[HN Gopher] A man is looking for the friends who shipped him ove...
___________________________________________________________________
A man is looking for the friends who shipped him overseas in a
crate in 1965
Author : colinprince
Score : 201 points
Date : 2021-04-08 16:05 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cbc.ca)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cbc.ca)
| hirundo wrote:
| That PS700 from 1965 is now worth PS13,600. He should pay it back
| if he can, even if any legal obligation has expired. But not the
| first class return ticket, that seems to have been freely given.
| economusty wrote:
| You only give the government money if they ask for it, and only
| then if there are consequences when you say no.
| grammarprofess wrote:
| Maybe you could start a gofundme
| dougmwne wrote:
| Perhaps it was an unjust contract in the first place that
| trapped a 19 year old thousands of miles away from home and
| with an unpayable debt over their heads.
| andrewfromx wrote:
| yeah what if that was an etherum or cardano smart contract?
| modernerd wrote:
| A photo of the actual crate he stowed away in (his rescuer is in
| the crate):
|
| https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/media/images/82156000/jpg/...
|
| From this 2015 article:
| https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32151053
|
| It really helps to picture being stuck upside down in the thing.
| I thought, "surely you could gradually rotate yourself the right
| way up" before I saw the photo.
| kevinyun wrote:
| Those photos do a great job illustrating what his situation
| looked like.
|
| Here's to hoping he finds his two friends after all these
| years!
| dageshi wrote:
| I look at that and think "I would get cramp immediately and be
| in absolute agony".
| quickthrowman wrote:
| I wonder if this event was the inspiration for "The Gift" by The
| Velvet Underground. That song ends a bit different from this guys
| experience tho.
| hluska wrote:
| According to Lester Bangs, Lou Reed wrote that story when he
| was in college.
|
| (https://www.creemmag.com/blogs/journal/dead-lie-the-
| velvets-...)
|
| Lou Reed went to Syracuse University starting in 1960. While
| Lou Reed was likely writing the great American novel, he didn't
| tell many people the truth so who knows for sure?? My gut
| feeling is that you're likely right.
| metanonsense wrote:
| Being trapped in economy class for 16 hours usually breaks me
| mentally and physically. But imagining this torture leaves me in
| complete horror.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I'm not sure if 16 hours in coach is too different from 16
| hours in a box. Except for the heat, I suppose.
| pvarangot wrote:
| Cargo areas in planes are usually heated and pressurized like
| the cabin.
| nullserver wrote:
| Did 13 hours with a 2 year old. Who thought kicking the seat in
| front of her was great fun.
|
| First 3 hours of the flight was me bent over holding her legs
| still.
|
| Turns out 5% of the population have a reverse reaction to
| Benadryl. They become absurdly hyper on it.
| Stevvo wrote:
| You gave Benadryl to a two year old? That's insane. Dangerous
| and irresponsible.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| That was my thought, too. I'm usually ready to kiss the Earth
| after a 16+ hour flight. I can't imagine 5 days, and not even
| in the luxury of a coach class airline seat.
| kazinator wrote:
| > _" The Americans, the FBI, the CIA and everything else, they
| were brilliant. I mean, I fell in love with America, because I've
| never been treated so well," he said. "Everybody there really
| looked after me. And they just thought, oh, it's this silly kid
| getting himself into trouble."_
|
| Haha, try that today.
| sbr464 wrote:
| Different times for sure. My mother's family immigrated from
| Mexico during the 1970s. There was an article in a local
| Louisiana newspaper welcoming and introducing the family to
| town. How times change.
|
| --edit
|
| Searching for orig. article but quote from mom re:
|
| "Yes, the Ruston Daily Leader came to the house and interviewed
| mom and took our picture for the paper, we were famous."
| selimthegrim wrote:
| In the mid 80s when my dad married a Pakistani bride and
| brought her home to Ohio the local newspaper did a write up
| on it.
| watermelon59 wrote:
| My own anecdote as an immigrant is that I've always felt
| welcome here and have always been well treated, respected, and
| valued.
