I need to know what you think of photos of dead children

[andrewducker]

Poll

Asking because it really does seem that the photo being reposted all over the place is actually affecting the discourse in a positive way. And although I don't like looking at photos of dead children, if I thought it would mean that we act in a more empathic way towards our fellow man I would look at pictures of dead children for as long as it

Comments

[alitheapipkin]

It's not so much that I'm against sharing the photo, more that it horrifies me that this is apparently what it takes to get some people to care about something that isn't right under their nose.

[andrewducker]

Oh yes. I wish people cared without having their faces rubbed in the awfulness.

[cmcmck]

You and me both and I got dog's abuse from one individual for posting it as part a blog I wrote on the issue earlier today- someone I'd thought cared about the issues.

[andrewducker]

I saw that. Would have linked if it wasn't flocked.

[cmcmck]

I guess the attack summed up why I f-lock.

Sometimes it's people you think you know.........

[octopoid_horror]

It just makes me sad that people essentially ignore global news until it is thrust in their face by a deliberately provocative front page. I was frankly embarassed for the Independent when they started doing that a decade or so ago, but I am also aware that many people don't like to read upsetting things or things that might make them think.

So with that in mind, I'd be in favour of reposting videos of dying children and also forcibly abducting "Oh I don't watch the news, it's too depressing"-saying people and relocating them to refugee camps.

I don't ask that people actually care or take action - people are free to make up their own minds on how the world and events within it affect them but I do hope for people to have some kind of awareness of what's going on in the world.

I've actually once had to tell a co-worker that there was a war going on, which our country was fighting. No, really.

[sparrowpunk]

Phone ate first comment, I think. I am glad if it contributes to positive action, but on a personal level I really can't deal with it.

[chess]

My actual position is slightly more nuanced:

At the 1-99 person level of persuasion, I think the privacy/dignity concerns of posting dead children override the good done.

I am in favour of people reposting pictures of dead children _with appropriate warnings_ at the 100-person level - but I do know that I tend to undervalue privacy/dignity concerns.

Without warnings, I'm not happy with it until the 100,000 person level - up until then the harm done to people who are genuinely harmed by seeing photos of dead children outweighs the good done by convincing people to be less terrible.

Over the 100,000 person level I think it probably outweighs the harm done to those people - that's at about the 50% confidence level, my confidence level gets better as the numbers get bigger.

[ciphergoth]

Hang on, you care about quantity, and you measure subjective uncertainty with probability that varies continuously. And you're in Cambridge. You seem like the sort of person I should have met, have we met? :)

[chess]

No idea :) If you're not into LARP, probably not - most of my social life these days revolves around LARP and tabletop RPG groups. If you would like to expand your circle of nearby people who occasionally think in these terms or at least don't mind you doing so, even if you're not much into RPGs, I recommend the #larp channel on irc.srcf.net.

[ciphergoth]

I hope to hang out with more people who think this way when I reach the SF Bay Area in March, all the folk I know around there are connected to MIRI/CFAR/EA circles...