RIP Kobe Bryant

[Bevo]

I judge it by way of magnitude.

The coronavirus that has killed over 200 people in China is a tragedy to me. There deaths are a tragedy given the sheer amount of people and generations it has affected. The 911 attacks were a tragedy, given how it affected the USA for the last 2 decades and the additional lives it has taken by way of war. The Spanish influenza of 1918 was a tragedy, killing close to 50 million people. These are events that shape humanity, hence why I call them a tragedy.

Kobe's death is a very sad one. He was a fantastic NBA player. But I also look at it from a very objective standpoint. Even in Kobe's 41 years of life, he had already lived a better life than millions before have and millions after him will. The sheer pleasures, things he had seen and experienced are all things which the vast majority of us will never experience. His stardom/fame alone is something that in this lifetime is experienced by very little. His wife and surviving children will have it hard, but it can certainly be worse. They could be poor and without a great father & husband. Kobe's family will never suffer by way of a lack of financial means, they will instead suffer due to the lack of his presence, which will come with its own level of hardship.

For all those in attendance, please understand that I believe his death was a sad event. Kobe's name/reputation echoed throughout the late 90's and early 2000's in a way which certainly made him a NBA name that I could remember far past the time that I stopped caring for that sport. I guess I just look at what a tragedy is differently.

Now, if tomorrow someone on GetBig dies, I believe I know them better than I knew Kobe. You guys are real to me, Kobe was not. Onlyme died and that shit affected me. I literally felt his death and would feel the same if any of you died.

I wish Kobe's family the best life has to offer moving forward.

"1"

I see your point

[OneMoreRep]

I see your point

And not for a second am I suggesting that what I see as a tragedy should be the tragedy.

Everyone translates events in subjective ways that will dictate what they embrace as a tragedy. His death might have affected some individuals in a way that will forever change their lives, in that respect I can see how that becomes a tragedy given the long-lasting effect it has on their lives.

"1"

[pellius]

I judge it by way of magnitude.

The coronavirus that has killed over 200 people in China is a tragedy to me. There deaths are a tragedy given the sheer amount of people and generations it has affected. The 911 attacks were a tragedy, given how it affected the USA for the last 2 decades and the additional lives it has taken by way of war. The Spanish influenza of 1918 was a tragedy, killing close to 50 million people. These are events that shape humanity, hence why I call them a tragedy.

Kobe's death is a very sad one. He was a fantastic NBA player. But I also look at it from a very objective standpoint. Even in Kobe's 41 years of life, he had already lived a better life than millions before have and millions after him will. The sheer pleasures, things he had seen and experienced are all things which the vast majority of us will never experience. His stardom/fame alone is something that in this lifetime is experienced by very little. His wife and surviving children will have it hard, but it can certainly be worse. They could be poor and without a great father & husband. Kobe's family will never suffer by way of a lack of financial means, they will instead suffer due to the lack of his presence, which will come with its own level of hardship.

For all those in attendance, please understand that I believe his death was a sad event. Kobe's name/reputation echoed throughout the late 90's and early 2000's in a way which certainly made him a NBA name that I could remember far past the time that I stopped caring for that sport. I guess I just look at what a tragedy is differently.

Now, if tomorrow someone on GetBig dies, I believe I know them better than I knew Kobe. You guys are real to me, Kobe was not. Onlyme died and that shit affected me. I literally felt his death and would feel the same if any of you died.

I wish Kobe's family the best life has to offer moving forward.

"1"

So if I am understanding you right, what merits a tragedy is a numbers game and the quality of life that person lived. So what number of innocent people have to die before you consider it a tragedy? And is there a ballpark estimation as to the quality of life one has lived to be considered "he got more than enough good living" so it's not so bad. Is it a tragedy that the other people died other than Kobe because they didn't live such a blessed life? I think that puts the number at 8 people dead, one we know was just a kid. Is that not enough innocent people dead through no fault of their own?

[SF1900]

You don't feel it is a tragedy when innocent people suffer or die? That surprises me. Where's your heart and empathy that Liberal like to tout so much? A tragedy is when something horrible happens to someone that they did nothing to earn or deserve. They were just a group of passengers taking a helicopter ride, like so many others do, when it crashed and killed them all. Something that their families and close friends will have to live with for the rest of their lives.

Im not a liberal.

[pellius]

Im not a liberal.

OK. Though I have found that many who hold many liberal views such as you do, don't like calling themselves Liberal. Which I understand. But that is beside the point.

You do not feel empathy for people who suffer and die through no fault of their own? Just from a human decency point of view?

[SF1900]

OK. Though I have found that many who hold many liberal views such as you do, don't like calling themselves Liberal. Which I understand. But that is beside the point.

You do not feel empathy for people who suffer and die through no fault of their own? Just from a human decency point of view?