|
| Totally different route of course, but same deal in terms of
| falling in love with the country. This is really home for me.
| America has given me much more than my birth country ever did,
| and my birth country was on multiple occasions a lot of more
| hostile to me, a citizen, than America has ever been to me as a
| non-citizen.
|
| I'm currently seeking citizenship and have no qualms about
| swearing to uphold the Constitution and to defend the country
| if called to it.
| aduitsis wrote:
| Give me your tired, your poor,
|
| Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
|
| The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
|
| Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
|
| I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Probably would be similar, aside from more regulations to
| follow. It's hard to remember sometimes that the assholes make
| the news, but most regular people are pretty friendly. Even
| police.
| FpUser wrote:
| I was about to post just that. That bearded guy must be
| celebrating in whatever goes for their afterlife place.
| mandis wrote:
| In this case, I struggle to understand the relevance for Hacker
| News
| swiley wrote:
| Shipping your friend somewhere in a crate is definitely a hack,
| just not a software hack.
| mabbo wrote:
| I'm shocked he even survived. Aren't airplane holds
| unpressurized? Perhaps airplanes simply flew at lower altitudes
| in those days. Still, it would have gotten pretty darned cold.
| marcinzm wrote:
| I believe the whole plane is pressurized, after all animals
| survive flights in the hold all the time.
| bri3d wrote:
| No, this is a long-standing myth which is entirely false. It
| wouldn't make sense from an engineering standpoint as it would
| move the pressure differential to the flat (and thus weak)
| floor of the airplane, rather than the round (and thus strong)
| outer hull.
|
| However, the hold is not climate controlled to the same degree
| as the cabin, so he may have gotten cold-ish. But even then,
| the cargo hold is not a particularly inhospitable place. Living
| things (animals) are for better or for worse shipped that way
| all the time.
| Judgmentality wrote:
| > Living things (animals) are for better or for worse shipped
| that way all the time.
|
| They also die a lot this way.
|
| https://www.treehugger.com/as-pet-deaths-continue-
| airlines-p...
| bri3d wrote:
| I agree that this situation is both tragic and
| depressingly, probably avoidable, although it is worth
| pointing out that the rate is just over one in ten thousand
| for the worst airline (United) or two in 100,000 for the
| best (Alaska).
|
| From my reading, unfortunately causes seem relegated to
| anecdata in this case as only rates are officially
| recorded. Reading anecdotes, however, the issues also seem
| to mostly be related to ground-handling and packaging
| issues, between animals which are not properly crated (much
| as the human in the article seems to have been improperly
| crated!) or are heartbreakingly left on the tarmac for
| extended timeframes during harsh weather.
| Syonyk wrote:
| No, cargo holds are generally pressurized and have been, as far
| as I know, since the beginning of pressurized aviation (late
| 40s to early 50s - there were a few test airframes earlier).
|
| It doesn't mean cargo compartments are not cold, dark, loud,
| and unpleasant places to be, but they're pressurized.
|
| If you pressurize a cylinder (say, a more or less round
| airplane fuselage), the stresses become tension stresses around
| the perimeter - it's trying to inflate the balloon, but the
| perimeter is designed to handle these stresses. The floor only
| has to support the weight of passengers.
|
| If you had an unpressurized cargo hold, the floor would now
| need to not only support the weight of passengers, it would
| have to support the entire pressurization weight - which is far
| harder, because floors are typically flat. It would have to be
| far stronger and heavier.
|
| There have been several aviation incidents from the cargo doors
| opening in flight - the DC-10 was particularly prone to the
| problem, because instead of an inward-opening, "plug" type door
| (where the pressure holds it in place), it had an outward
| opening door - more cargo space because the door doesn't swing
| in, but if the latching mechanism fails (which it did), the
| pressurization tries to push the door open, and it occasionally
| succeeded.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-10#Cargo_...
| Sebb767 wrote:
| > If you had an unpressurized cargo hold, the floor would now
| need to not only support the weight of passengers, it would
| have to support the entire pressurization weight
|
| Only if the plane is partly a passenger plane. If it would be
| a pure cargo plane, the whole back could be unpressurized, or
| am I missing something?
