I very rarely write anything of a political or social nature simply because it is not really relevant to what the people who read this blog are interested in and to be honest I find such topics to be fairly lifeless and dry. However, one thing has been troubling me and it relates to perspective. Much of the Western world has been consumed over the death of the lion Cecil. Social media has been abuzz with declarations from media stars and personalities and this outpouring of outrage has been retweeted, reblogged and facebooked to death. I agree that trophy hunting is a low act and nothing screams sexual inadequacy louder than killing a defenceless animal from a distance with a high powered weapon. However, I am left to wonder how much of this outrage is simply a convenience because it fits into a certain world view and how much of the outrage is simply manufactured. If nothing else it lacks perspective. To demonstrate this consider the table below. I looked at some statistics from various sources that I will link to below, and then simply divided these stats by 365 to give me a daily figure, not pure, not pretty but it conveys a message.
On the day that Cecil was shot the following occurred elsewhere in Africa.
These are per day figures, yet they attract no outrage, no tweets, no celebrities mouthing off about the evils of it all and I am left to wonder why.
Child Health WHO Africa Region
Bang, the sound of a nail being hit on the head
You’re left wondering why because you haven’t “sexed it up” right for the people.
Here let me show you:
CAUSE NUMBER
Cecil deaths from pneumonia 1295
Cecil deaths from diarrhea 821
Cecil deaths from malaria 1213
Cecils infected with AIDS 650
Cecils sold into slavery 547
See? There you go! My table is far more outrage attractive than yours.
When you write about anything with a political or social slant you are always on the money Chris. Common sense is very uncommon, and, when it comes to mainstream media and politics, it’s deader than Cecil (cue your posts some time ago about gold, and sovereign wealth funds before that). If traders approached decision making similarly 90% would be bust (which is probably representative, on reflection).
The most concerning thing about all this is that the 90% hand over their critical thought to this same media, and then make voting decisions on that basis, for which all in our alleged “Commonwealth” consequently suffer more than a few appalling and often-irreversible sovereign, financial, environmental, health and social outcomes.
We definitely need more quants in our society. Always great to read your thoughts Chris!
Thanks Chris
The real question is “what sort of idiot would type ‘Thanks Chris’ in the ‘Name’ part of the Speak Your Mind reply section?”
And on that day a 10 year old girl detonated a bomb strapped to her body in a town on Northern Nigeria killing 10 and injuring 50 others – reaction …
crickets chirping ..
The world is a place of extraordinary sadness at times.