Fat guy dies because he didn't want to go to the zoo...

[Ghostvirus]

Wow. I'm simply aghast at the opinions in this thread. You seriously believe that you are justified in disrespecting a person's entire being because they made choices that led to their premature death. My next statement will offend you (and you need to be offended ) but that is a morally bankrupt viewpoint.

No more posts for me in this thread, boys and girls. It's too depressing to hear attitudes like this.

Didn't offend me. I could really care less what you think.

 

[RdeemingRainbow]

You likened being fat and not getting an x-ray at a zoo to the likes of getting raped

Actually, no I didn't. Learn to read. If you're still unable to comprehend simply sentences, get a tutor.

and being a poor individual trying to go to college.

Yeah, SERIOUSLY learn to read. I likened your whining about tax payers having to pay part of the costs for other people's health care to you expecting other people to pay your way through college. Nobody's asking you to build a rocket ship, just to understand words better. Try it sometime.

Grants are free money, loans are paid back.

Gee, it's always "free money" when someone else pays for it, huh? Do you understand where "grants" come from? I'll type really slow if that helps -- when the nice people in suits at the government hand you money to go to school, guess where they get the money from? Why, from government money! Guess where the government gets it's money? Why, from other people just like me! That "free money" for YOU is money I actually WORKED FOR and that the government takes from me to hand out to YOU so you don't have to actually work and pay for your own school when you decide to go. See how that works?

Government student loans are also money that those nice government people give to YOU after they take it out of MY pocket. I worked for it, see, and then you came along and said "I wanna go to school, but I'm too delicate to WORK to pay for it myself -- give me money!" and the government nanny came running to hand you a bunch of money from my pocket. Got that yet?

See, nobody ASKED me if I wanted to pay YOUR way through school, they just gave it to you because you wanted it right now instead of waiting and saving up money on your own. You tell them you'll pay it back later, some day, a little at a time, maybe starting four or six years down the road, but TODAY you don't have the money and you expect MY money to pay your way. I don't give a flying flip if you plan to pay it back later, or if you're one of the people who actually DOES pay it back instead of defaulting or paying late or getting the government to say your such a nice kid working in such a nice field that you don't have to pay it all back -- you still couldn't pay for it right now and expected the rest of us to foot your bill so you don't have to WORK for it right now.

Oh, but what about bank loans for students? See, the money in banks? It's not money that the bank president brings to work with him every day. There are people, whole bunches of people, and they all take their own money and put it in banks. Then the banks invest some of it, and LOAN some of it out to, for example, freeloaders like YOU who want all those other nice people to use their money to pay your way through school so you don't have to work for it yourself or wait and save up to go to school when you can actually afford it.

Just like tax payers and other patients at hospitals having to pay more money because of the cost of people who can't pay their hospital bill, or to buy equipment they don't use as often because there are some people who might need it. You wept tears for tax payers possibly having to foot the bill for hospitals getting bigger machines so that larger people can be treated -- which, of course, is wrong, since I explained (twice, and I typed slowly so you'd have a better chance of getting the point) having the bigger equipment would mean treating more patients and thus it'll pay for itself like all other investments in equipment. So since you are so worried about tax payers and stomped around grousing about it, I just assumed you'd be equally upset at the thought of innocent tax payers having to pay for college loans, too. Wow, I wonder why suddenly you are in support of me and other people having to pay for someone else to go to college just so they can avoid working their way through? Wait... are... are YOU one of those freeloading college kids who took my money??? No wonder I couldn't super-size my meal at McDonalds, you thief! Woe is me!!

So, I wonder which one are a burden to tax payers?

YOU, if you come expecting ME to pay for your schooling so you don't have to work to pay for it yourself when you can AFFORD it. Duh.

Money that is never given back or money that is given back, with interest. Which would one would cause taxes ro rise depending on how much is used?

Money that's never given back? You mean like Pell Grants for COLLEGE STUDENTS?