| Syonyk wrote:
| The vast majority of cargo planes are variants on
| commercial airliners and are pressurized. The other class
| are military heavy lifters, but they can also be used for
| troop transport purposes, which means they have to be
| pressurized as well.
|
| In every commonly flown cargo airframe I'm aware of, the
| crew has the ability to get into the cargo area if needed,
| which a pressure resistant bulkhead would make very
| challenging (you'd have to depressurize the plane or have
| an airlock, and at that point, see "takes a ton of strength
| and weight you don't have any reason to haul").
|
| There are a few weird, custom cargo planes that aren't
| pressurized (the Dreamlifter and Beluga cargo compartments
| aren't pressurized, though the crew compartments are), but
| they tend to be really weird, one-off designs where it's
| more trouble than it's worth to design them for
| pressurization - or, likely, the weird oversize fuselage
| would have to be far heavier to handle pressurization loads
| against the flat sides.
|
| If you point to a random commercial cargo transport, it's
| almost certain to be pressurized. In the 1960s, there may
| have been some unpressurized ones still flying around, but
| they'd be at a low enough altitude for the flight crew that
| it wouldn't be a problem back in the cargo compartment
| either.
| caconym_ wrote:
| > Only if the plane is partly a passenger plane. If it
| would be a pure cargo plane, the whole back could be
| unpressurized, or am I missing something?
|
| I'd guess you'd get stress issues in the bulkhead behind
| the cockpit if you tried that. You'd need to completely
| redesign the joint between the cockpit section of the
| fuselage and everything behind it. And then, for your
| trouble, you've given up the ability to transport anything
| that can't tolerate the pressure and temperature swings of
| an unpressurized cabin.
|
| Given that the pressurization systems are already
| implemented and don't seem to hurt efficiency much (afaik
| they typically run off engine bleed air), I don't think
| there's much reason not to just pressurize the whole thing.
| I guess it probably makes the structure marginally heavier,
| but at that point you may as well just design a whole new
| airplane.
| ghaff wrote:
| Speculating, but:
|
| - Most cargo planes are cargo versions of a plane that has
| a passenger plane design variant. So it probably wouldn't
| make sense to do a completely different design.
|
| - I imagine that many goods that are shipped by plane have
| not been tested to be unaffected by significant time at
| 30K-40K feet air pressures. So now you're introducing an
| additional shipping restriction for high-value goods that
| isn't actually necessary.
| lisper wrote:
| That is correct. Virtually all cargo planes are
| pressurized.
|
| However, while the cargo area is almost invariably
| pressurized, they are often not _heated_. Some aircraft
| have designated cargo areas that are heated for
| transporting e.g. live animals. So if you end up in an
| unheated cargo area you won 't die of asphyxiation, but
| could easily succumb to hypothermia or frostbite.
| tyingq wrote:
| Bad idea all around. Could have easily been frozen or asphyxiated
| even if the trip was on a quick single flight. Nobody looks at a
| crate if there's a decompression event. Not even an emergency
| escape in the crate. Oof.
| Syonyk wrote:
| > Robson was 19...
|
| "Thinking things all the way through" isn't a common trait in
| any 19 year old men I've known over the years, to include
| myself a few decades ago.
|
| "Oh, man, that sounds like it should work!" is a lot more
| likely. And, you know, it usually does!
| marshmallow_12 wrote:
| -And, you know, it usually does!
|
| Technically, his scheme did "work". Though it wasn't what we
| might call an unqualified success...
| beforeolives wrote:
| Reminds me of Reg Spiers -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reg_Spiers
|
| > He is best known for successfully posting himself in a box from
| England to Australia to avoid paying for a plane ticket
|
| I first heard of him on this episode of The Dollop podcast -
| https://allthingscomedy.com/podcast/the-dollop/113---reg-spi...
