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What did Stalin mean by this statement?
"While the death of a single individual is a tragedy, the deaths of a million individuals is merely a statistic."
Stalin did kill millions of his own countrymen during his reign and somehow his statement makes sense to me, but I'm not sure why.
Perhaps he was trying to say that each person only dies once.
3 Answers
- Needful SinnerLv 78 years agoFavorite Answer
"While the death of a single individual is a tragedy, the deaths of a million individuals is merely a statistic."
It is akin to what rich people refer to as 'the floating decimal'
When you deal in big numbers they tend to lose their meaning and worth, example being to a billionaiire there isn't much difference between say 1,000,000 dollars or 10,000,000 barring an extra zero....
But overcharge then on a restaurant bill or renege on a $10 bet and they freak right out - that they notice.
Same with people... if one person get hit by a car right in front of you - that's freekin' shocking... if thousands die in a Japanese tsunami it's just a blurb on the 6:00 news that at best is interesting, it seems minimized somehow.
- Anonymous8 years ago
No..this is what he meant
The death of Trayvon (for some) was a national tragedy...
The deaths of thousands of kids just like him every year in the same circumstances..are a statistic..no one cares
- Houd1n1Lv 78 years ago
His policies killed millions of people. With that number of people killed, it moves from being real to being an abstract representation. After all, once you reach that point, what is another death or two?
