Little Nemo is right, I was defining accident more narrowly than others.
My apologies for letting my emotions run away and rant. All I could picture while reading the article was my puppy. I know that’s not an excuse to let my emotions run away. (ty74westy)
Far more often, for what it’s worth. I hope accidents like this are rare but I’m guessing a few people hang themselves in similar circumstances every now and then, whereas there is no known instance of anyone ever being struck and killed by a meteorite.
The occasional mass extinction event would drive the annual average up, but that’s not what we were talking about and you know it.
Late to the thread. (So what else is new?) Also certainly not wanting to pile onto Zyanthia who got a little carried away with the definition. My thinking is about auto accidents, which are usually caused by human error, stupidity and/or circumstances. Or some combination. In most cases, one driver is in the wrong, or at least ‘more wrong’. But we almost never call these anything but accidents. Or stupid accidents.
Sympathies go out to the boy’s family and friends. Also to Zyanthia for losing a puppy. Anyone that’s had a pet for any length of time has lost one, either to age, illness or accident. That’s never easy, and a sudden accident is sometimes much worse.
The were Ich Lüge bullets!
I agree with the spirit of the OP. A teenager was recently killed here jaywalking across a street with his iPod blasting in his ears - sure, if you use the strict definition that was an accident, but you know how most of us avoid getting killed this way? By using our brains and figuring out that jaywalking with your ears stopped up is dangerous, or putting leashes around your necks and jumping off balconies is dangerous. We’re so concerned with “don’t blame the victim” these days that we’ve gone too far the other way - sometime the victim is at fault.
Of course it is. The only time it’s not is when it’s clung to stubbornly.
You would not believe how many people end up dead or permanently injured because they attach a lead line with about a 800 pound break strength to a 1200 pound animal, then get the bright idea to tie if off to their own body somewhere. Needless to say, if a 1200 pound animal gets spooked or decides to say “F* It, I’m Outa Here”… the 200 pound person flopping around behind them only drives them to run even faster and kick even more.
AND this is often done by adult people who are experienced around horses, cows, what ever.
This was a 16yo kid. Clearly his brain wasn’t formed enough to think through consequences and as a result, Darwin took a swipe at him and won.
Sure, people stupidly cause accidents every minute of every day. They are still accidents.
+1. I’ve dealt with a lot of teenagers over the years and this sums it up nicely (for both boys & girls).
“we call them collisions now”
Sorry
Capt
Exactly. I teach 16 year olds. All 16 year old boys make stupid senseless decisions about 100 times a day. Nature does this more than anything else. It turns off key elements of the brain that determine future consequences at that age. It must serve some purpose in human survival, or else it is an evolutionary relic from our past. But even my most intelligent and mature male students are capable of making mind-numbingly stupid decisions on a regular basis.
Maybe it ties in to survival of the fittest - if you think doing something stupid is a good idea and you die, you don’t live long enough to procreate (theoretically). The 16 year old next to you who was holding your beer did live long enough.
I can agree. I just don’t see how we accomplish anything by calling the kid stupid. Everyone knows it, but they are just being polite.
And gets an extra beer!
Except nature seems to have selected for stupid teenagers rather than against. I think it means the young males were who willing to take the most risks were those able to procreate the most. It may be a negative in our modern cultures, but we are living with the consequences of our cave man ancestry.
I can see you’re all choked up about it.
This is why you always need to follow the rule of “a chair and a spare” whenever you engage in autoerotic asphyxiation. Don’t become a statistic.
If someone overdoses on heroin, do we call them an idiot? Or do we just say they overdosed? I see no reason to take issue with this statement. Doing so will only cause problems.
[Stewie Griffin]Here I go. Just like that boy from INXS.[/SG]
What if he filled a veterinary syringe with 3,000cc of heroin and decided to “goof off” by dancing around on a slippery floor with the needle pressed against his neck?