| hcrisp wrote:
| Reminds me of _Stowaway_ [0], the incredible story of a teenage
| boy who escaped from his native Cuba by flying the Atlantic
| Ocean stowed away in the wheel well of a DC-8 airliner. Not as
| far as in the OP (he made it to Madrid), but he did not have
| access to a pressurized hold so he lacked oxygen, nearly froze,
| and barely escaped being crushed to death. But he did survive.
|
| [0] https://www.rd.com/article/escape-from-cuba-dc-8/
| danso wrote:
| > _At one point, Robson says he was left upside down on a tarmac,
| literally sitting on his head for 24 hours because there wasn 't
| enough room in the crate to turn around._
|
| I'm surprised he survived this. I remember when David Blaine hung
| upside down in Central Park for 3 days - but every few hours he
| had to take a break:
| https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1060038/Cheati...
| starkd wrote:
| And they actually thought slapping a "fragile" and a "this side
| up" stickers on the crate would help. It shows a naivete. It's
| sort of like the "do not copy" prohibitions embedded on a set
| of keys.
| luxuryballs wrote:
| Yeah I wonder if there is a better build so that it could
| only sit properly with one side down.
| yreg wrote:
| Or at least prevent siting upside down. Add a triangular
| roof to the top side?
| [deleted]
| amelius wrote:
| Perhaps his legs were folded down in that crate, so blood
| pressure wouldn't increase that much.
| cgijoe wrote:
| Agree, and I just saw that caving docu-movie (The Last Descent)
| about that poor guy who got stuck upside down deep in the cave
| and couldn't move. He died in under 24 hours I believe.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Why would hanging upside down for 24 hours kill you (serious
| question)? Doesn't the heart pump blood with the same
| efficiency regardless of its orientation?
| sebastien_b wrote:
| That story is nuts - and he obviously would have been treated
| much differently when they found him in the U.S. if the climate
| at the time would've been like it is now (thankfully it wasn't).
| ketamine__ wrote:
| How did he forget their names? It just seems unbelievable.
| cortesoft wrote:
| Curious how old you are... there are so many things that seemed
| impossible to forget when I was younger that I have now
| forgotten.
| 7357 wrote:
| he only knew them for 3 months
| 1123581321 wrote:
| If you feel this way, you must be young. I really encourage you
| to keep a brief chronology of names and events that are
| important to you. You _will_ forget them decades from now and
| wish you'd written them somewhere.
| glenmorangie_14 wrote:
| Do you remember the names of the people you worked with during
| a summer job while you were in school? I sure don't.
| ketamine__ wrote:
| If you did something incredibly illegal would you forget the
| names of the accomplices? Apparently many do ;)
| ska wrote:
| Incredibly illegal is pushing it here, they probably
| thought of it as something that wouldn't be approved of so
| best not ask.
|
| His story is notable mostly for being unusual and the ways
| it went wrong, not the decision making process behind it -
| I know lots of people who did things at that age with
| similarly questionable judgement, just not nearly as
| memorable or unique. You probably know some also.
| jareklupinski wrote:
| > So Robson and his two closest work buddies devised the scheme
| to mail him home. Robson believes their names were Paul and
| John, but after all these years, he can't remember their
| surnames.
|
| Ringo might be able to help :P
| kvm wrote:
| I don't remember the last names of my best friends from
| elementary school who moved to different states, and have
| started blanking on names of a few folks from middle school.
| This was about 20 years ago, so I find it perfectly plausible
| to forget the last names of folks who you 1. knew only for 3
| months, 2. have not talked to for 56 years
| dkersten wrote:
| He only knew them for three months and it was a long time ago.
| I can't remember the names of some people I knew for much
| longer than that, 30 years ago, nevermind in the 60's!
|
| Hell, I can't even remember names of some people I worked with
| and saw every day for about a year and a half, 6 years ago.
| gweinberg wrote:
| "The three young men had no idea whether their antics were
| against the law, he said."
|
| That's not even remotely plausible.
| Syonyk wrote:
| How isn't it remotely plausible?
