The three "popular" ones you mention all involve western nations. The "unpopular" ones don't.
If you live in a western nation, you're going to hear about the first three, because the outcomes of those are going to have the most impact on you.
this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2026
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Yeah, you're not wrong.
One thing I find interesting is that there are leftist spaces here that don't talk about the "unpopular" wars unless it is in their interests. For instance, I was seeing some discussion about what was going on in the Sahel when it was when those governments were kicking out the French, not so much about what has been happening since. The Myanmar civil war is mostly within China's sphere of influence and we aren't hearing that much about that conflict.
Also, the first three all involve a nation that produces oil and/or gas. Even people who don't care about their neighbours killing each other, tend to get a little touchy about fuel prices.
Most people care most about the wars they (1) hear about all the time, or (2) affect them personally. But (1) is most important.
Iran and Ukraine are both of those. Israel kind of too but not to the same degree nowadays. I guess if it started today, people would care less, but there's already plenty of attention built up that doesn't simply dissipate.
But the ones you mentioned, I have heard of the Myanmar one I think either here or on Reddit, but never heard about the other two, and neither have I seen any news on the topic anywhere. Nor does this stuff particularly affect anyone in rich countries afaik. I assume the reason why no one is talking about them is because of exactly that. Most people probably just aren't aware of them, or how they are going. Their attention is being hogged by other conflicts, and in general people don't feel like going out of their way to inform themselves about negative news. If it doesn't come their way on its own, that's it.
People like conflicts that in their mind are easily divided into good guys and bad guys so that they get to pick a side to root for. When it's people killing each other that look and think alike it's much harder to make up one's mind about what to think about it. Much of the discussion isn't even about the conflict itself anyway but rather just people taking the opportunity to announce allegiance to a particular group or ideology.
Myanmar is pretty clear. A military dictatorship is bombing its own country to kill rebels with no regards for civilian casualties.
The real reason is that it can’t be propagandized. Myanmar doesn‘t have close ties to the „West“. Our governments did what was expected of them (giving humanitarian aid and condemning the dictatorship), so the oppositions don’t have anything to blame them for, and the supporters don’t have anything to ridicule the opposition for, leading to it fading out of the regular news cycle pretty much immediately.
The people who actually care about the victims involved in even the propagandized conflicts is vanishingly small. The vast majority just cares about their government‘s role in it.
If I were to keep up with all the conflicts in the world, I wouldn't have time to do anything else. So I prioritize. The war russia launched against Ukraine is the closest and affects me the most, so I pay the most attention to that.
Sadly there is indeed a tier listing of regions of the world where the wars that happen there don’t get noticed.
You can discuss any war you like in any forum that will discuss this subject.
The national media wherever you are will discuss certain conflicts and maybe strive others but the attention will really be elsewhere. As humans we have a limited attention span. Until last decade we had outsourced the sorting of importance to editors in newsrooms. With social media it's been a hybrid of editors and algorithms. A lot of algorithms are fed by traditional, trusted news organisations so the biases persist. This is very generalized but I would describe the formula like this: far away, no oil, no business interests? No news.
Also, people like having opinions. But there is also an ignorance level the majority of people will stay under. You'll always have a-holes that just parrot stuff unreflected. They live these days mostly but not exclusively on Xwitter. I'm not talking about those guys. The more level headed will not want to discuss certain things for lack of knowledge.
On Lemmy, you'll find more level headed people that are influenced by biases that persist in the Anglosphere - we speak English after all. Also, people are not willing to walk into wood chippers. There is no comment on the internet that doesn't have the potential to trigger a shit storm.
Journalism is also about narrative. Aung San Suu Kyi's journey from imprisoned freedom fighter to de facto head of government, to looking away from genocide - the hero journey was aborted and with it attention waned. Most white people don't want to look too closely at Africa for fear of finding contemporary conflicts with their roots in the era of colonisation. Since our attention is limited, those are the conflicts we gladly let go of first. Also, we need to stay focused on whether or not an octogenarian shat himself in Washington.
There is no tier list for suffering.
No list. It is just en vogue in a certain corner of the political spectrum, and many of the lemmy bosses and mods live in that corner.
Not really. If you look at mainstream media, the „S tier“ conflicts do get a lot more attention the the other ones mentioned here. It’s just dependent on how much Western countries (which dominate social media) are involved in them, I think.
I think this is a more general question to my question, what factors make a war grab public attention. I think some people helped me nail some of the aspects, configuration of ideology, beliefs, being able to determine good guys and bad guys easily, does it affect them directly (oil prices I think are affecting everyone for example), and being proximate, for example Ukraine being on the doorstep of western Europe.
But it makes me wonder, is it morally wrong not to know or care about other conflicts, as stated attention spans are limited, is it wrong when mentioning one conflict to say what about another. I think this just came out of curiosity because I feel fatigued (looks like my short attention span) regarding the three "S-tiered" conflicts on most media and social media, and wondering if other conflicts are not also worth my attention, and then I asked why there was not more news on other conflicts and then basically my question.
Sorry feels like a brain dump
I don't think it's morally wrong, especially if there's literally nothing you can do about it. Sure I wish it weren't happening but people have to focus on their own communities before they have the resources to help other communities.
I follow news in Poland and Spain and war in Ukraine is getting much more attention in Poland than in Spain. Why do you think is that?