[ChuckyB]

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In the second example, the loss of a child is always going to be more saddening than an adult. Why? Well for starters children haven't even gotten to experience life yet while adults have. Secondly, children have infinite potential while a lot of adults have already "bottomed out" in their thirties. Obviously losing a child or an adult is a tragedy, but the innocence of a child is more saddening and newsworthy, imo.

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But people become "adults" at 18. So according to how newspeople will write, I'm to believe that a 19 year old dying is easier to take than a 14 year old. That never made sense to me.

Plus people in their 20s and 30s have kids. Kids who no longer have parents. That's tragic as well.

When considering the death of one innocent person, I don't think there are significant degrees of "tragedy".