Imagine on a given night there are a thousand nightclub fires, in each of which 100 or so people die because the exit doors are locked, as happened recently in Buenos Aires. It would impossible to respond emotionally separately to each of these fires. You cannot simply multiply the emotional impact of 100 deaths a thousand-fold either. If the toll ends up being 130,000, you can't simply add 30 more night-club fires. It is the staggering nature of the numbers that makes the emotional impact, in a real sense, incalculable.