The False Outrage Over Neil deGrasse Tyson's Tweets

did you see what happened with neil degrasse tyson that neil degrasse tyson got in trouble for tweeting something the other day after the mass shootings right people are pissed at him because it pulled up pulled the tweet up because it's pretty interesting because it's it's just accurate and people were angry and they're saying he's using his platform irresponsibly and no he was trying to let people know that although these shootings are a tragedy they are a small number of deaths and there's so many other deaths that happen here goes the past forty eight hours the usa horrifically lost thirty four people to mass shootings on average across forty eight hours we also lose five hundred to medical errors three hundred to the flu two hundred fifty suicide two hundred to car accidents forty two homicides via handgun often our emotions respond more to spectacle than to data now that is not a bad tweet but i saw a scientist who was writing i am unfollowing him he is using his platform irresponsibly lot of fucking virtue signaling really because what we saying is not that there's anything wrong with uh... you feeling her horrified by these tragedies and he's saying we horrific horrifically lost thirty four people to mass shootings we saying it's interesting that there's people dying left and right author of this country all day long just not at the hands of one person so we look at it differently and he's just saying he just giving you data as a scientist and that's that's exactly what it is he's a scientist yes and so a scientist can separate the emotion yeah but people don't apply his apology because so he's even more interesting people will consider a mass shooting much worse than you know heart attacks so listen to this so this is the other thing yesterday i posted in reaction to the horrific mass shootings in america over the previous forty eight hours killing thirty four people spawn mixed in highly clear critical responses if you missed it i offered a short list of largely preventable causes of death along with their average two-day death toll in the united states they significantly exceeded the death toll from the two days of mass shootings including the number of people forty who on average die from handgun homicides every two days i've been noted that we tend to react emotionally to spectacular incidences of death with the implication that more common causes of death trigger milder responses within us my intent was to offer objectively true information that might help shape conversations and reactions to preventable ways we die where i miscalculated was that i genuinely believe that the tweet would be helpful to anyone trying to save lives in america what i learned from the range of reactions that uh... is that for many people some information my tweet in particular can be true but unhelpful especially the time when many people either still in shock or trying to heal or both so if you are one of those people i apologize for not knowing in advance what effect my tweet could have had on you i'm therefore thankful for the candor and depth of critical reactions shared in my twitter feed as an educator i personally value knowing with precision and accuracy what reaction anything that i say or right will instill in my audience and i got this one wrong respectfully submitted and then it says neil degrasse tyson now even that people saying not enough not good enough response it's also today there's certain people today did that they don't give a fuck whether or not you're you're saying something with sincerity whether you are sorry they don't the saris are enough like they don't they just want they want to be mad at you and even if you're sorry if you admit you made a mistake there's no forgiveness there's no road to redemption there's no there's no i get what you were doing i think that it depends on you know as far as is the sorry enough or whatever depends on the pattern of the person now with neil degrasse tyson this is what i think happened in here this is my opinion he's a scientist so he gives information so he saw this and said oh wait a minute this many people died from medical mistakes this may be and and people didn't react what he doesn't where he messed up with the timing yes you don't say that the day after the mass shooting you say it maybe a week later or something like hey you know people die in a lot of ways blah blah blah now what he's saying is i didn't know that i'm a scientist i didn't i wasn't aware of the emotional impact thank you for telling me the emotional impact and i'm sorry that i hurt people's feelings which to me is totally legitimate especially coming from who he is and what what i would think the scientific mindset is now there are some people that yeah exactly what you said they decided you're a terrible person for saying this so that apology isn't enough there's nothing he could do right but see that there's certain people right there's nothing you can do that's going to change their mind you know you you look at look at the obama birth certificate right so even when the birth civic came out there's a certain percentage of the people that are still like well no that's fake like there was no way he was ever going to be american to these people or there's a certain you know you you travel you know like i you know there's certain groups like you ain't going to get them right their minds made up and they're in their bubble they're in their whatever it is and they're surrounded by like-minded people like you said like this is the disadvantage of the internet right the advantage of the internet is all of this information the disadvantage is you find people who only think like you and you only talk to them and you build this bubble well well yes so there's a group of people a percentage i don't know however you want to describe it that decided the moment he said that this is an unfeeling horrible person blah blah blah i mean i said you know my thing with it with the mass shootings i'm like listen we don't care we say we we care individual like it's very sad for that family it's very to me the the worst part of a mass shooting is somebody went to walmart that day they didn't know what's going to be the last day of their life they're never going to see their family again somebody went out to a club in in ohio they didn't know they'd never come that's the the tragic part and that is sad but in the grand scheme of things we don't do anything we don't you know we we say it doesn't work before we even try it like there's nothing we do that changes even after vegas when they said they were gonna ban what was it called the bump stop or whatever it was that thing that helped shoot faster and then ultimately they didn't even ban that you know so so as a society we say we care