What liberal views do I hold? I barely talk about politics or social issues on this forum. Most of the time I post something, its purely for fun. You and most people here don't know my true views on most topics because I don't talk about such things on a public forum.

[SF1900]

You don't feel it is a tragedy when innocent people suffer or die? That surprises me. Where's your heart and empathy that Liberal like to tout so much? A tragedy is when something horrible happens to someone that they did nothing to earn or deserve. They were just a group of passengers taking a helicopter ride, like so many others do, when it crashed and killed them all. Something that their families and close friends will have to live with for the rest of their lives.

Tragedy:  an event causing great suffering, destruction, and distress, such as a serious accident, crime, or natural catastrophe.

It doesn't cause me great suffering, so I don't view it as a personal tragedy. It may be a worldly tragedy, as people around the world are affected by it. It sucks for his family who has to suffer, but I don't view it as a personal tragedy.

It's not a black or white thing, i.e., you either have or don't have empathy. I have different levels of empathy based on the situation and circumstance. Many factors come into play that determine my level of empathy and emotional response.

[Bevo]

Tragedy:  an event causing great suffering, destruction, and distress, such as a serious accident, crime, or natural catastrophe.

It doesn't cause me great suffering, so I don't view it as a personal tragedy. It may be a worldly tragedy, as people around the world are affected by it. It sucks for his family who has to suffer, but I don't view it as a personal tragedy.

It's not a black or white thing, i.e., you either have or don't have empathy. I have different levels of empathy based on the situation and circumstance. Many factors come into play that determine my level of empathy and emotional response.

I would def feel personal tragedy if any getbiggers or if you died

[pellius]

Tragedy:  an event causing great suffering, destruction, and distress, such as a serious accident, crime, or natural catastrophe.

It doesn't cause me great suffering, so I don't view it as a personal tragedy. It may be a worldly tragedy, as people around the world are affected by it. It sucks for his family who has to suffer, but I don't view it as a personal tragedy.

It's not a black or white thing, i.e., you either have or don't have empathy. I have different levels of empathy based on the situation and circumstance. Many factors come into play that determine my level of empathy and emotional response.

OK. I can't control people's feelings but I am interested to know their perspective and what motivates them. I just believe that people are becoming more and more inured to the suffering of others and it takes a higher bar of suffering to move them. I don't consider that a good thing.

And as far as the definition you presented, I understand it doesn't cause you great suffering as is the same with me, but you are not even distressed about it (also included in the criteria of the definition you posted)? That surprised me given my impression of you.

[SF1900]

OK. I can't control people's feelings but I am interested to know their perspective and what motivates them. I just believe that people are becoming more and more inured to the suffering of others and it takes a higher bar of suffering to move them. I don't consider that a good thing.

And as far as the definition you presented, I understand it doesn't cause you great suffering as is the same with me, but you are not even distressed about it (also included in the criteria of the definition you posted)? That surprised me given my impression of you.

Let me reiterate my last point of view because I didn't make it clear the first time around.

I don't like to view emotional responses as in either-or principle (empathy vs. no empathy). I have a range of empathic responses based on the situation and circumstance. My response is hardly ever "absolutely no empathy" vs. "overwhelming empathy." My empathic response lies somewhere on a continuum.

As for your belief that there is a higher bar for suffering these days, that's not really true. Psychoanalytic thinkers, including Freud, as well as early Sociologists, have discussed how humans respond differently to suffering based on the situation and circumstance. The fact is, most Americans are not moved to a great degree when 100 children die in Uganda, but are more moved when 100 American children die. The further away the tragedy is in terms of locality, the less suffering and less empathy we have over the situation (proven in many different studies).

So, you ask, am I distressed over the situation? Not distressed in clinical terms, such as that I am crying, cannot sleep, or cannot eat. I don't feel distressed in terms of behavioral, cognitive, or emotional symptoms. It stinks what happened to them. My empathic response was, "Damn, I can't imagine what Kobe's wife is going through to in terms of losing a child. It must be overwhelming grief for her. I wish she didn't have to go through that." That's pretty much the  extent of my distress.

[Desolate]

Rapist.

Got away with it.

God knows what else he got away with.

Fuck him.

Good riddance.

The joke in all of this is that the NBA will now bend over (literally) to hand the championship to the Lakers.

[pellius]

Let me reiterate my last point of view because I didn't make it clear the first time around.

I don't like to view emotional responses as in either-or principle (empathy vs. no empathy). I have a range of empathic responses based on the situation and circumstance. My response is hardly ever "absolutely no empathy" vs. "overwhelming empathy." My empathic response lies somewhere on a continuum.

