US Kills Soleimani in Airstrike

[beetlejuice]

@NotBruceZ

So Trump has a 50% success rate? Sounds like an F to me.

thanks common core

[suzzer99]

@bigt2k4

If you want to read about them:
Iran plane crash: What we know about Canada's victims of Flight PS752 | CBC News

It’s crazy, it seems over half of them were engineers (maybe 2/3rds), doctors, Masters or PHD students. A whole bunch were PHD students in engineering at my alma mater

Any Iranian or Ukranian dissidents on board?

[beetlejuice]

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1215847755651874817?s=20

The Iranian military’s statement said the plane “took the flying posture and altitude of an enemy target” as it came close to an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps base. It said that “under these circumstances, because of human error,” the plane “came under fire.”

[RiskyFlush]

@bigt2k4

It’s crazy, it seems over half of them were engineers (maybe 2/3rds), doctors, Masters or PHD students. A whole bunch were PHD students in engineering at my alma mater

Thank you. Such a senseless loss.

[6ix]

@microbet

@All-InFlynn

They’ve got a cheerleader media class tripping over their bits to make Iran look as bad as possible, seems unnecessary and loaded with blowback potential. Admittedly, the latter hasn’t always stopped them, but I don’t see any reason to get fancy here; it’s probably what it looks like, an Iranian fuck-up.

I may repeat myself too much, but I think it’s important to not even think of these things as “fuck-ups”. This is just what happens when you do war. You don’t get to say “let’s bomb Iraq and not bomb any hospitals” or let’s have a huge military presence in a tense situation and never shoot down a commercial airliner, or let’s have a huge ground presence and never commit war crimes against civilians. Bad things are guaranteed to happen.

So, yeah, shooting down this airliner was partly Trump’s fault. He took an already dangerous situation and made it more dangerous and anything that happens because of that is partly his fault.

yeah this is the part of the program where I start screaming OF COURSE THE PASSENGER PLANE GOT SHOT DOWN WTF DO YOU THINK HAPPENS WHEN YOU SHOOT MISSILES AT EACH OTHER ARE YOU PEOPLE INSANE

[LouisCyphre]

@bigt2k4

Lots of PHDs, medical doctors, and engineers on that flight apparently. Lots of students in school on the way to becoming one of those as well.

I know I am super-nitpicky here but pointing out their professions makes it sound like the victims being educated makes it more tragic. I assume that’s not what you are going for here but it still feels very weird to me.

[6ix]

Honestly, I’m shocked anybody’s first reaction wasn’t, “Well, sure, Iran shot it down, planes sometimes get shot down, why the hell do you think we keep saying war is bad?” Maybe around August of 2001 people could get away that bullshit but come the fuck on already.

[All-InFlynn]

Really didn’t anticipate this level of pushback for employing a colloquialism conveying “Iran shot it down, though not as a result of a policy which favours doing specifically that, and would on the whole have preferred not to do specifically that”. FWIW I agree that war/military conflict are generally bad things and inevitably feature egregriously bad things like civilian casualties etc.

[bigt2k4]

Rather than their lives being worth more I was merely extra saddened since it hit close to home for me as many were from my city and it seems like they had or were going to have had a large impact on society.

I guess it makes me a ghoul that I would feel differently if AOC passed away tomorrow versus Mitch McConnell

“A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.”
-Some monster

[6ix]

@All-InFlynn

Really didn’t anticipate this level of pushback for employing a colloquialism conveying “Iran shot it down, though not as a result of a policy which favours doing specifically that, and would on the whole have preferred not to do specifically that”. FWIW I agree that war/military conflict are generally bad things and inevitably feature egregriously bad things like civilian casualties etc.

It took me a second to even get what you were referring to; I had to scroll back up.

Imo “fuck-up” is apt and my reply to Microbet is a tangent of sorts. My rant is a response to how the media is portraying the issue. Sorry for the confusion.

[6ix]

Situation Now All Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition

[Smacc_25]

https://mobile.twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS/status/1215996082469117952

https://mobile.twitter.com/mehdirhasan/status/1216005430532562947

[Smacc_25]

https://mobile.twitter.com/farnazfassihi/status/1215999851353313282

[Smacc_25]

https://mobile.twitter.com/caryn_lieberman/status/1215390058544615424

https://mobile.twitter.com/caryn_lieberman/status/1215623289235804161

[microbet]

It’s not really pushback imo.

[ThirdAndChancellor]

@bigt2k4

Rather than their lives being worth more I was merely extra saddened since it hit close to home for me as many were from my city and it seems like they had or were going to have had a large impact on society.

I guess it makes me a ghoul that I would feel differently if AOC passed away tomorrow versus Mitch McConnell

“A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.”
-Some monster

This discussion raises a tough question. Should we be more upset when people who are going to have a bigger impact on society needlessly die? I mean, a good person who’s a scientist or an engineering student is no better than a good person who’s an uneducated farmer. But, the scientist could have a bigger positive impact on the world.

If it’s wrong to note the extra sadness in losing so many bright young minds, would it be wrong to note the extra sadness if the plane shot down was full of volunteers going to help people in Puerto Rico deal with the earthquakes? Or would we all feel okay with that distinction?

People should be careful not to be elitists regarding people’s education levels, but in evaluating the impact on the world and on others, not all lives are equal. On the other hand, in deserving to live those lives free of violence, in deserving respect, and in deserving to be remembered, all those lives lost are equal as long as they were good people.

I do personally find myself extra saddened when students die needlessly, because I remember what it was like to be a student nearing the end of my education, excitedly considering the options for “the rest of my life.” It’s deeply sad to think of people who are at that point in their life getting no rest of their life. But that’s just about losing people at a young age, more than anything else.

[suzzer99]

I think it’s perfectly valid to bemoan that there were so many post-grad students on that plane who had their whole lives ahead of them and potential great things to contribute. It helps humanize them and make it a less “other”, “foreign”. It doesn’t diminish anyone else’s life imo.

[RiskyFlush]

I nominate SNAFUBAR as the official acronym of 2020

[Jalfrezi]

@suzzer99

I think it’s perfectly valid to bemoan that there were so many post-grad students on that plane who had their whole lives ahead of them and potential great things to contribute. It helps humanize them and make it a less “other”, “foreign”. It doesn’t diminish anyone else’s life imo.

Age is one thing but qualifications? meh

[RiskyFlush]

“How do I feel about this” vs “What concern do I feel a moral imperative to manifest in the world”

Those are two different things. I mean sure we can cultivate concern and empathy and grief for the loss of any life. But what evokes a stronger sense of grief depends on each person. We can’t just decide how we feel. Emotions don’t work that way.