Typhoon Haiyan

A tragedy. I quite agree. Recently, a record breaking typhoon hit the Philippines with a disastrous effect. When the search, rescue, and relief began, an estimate of 2,000 people died. That amount seemed quite unreasonable, because of the high population density in the Philippines. That number obviously changed soon, but not only did the number go up, but drastically went up. As soon as the news let out that possibly 10,000 people died, articles were thrown out into the internet as if they were scraps of leftover junk that were thrown into the trashcan. So many websites were writing about this happening, the experiences, stories, conflicts, ups and downs and so much more about this disaster. An article that caught my eye was :"Is This the Best Humanity Can Do for the Philippines?" By Conor Friedersdorf from The Atlantic. It had a philosophical twist in it and a moral flavor. You might want to read the article before actually reading the rest. So go to: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/11/is-this-the-best-humanity-can-do-for-the-philippines/281332/

SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER ALERT!!!!


SPOILER: The article asks an important question: Is this all that we, humans, can do to prepare for these treacherous occurrences? For every disaster, relief comes, but after it happens. We already know it's going to happen again: So why aren't we preparing? Another major concept in the article states that:

"And while it may seem wide-eyed, in the near term, to suggest that countries ought to spend less figuring out how to kill one another and more trying to stop nature from prematurely killing us, that may be the only chance we've got in the long run."

I think this is a very valid point because it is very true. War, war, war... That's what armies are for. And its true. Reality cannot be defined without war. But even if we know that armies are essential, don't you think the values of maybe tons of people's lives are essential too? Thats a big question asked. But many of us just can't help but stare at the problem and do nothing about it. Of course we help, but in the long run its just the same every time. Like it's said: "History repeats itself." And its true. But everytime it just gets worse. And maybe not physically worse, but mentally we are all saying to ourselves: "This has happened before!" And that's not good in most cases. I believe that even if slowly this change occurs, we should work as a team to prepare for saving the lives of so many people.