Which would cause taxes to rise? Duh, well, I guess any that are in the federal budget, since taxes go up to pay for spending increases, and college loans (wow, even the ones you pinky-swear you'll pay back someday... when you get around to it) are part of spending, and the more people that go to school and need loans and grants the more MONEY that takes (see how that works?). Maybe someone should explain how spending works for you, yes? Okay, I will!

See, when they spend money, it doesn't matter if someone says "you'll be getting that back in about four years... wait, I mean you'll START getting it back in four years, or maybe six. Might take a few years to pay it all back, though. So yeah, you might get paid all of it back in a decade." Do you think suddenly they say, "Oh, well then just cross that off the list of 'costs' since some day we might get it back!" Nooooo, when they spend money each year, the total amount gets added up, and the more money they spend each year, the more taxes they need to pay for it -- OR the more the government goes into debt. See, the thing about debt is that it still has to be paid someday. Meanwhile, the interest piles up and everyone else -- those pesky "tax payers" we keep talking about -- have to pay for it all.

Try to justify it however you want, the fact is that student loans and grants are money from other people, some of it gets paid back and some of it doesn't, it's part of government spending and comes from taxes, and you are relying on other people to foot the bill. No different than paying a bit more at a hospital due to the costs being spread around. You were horrified at the thought of hospitals spreading costs around to tax payers, but you are stuttering and making excuses (lame ones) about student loans. If you want to vilify people over the hospital example, I can easily vilify students who get loans. It's that simple.

Which one would help increase the national debt depending on how much is used? I wonder...

Wonder no more! I'm here to help!

What helps increase the national debt? SPENDING! What spending, you may now ask? Why, GOVERNMENT spending! But, where does the government get that spending? From the tax payers, like ME! If there's not enough money yanked out of my wallet for the spending, then the government goes into "debt". But that debt has to be paid off. How, you ask? MORE SPENDING! Wait, though, you might say, but where does THAT money come from? Sad to say, it comes once again from tax payers -- yep, like ME. Again.

So which spending costs "money" from "tax payers" like "me"? All. Of. It.

But which debt spending costs "money" from "tax payers" like "me"? All. Of. It.

Does that mean that they don't have a special little magic box where student loans and unicorn feed get paid for without raising spending costs and adding to the overall debt? Nope. Spending that increases the debt includes --- can you guess? -- ALL spending put together. Because spending is spending. If it's part of spending, it's part of the costs, and that means if the debt goes up then it's part of THAT, too.

You don't get to just cherry-pick the spending that you don't like and put it all into one little pile, and then take all of the spending you DO like and put it into another little pile, and pretend the debt is caused by the meanie-pile and that the good-pile makes babies smile. That's called "not real economics", or as I like to put it, "not reality".

If you have any more really, really obvious simple questions, feel free to pass them on. And if you still don't understand why not paying for something yourself and taking government money for it costs other people THEIR money... well, actually, if you still don't understand that one, I don't think there's anyone who can help you at this point.

Carry on!

 

[RdeemingRainbow]

*In case any rational people read this and get the wrong idea, I don't actually mind student loans. Just applying a certain person's complaints about hospitals buying larger equipment when it's time to replace equipment, so that they can also treat larger people as well as others.

 

[Tanin]

I so would of gone to the zoo for medical treatment when I was that large. I would of been impressed not offended.

 

[Darthphere]

I was expecting something worse than being called "morally bankrupt". Take it like this, he didn't want to take the necessary actions to live so why should I care that he died? And please don't use the "He is a human being and all human beings should be respected" argument because I will invoke Godwin's Law.

 

[bullets]

Being fat is not that simple. Yes, most of the time it is over eating and just being lazy and all that good stuff. However, when it comes to being MORBIDLY obese and you're eating yourself to death, I would stay that stems from severe psychological issues. Nobody in their right mind would want a life of constant ridicule and humiliation.

The point is morbidly obese people are addicts. Usually people do not laugh at people who are drug adicts, alchoholics, etc ...but when you're morbidly obese I guess it all changes. This person had an addiction to food.....and his inner demons eventually won. Wheres the funny?

