Poll: Is it always wrong to laugh at a deadly incident?

[dangitall]

We all know of the famous Darwin Awards, and then there's this:

Only in North Korea
Sorry, I just had to. It's actually South Korea, and I felt like stabbing myself at grinning at this. Yes, it IS definitely a wrong act to laugh at this.
*Edit, wait, it is not always wrong to laugh. Just after about 20 years or so.

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

Is it wrong? Nope, it just shows your lack of compassion.

Bullshit. It is possible to feel bad for the deceased, even if you find the nature of the death to be somewhat funny.

 

[Togs]

Sorry, it was obligatory

 

[Ghengis John]

It's my firm belief you can laugh only because the situation has never hit home for you.

It's a beautiful thing that there are so many different types of people in this world. Because I am living refutation of your belief. My father died horribly of cancer on 12/28/2000. My grandmother's Alzheimer's disease finally took her on 1/6/2001. And I still find a good cancer/Alzheimer's joke funny. Even if it's something my relatives specifically went through. Not trying to slag you, just let you know that not everyone processes grief or trauma the same way.

Should I say I envy you? My dad's still alive. I mean It's not like I want him to die you know, but I do envy your ability to laugh about it. I don't know that we're those kind of people though. Then again, for you it was 10 years ago. I don't know if you would have felt the same way at the time. And I don't know if that excuses the kids who are only laughing because they haven't experienced it anyhow.

 

[hyker]

quoting some famous guy from the 50's, who I don't know the name of:
"tragedy is when I cut MY finger, comedy is when YOU fall down the sewer and DIE"
it's just simply that when we have nothing to do with someone else's problem we feel confortable to think anything about it, since noone will accuse us for it

 

[Ghengis John]

quoting some famous guy from the 50's, who I don't know the name of:
"tragedy is when I cut MY finger, comedy is when YOU fall down the sewer and DIE"
it's just simply that when we have nothing to do with someone else's problem we feel confortable to think anything about it, since noone will accuse us for it

Mel Brooks it was slip on a banana, fall down into a manhole cover and die vs stub my toe.

 

[PinkiePyro]

not really,
the whole feeling good others fail (as long as you didnt cause it) thing is from instincts or something my sister told me about a book she read on the whole subject but I don't remember the details

 

[SnipErlite]

I'll be honest, I found it amusing up until I read the second highest-rated comment:

he took the express elevator

Then I burst out laughing.


Not that death is funny, but seriously. The lift wasn't fucking there anymore, and even when the door was clearly about to collapse he rams into it again? 0_O

 

[WanderingFool]

Does it count as cheating reading 'that guy died' before watching the video? To be honest I was kinda shocked at that. And no I didn't find that funny at all.
[sub]Don't click that quote button if you're going to disagree with me[/sub]

It's not always wrong as humour is subjective. I laugh at deadly incidents which could kill at times as sometimes they are genuinely funny. Others not so much but that's me.

Of course not. In the face of absurdity the natural response is to laugh, and when someone throws their life away doing something like the video above the scenario could only be described as absurd. Yes, people somewhere probably mourned his passing and will remember his life fondly. But I don't know those people. I have no empathy for the man as I never met him and will almost certainly never meet the people who cared about him. Therefore, it is perfectly correct to laugh.

Indeed, in fact it's impossible for you to care for him. (According to the Monkey Sphere anyway =P)

I agree completely. The video above is funny, even though he does die, for much the same reason that Eclectic Dreck said. And I also agree humour is incredible subjective, and there are no doubt people that find what happened there to be incredibly not funny. I am one of the people that LMAO at that, and find many of the deaths as portraid in "1000 ways to die" funny when they involve a person dying because of stupidity or of some kind of deadly sin (like the gold digger that died because she got crushed by all this money that she stole from this old guy). If some halirous death was to happen to a member of my family, or to someone I know, I wouldnt laugh (unless it was one of several particular friends, dont ask). But if I saw someone laughing at theor death, it wouldnt bother me, as they didnt know the person, and it was still a funny death.

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

So you laugh at someones death while feeling sorry? Okay, but you do realize that people can see that not as a sign of compassion, right?

I don't understand what 'bullshit' you are talking about

The bullshit of your previous statement was that you assumed that a person would have complete lack of compassion towards others for laughing at a humorous situation.

You also don't seem to grasp the nature of humor. Humor isn't bothered by when it is "appropriate" to laugh or find some kind of funny irony in something. But just because you have a sense of humor it doesn't mean that you suffer from complete lack of compassion.

I doubt that the majority of people who laughed at the clip actually WANTED the guy to die. That his death somehow made their lives better just because it made them laugh a little. Finding something funny is pretty cheap for the most part after all and it hardly takes the death of another human being to start laughing.

But, a sense of humor doesn't care about when it is appropriate or not. If a situation is funny, then it just is. Tragedy doesn't exclude hilarity, and if we're talking about compassion here I think you people who basically try to portray people who did laugh as some kind of emotionally dead psychopaths to have a serious deficiency in the compassion and empathy department.

If you want to point out lack of compassion, then go for the ones who openly admit that they wanted the guy dead or though that his death was good since it made them laugh. I doubt you'll find many who think that though...

 

[Ghengis John]

Should I say I envy you? My dad's still alive. I mean It's not like I want him to die you know, but I do envy your ability to laugh about it. I don't know that we're those kind of people though. Then again, for you it was 10 years ago. I don't know if you would have felt the same way at the time. And I don't know if that excuses the kids who are only laughing because they haven't experienced it anyhow.

I wouldn't envy me. It still hurts like a ***** if I let it. But I could still laugh, even at the time, at related jokes (one that comes to mind-What did the paralyzed kid get for Christmas? Cancer). Well, not much of anything was FUNNY funny at the time but I didn't suddenly get offended or cry more or anything-I think you know what I mean. And honestly, some of us laugh at death as kind of a defense mechanism. Maybe that's why I react the way I do.

I'd also like to point out that there's a big difference between me laughing at a death video on the internet and if I were to go to that guy's family and laugh in front of them. I think the main point of OP is whether your gut instinct of laughing is 'wrong', not laughing directly AT the victim or those who cared about them-I think we can all agree that's in poor taste.

Yes I do. Well said I suppose. Sorry for getting worked up. Really it just fills me up with too many ugly feelings at this point I suppose. This video brings up numerous bad memories. Then again I don't laugh at death in general. It's not my way but I understand you when you put it that way. Nice to meet ya goat.

 

[RatRace123]

No, it's funny. Guy fell down an elevator shaft.

 

[Canid117]

Depends if the person got killed by their own stupidity. And also if poetic justice was involved.

 

[Sinclair Solutions]

I'm surprised that
a) He assumed the elevator would still be there
b) that he thought the only rational course of action was to break down the door instead of waiting
c) that the door broke down so easily.

Those things combined...yep, it's pretty funny. I guess we're all going to hell.

 

[Tib088]

What the fuck was going through his mind? Seriously what was that going too acomplish?

Me and my freinds where talking about all the messed up ways people have died last night. But this is just stupid. I laughed.