Another Fine Example of Evolution Doing its Job  

I'm quite offended by this thread.

You're not the only one.

... erm, yeah. I'm gonna report it.

Not cool, Tauron. Very not cool.

What the hell?

Is freeper leaking into AI?

Same here, I'm reporting this. Inappropriate in the extreme.

If we're going to anthropomorphize evolution then this would be a good example of it doing it's job.

http://ecoworldly.com/2008/10/07/sci...greatest-lake/

Not cool.

People get offended way too easily.

That said, if people want to risk their lives on a pilgrimage of sorts, I say let them. They're not hurting anyone else, it seems.

I get "easily offended" by people making jokes about the death of hundreds of people, yes.

Jesus fucking Christ. This story was about hundreds of people being trampled to death. I don't care how misguided in their beliefs the individuals involved were, to suggest that this was a super thing to happen is utterly reprehensible and truly revolting.

Tauron is an evil, kiddie-fiddling, hate-fillled cunt!

There's no moderation outside of PO anyways, so whatever.

If you care so much, go do something about it. That's all I'm trying to get at. If there was an attempt at a joke here, it was a bad one. Nonetheless, the attempt at seriousness for everyone who carries on about the horror of this event and just goes and carries on with whatever he was doing, that too is a bad attempt.

What do you want us to do, go back in time and single-handedly prevent a stampede?

We're only allowed to think things are horrific if we have the capability to do something about it? What a ridiculous concept.

If we have one single visitor from India, that's one person upset by this racist, inhumane thread.

The thread starter's trying to get humour out of the death of a hundred and forty five human beings by basically saying 'They deserve to die' and If these people were Republicans you'd be up in arms. IT'S NOT FUNNY.

Trying to stop some racist dickhole making mock of the dead is all I can do.

Maybe it's a cultural thing. I'm not OK with this. When that bridge collapsed and all those Americans died, no-one had the bad taste to say 'American engineering! '

It's not OK.

Why the fuck hasn't this drivel of a thread been locked? Tauron doesn't have the sense to know what evolution is let alone show any compassion or judgement other than horrifically bad.

People don't seem to mind jokes about lemmings. This thread is simply stating that these people died as a consequence of their over-enthusiastic pilgrimage. The opinion that they deserved to die because of this would be distasteful but this isn't explicitly stated and nonetheless would be a valid opinion. It's not racist or anti-religious as it simply says that these people for whatever reason crowded into a confined space and accidentally killed each other.

Would people sympathize with someone cleaning the barrel of a loaded shotgun and subsequently blowing their own head off? Someone still died and yet a natural reaction is that it was a stupid thing to do and the consequences reflect that.

If people are so passionate about a subject matter be it religion, football, music or whatever and essentially kill themselves or others close to them including innocent children because of this then it's not that they deserve to be killed but when things do go horribly wrong, they have no-one else to blame but themselves.

In this case, the stampede was not in the name of religious fervor but a panicked crowd running away from a collapsed structure. So for whatever reason the crowd gathered, the reason they caused a stampede could have happened to anyone. The point about there being an overwhelming crowd there due to religious motivation however still stands.

Basically, the tragedy could have been avoided had these people not been so caught up with their beliefs that they packed their friends and family into a very dangerous situation. It has also happened before:

"In 2005 about 265 pilgrims were killed in a stampede near a temple in the western state of Maharashtra."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worl...du-temple.html

One thing that I find odd is:

"One witness, who gave his name as Santa"

If he can deliver all those presents in one night, surely he could have done something rather than just watch.

If I have to be perfectly honest, I've actually found the reactionary posts to the thread more offensive than the thread itself - personal insults and bad language together. Perhaps that's in an attempt to lock the thread but it doesn't really achieve it in the way you'd like. I would suggest if it does offend you, let the subject rest and it will go the way of the dodo all by itself.

WT flying F?

Been here since pre-blackout (which half the mods wouldn't fucking understand) and I DO NOT LIKE the direction AI forums is heading.

ANY tragedy that occurs in the US where more then a couple of people die the overwhelming consensus is correctly given that humour in that context is close to obscene and an insult to their memory, NO MATTER WHAT THE CAUSE.

Oh, and by the way, if I put 709's post about Tauron being a hate-filled kiddie-fiddling cunt into my sig, will I only get censured for it if I post in forum 17? This policy is barking fucking mad.

You are streaching real hard to justify the original post, and I can't figure why. The opinion of the original poster that these deaths were somehow positive or funny is clear whether it was explicit or implicit.

Possibly, if the poster had tried to make some point of his own about the perils of religious belief or whatever, then one could see the point of the post. As it stands, however, there appeared to be no point other than some sort of sadistic glee. I see your "defense" of this glee as rather sad.



...And I see your joining in with the glee to be even worse.

Ok, it seems I have a different opinion to most of the respondents as I don't take offense at a statement about a large number of people huddling into a confined space and subsequently killing children to be a very stupid thing to do. I would find it offensive that they should be treated differently due to being religious or Indian - no matter what race or culture, their actions were irresponsible. I can see an element of distaste in the way the statement was presented but it has been blown way out of proportion.

This thread is clearly going nowhere though so there's no sense in keeping it open but I would ask that people take a serious look at some of the responses you've made because I find them to be completely out of order no matter the context. Making obscene remarks in response to something that offends you doesn't improve the situation one bit.