WATCH: Mittens filled with bullet ants cause intense pain

boing
21

The rich and the comfortable would write themselves exceptions.

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22

“How they mark their passages is their choice not mine.” Nice rhetorical slip of the word “choice” into your screed against any condemnation of ritual child abuse, where the young males have a Hobson’s choice to make regarding entering adult society by undergoing torture.

While you may complacently tolerate your own society’s ills and transgressions against you (not that anything as complex as “primary and secondary education” can be reduced to a simple ill… pluses and minuses no doubt), that is your choice, and others will make different ones.

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23

Uh

No, I did NOT watch the National Geographic Video. It is “not available” in Canada.

But I generally don’t go to websites which blast some amazing headline and a small description – teaser – for some video that does not exist on the website in question.

What, BoingBoing is now just a collections of teasers for videos on other sites? The buttons for “SHARE”“TWEET"STUMBLE”“COMMENTS” dominate the entire top portion of the page – I don’t have a Twitter account, there is nothing of note to “Share” (what, other people are not capable of finding these things for themselves?) I don’t visit websites to look for linkbait that asks itself to be propagated to other people – that’s kind of like the “Send this email on to ten others” crap that goes straight to my junk email box – and “Comments?” Comments about what, exactly? About the teaser paragraph? What is there exactly there to comment on?

Maybe my browser is not showing some missing portion of the web page that is crucial to the reading of, or viewing of, the article that the somewhat sensational one-paragraph opening is a seeming prelude to . . . but no matter where I click, I get nowhere. Is this some kind of Web 3.0 deal, like the old trick web pages that played “find the link!” by burying it somewhere in a collection of blinking buttons and was supposed to be a neat “game” that transcended the old boring “these letters are in blue and underlined – you’re supposed to click here to go to the “other” page which actually has the information you’re looking for . . .”

I see no other web page on the internet that resembles this website’s click-tricking.

I don’t want to share. Get it? I don’t have a Twitter account. I don’t have a Facebook account. Why don’t they just put up one 'Splash" page emblazoned with all the trending social networking link crap, and then maybe have a page that has articles on it that you don’t have to play games with links with and can read, in their entirety, right there and then without having to click through to another, entirely unrelated website that may or may not play videos that don’t require Flash X.27 or are just restricted to some certain country’s viewers?

I really don’t think that’s too much to ask. And please don’t make facetious comments like “Welcome to the Internet.” I’ve been on the Internet since 1994. How long have you been on the Internet?

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24

There’s a fine line between “solemn time-honored cultural manhood ritual” and “jackass fratboy hazing ritual.”

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25

Hmm, I didn’t see the video in the post, so in reply to the claims of child abuse, I suggest you watch.

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26

Welcome to the internet, newbie. I’ve been here since 1986.

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27

The Bullet Ant Condom also didn’t sell well…

28

If you had spent any of that time here, then you would know that BB has always been a mix of original articles and aggregated links.

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29

I don’t see them. Adblock ate them, perhaps?
I don’t remember tweaking the settings for this place specifically but the “social web” irritates me to hell and back three times, and I may have some setting somewhere that obliterates these things.

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30

‘Remove This Object’ says my mighty right-click. ‘OK Boss!’ says my obedient browser.

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31

Needless, unpleasant things happen to children in your culture, and needless, unpleasant things happen to children in another culture.

…And the lesson you take from this is that they’re both okay? That everyone is morally required to suffer unnecessarily? Seems like the sane conclusion would be that they’re both needless and unpleasant.

32

Longer.

But to get right to the point: if you don’t like this site, don’t waste any time or energy coming here. End of story.

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33

I guess this makes sense if you live in the forest that has these damn buggers in it and have to build up some sort of tolerance.

34

I’ve been on the internet since 1990 and don’t find twitter and facebook link buttons that irritating.

Oh yes, Get off my lawn.

35

Grants them immunity to tasers.

36

Perhaps in the given culture/environment there is a need for people to be able to willingly endure pain, without which the group’s survival would be imperiled. In such case, it is not unnecessary.

Hypothesis: the other example, with the education, could be interpreted as a similar ritual that demonstrates willingness to perform pointless tasks and, more importantly, to willingly defer to an imposed authority. Which in turn seems to be required by “our” environment.

37

Wouldn’t it be easier to bury him alive in an anthill?

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39

Easier, perhaps, but not as satisfying.

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40

Hang on, why not both?

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41

Not as long as you have, today.

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