I agree these people lose the will to live and it's part of the downward spiral . It's sad people get to that point.

 

[JewishHobbit]

actually, I just found a video of the guy....

ignoring the joke, that was actually a really cute video. I want a hippo now.

 

[amazingfantasy15]

Wow. I'm simply aghast at the opinions in this thread. You seriously believe that you are justified in disrespecting a person's entire being because they made choices that led to their premature death. My next statement will offend you (and you need to be offended ) but that is a morally bankrupt viewpoint.

No more posts for me in this thread, boys and girls. It's too depressing to hear attitudes like this.

Why should I respect someone who doesn't respect themselves.

 

[JewishHobbit]

I'd be sad for him if he just died due to weight, despite how much weight that is. I find I don't care about his death because he had the oppertunity to save himself and refused treatment. I don't care if you're a 150 pound perfectly healthy person... that's just stupid.

 

[SuperFerret]

I don't respect people unless they've earned my respect, I am however courteous to those who haven't yet caused me to have a dim view of them.

And if I'm morally bankrupt for not caring that someone I don't know let themselves die in a funny way, then I guess I'm morally bankrupt.

 

[Batman713]

He didn't have the will to live anymore. He just bit the dust...

get it... bit? hehe

 

[Sentinel X]

If you choose to do heroine instead of having a good life then you deserve NO sympathy. If you choose to drink your life away, you deserve NO sympathy. If you are offered help and turn it down, then you deserve to be lol'd at.

If you eat 20 cheeseburgers a day and turn down medical services because it might embarass you when you are a 600 pound man, then you deserve no sympathy.

Who gives a **** about sympathy, its about respect. Someone died...Id dont think they care about you having sympathy for them because again...they're dead, but laughing at someone who obviously was ill (both physically AND mentally) is just strange. There is a difference between being sympathetic and downright disrespectful.

I don't respect people unless they've earned my respect, I am however courteous to those who haven't yet caused me to have a dim view of them.

And if I'm morally bankrupt for not caring that someone I don't know let themselves die in a funny way, then I guess I'm morally bankrupt.

I am the complete opposite. I respect everyone unless they've done something to lose my respect.

And its okay not to care. Thousands of sick people die every day and I don't really care that much. It doesn't cross my mind and I certainly don't lose sleep over it....but at the same time, I'm not laughing at them because they've lost their lives. Exactly what is so funny about a sick peoson losing the battle?

 

[Addendum]

Exactly what is so funny about a sick peoson losing the battle?

The motorcade of the funeral having a pilot car warning oncoming traffic of the wide load behind them...

The funeral requiring a grapple truck to lower the casket in the grave...

 

[SuperFerret]

Exactly what is so funny about a sick peoson losing the battle?

Nothing. Nothing is funny about a sick person losing their battle with their disease.

HOWEVER, there is humor in someone dying as a result of their poorly made desicions, especially when it's due to pride. Also, obesity, like alcoholism, drug addiction, etc. is a self-inflicted condition, so this whole thing is all on him and his bad decisions. That, in a nutshell, is funny.

 

[Sentinel X]

Nothing. Nothing is funny about a sick person losing their battle with their disease.

HOWEVER, there is humor in someone dying as a result of their poorly made desicions, especially when it's due to pride. Also, obesity, like alcoholism, drug addiction, etc. is a self-inflicted condition, so this whole thing is all on him and his bad decisions. That, in a nutshell, is funny.

Pride? ...are you ****ing kidding me?

Obviously he was humiliated. I bet all his life hes been mocked and jeered for being morbidly obese and now he is told to go to a zoo because he is too fat to take an X-ray like a normal person. That is humiliating, embarassing, whatever you want to call it. Has it occured to you that he could have possibly had depression, causing him to lose his will to live or undergo even more humilation.

Anyway I guess its funny too when some people die of AIDs due to sexual promiscuity, or cancer due to unhealthy life style habits, etc. Hahahaha...yeah I finally get it

 

[SuperFerret]

Pride? ...are you ****ing kidding me?