As for your belief that there is a higher bar for suffering these days, that's not really true. Psychoanalytic thinkers, including Freud, as well as early Sociologists, have discussed how humans respond differently to suffering based on the situation and circumstance. The fact is, most Americans are not moved to a great degree when 100 children die in Uganda, but are more moved when 100 American children die. The further away the tragedy is in terms of locality, the less suffering and less empathy we have over the situation (proven in many different studies).

So, you ask, am I distressed over the situation? Not distressed in clinical terms, such as that I am crying, cannot sleep, or cannot eat. I don't feel distressed in terms of behavioral, cognitive, or emotional symptoms. It stinks what happened to them. My empathic response was, "Damn, I can't imagine what Kobe's wife is going through to in terms of losing a child. It must be overwhelming grief for her. I wish she didn't have to go through that." That's pretty much the  extent of my distress.

Of course, I realize there are gradations of emotions. It's just that you seemed unmoved by this tragedy. And, of course, the more distance you are from the victims the less of an impact it has on you. But when I was a kid you didn't have teenagers murdering, and even cutting off the heads or lighting them on fire, of other people like it happens now. I don't know if you remember back in the early 80's when a postal worker went nuts and started randomly shooting people. It was huge and shocking news at the time. This set off a trend and more people started doing it. Hence the term "going postal". As acts happen they become more common and more "accepted" in the sense that it doesn't even raise an eyebrow.

When I was a kid we had an encyclopedia set and I looked up the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre where seven people were executed. This event merited three pages in the book. Hardy big news, and certainly not national news, today. It's probably already happened in Chicago sometime in the last month.

People are far less honest, decent, and respectful today then they were in my father's generation. And it is accepted more and more.

[SF1900]

Of course, I realize there are gradations of emotions. It's just that you seemed unmoved by this tragedy. And, of course, the more distance you are from the victims the less of an impact it has on you. But when I was a kid you didn't have teenagers murdering, and even cutting off the heads or lighting them on fire, of other people like it happens now. I don't know if you remember back in the early 80's when a postal worker went nuts and started randomly shooting people. It was huge and shocking news at the time. This set off a trend and more people started doing it. Hence the term "going postal". As acts happen they become more common and more "accepted" in the sense that it doesn't even raise an eyebrow.

When I was a kid we had an encyclopedia set and I looked up the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre where seven people were executed. This event merited three pages in the book. Hardy big news, and certainly not national news, today. It's probably already happened in Chicago sometime in the last month.

People are far less honest, decent, and respectful today then they were in my father's generation. And it is accepted more and more.

If I was moved by every tragedy/death, I’d be emotionally burned out.

[pellius]

If I was moved by every tragedy/death, I’d be emotionally burned out.

Welcome to my world. 

Actually, that's part of my point. Tragedy, needless and undeserved suffering and pain, is becoming more commonplace that you just get numb to it.

That's a tragedy in its own right.

[Walter Sobchak]

One thing has become apparent reading this thread.

When it came right down to it....Kobe Bryant was no “Chopperrider”

😏

[The Scott]

I never watch sports, least of all bassetball.  This turd's existence or death neither detracts from nor enhances my life and the lives of those I know and care for.

IOW, I could give an aerial intercourse about Kobe Bryant.  Some here might claim, if that is true, why then did I feel the need to post in this thread?

I never "feel".  I just thought I should make clear my thought on the subject.  Fuck 'im.  And the media that slobber all over his cold ballsack.

[joswift]

Your shallowness reveals itself again. I know it is his personal opinion and I want to know why he believes that. You have made it quite clear in previous post that the question "why?" is meaningless to you.

I have corrected the grammatical error pointed out and I will extend you the same courtesy. "PS" is an abbreviation of two words and should be written as "P.S." And "dont" should be written as "don't" and "its" if used in its possessive form should be written as "it's".

And not "fucking" caring about innocent people who die really shows what kind of person you are. What a heart. I care and so do hundred of millions of others. Fortunately, people who lack basic human decency like you are still a minority. I often wonder how people like you get like that. So little regard for human life.

No, you really dont, you pretend to care , like milions of others, you probably roll out the cliche " My thoughts and prayers are with the familes at this sad time" and 5 seconds later get on with your day and dont give them another thought, fake outpourings of grief are pathetic and fake platitudes are tiresome .

And as for correcting grammar, your posts just wasnt an apostrophe, it made no sense.. Jeez, touchy aren't we...

[joswift]

Of course, I realize there are gradations of emotions. It's just that you seemed unmoved by this tragedy. And, of course, the more distance you are from the victims the less of an impact it has on you. But when I was a kid you didn't have teenagers murdering, and even cutting off the heads or lighting them on fire, of other people like it happens now. I don't know if you remember back in the early 80's when a postal worker went nuts and started randomly shooting people. It was huge and shocking news at the time. This set off a trend and more people started doing it. Hence the term "going postal". As acts happen they become more common and more "accepted" in the sense that it doesn't even raise an eyebrow.

