• 1984@lemmy.today
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    5 hours ago

    It used to be terrorism all the time, have they replaced that with simple homicide now? Definently needs a new war then!

    Going to Iran to defend America from terrorism again this weekend according to rumours.

  • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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    6 hours ago

    On the one hand, I get this, what’s unexpected is more interesting and newsworthy, but at the same time I do see how it creates problems. Airplane travel is much safer than cars, but people feel unsafe in planes. Part of it is because you aren’t personally in control, sure, but a lot of it is definitely the availability hueristic*. Especially following things like the September 11th attacks and Malaysian Airlines planes going missing.

    But a major issue with it is that it leads to us viewing things like car accidents (and heart disease and cancer) as inevitable and a mere fact of life we can’t do anything about. Meanwhile whenever there is an airplane crash it’s very thoroughly investigated and will likely lead to changes in regulations.

    *: I may be getting the name wrong.

  • exaybachae@startrek.website
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    12 hours ago

    Fear mongering and sensatislism vs educational and beneficial programming.

    How we are taught to stop terrorism and homicides, give more power to police and authority figures.

    How one actually stops terrorism and homicides, better educate people and provide them with higher quality social and health services. Which ironically result in more preventative care and less deaths from the treatable diseases that are underreported.

    Eat this, not that.

    • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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      12 hours ago

      Another way to look at something is newsworthiness. If it’s something that’s super common, it isn’t remarkable enough to make the news.

      I don’t want to live in a world where terrorism is so common it isn’t even worth talking about on the news.

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        Yeah 5 dead from a shooting at an American school is local news. At an Australian school it’s international news.

  • ForeverComical@lemmy.ca
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    7 hours ago

    What gets our attention are mostly causes that we feel we have power over and that look spectacular.

  • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    12 hours ago

    At first sight it seems to me that the coverage being positivelly correlated with how unusual a death is and the number of people dying in a single event, would explain that graph.

    I bet if we dig into the details of the Accidents class we would see a pattern were uncommon kinds of accidents and/or those with a large number of deaths (“man killed by falling crane”, “plane crash”) get lots of coverage whilst common kinds of accidents with few victims per event (“a car crash involving a single car”) get a lot less coverage.

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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      9 hours ago

      Yeah, it’s not a conspiracy. They sell clicks, or “public interest” if you want to be generous. It’s just that in doing so, they present a scary, distorted version of the world.

  • Fmstrat@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    1% homicide is still 3.4 million people.

    Natural causes will never be news, except when a major medical breakthrough occurs. It’s simply not interesting to the population.

  • shane@feddit.nl
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    16 hours ago

    I wonder how the comparison would look if you compared years lost per type of death?

    That is, old people die of heart disease and cancer. Young people die of accidents and violence.

  • PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    Yesterday I witnessed a motorcycle rear end an SUV in person. I hope the guy did not die but it looked pretty bad when it randomly happened.

    • Deceptichum@quokk.auOP
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      15 hours ago

      Because being old doesn’t kill you. It’s the things associated with old age that kill you.

      • Skullgrid@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        My wife, after I inform her Elizabeth II died :

        “What did she die of?”

        Me, straight faced :

        “of being 98 96 fuckin’ years old”

  • kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world
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    21 hours ago

    Heart disease, cancer, etc are part of the plan. Both boring and too close to home. Terrorism and homicide are suitably scary, morally charged, and far enough removed from most people’s lives to be mostly abstract fears.

    • borkborkbork@piefed.social
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      14 hours ago

      Heart disease, cancer, etc are part of the plan.

      exactly. they can’t exactly have you all worried about the byproducts of their industries. Worry about that guy who’s different, don’t care about the planet we’re burning

  • Lvxferre [he/him]@mander.xyz
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    1 day ago

    Sorry in advance for the political topic, but it’s directly related to the info in the OP.

    Is the bar for causes of death roughly similar across social classes? As in: are rich/poor people more/less likely to die from certain causes than others? I’m asking because I’m wondering if news coverage isn’t a bit closer to “reasons why rich people die” than to “reasons why your typical person dies” there (in USA). Just a hypothesis, mind you.

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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      9 hours ago

      Poor people get sick faster, generally speaking and in the West. It’s the same diseases, though.

      In the third world, tropical diseases, diseases of poor sanitation and infant mortality are disproportionately huge killers. On the other hand, if you’re talking about a rainforest tribe, they might be in top shape until they’re ancient, because once they survive childhood they’re basically living the lifestyle humans were designed for.

    • Druid@lemmy.zip
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      15 hours ago

      Considering that the top reasons for death in the US are related to, more or less, how well you treat your body - as in exercise, diet - there will absolutely be data on poorer people being affected more. If you don’t have enough money for a good diet or sports, naturally your body’s health will suffer as a result.

      Alzheimer and cancer, depending on the cancer, maybe not so much.

      • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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        15 hours ago

        i agree different cancers have different statistics, but the most common cancer would be skin cancer, BCC , 2nd would be SCC and then melanoma.

        • Druid@lemmy.zip
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          15 hours ago

          Going off the US again, then, skin cancer would probably be more of a thing if you don’t have the money to go see a doctor and get treatment for it

    • GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip
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      24 hours ago

      Not an american but i would think that not many rich people actually get murdered, unfortunately. Private security and someone wealthy is generally more valuable alive than dead if you are looking for ransom or such.

      • ѕєχυαℓ ρσℓутσρє@lemmy.sdf.org
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        22 hours ago

        That reminds me, there’s this anti-capitalist, anti-war children’s film by Satyajit Ray called Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne. In it, there’s a song that says that the king is sad and afraid since he has so much money. He tries to cope by punishing others, but it never makes him happy. The only solution offered was to let go of all his riches, and that finally made him happy.

        It was for children, so I understand why sadness was used instead of fear. But they do need to be afraid.

        As an aside, I think that movie had a decent impact in the communist revolution that happened in my state in the 70-80s. Ray has made some of the greatest movies in the history of cinema, but his children’s films still hold a dear place in the hearts of many generations of Bengalis.

      • makingrain@lemmy.world
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        17 hours ago

        Not an american but i would think that not many rich people actually get murdered, unfortunately.

        Would you say that out loud around other people?

          • makingrain@lemmy.world
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            12 hours ago

            Why murder people when you can just take their ahit and leave then destitute?

            I’m rich, what you gonna do to me, peasant?

            • Deceptichum@quokk.auOP
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              12 hours ago

              Because we’re at war?

              If we had the means to remove all their wealth and stop them from ever amassing any again sure there’s no need for the death penalty at that point. But we’re not there, we’re in the frontlines of a class war where it’s us vs them.

              If you’re really rich (I doubt it) you could give up your excess wealth and live a comfortable life with what you have remaining.

              • makingrain@lemmy.world
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                11 hours ago

                You’re a terminally online, no wonder you’re so bitter. With that much free time you must have no job and live solely on government handouts.

                Thanks for the downvotes!

    • MacroCyclo@lemmy.ca
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      19 hours ago

      Those would be very interesting graphs to see. There is definitely a massive difference between the graph for rich and poor. One window into that is the difference in longevity between the rich and poor. The rich have a ~90 year lifespan.