Assessing the "Worth" of a Life
When an earthquake above some magnitude/scale hits China the mainstream media in the West barely mentions it unless very many people die. It is, after all "far away". They're "not like us..."
The same can be said about atrocities and famines in Africa.
When an earthquake hits Greece, or even Turkey, European media will pay attention.
In central or south America? What earthquake? Maybe we can even blame the casualties, can't we? "They don't make durable buildings..."
The earthquake analogy (or metaphors from Africa) helps illuminate the bias we have in our media. There is selective outrage, selective empathy, selective interest, and selective reporting.
The same is happening in the so-called 'Tech' sector (with capital T, as with GAFAM it became a bit like a religion or cult-like movement). The media will mostly ignore projects and things that matter (e.g. GIMP) and instead devote its full attention to paid-for GAFAM/IBM puff pieces, even outright lies, because it gets paid to do this. This is partly the reason why we all see so much hype about "AI" in the so-called 'media'.
All the major media is like this; there is no objectivity, there is a business model. To some, there is political agenda, which is increasingly tied to rich sponsors if not owners. Concentration of power increases as the gap between rich and poor expands.
Don't let blunt plutocrats decide whether Venezuelans deserve sympathy or not or determine how much of a tragedy it is (to them). █
Image source: Old Map Of Venezuela