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Neil deGrasse Tyson - "Often our emotions respond more to spectacle than to data"
- Thread starter DrForester
- Start date
If the context of this is that you shouldn't become recluse and live your life in paranoia, then sure. Otherwise this is reaaaally a fucking stupid thing to say, considering most of the mentioned bulletpoints are things that are beyond people's control and the excerpt about handguns is LITERALLY PROVING THEIR POINT.
Terrible logic with a fundamental category error in it. Comparing accidents and intentional murders is not rational. Fuck off, Neil.
Not to mention mixing in gun homicides to contrast ... gun homicides, as well as using blunt numbers that don't explain things like compolications, underlying conditions, specific outliers and so on.
Also just WTF is he thinking. He only just got out of being canceled for an unrelated matter on Twitter and now he's self-immolating on one of about two topics everyone in America agrees require delicacy. Literally even Trump's see-something say something tweet was less insensitive (he'll fuck it up by EOD obviously).
Banning cars would require trillions of dollars in infrastructure so that dozens and dozens of large cities like houston have excellent public transportstion available for every neighborhood. Right now millions of people would lose their jobs and become homeless if theres no cars.
If that was his point, he could have frame it better in an almost infinite amount of ways. He was just on some "Well actually..." shit
if this is the case, as a communicator, he should have communicated it differently. a lot differently.
I seriously can't handle that this dude was in the running to be Carl Sagan's spiritual successor.
I find it off how Americans consistently downplay and make excuses for their gun violence.
yeah, but it seems pretty obvious to me that's the angle he's coming in at even without the disclaimer. the dude has been pretty progressive in general. it's the same kind of thing you'd say to kid worried about playing at the beach because of sharks.
Now he should post those same statistics for another country and look at the outlier then draw a conclusion from that
Moron
His data was inaccurate, his audience is far broader than kids, and his tweet offers no actual comfort for said kids worried about getting shot; rather just more things to be afraid of. There is nothing here for kids, and quite a bit for the right to use as a defense.
If that was his intent, he still needs to shut the fuck up. Let professionals at places like PBS handle discussions with children on a medium actually populated with children instead of Twitter.
Exactly, but we know he won't.
This is exactly how you know these tweets are written in bad faith.
I know you are probably being contrarian for the sake of it but how does that make any sense?
This Tweet isn't some "don't live in fear" speech how do you get that when he mentions both medical and car accidents?
Wouldn't this discourage kids from seeing doctors or getting into cars? Not to mention people supporting the Tweet are right-wing nutjobs.
Very very easily, since when did this belief that being expert in few areas conferred expertise or base empathy in others. It's not how anything has ever even been implied to work..
If you are a sociopath yeah. if a kid was a afraid of the dark you don't tell them 6,000 people die by lightening every year so don't worry about it. It shows a extreme lack of reading a situation and worst a utter lack of understanding the concept of empahty
I'm half sure Carl Sagan died before I was born, but Jeeeeesus fucking christ I miss when he was the face of astrophysics education
What Neil is saying is the smart guy way to show how smart he is.
Yes, there are bigger causes of mass death in the world. You're a genius.
But guns aren't natural occurrences or Mother Nature. By saying "welp, this sucks but there's a lot of other things that are worse" is letting the people off who are actively letting the NRA and others buy it's way into power
Yes, there are bigger causes of mass death in the world. You're a genius.
But guns aren't natural occurrences or Mother Nature. By saying "welp, this sucks but there's a lot of other things that are worse" is letting the people off who are actively letting the NRA and others buy it's way into power
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What the hell did he think he was going to get in response to this tweet? "Oh you're right Neil. Whats 30 or so deaths? Let's just ignore the problem." I don't give a shit how intelligent someone thinks they are/actually are. It takes 1 minute to reflect on that garbage take and delete the draft.
I understand your point, but it's infrastructure that should have been supported from the beginning, but automobile companies and lobbyists took us in the wrong direction
I don't actually believe in banning cars, but car infrastructure in cities (especially major cities) should be less supported and public transport infrastructure should be more heavily focused on. Moreso than car infrastructure. I fully believe that car culture (American, esp.) is overall detrimental to the health of cities and their populations.
Of course, we would have to find ways to mitigate the suffering that the transition would cause, but it's something that would improve more in the end. At least I think so.
I doubt any of this would happen in the foreseeable future though. American suburbs, I don't know if there's any way to fix those without massive amounts of human inconvenience/suffering. They may be a lost cause.
Unfortunately though there will probably have to be some sort of suffering if we hope to eliminate urban sprawl, city congestion, and other issues.
If such a thing is even possible.