but we don't because we don't change anything you got to change something nothing changes if nothing changes right well then we're getting way off track here but with neil dgrasse dyson the the outrage thing didn't outrage me no no i didn't outrage you either right no because he's assigned that what he said is truth yeah and data is true and data is delivered without emotion and why people were upset is because he delivered truth with no emotion right and he said he did he said horrifically i mean he was talking about the tragedy yeah the thing is that just people are looking to be upset oh absolutely yeah absolutely people look for for something to be mad about yeah or something to be outraged about and that you know what that takes away from it takes away from real outrage yes right yeah it diminishes it if you're outraged every day then you know then okay so what's really outrageous right if i'm going to be upset if i'm going to be upset at a scientist for giving me scientific data what do i want yeah i guess the timing was the issue the timing was but it wasn't an issue with me i mean i get what he's doing i'm not a moron yeah it's simple he was just giving you all sorts of different horrific deaths that occur all throughout the country and i think on that same weekend there was some unprecedented number of people that were shot and killed in chicago like yeah chicago is oh fuck chicago's it's a war zone it's a war zone yeah and and the thing is you know people say well what about the gun laws and it's like yeah but they all you got to do is go to indiana like you go two hours away and you can get whatever you want just you know that's the that's the thing so so i'm in a car to a gun show as a city chicago's like look we we're trying but we can't you know what are we going to set up borders and check every car coming into illinois god damn you don't have to go in every house exactly so you can't you can't do that yeah it's it's but yeah his thing i think it was a time and i'm like you that didn't offend me i get what he was saying and then this is it can't offend you if you're a rational human it can't offend you you know you know what bothers me when people pretend to be ignorant of something and they're not how so well when people like like for example with this like there's some people like oh we can use this to to create some dislike against neil the s tyson or or whatever it's generally it's generally politicians do it right when they they say something and they're like oh i didn't know that was offensive around it's like yes you did but you know your followers didn't you see what i mean like you can give me an example i'm trying to trying to think of an example okay well well with the mass shootings right so so the whole thing of saying that trump's tweets had nothing to do with it yes they did yes now they they didn't directly but yeah it did normalize and this guy used the same language of the you know invasion etc so you can't say that it's completely unrelated you know i mean you can't you can't don't put and again it's not saying direct but but you can't pretend there's no connection right right and there are actually because it's quotes there are people who are intelligent enough to know that but they'll say no no there's no and it's like yes there is and you know there don't feign ignorance that's what i mean right well you know the guy in daten who really fucked up one was that guy's an elizabeth warren supporter who actually wrote about gun control i mean he was just a horrific suicidal fucking psychopath and there listen that you have to have some there has to be something wrong with you to do that you like even you know it's regardless of your political beliefs there has to be something wrong with you but you can be sparked or you can be egged on sure yeah by the words of of leaders or political people or powerful people and people of influence perfect way to put it yeah people of influence and that's why i think people of influence have to be responsible in what they say yeah you know but but this but neil degrasse tyson this is a different thing i think this is just a case of a scientist pointing out information without you know like like you know you were talking about earlier dorks nerds whatever you want to say to where it's like yeah well this is just information i'm not trying to be emotional and people like well you have to be right you have to connect you even though you're from a lab environment you have to understand not everyone is but that's that's a one of the more uncomfortable things about today with social media is that there's a bunch of people that are really just they're just authoritarian they're there they demand certain types of behavior and they do so under the guise of compassion they do so under like they're trying to enforce the way people communicate like the neil degrasse tyson thing this you there's no indication whatsoever that he was minimizing the no deaths but people are pretending that he's doing so yeah there are some people who believe he did but there are a lot of people pretending to be right they're finding a nice target right yeah i you know there's too many voices alonzo too many words too many people out there spewing again that's the day as we spew the positive and the negativity of the internet yeah that's a positive and a negative the positive is everyone has a voice the negative is everyone has a voice yeah but there's no and and everyone's light and and the thing is the the middle the calmest voices the the reasonable voices are the least heard of course yeah well that's facebook right facebook's algorithm favors outrage so if you are on facebook and you get upset about abortion that's the kind of shit you're gonna get in your feet right if you get mad about climate change there you go you're gonna get a lot of climate change talk yeah it's gonna show up and god damn that makes people nuts oh again and this is living in the bubble you don't get to hear the other side yeah you know and and and and it's not even it's the reasonable part of the other side you know what i mean like politically yeah i'm left i have friends who i call reasonable republicans and i could talk to a reasonable republican can't talk to a crazy republican right you know can't if you if you say that the mass shootings are based on transgender marriage then we can't talk we we got nothing i'm sorry i can't work with you right but if you say that taxes should be lower to stimulate the economy and blah blah blah yeah we could talk about that you know you know i mean that's that's that's the difference um and you know and just just like on the left look i i believe in the environment and this and that but now if you're asking me to give up gasoline we may have a problem i may not be ready to go that far just yet