyyum “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” —The Pigs
Show threadEmanuele_246giJun 23, 2023
@tommyyum I state that I totally agree with saving those poor people in the boats, but it's also important to analyze the context: we sadly got used to news about them, and the Titan's case is not something we hear everyday, this is probably the main reason on why it had more media coverage the latter than the first, although there are more reasons behind it, let's see things with less reactionary opinions
Show threadMaria Langer | 📝🛥️💎Jun 23, 2023

@tommyyum @Puck

This has been bothering me, too -- especially given the knowledge that the Navy (and others) had good cause to suspect the implosion as early as Sunday. What a freaking waste of resources.

Could those North Atlantic resources helped out off the coast of Greece? Not likely. But that isn't really the point. The point is that we threw all our attention at 5 rich people instead of hundreds of others. Aren't each of their lives worth the same?

Show threadquexoticJun 23, 2023
@tommyyum it kinda lays bare what the priorities of government are. Pretty sad.
Show threadBrain PilgrimJun 23, 2023

@tommyyum I think it's also a relative risk structure.

Men in charge would like to be so rich experimental Titanic tourism is how they die. With constant media coverage.

While no man identifies as the category of "women and children." Many of them live with such as replaceable cogs.

Show threadMeow.tar.gz  Jun 23, 2023
@tommyyum It's incredibly disturbing that the lives of billionaires meant more. This is not a world I want to live in - a world where people are accorded status they do not deserve based entirely on their wealth.
Show threadSpiderNickJun 23, 2023
@tommyyum Truth
Show threadSteve BellovinJun 23, 2023
@tommyyum @spaf Ever hear the Woody Guthrie song "Deportees"? That's what I'm reminded of.
Show threadTom MaxwellJun 23, 2023
@SteveBellovin @spaf I have, via Bob Dylan and Joan Baez
Show threadAmbigram ArtJun 23, 2023
@tommyyum
Show threadAmbigram ArtJun 23, 2023
@tommyyum
Show threadBeeksJun 23, 2023

@tommyyum bro look at your own feed.
The things you've re/tooted about by amount:
1) by far the most, people complaining about the unequal coverage.
2) news about the Titan
3) I stopped scrolling after a bit but found zero recent toots/retoots about the Adriana.

You are literally the problem you're bitching about.

Show threadTom MaxwellJun 23, 2023
@Beeks You’re right. It’s probably because I don’t have the emotional bandwidth to sit with such profligate cruelty.
Show threadBeeksJun 23, 2023
@tommyyum humans have been dehumanizing others since our evolutionary beginning. In fact it's so ingrained that our relatively recent foray into equality is hard to keep centered because you're right, it's painful. It's painful to watch from our privileged perch as billions of people suffer simply for losing the lottery of birth. How do we not become numb to it? I don't know tbh. Nihilism's siren song plays in my ear every time I look at the news and I struggle to tune her out.
Show threadTom MaxwellJun 23, 2023
@Beeks The greatest trick the Devil every pulled was making us feel powerless. I am not immune myself.
Show threadAriadneJun 23, 2023

@tommyyum to this I would add the 500 pilot whales slaughtered this year in the #grind in the Faeroe Islands, an annual tragedy that get's few headlines and no "live ticker" coverage. #whaling #whales #cetaceans #dolphins #PilotWhales
(the Guardian article headline says "dolphins", though they are called pilot whales)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/15/dolphins-killed-faroe-islands-hunt-resumed-may

Over 500 dolphins killed in Faroe Islands since hunt resumed in May

Hundreds of pilot whales targeted in two most recent ‘grinds’, with animals beached and then slaughtered

The Guardian
Show threadLouis CyphreJun 23, 2023
@tommyyum Refugees don't have great PR teams.
Show threadDaftguruJun 23, 2023
@tommyyum
Typical!
The media and it's followers value wealth and celebrity far more than human life and suffering. Imagine how many lives could have been saved with all the money that has been spent in the remote Atlantic had it been spent in rescuing and giving succour to those in peril in the English Channel.
Show threadsOlOw-NHJun 23, 2023

@tommyyum

Did you mean let them eat caste?

Show threadCat Food CasseroleJun 24, 2023
@tommyyum
The press has gone so downhill. They used to cover stuff like this everywhere, for instance the Haitians who died when their boat sank in 1991: 23 Haitians Die, 119 Missing as Boat Capsizes Off Cuba
Show threadFantasioJun 24, 2023
@THEDisneyGeek About your post yesterday about the 5 dead… Where is the coverage about the many who are not filthy rich?
Show threadDisney Geek Jun 24, 2023
@Fantasio I don’t know that the coverage of these 5 was because of their wealth. The coverage was more likely due to the extremely unusual situation. Right or wrong, news stories tend to be about the unusual, including miners who are trapped, kids who fall down wells, migrants abandoned in overcrowded semi trailers, unarmed civilians killed by police (sadly, not so unusual these days), lost cave explorers, etc.
Show threadplount 🇷🇴 🇺🇦 🇪🇺Jun 24, 2023
@tommyyum I've first read about this as a teen in a Stephen King's book. His currency was that a life of a New Yorker was about a life of 5000 people from a poor country in the news cycle.
Show threadLouJun 24, 2023
@tommyyum money talks #sadbuttrue
Show threadHolzfuchsJun 29, 2023
@tommyyum Eat the rich!
Show threadAndrew JP Carroll MD FAAFPJun 29, 2023
@tommyyum Absolutely.