I think making a point broadcasting that one doesn’t care if other people who weren’t harming anyone die is callous, yes. Doubly so when one does it on a news story about people dying.

Did you mean sympathy rather than empathy?

There is not caring about an unknown person which is default stance. And then there is going out of your way to make everyone know other people do not deserve empathy or whatever and how worthless they are to you. The two are not the same.

Why do you want us all to compare them to other people who died? You are not callous. You are angry and emotional over others having interest in the story.

That is a path towards a more boring humanity.

Drunk driver, war, etc. Am I callous to believe that the two are not equally deserving of our empathy?

I've always thought that a good comparison was drug addiction. Ultimately, what's the difference between someone who engages in high-risk extreme sports and someone who just sits at home doing meth in the basement?

They are both doing dangerous, unnecessary things to manipulate their brain chemistry, without creating or learning anything useful or affecting anything in the larger world around them. Why is one considered heroic and adventurous, and the other criminal or at best pathetic?

I'm not saying that pleasure-seeking for its own sake is inherently bad or wrong, but how would you compare and contrast the behavior of a drug addict and a high-risk climber, if you were explaining it to an alien anthropologist?

[flagged]