|
| Shipping regulations were an awful lot more lax 55 years ago,
| and I wouldn't expect more than a handful of teenagers today to
| be able to give you details on shipping regulations related to
| shipping live animals (which, absent specific regulations on
| shipping humans that may or may not have been in place, seem
| the most relevant).
|
| I would expect some specific regulations on shipping humans
| today, based on cases like this, but that's a case of "... OK,
| this is pretty vague in the regulations, let's make it
| exceedingly clear."
| Stratoscope wrote:
| Indeed, when I was a kid around 1960, it was perfectly normal
| to see someone off on a flight by getting on the plane with
| them and looking around, then going to the cockpit to sit in
| the pilot's seat and "fly" the airplane for a minute before
| climbing back down the stairs to watch it take off.
| cortesoft wrote:
| What laws did they break?
|
| They probably broke some, but I don't know which ones they
| would be, so it seems plausible to not be sure they broke any
| laws.
| jdavis703 wrote:
| It's illegal to cross the border outside of official border
| crossings, see 8 U.S. Code SS 1325 - Improper entry by alien.
| Of course in this case it seems like the crossing was
| unintentional, and I'm unsure if the UK has similar laws.
| mcbits wrote:
| I'm not sure how to track the history of US code, but it
| looks like that law didn't exist until 2012.
| chris_wot wrote:
| I'm certain there are human trafficking laws that it would
| have violated.
| ska wrote:
| That's not what human trafficking means.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| I suppose the charitable interpretation is that it's a short
| way of saying, "We figured it was probably against some kind of
| law, but we didn't know enough to understand what specifically
| or how bad the consequences would be."
| herodoturtle wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > They covered the crate with labels that read "Fragile," "Handle
| with care" and "This side up." It was scheduled to fly from
| Melbourne to London within 36 hours. Robson ended up being inside
| that crate for five days. "It was terrifying," he said. "I was
| passing in and out of consciousness. I had a lack of oxygen. Oh,
| it was bad." There seemed to be an endless number of stopovers,
| and the airport crews didn't pay much attention to the crate's
| labels. At one point, Robson says he was left upside down on a
| tarmac, literally sitting on his head for 24 hours because there
| wasn't enough room in the crate to turn around.
|
| The rest of the article is great (in particular the way it ends),
| but reading the above excerpt made me shudder.
|
| The will power of this man is unbelievable.
|
| I hope he finds his friends.
| hk1337 wrote:
| >This side up
|
| and he still ended up upside down for 24 hours.
| panzagl wrote:
| They put the sticker on in Australia.
| bakul wrote:
| :-) :-)
| IncRnd wrote:
| Even worse, two drunk Irishmen, Paul and John, put the
| sticker on in Australia. The crate was sometimes upside
| down and sometimes rightside up.
| shoo wrote:
| > "Australia was a complete shock to my system," says Brian
| Robson. "I found it very difficult, and thought from the moment I
| got there I wanted to get out as quickly as possible."
|
| a desperate situation calls for desperate measures
| khalilravanna wrote:
| This reminds me of the time I was riding my motorcycle in the
| cold at night on the highway from Vermont to Massachusetts for 3
| hours. I wore a bunch of layers but with highway speeds the wind
| chill cut away heat incredibly quickly. Creeping cold gave way to
| mad shivering which gave way to a general numbness and fatigue.
| But I refused to give in and stop and eventually made it home. I
| spent a nontrivial portion of that ride saying "Fuck" over and
| over to myself.
|
| This sounds like that experience times 10. The will of the human
| spirit is truly extraordinary.
| trothamel wrote:
| Here's a brief history of children being sent via the mail:
|
| https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/brief-history-chil...
| [deleted]
| ars wrote:
| To save people click: Children were not actually placed in
| boxes and mailed. Rather they accompanied a postman as he
| traveled to a different location.
|
| Also usually the postman was a friend or relative, not a
| stranger.
|
| So not as exciting as it sounds.
| xchaotic wrote:
| Nice try FBI
| tpmx wrote:
| > "I am 70 years old now," he says. "On reflection, kids don't
| think straight. I think most teenagers, youth of those days and
| certainly of these, make their mind up to do something and don't
| think of the consequences.
