Oops…
And here I was ready to join in a huge rant against the Darwin Awards site, but rather this is a rant against the concept of being Darwined.
Carry on…
I’m out was meant to say I won’t rehash the same thing over and over again.
Why would you say that? I’m still short of my daily dosage.
It wasn’t about that. I just gave an opinion - I agreed with the general sentiment of the OP and wanted to comment on Guin’s post.
I’m light by the way. But laughing at stupid shit where stupid people get killed does not make you a better person than me.
I withdraw that comment. It was uncalled for.
Oh, abso-fucking-lutely. I remember helping my dad bolt some bookcases to the wall (Earthquake country, you know), and he forgot which side of the ladder he was standing on had the steps. We both still laugh about that one.
Then there was the time I tripped on a curb while walking my dog and did a perfect, hinged-at-the-toe faceplant. After I got up and dusted myself off, I started laughing at myself so hard I walked into a telephone pole. Now that was fucking hilarious.
One time, I was playing a game of hacky-sack in the parking lot after an Iron Maiden concert, and this guy accidentally kicked me in the balls with his steel-toed boots. My first words, after the dry heaving subsided? “Wrong sack, moron!” Incidentally, that guy is now one of my closest friends.
My dad had a cousin who, at the age of eighteen, had a heart attack while out hiking and fell off a cliff. His own mother said, “You know how Steve was. He didn’t believe in half-measures.”
Anyway, the point is, it doesn’t matter how you react emotionally to pain and suffering. You can laugh about it, you can cry about it, either way it doesn’t make the pain go away or not happen. So, you might as well laugh and get something positive out of experience.
Just to be clear, I didn’t wish death on anyone. I did imply that if someone dies in a comical manner, I will laugh.
I’ve…
…gone headfirst over my mountain bike handlebars - on a down hill slope, no less - after forgetting which brake was which.
…sent a skateboard into heavy traffic on a thoroughfare after falling off of it trying to make a jump.
…had the back wheel of a BMX bike crushed by an 18-wheeler on same said thoroughfare practicing spinouts.
…thrown glass bottles containing firecrackers at friends, and received the same treatment.
…played dodgeball with competition-weight Frisbees, footballs, softballs, and small rocks thrown at the head from a distance of forty feet.
These are all dumb-ass ways to get hurt. Some of them happened fairly recently. All of them would be fucking funny ways to get killed. To me, that’s just the plain truth.
Having an aneurism at the cruelty of others is also a fucking funny way to die.
Slight nitpick: The Darwin Awards aren’t about eugenics; they’re about natural selection. Specifically, they’re about the selective pressure against being a dumbass.
Besides, you can also get an Award by sterilizing yourself in a spectacularly stuipid way. Like the guy who was masturbating against an industrial conveyer belt, ripped his nuts up, closed the wound with a staple gun, and lost his testicles to gangrene. See, it’s not all about making fun of death. It’s also about making fun of horrific maimings. 
i don’t have a problem with them. i don’t find them funny… at all. but if stupid people want to laugh at stupid people that’s fine with me.