People scare me.

I had a scary experience today. Sheltered as I am, in a nice little town where I mostly have pleasant, superficial conversations, I sometimes forget how absolutely, terrifyingly stupid people can be.
Today, during a class discussion, I heard this statement:
[paraphrased] "Why do we care about workers over there, in China? I mean, if we got into a war with China, we'd be killing Chinese people. So why do we care if they die [in dust explosions in factories]?"

I believe I gaped for a moment, and then said something seemingly self-explanatory, like "Because it is bad when people die." I may be wrong, but to all extents it appeared as if the person was being sincere.
I barely know how to reply to that. Why do we care if people die?
To be honest, I had sort of hoped that the answer to that was obvious. Evidently not.

Because I find it distressing that it is not immediately apparent to some people that it is bad when people die, I have compiled this helpful, numbered list of reasons why we should care when people die:

1. Chinese people are people, too. Duh. After all, "people" is included in the phrase "Chinese people". I don't see why this isn't painfully obvious. Call me hopelessly naive, but I thought that I wouldn't need to point out that racism is prejudice based on irrational societal impetuses and personal biases with no supporting evidence, and is thus an invalid and idiotic point of view?
2. It is bad when people die because it causes the people they are close to distress. Through an amazing thing called empathy, we can imagine what it feels like to have a loved one die. Generally, unless you're a raving psychopath, this is a painful feeling that we like to avoid. Since we would like to avoid this situation ourselves (or dying ourselves, for that matter), we try to do the same to others to save them the pain. Maybe, if you want to be selfish about it, you can hope that they might return the favor one day.
3. I was of the strange impression that war is bad. I don't deny its usefulness and necessity in some cases, but I lament the need for it and would honestly prefer that it is kept to a minimum, if at all possible. Furthermore, while I still acknowledge that war is occasionally necessary, I must point out that war is, in fact, government-sanctioned killing. It's necessary. But it kills people. And as we have established, killing people is bad. Yes, even when they don't look exactly like you. I know it's hard to believe.
4. My personal favorite: The point of morality is to ease the pangs of coexistence. It's not easy to live on this planet with all these roommates, but we're all stuck here. If we're nice to one another, then it will be a lot more tolerable to be stuck on this drifting bit of space dust. Having people die in aluminum dust explosions makes living here not so much fun.

If anyone else has got any bright reasons for why we should care when people die, feel free to share. I'm sure I could think of some more, but I'm having trouble getting past these reasons. They just seem so...reasonable. I don't know, maybe that's just the empathy in me talking.