Thread: Murder vs Indifference

The only difference between indifference and murder is that murder is right in your face. Everybody knows that there are millions of people in pain, dying, being tortered by humans or diseases all over the world, but who tries to help those people?Very few. Now, if you saw someone being tortered, raped, horribly injured and left to die and you were just watching, unable to do anything about it (for whatever reason), if you're a normal person you will probably be haunted by this for the rest of your life and feel unspeakable compassion and regret that you couldn't do anything. But why is everybody so indifferent to the suffering that is NOT right in our faces? If you broke your smartphone, would you donate the 300 dollars at hand to charity and buy a cheap phone or would you buy a new smarthpone?

What I'm argueing is that we are not the wonderful people we think we are. It's possible that a torturer, serial rapist or killer does more good in the world than an average person. The people suffering from these "crimes" can feel horrified by this and become better people as a result.

I am just as indifferent as most people and it's a sad fact that it only bothers me a little bit. And right now the thing that occupies my mind is how proud I am of myself that I posted this clever and shocking text. I also think that I'm better than most people because I realised this and I am not ashamed or shy about my arrogance.

Well, I've already helped 3 people who where about to die in front of me.. So, if a person is dying on the other side of the world you can do nothing, but if it's in front of you and you ignore the fact then you are a cold motherf*cker hahaha
Sometimes fear comes to people, but a life with fear can bring a lot of regrets. A cut can bleed and hurt but a regret will hunt you until your death and if there's life over death then maybe hunt you there too.

Is your life aimed at removing as much suffering as possible? If not, why not? You can do something if a person is dying on the other side of the earth. In fact, many millions are dying right now and you don't even need any money to go there and do volunteer work, for example.

There is your bounds, if you go there and leave your friends/family behind you'll regret that too like archer from Fate.. Helping everyone but dying alone.

So you care more about your own happiness than about the dozens or hundreds of people you could possibly help?

if someone is going to the other side of the world to help others is something that will make him/her happy, then he/she will be caring about own happiness too, if somebody save a lot of people and another save one life the two of them are worth of praising..
Remember, you can't judge someone benevolence with quantity, we are not businessman caring about results

What are you talking about? All I am saying is that we are not reducing suffering and increasing happiness as much as we can.

Murder, indiference and happiness hahahah
i'm confused now

Me too xD The "hahahah" reminded me of Urahara

Now that you "realised" this, you are a better person "in your own eyes". Helping others is not for everybody. It is almost like listening to jazz. Not everybody enjoys that. There is no universal law that makes helping others something we should do. I'm trying to make the point that not everybody will think what you see as horrible is horrible and be moved by it. Also not everybody will find the power/desire in themselves to help. Helping might be about helping yourself, satisfying your ego and this doesn't make it bad of course. Just like jazz might be all about satisfying your senses. Don't you think all we do is for ourselves in real? Let's just let everybody live and enjoy their lives in their own ways.

It's possible that a torturer, serial rapist or killer does more good in the world than an average person. The people suffering from these "crimes" can feel horrified by this and become better people as a result.

The majority of people who has suffered from horrific crimes are often scarred for life to the point where they can't function normally in society again. And not just them but those close to them also suffer as well.

Originally Posted by tropicalbreeze

The majority of people who has suffered from horrific crimes are often scarred for life to the point where they can't function normally in society again. And not just them but those close to them also suffer as well.

I'm just saying that it's possible, maybe I should've added that it's RARE. I don't think that you can reliably improve society by letting loose psychopaths.

Originally Posted by Ginsan

Now, if you saw someone being tortered, raped, horribly injured and left to die and you were just watching, unable to do anything about it (for whatever reason), if you're a normal person you will probably be haunted by this for the rest of your life and feel unspeakable compassion and regret that you couldn't do anything.

Most people do not get excited by doing volunteer work in 3rd world countries (nor do I), but most people would agree with this. The only difference between suffering that's happening right in front of you and not right in front of you, is just that, the distance. But the suffering is just the same. What's even worse, is that the suffering of 1 person in front of us bothers us more than the suffering of millions that is not in front of us, even though we are aware of it. This faillure to connect with many kinds of sufferring is a huge flaw in our nature, is essentially what I am trying to say.

I'm just saying that it's possible, maybe I should've added that it's RARE.

Well lets see how that looks:

It's RARE that a torturer, serial rapist or killer does more good in the world than an average person. The people suffering from these "crimes" can feel horrified by this and become better people as a result.

Sounds contradictory

How? It is a rare thing, but it's possible.

Read that 2nd paragraph in the original post carefully with the word rare. Then you'll see what i'm talking about. If you really felt it was rare you would've never added that sentence. As it doesn't go with the rest of your message.

Yeah it looks strange but it's not incorrect. The point is that even "horrible people" can do more good in this world than an average person. Rarely, but possibly. How does it not go with the rest of the message?

I've already answered that. ^^

Originally Posted by Ginsan

And right now the thing that occupies my mind is how proud I am of myself that I posted this clever and shocking text. I also think that I'm better than most people because I realised this and I am not ashamed or shy about my arrogance.

It's really not all that clever. More along the lines of typical armchair-intellectualism, the ideas of a sophomore.

Originally Posted by GavinGill

It's really not all that clever. More along the lines of typical armchair-intellectualism, the ideas of a sophomore.

Thanks for deflating my ego

I dont think the indifference to global sufferings means that we are horrible people. I think its just a limitation of our evolution. We just didn't evolve to care or even know about everything going on the world. The only reason why we even know about a people suffering elsewhere in the world is because of technology. Take away technology, and our concern is always the people in our lives. That's just our social nature. We evolved to live in small social groups.