Obviously he was humiliated. I bet all his life hes been mocked and jeered for being morbidly obese and now he is told to go to a zoo because he is too fat to take an X-ray like a normal person. That is humiliating, embarassing, whatever you want to call it. Has it occured to you that he could have possibly had depression, causing him to lose his will to live or undergo even more humilation.

Anyway I guess its funny too when some people die of AIDs due to sexual promiscuity, or cancer due to unhealthy life style habits, etc. Hahahaha...yeah I finally get it

We've already established that I don't care, I posted this thread and gave it it's title in order to display how funny I find it. Yeah, I'm a heartless bastard, I know, but seriously, people need to get off this "that's not funny" crap. Everything can be funny, you just need to know where to look.

The way I see it is that, unless you know this guy, you should be able to sit back, chuckle, and move on with your life.

 

[RdeemingRainbow]

There's a difference between finding humor in a tragic situation, even twisted humor -- again, I have a pretty twisted sense of humor sometimes -- and what's been going on in this thread. Not EVERYBODY, but a whole lot of people have gone far beyond just finding humor and making a few jokes about the humorousness.

Same goes for the whole "respect" and "sympathy" thing. None of us (presumably) knew this guy, and he did make a pretty bad decision that MIGHT -- since we don't know, unless someone here is performed the autopsy -- have contributed to his death. It's hard to have the same amount of basic sympathy -- not empathy, but sympathy, basic human decency to feel bad for a less fortunate person's situation whether they are to blame or not -- as compared to someone who say got hit by a drunk driver through no fault of their own. Obviously there are some differences.

But again, just like with the jokes, the "sympathy" and "respect" issue went overboard here as well. If you can't see when a line's been crossed into sheer mean-spiritedness, into devaluing people because they are overweight, into mockery of someone's humiliation and suffering, and into cruelty in expressions of utter lack of any ability to feel at all bad about what's been said here and in fact justifying even the worst, most despicable comments, then you have a serious perspective problem.

And the context of the comments matters -- this is a public forum, where lots of these comments might and probably do apply to any number of your fellow posters. So when you not only joke, but really get in there and twist the knife into the bone with these comments and denouncements and exclamations of lack of any sympathy at all, there are people reading this who are feeling like you may as well be talking right to them.

And none of you even regret it at all, not one person saying "Okay, yeah, looking back at it, I think we went too far a few times." Instead you got uglier and more cruel, indignant that anyone would dare tell you how piggish your remarks are, how hurtful they might be to others reading it, and you actually went farther to make perfectly clear how deep your lack of regard for other people really is. You're taking pleasure in getting worse and being increasingly degrading and insulting and hurtful. You're exactly like the weak little bullies you complain about in your own lives.

I'll say again -- I hope that every person here who has crossed the line or has argued in defense of even the worst things said here (not one person has said maybe they crossed the line a bit, or expressed any measure of guilt about any of this crap they've said) at some point expresses their own problems or bad decisions on these boards and is treated to exactly the same degree of line-crossing, mockery, utter lack of a hint of compassion, and justification for mocking and degrading them in the worst ways. What comes around goes around.

 

[RdeemingRainbow]

Yeah, I'm a heartless bastard, I know, but seriously, people need to get off this "that's not funny" crap

No, YOU need to deal with it. Because hey, you're proud of being a heartless bastard, so guess what? Suck it up. You're getting bashed and mocked for your own choices here, so don't cry and get sore about it now.

 

[SuperFerret]

Yeah, but the thing is, I'm actually a pretty nice guy, and not (as I sarcastically called myself) a heartless bastard. I'm not crying or getting sore about anything, nor do I feel bashed or mocked. I'm actually attempting to tell others to, I don't know, grow a sense of humor? Life is short, laugh about it.

 

[Sentinel X]

Yeah, but the thing is, I'm actually a pretty nice guy, and not (as I sarcastically called myself) a heartless bastard. I'm not crying or getting sore about anything, nor do I feel bashed or mocked. I'm actually attempting to tell others to, I don't know, grow a sense of humor? Life is short, laugh about it.