When I was a kid we had an encyclopedia set and I looked up the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre where seven people were executed. This event merited three pages in the book. Hardy big news, and certainly not national news, today. It's probably already happened in Chicago sometime in the last month.

People are far less honest, decent, and respectful today then they were in my father's generation. And it is accepted more and more.

he doesnt see it as a tragedy, that would be you...

As for people caring about other people , go and read "Ordinary Men" by Christopher R Browning , that will open your eays to what normal everyday people can do in the right circumstances..

[AbrahamG]

These days people have to settle for my thoughts since prayers are an abominable waste of time.

[pellius]

No, you really dont, you pretend to care , like milions of others, you probably roll out the cliche " My thoughts and prayers are with the familes at this sad time" and 5 seconds later get on with your day and dont give them another thought, fake outpourings of grief are pathetic and fake platitudes are tiresome .

And as for correcting grammar, your posts just wasnt an apostrophe, it made no sense.. Jeez, touchy aren't we...

Don't presume to know what I feel. What an arrogant self-absorbed guy you are. And you and everybody else understood my post so you just lied that it made no sense.

And it was you that made an issue of my writing mistake. You of all people.
Sure, I make some mistakes when writing on a message board. I'm not trying to display polish prose but for you to compare my writing to yours is just laughable. You have never made a post that wasn't littered with spelling, grammatical, and punctuation errors. It's obvious you are not an educated person.

Just this post alone: "dont" should be "don't" (still haven't learned), "milions" should be "millions", "familes" should be "families", "wasnt" should be "wasn't", no idea why you put a space before a period and a comma. Ending with "..." which really doesn't make any sense.

How many boards have you been kicked off of now, including this one? "BeingThere, JeffUK, and now Joswift?

[pellius]

he doesnt see it as a tragedy, that would be you...

As for people caring about other people , go and read "Ordinary Men" by Christopher R Browning , that will open your eays to what normal everyday people can do in the right circumstances..

What's "eays" retard? And just one period will suffice. No space needed in front of a comma.

[AbrahamG]

What's "eays" retard? And just one period will suffice. No space needed in front of a comma.

LOL @ that word. 

[OneMoreRep]

Pellius,

These discussions remind me of what I experienced 40+ yrs ago when I was an undergrad sitting in a Philosophy class discussing Aristotle's and Plato's view on tragedy and how humans have an inherent need for pathos. I remember the constant waves of empty rhetoric coming from both opposing sides in trying to prove their point over the other. Everyone wore business casual to class back then, can you imagine?

Anyhow, I think everyone's unique experiences will determine their threshold for deeming an event a tragedy or not. In my earliest memories of childhood, I remember summers spent in Sderot Israel where bombs used to go off every so often and many lives were lost. The death of people from both sides was very sad. In New York City during the late 70s and 80s, I remember the days of the crack epidemic and seeing thousands of people dying. These types of events were tragedies for me, as it affected many people I knew and changed the landscape with regards to how people lived, but even then I moved on with my life. What these events shared in common was magnitude (it affected many people 100's-1000's), long-lasting effects (caused that part of Israel to enforce restrictive practices with regards to when people can be outside and increased military presence which took away from the beauty of the environment + the crack epidemic practically destroyed the overall look/feel of certain parts of NYC) and struck home (both instances affected people I directly knew, some friends and other acquaintances).

I think a tragedy is an event that will be uniquely perceived and your individual experiences will determine which events qualify. To someone that has left/loss a job a bunch of times, but always found a way to get right back up and land another job, losing a job isn't a tragedy. To someone else, who has never left or lost a job, getting fired can be a tragedy if they have a wife and kids depending on them and no way to pay their bills.

"1"

[joswift]

What's "eays" retard? And just one period will suffice. No space needed in front of a comma.

ad hominem attacks show that you really dont have an argument..

Clutching at straws over grammatical errors, really....

[joswift]

Don't presume to know what I feel. What an arrogant self-absorbed guy you are. And you and everybody else understood my post so you just lied that it made no sense.

And it was you that made an issue of my writing mistake. You of all people.
Sure, I make some mistakes when writing on a message board. I'm not trying to display polish prose but for you to compare my writing to yours is just laughable. You have never made a post that wasn't littered with spelling, grammatical, and punctuation errors. It's obvious you are not an educated person.

Just this post alone: "dont" should be "don't" (still haven't learned), "milions" should be "millions", "familes" should be "families", "wasnt" should be "wasn't", no idea why you put a space before a period and a comma. Ending with "..." which really doesn't make any sense.

How many boards have you been kicked off of now, including this one? "BeingThere, JeffUK, and now Joswift?

We have achieved meltdown...