Neil deGrasse TysonVerified account

The difference is that mass shootings have never inspired a single effective action to ensure that they never happen again. The equivalent would be if nobody worked on flu vaccines, or effective treatment, despite people needlessly dying from it.

Medical errors: staff can be suspended, fired, have their licenses to practice medicine revoked. Patients or their families can sue the hospital. Staff can be re-trained, if appropriate, or punished. Policies can be made to prevent it happening again (see Harold Shipman case).

Yo delete this

Cosmos is a little harder to watch when it’s an ignorant chucklefuck showing me the wonders of the universe

Emotions tend to respond more to spectacle when that spectacle is an act of terrorism literally conceived to surge emotions in order to enact social/political change. Almost all the things on your list are the result of human error. Mass shootings aren’t.

Almost all the things on your list also usually have only one victim per event. Medical malpractice isn’t the result of a doctor injecting and killing 30 patients with a deadly chemical in the course of 10 minutes. Imagine if multiple doctors, unpredictably, did this.

Let's look at that data @neiltyson 500 medical errors probably caused by 500 people 300 flu deaths due to 300 instances of flu 250 acts of suicide committed by 250 people 200 car accidents caused by 200 people 34 shot dead by 2 people. Are you sure it's not the data?

It's not just these specific 48 hours. His stats are EVERY 48 hours. It's a valid point that deaths aren't causing the emotional reaction, it's the spectacle. The angry replies are actually proving his point.

A good point but I think it should also be considered that the emotional response has a value that should not go ignored. Shootings are horrific and have an impact on us disconnected from the individuals involved unlike other causes of death, although all death is a tragedy.

The problem with this tweet is that it isn't a good point. It's whataboutism. It's dismissing the problem. Humanity can focus on more than one problem at a time. And, at least for me, people intentionally killing others for their ethnicity or religion is a far worse offense.