I'm too lazy to look it up but I know psychologists were trying to answer this question too. Why is it hard for people to care about the suffering of someone you will probably never meet? (that might go back to tribalism) What they found out is, if you can show a person a video of another's suffering halfway across the world, they almost always react with empathy. The empathy that you feel from a video footage is as strong as witnessing it for yourself. Pictures are also powerful. But videos even more so.

But if that same person only reads about said suffering, or worse, reads about it in an abstract way (such as a death count), than that same person reacts with significantly less empathy. Especially when the information is abstract, like saying "A 1000 people died". It doesnt tell us anything about them as human beings. In order to really understand what that means, you have to imagine that everyone you know and love is dead. You have to make it personal to understand the loss.

Its kinda sad, but its just a limitation of the natural human being. The news just gives us a fact sheet that we have trouble reacting to because we don't understand it emotionally. This is why journalism is so important. Journalists risk their lives to show us the face of human suffering.

Why do we have a hard time donating to causes, like ending hunger? Apparently we don't like to donate if we feel it's a lost cause. If there's "always" hunger. If there's "always" disease. Then people start to feel their "investment" into a non profit isn't worth it. Kinda nutty and possibly backwards logic. But unfortunately its very hard to get people to donate unconditionally. We always ask the condition "does it make a difference?"


But, we can transcend these behaviors. It just takes an effort to be more aware and conscious. Because the more aware we are the greater our empathy.

But you're trying to suggest that the answer is to hop on a plane and help right now. Great, if you think thats what YOU should do then go ahead and follow that calling. It isn't fair to judge others for not doing so. When Syria went down I made the mistake of watching a youtube video. I didn't realize what I was watching. Children were murdered on that video. There was no censorship. I was horrified for days. I felt sick. It was a horrible feeling, knowing that I'm safe in my bedroom while kids were being slaughtered. And I wasn't doing anything about it. Honestly, I did feel traumatized.

The only way I could feel better was to forgive myself for doing nothing. Because I am thousands of miles away in another country, I don't even speak the language.

At the same time, there were Occupiers claiming that if someone could buy them a flight to Syria they would fight for the Syrian people. Good on them. But why the hell would I do that? What could I possible do by taking a flight to Syria? To be raped and murdered?

I'm not saying we shouldn't care. We should care. And we should try to care even more. I'm just saying in terms of helping, its up to to the individual to decide what kind of help they can realistically offer. And for me, I was able to help Syrians with what I could do. A week after seeing those horrible videos I had chance encounter with American Syrians (or refugees? I dont know). I just made myself available to listen to their hurts and pains. Then they asked me to join in prayer. That was all they asked of me.

If you constantly stressed out over every single person dying in the world, it would probably physically kill you. As juroara pointed out, we evolved this way and are hardwired to put a larger priority on things that can effect us and a lower priority on things far away that probably don't matter to us personally. We are built that way, it is just how it is.

Even though that is true though, we fight that all the time and people do speak out and try to help others around the world. We go against our programming and try to help others and that shows we are good people. It is very difficult to do it all the time though, especially if you have your own problems and people do have their own problems.

I disagree with part of what you two (Alric and juroara) are saying, but I don't feel like arguing for it. Maybe I will later on but I don't think so. I apologize for my laziness if you did want to have a conversation about this. And I agree that it is natural and we are limited because of the way we evolved. This is no argument, but I can live with the fact that I am letting horrible things happen just by being inactive. It may have a negative effect on my mood but I am not aware of it, I'm in a positive, playful, humorous, light-hearted mood I think about 80-90% of the time.

But maybe that's because I just say "I'm letting horrible things happen" but actually don't connect to it emotionally. Maybe I just don't care about these people to be bothered by it. What does bother me much more is that I am convinced that it's extremely likely that the rest of my life will be even lonelier than these past three years. This selfish sadness suggests to me that maybe I care a lot more about myself and a lot less about other people as I want.

I don't pretend I have more power than is possible. Given everything about my situation, financially, socially, etc., it doesn't make me a bad person in my eyes to not make a higher effort to help those that are suffering, and not devoting all my possible free time to do it. The idea that I should do so is honestly ridiculous to me. The world is a cruel place. I do what I can to the extent that I want and beyond that, sorry to say, I personally have no responsibility for. I am not charged for humanity's safe keeping just because I am human. As a generally good person, if I see that people right in front of me are in great need of help and are in over their heads, I will do something. For example, any emergency situation. Beyond that, it's definitely arrogant and foolish to expect more out of a person than that, in my opinion.

Well yeah we do care less about suffering if it's not right in front of us. O/c I would say an inactive person isn't a bad one, but he wouldn't be much of a helpful one either. Imagine you were one of the billion hungry ppl worldwide. You would punch anyone who says "I have the right to not help" in the face. I mean, you can donate money. You can reduce food consumption (especially when eating less meat cuz meat =much more crops being eaten by the poultry. For example, in the USA only, crops being fed to cows and stuff can feed 800 million!! (Take the equivalence of the meat calories in crop amounts and it will still feed hundreds of millions). I mean, sh*t ppl, let's start caring.

1 Thing Louia, considering whether you would punch someone in the face is probably not the best way to judge whether something is good or bad But what you said is pretty interesting, it's another reason for me to eat less meat (though I'm not sure if I could become vegetarian).

I don't feel like engaging with you snoop, because I think I will only repeat myself, but here I go. I feel the same way, I will only do something if someone is suffering right in front of my face, and not even a lot in most cases. But you seem to find that completely justified while I see it as a major bug in human nature.