Selective compassion at the right times?

Former Member

I read this on the BBC website and it broke my heart

A few weeks before hurricane Katrina's devastation, India's financial capital Mumbai (aka.Bombay) was drowned completely by a 48-hour downpour, the heaviest recorded in the last 30 years. The Indian electronic media showed images of people helping shopkeepers save their merchandize, it showed people throwing open their doors to strangers who couldn't reach their homes, it showed slum dwellers, who themselves had lost everything, serving hot tea to those struggling back home wading through waist-deep waters. The Mumbai floods made heroes out of ordinary people. Watching images of the New Orleans disaster, nothing could have been so much in contrast. It brought tears to my eyes to see such tragedy.
Abhijit Roy, Bangalore , India

Its so true though - thousands of people died in India in floods their - yet there was no massive international out pouring of Aid to them - i guess they are even more invisible than poor black americans. They didn't resort to gun warfare either..

Former Member

Blagsta wrote:

No doubt evolutionary psychology bollocks. Take a look around you, you see altruism every day.

What's bollocks about evolutionary psychology? Plenty of reactionaries use it to back up their bullshit, but that doesn't mean it should be dismissed completely.

We are products of evolutionary environment just as we are of social environment.

Former Member

Spliffie wrote:

What's bollocks about evolutionary psychology? Plenty of reactionaries use it to back up their bullshit, but that doesn't mean it should be dismissed completely.

We are products of evolutionary environment just as we are of social environment.

Its absurdly reductionist, drawing complex conclusions from insufficient data.