Orlando: Let Me Count the Ways


The people who were killed: May they rest in peace.

Their families and friends, and people who were wounded or otherwise terrorized: May they be healed.

The killer: May he rest in peace.

His family and friends: May they be healed.

The LGBT community: I have empathized with your suffering and persecution and advocated on your behalf for decades, been amazed and thrilled by the growth of tolerance in recent times, but recognize that you are still lightyears from being able simply to be yourselves almost anywhere in the world like everybody else would like to be. I see you as fellow Jews – the world’s pariah and whipping boy whenever any knucklehead wants to blow off some steam about anything whatever (including, apparently in this case, a gay who has been taught to hate himself for being gay).

Muslims: I just want to go out and say a kind word to any Muslim I meet today. There is absolutely nothing, no reason whatever, to single you out because of what some nuts do. It is beyond absurd (just as with gays and Jews and whoever else belongs to some supposed group that some people have irrational beliefs about) that Muslims in particular are any different from Christians, etc. (for better or worse). Again, as a Jew, I can particularly empathize with your situation. So I want you to know I am with you, 100 percent.

Gun advocates: Your right to own an AR-15 is based on absurd and macho motives having nothing to do with the pretexts you put out, such as for hunting and personal safety. You are either lying or utterly unaware of your own motives.

Malaria victims: 438.000 of you (mostly children) died last year. Where is the comparative attention and outrage?

Children: Last year almost 6 million of you died below the age of 5, almost all (99%) in low- and middle-income countries. Where is the comparative attention and outrage?

People who eat animals: You are perpetrating the most massive and horrific atrocity by far upon innocent sentient creatures, by the tens of billions. Where is the comparative attention and outrage?

Everyone: At any time a comet could be discovered that will hit the Earth (typically within nine months) and wipe us all out because we have not made the extensive preparations needed beforehand to deflect or destroy it. We are also currently vulnerable to largescale havoc from asteroid impacts and explosions, which we could relatively easily and inexpensively prevent if people knew and cared. Where is the sense of urgency?

Why can’t people simply be compassionate and rational?

Answer: Because we are the hodgepodge product of mindless cause-and-effect.

What to do: Strive to understand the causal mechanisms that inhibit or could enhance our compassion and rationality, and then apply these insights.

Popular posts from this blog

Patient, Heal Thyself

It’s nothing short of a miracle. Pressure points, aka trigger points – have you heard of them? I could not tell you what the underlying physiology is. But I learned about them in practice from a good friend of mine, who is a masseur and also the creator of a line of simple tools for self-massage. When a number of years ago I began noticing that sign of exceeding the normal lifespan of Homo erectus, namely, lower back pain, Allan gave me a squash ball to place between my back and the wall and then roll across. The aim was to discover a pressure point which was somehow responsible for the “referred pain” in my back.  After some experimenting I found a spot on one side of my spine, seeming to be in a cord that ran up and down the side of my back parallel to the spine (there being another cord on the other side as well). How did I know it was “the” spot? Because it hurt sharply when the ball rolled over it.   Lo and behold, after doing this for no more than three seconds – ju...
Read more

A Wise (and Terrible) Thought

Suppose you were on Air France Flight 4590, the Concorde supersonic transport (SST), on July 25, 2000, the day it crashed on takeoff, killing everyone on board. You strap yourself and your child in your seats. You are a little nervous, as always about flying and especially on takeoff, but you know the statistics and you are a rational person. Meanwhile you put on a jaunty face for your 10-year-old, who is peering out the window, excited and happy. Really it is time for you to relax and enjoy. A long-awaited vacation has begun. Nothing’s going to happen, so focus on having a good time.               What is so godawful about life (among a million other godawful things) is that your child is more enlightened than you are in this instance. He hasn’t a care in the world because his mind is not filled with reality the way yours is. (Of course I am idealizing the child in this example to make a point.) You are absolutely correct to...
Read more

No News Is Good News

Good news for media and politicians is whatever garners readers or viewers or wins voters. Such news need not have any actual news value and may in fact be no news at all. One form this takes is the presenting of numbers without statistical context. Thus the following item from the Associated Press on May 18, 2022:   Nearly 43,000 people were killed on U.S. roads last year [2021], the highest number in 16 years as Americans returned to the roads after the coronavirus pandemic forced many to stay at home. One has to read far into the article to come across the following statement, which pulls the rug out from under all the rest:   Government estimates show the rate of road deaths declined slightly from 2020. Last year there were 1.33 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, compared with 1.34 in 2020. This shows both that driving is incredibly safe and that its safety has increased (or at least stayed pretty much the same), not decreased, since the depths of the ...
Read more