[aaron695]

> Darwin Award

Making fun of people dying. Fucking sick stuff.

It's also logically crap. Often it's people (as in this case) doing things outside the normal. Things as hackers we should celebrate.

It's also often people in extreme poverty just trying to make a living, aka the fucking sick part that we as rich educated people make fun of cause we don't have to do dirty things like recycle metal from unexploded ordnances cause rich.

[knodi123]

Hey, tell me about it. There was a tragic accident at my school, when a structure collapsed and killed several students, because it had insufficient engineering oversight. But, eh, Darwin Awards had to make a joke, so they collectively gave it to all the victims, who were getting up at the crack of dawn to volunteer on a group project, and following all the safety rules they were given.

[seszett]

That's weird because it directly contradicts most rules of Darwin Awards, that the people must be mature (well I don't know what kind of school it was), that they must be the ones responsible for their death (from what you say, the engineering is what killed students later) and that it must be because of "extraordinary misjudgment" on the part of the people both responsible and victims (who are supposed to be the same).

Can you link to your story on their website in order to contact them and withdraw the award since it breaks the rules?

[knodi123]

I dug into it a bit further, and apparently the story is that the Darwin Awards used to be more crowd-sourced, but as a direct result of the incident I'm referring to, they instituted heavy moderation and apologized for any distress caused by their seeming approval of a tasteless article. So it's a little more forgivable than I realized. My opinion gelled back when the story was still in progress, but I didn't hear about the conclusion.

If you want to read the details, just google "aggie bonfire", or "darwin award aggie bonfire".

[quickthrower2]

That is sick.

[gspetr]

IIRC it's based on upvotes. And the most upvoted ones are also about criminals meeting prompt demise: http://darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin1993-06.html

[aaron695]

Top in 2017 -

Petty criminal, probable drunkard.

Workplace accident, I wouldn't say criminal.

Probable drunkard, not criminal (I also once made a ethernet ladder, yes it does not work well, no I didnt use it at a deadly height)

Not criminal, a bit silly. Funny because racism. I'd guess alcohol related.

Not criminal, probably alcohol involved, just a vehicular accident.

1 and 3 I'd also say involved mental illness. True if you want to be harsh we don't want the mentally ill or those susceptible to drug abuse to breed. I kinda think killing them off is not great why not just sterilize them?

Larry Walters who this story would have been inspired by (Not sure why people are saying the movie Up) also got a honorary Darwin award. He killed himself eventually. So he had issues I guess. But he was a legend as far as I'm concerned I'd prefer a world full of him over people making fun over people dying.

[animal531]

I still very much enjoy this one about Ronald Opus: http://www.darwinawards.com/legends/legends1998-16.html

[averagewall]

I agree we should respect people and no mock them for making mistakes that they pay the ultimate price for. It doesn't matter that they're doing it for fun instead of some desperate survival need. Early aviators gave us aeroplanes and balloons by taking foolish risks and many died, but we glorify a few survivors because of their important contributions.

For some reason, many kinds of deaths are protected from mockery by society, but not adventure accidents. Those are fair game and bring out the cruel uncaring side of otherwise seemingly nice people.

If the Darwin awards included death from alcoholism or suicide, any mention of them would be blotted out from the "polite" internet like HN. Somebody will probably complain about me linking mental illness to accident deaths just to enforce the social more that we must not disrespect certain arbitrary groups of people but other groups are fair game.

[PoachedSausage]

The problem is that some people are engaging in needlessly risky activities, they then put the people that rescue them at risk. For example, in the UK we regularly have people rescued from mountains who are woefully ill equipped, like this guy:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-41306122

Yet properly equipped mountaineers can get unlucky and die anyway. The difference between death by hypothermia because you climbed a mountain in only your underpants and being well equipped but getting hit by an avalanche? In the first case the coroner has a verdict of "death by misadventure" because you took unnecessary risks.

[dsego]

It's become a sort of joke in croatia, tourists in flip-flops trying to hike into mountains (famous stereotype is of czech tourists), and currently the rescue by HGSS (mountain rescue) is free of charge, and they often have to deploy a military helicopter (they don't have their own), which is costing the tax payers a pretty penny. The rescuers are mostly volunteers.

Examples of irresponsible behavior : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-368792...

https://www.lonelyplanet.com/news/2017/08/08/croatian-mounta...

[gspetr]

There are some candidates that died under influence, but they did so in a spectacular way: http://darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2017-06.html

[PhasmaFelis]

And they don't check their sources. Several of the most popular "awards" from the early years were fake, e.g. the "JATO rocket strapped to pickup" thing.

[weirdkid]

Or perhaps based upon a kernel of truth?

https://www.wired.com/2000/08/rocketcar/

[KGIII]

I believe the adage is, 'Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.' The Internet is full of terrible things. There's a site that keeps track of spree killing totals and celebrates new high scores. Well, there was. I'm not sure it exists anymore and I'm too lazy to Google.