Are you implying that I have no sense of humor because I didn't laugh at a fat guy who passed away?....because that would be pretty funny

 

[SuperFerret]

No, I'm implying that you need to expand your sense of humor. As I've said, everything can be funny. More people need to realize this, so they can stop getting offended and laugh at how absurd life can be.

 

[CelticPredator]

Everything CAN be funny. Fact. Maybe not to you...but someone, somewhere will find it funny. For example.

9/11- Can be funny.
The Holocaust- Can be funny.
Heath Ledger's death - Can be funny.
Michael Jackson's death- Can be funny.
Stupid fat guy dies- Can be funny.

 

[RdeemingRainbow]

No, I'm implying that you need to expand your sense of humor. As I've said, everything can be funny. More people need to realize this, so they can stop getting offended and laugh at how absurd life can be.

The offense isn't directly about finding humor in this story. It's about the specific comments on this thread and the extent to which things went too far. A line was crossed in terms of good taste and common decency, and plenty of point about why it is far worse than just laughing and why it likely is hurtful to some of your fellow posters etc are all just ignored.

Have you ever found humor in a situation involving someone in a wheelchair -- something you saw on TV or in a movie, for example? Okay, probably you have, right? BUT -- would you point at a little kid in a wheelchair in public and laugh at him, in front of everybody around you and in front of him? How about, would you come to these boards and make a thread telling everyone how you saw a little kid in a wheelchair and he was so deformed that it cracked you up?

Do you see differences between those situations? I can only hope that you do, and that in doing so you admit there are indeed lines of taste and decency that do exist. You'd probably never point and laugh at a kid in a wheelchair in public. And you PROBABLY would not start a thread to make fun of a kid you saw in a wheelchair, depending of course on the circumstances -- at least, you wouldn't likely just mock how he looked and type "LOL" about him being extremely ******ed or something like that.

So there's a line up against which your sense of humor would bump and you'd realize not to go there. I'm saying that at some point, the posts in this thread went beyond that sort of line and have become extremely cruel and grossly insensitive NOT just to the situation in the story itself, but into a much (I hate to use this phrase) wider context. It's not just humor and laughing about the story, it became mockery and open derision toward overweight people in general, very nastily worded expressions of hatred and talk of how fat people or drug addicts etc deserve no sympathy or respect. And that's crossing the line.

And I've tried not to get into personal details here, but now I will because I think the point is important. My mother is now crippled from an accident caused by her weight. She can barely even leave the house, except for special occasions, and can barely get around the house at all due to the severe injury to her legs (the accident was driving, she wasn't so overweight that it broke her legs or anything). Before the accident, she was overweight but not huge, but now that she's mostly forced to remain semi-inclined all day, her weight for the last decade has risen dramatically. It has led to heart disease and diabetes.

One of my close friends from college killed himself a couple of years back, partly due to deep depression and humiliation over his weight. This guy was a friend for a long time, so his death hit me very hard.

But I have thick skin, so I didn't take this thread too personally and I didn't get angry due to the link to my mom or my friend -- instead, my own experiences just made me think about how the things being said here could apply to other people reading this site, apply to them PERSONALLY even, and how hurtful it might be. That isn't cool, and anyone who finds it funny or cool or enjoys the thought of it is a small-minded little worm. But I doubt most of you even thought about it, or are even thinking about it NOW. I wasn't hurt personally by these comments, but someone else might be. Have enough decency and maturity to stop it, if you aren't decent enough to apologize for it or to admit it went too far.

 

[RdeemingRainbow]

*And yes, I know my "wider context" comment, and the note that my mom's weight didn't break her legs, probably were funny to some people, and I think that's the sort of example of something that's maybe a bit of twisted humor that I don't think it's wrong to find funny.

 

[SuperFerret]

The lines of taste are only crossed when you joke about something that deals immediately with someone present at the time. Just like how I can joke about suicide, but I won't around my aunt because my cousin killed himself.