|
| He was 19 when he did this. Probably an outlier in terms of
| taking risks, but still. There are various calls to lower the
| voting age below 18 around the world. I don't think this is sane.
| [deleted]
| elliekelly wrote:
| I think it's a serious stretch to try to connect risk-taking
| and voting. Kids and young adults do stupid stuff because they
| don't have a good grasp of their own mortality and because they
| want the validation of their peers. Their internal risk/reward
| function isn't calibrated quite right because they overvalue
| the reward of attention and/or undervalue the risk of injury or
| death which results in thrill/attention-seeking behavior. Since
| the voting booth is both boring and private I think it's
| entirely outside the scope of the kids-take-stupid-risks
| conversation.
| tpmx wrote:
| How about the ability to perform consequence-based thinking?
| Retric wrote:
| The point of democracy isn't to make the best choices, it's
| to have the people in power try and appease as much of the
| population as possible. The fact 61 year olds vote while 16
| year olds don't shifts priorities away from a huge segment
| of the population. Worse, it likely biases short term
| thinking as many voters will be dead before the
| consequences of various choices show up.
| jfrunyon wrote:
| > Their internal risk/reward function isn't calibrated quite
| right
|
| What else is voting but deciding which party has the best
| risk/reward? ;)
| celticninja wrote:
| If you have a lower limit then there should be an upper limit.
| tpmx wrote:
| There is a lower limit; typically 18. I was talking about
| calls to lower that limit.
| celticninja wrote:
| I am aware of the lower limit. The existence of which means
| we should also have an upper limit.
| ohyeshedid wrote:
| I'm curious what your reasoning is for having that
| opinion.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| People who won't be around to see the consequences of
| their actions should have less political power than those
| who will.
| dstick wrote:
| Doing stupid things on impulse doesn't and shouldn't disqualify
| _every_ young adult. I read about a grandpa who gave his
| granddaughter the "volmacht" (no idea what the English word is)
| for his vote in the last election. She effectively cast the
| vote. Looking at my daughter of 13, I'm confident she's world
| smart enough to make a more sane and well-informed decision
| than half of the adults I know. I agree to lowering the voting
| age to 16. Outliers be damned, a very smart group of people is
| being muzzled while an ever larger growing group (seniors) are
| getting more say when they, by nature of their age - no blame,
| have a more short-sighted and less flexible view of the world.
| Give the kids a vote, and maybe more adults will start to
| listen.
|
| Maybe a weighted vote? Curious to hear if anyone has any good
| alternatives :)
| scpedicini wrote:
| I'm saying this somewhat in jest, but this would give
| disproportionate political influence to families with larger
| quantities of children. And don't sit here and tell me with a
| straight face that children will make up their minds
| independently of influence from their parents. Cough religion
| cough.
| Jedd wrote:
| > Looking at my daughter of 13, I'm confident she's world
| smart enough to make a more sane and well-informed decision
| than half of the adults I know.
|
| Without commenting on the objective intelligence of your
| child, I think this observation speaks more to either the set
| of adults you know, or the set of adults in your society in
| general.
|
| I would feel safer if we focused on resolving the situation
| where most adults around you were more sane / informed /
| rational / smarter than a generic 13yo.
| __s wrote:
| Allowing children to cast votes will also get them engaged at
| a young age to vote later on when they're older
|
| Giving children responsibility is how you get responsible
| adults
| benjohnson wrote:
| Also their parents can give them guidance on long-term
| thinking as a balance against politicians promising 'free'
| things.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| (checks their parents' recorded voting habits)
|
| ... Can they?
| Aeolun wrote:
| Only for a few of them. I think the vast majority will vote
| based on what's hip, and the most recent memes.
| Nebasuke wrote:
| Isn't that the same for the vast majority of adults? I
| mean sure, maybe replace memes by most recent
| manipulative news articles, but I don't think it's that
| different.
