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From: suhre@trwrba.UUCP (Maurice E. Suhre)
Newsgroups: net.jokes.d
Subject: Re: Perspective
Message-ID: <1835@trwrba.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 17-Feb-86 12:27:29 EST
Article-I.D.: trwrba.1835
Posted: Mon Feb 17 12:27:29 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 20-Feb-86 07:19:53 EST
References: <1814@trwrba.UUCP> <11862@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: suhre@trwrba.UUCP (Maurice E. Suhre)
Organization: TRW EDS, Redondo Beach, CA
Lines: 58

In article <11862@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> weemba@brahms.UUCP (Matthew P. Wiener) writes:
>In article <1814@trwrba.UUCP> suhre@trwrba.UUCP (Maurice E. Suhre) writes:
>>I've been watching the shuttle jokes/debates going past and I think there
>>is a certain lack of perspective.  Just ask yourself the following
>>questions (and estimate the answers).
>>
>>	1.  How many people die every day on the freeways/hiways
>>	    in the US?
>>
>>	2.  How many teenagers die of drug overdose every day?
>>	    Or in traffic accidents with drugs and/or alcohol
>>	    being a significant factor?
>>
>>	3.  How many women die as a result of illegal abortions?
>>
>>Finally,
>>
>>	4.  How many people die in Shuttle accidents every day?
>
>I think Maurice here has a lack of perspective.  I know of no one who has
>died of deaths type 1,2,3 in the past month.  I know of 7 people who died
>in a Shuttle accident.
>
>If your best friend's parents were killed, would you tell them that their
>getting all upset is tacky and stupid, since they ignore all the strangers
>that get killed every day, according to the news?  Even if he witnessed
>their deaths?
>
>Not only do I think Maurice has a lack of perspective, I think he is very
>rude telling us what our emotions should be.  As if 70 deaths are 10 times

Please.  I didn't tell anyone what their emotions *should be*, and have
never done such a thing.  We feel what we feel, and at any given moment
cannot feel any differently.  If someone points out alternative view-
points or explanations, then I may feel differently after hearing them.
Or not.

>worse than 7 deaths, and thus we should measure our emotions accordingly.
>
>Are you possibly planning to give us some traffic accident/drug overdose/
>illegal abortion death jokes or something to balance everything out for us?
>
No.
>ucbvax!brahms!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720

I did not intend to single out Mr. Wiener's posting in particular, but
the unstated point I had hoped to make has not yet been mentioned.
The followup is an easy vehicle to state my unstated point:

	I believe that the deaths of type 1, 2 and 3 are *preventable*,
	at least to a large extent.

Finally, I would hate to see net.jokes.d degenerate into net.flame
or some such nonsense.

Maurice

{decvax,sdcrdcf,ihnp4,ucbvax}!trwrb!suhre