|
| I remember my class in high school doing a fake voting
| session, and sure we made jokes, but most people took it
| relatively serious.
| jfrunyon wrote:
| That's how the vast majority votes already.
| celticninja wrote:
| Didn't you pay attention to Donald Trump's presidency?
| tpmx wrote:
| I was also that kinda smart well-informed kid - I thought. :)
|
| In retrospect, when I first voted at the age of 18 I was
| horribly underinformed/undereducated/naive. And at, say, 16 I
| would have been comparatively speaking so much more naive and
| susceptible to populism, be it from the left or the right.
|
| There are layers/complexities to politics, and it takes time
| to understand them.
|
| You do have a point that most adults are also horribly
| underinformed, but...
| celticninja wrote:
| People are susceptible to populism regardless of age and
| naivety too, are you suggesting we remove the vote from
| them?
| tpmx wrote:
| Is it really regardless of age?
|
| As an extreme example: I'm pretty sure an average 5 year
| old is more susceptible to populism than an average 35
| year old.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Think of it as an incentive for older folks to also vote.
| tpmx wrote:
| They don't really need an incentive; old people do vote.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| You've found evidence that people over 18 can be incredibly
| stupid, and you are using that as evidence that people under 18
| shouldn't vote?
| beforeolives wrote:
| Would a sample of stupid things done by 20-somethings convince
| you to increase the voting age? Should people be denied to vote
| as they get older and their brain function deteriorates? What
| about people in the bottom quartile of intelligence or
| education? What about smart and educated people who know
| nothing about the people and parties they're voting for?
|
| None of these would make sense to me unless you are willing to
| go very radical in a bunch of different directions. Giving
| young people a vote at an age at which they can already work,
| pay taxes and be in the military makes a lot more sense to me.
| tpmx wrote:
| Not being american I had to look it up: US kids can join the
| military at the age of 17 with parental conscent. That's kind
| of wild.
| brutal_chaos_ wrote:
| We _really_ like our guns.
| sjg007 wrote:
| And we don't care about kids.
| pc86 wrote:
| What does that have to do with anything?
| michaelt wrote:
| One possible explanation for why America thinks giving a
| 17 year old a vote is more dangerous than giving them an
| M16.
|
| Not the only possible explanation, obviously.
| Spivak wrote:
| I mean people under 18 have to pay taxes. Seems unfair to deny
| their voice in how their money is spent.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > I don't think this is sane.
|
| I don't agree. My 8 year old has a better understanding of many
| issues than a lot of adults I've met. And he's got a huge stake
| in the future. Given that a single, solitary vote is worth next
| to nothing, I think it totally makes sense to give that right
| to kids.
|
| Yes, maybe I could coerce him. But my son would probably just
| tell me to pound sand and then vote how he wanted.
| corndoge wrote:
| I can't tell if this is a joke or not
| pope_meat wrote:
| Child logic: we should help this person in need.
|
| Adult Genius Thought Leader Logic: if you help this person,
| you'll just make them dependent!
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| As I've got older, and learnt more about the world, I
| genuinely think I've become less moral.
|
| I used to care about the big issues. Now I rationalise
| leaving the lights on and the tap running, and make
| effort _not_ to stand up for what 's right when it feels
| like it would weaken my social status.
| pc86 wrote:
| None of this is true.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Well if you say so.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Joke's on you. I'm in my thirties and still as much of an
| idiot. Think of my idiot vote as canceling out your carefully
| thought out one.
| dang wrote:
| " _Eschew flamebait. Don 't introduce flamewar topics unless
| you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated
| controversies and generic tangents._"
|
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26743596.
| asimjalis wrote:
| How did he deal with going to the bathroom in the crate? A topic
| the article does not touch upon.
| [deleted]
| flatline wrote:
| They mentioned the empty bottle. I'm sure he didn't have to
| poop living in a crate for five days with only water to drink.
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| Even if you aren't eating, the bacteria in your digestive
| system are producing waste.
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| Several days without defecation is not comfortable but
| quite easily achievable.
| [deleted]
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-04-08 23:00 UTC)