People Quitting Jobs, Walking off Cliffs, and Hit by Cars Playing Pokemon GO

FalloutJack

Bah weep grah nah neep ninny bom
Nov 20, 2008
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erttheking said:
The problem isn't with Pokemon Go, it's with people. People are stupid.
I would go with both on the grounds that the game is both addictive and handheld, AND that people are stupid. With no offense to anyone related to anyone getting hurt or killed in relation to this, portable phone technology has already caused disaster through distraction inasmuch as people have allowed it to. This is merely a more glaring example of same.
 

Neverhoodian

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Apr 2, 2008
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ffronw said:
Tom Currie, a 24-year-old from New Zealand, did exactly that. He told The Guardian [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/15/pokemon-go-man-quits-job-to-become-full-time-pokemon-hunter] that he quit his job to spend two months traveling New Zealand to try and catch all 151 Pokemon in the game. He was quoted as saying, "I wanted to have an adventure."
Man, he missed a GOLDEN opportunity to say "I want to be the very best, like no one ever was." I just hope for his sake that he's thought this out beforehand.

As for the others, they're old enough to know better (or at least, they SHOULD know better).
 

Guffe

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Jul 12, 2009
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Saelune said:
I suspect those "Don't text and drive" commercials might be making a few tweaks soon.
Already did, sort of

No idea if this is real or fake

People are just plain stupid... I wonder how many would run after the firemen into a burning building if Moltres was inside...
 

Dragonlayer

Aka Corporal Yakob
Dec 5, 2013
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I seriously hope Adventure Guy has planned this for a while, otherwise quitting your job and travelling the world on the spur of the moment is going to be as cringeworthy to read about as that Kickstarter project Retsupurae covered about the college kids who dropped out in the hope the internet would fund their comedy career.
 

Naldan

You Are Interested. Certainly.
Feb 25, 2015
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I foresee a call for a ban or something similar. It will either be the devil or misogyny.
 

Fensfield

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Nov 4, 2009
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'Kay so the second two are awful .. but that first about the fellow quitting his job to make an adventure of it? That actually sounds kinda nice and looks more like it's being spun for controversy. Sure there's potential for it being a stupid move, but I don't see how being inspired to travel by a video game is any worse than being inspired to travel by anything else.

.. In fact to be honest the more I think about it, the more making something negative or 'weird' of that guy's neat idea for an adventure seems like spin on simple account of being related the videogames/new-media. Which, for the Escapist, seems a bit sad.
 

rosac

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Sep 13, 2008
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You guys do realise the New Zealand guy was 90% just going travelling anyway right? Adding Pokemon go to the mix just got him a load of air time and potentially moolah
 

Adam Jensen_v1legacy

I never asked for this
Sep 8, 2011
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This is how we weed out the undesirables from collective gene pool. It's as harsh as it sounds, but doesn't make it any less true.
 

FirstNameLastName

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Nov 6, 2014
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Adam Jensen said:
This is how we weed out the undesirables from collective gene pool. It's as harsh as it sounds, but doesn't make it any less true.
You're right that being harsh doesn't make it any less true, but since it's not true to begin with that doesn't mean a whole lot.
The first guy is just going on a holiday, so he hasn't exactly removed himself from the gene pool yet.
Of the two guys who fell off the cliff, one of them had apparently been drinking, and neither of them died.
And the girl who got hit by a car did so in a way that had nothing to do with Pokemon Go. She had crossed the highway during the game, and got hit after she stopped playing the game and was returning home, and that was because she looked before crossing the road but couldn't see down the road properly because of a hill, so she took a stupid gamble that didn't pay off. She also didn't die.

Just saying, while I can laugh at these types of "Darwin Award" jokes, the whole "harsh but true" part of your post makes it seem like you're serious. If you are serious, I'd be interesting in hearing why you hold so strongly to the idea that "bad decision = bad genetics".
While I don't doubt that genetics does play some role in cognitive abilities, and perhaps risky behavior also has some correlation to genetics, I think the idea that this is cleansing out gene pool is kind of over selling that link, especially when many of such incidents often involve drugs, peer pressure, or ignorance of the risks (and ignorance isn't the same as a lack of intelligence).
 

Adam Jensen_v1legacy

I never asked for this
Sep 8, 2011
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You missed the point. It's not about these specific people. It's about risk/reward ratio. When people risk their lives for stupid shit like Pokemon, it's hard to feel sorry for them.
 

FirstNameLastName

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Nov 6, 2014
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Adam Jensen said:
You missed the point. It's not about these specific people. It's about risk/reward ratio. When people risk their lives for stupid shit like Pokemon, it's hard to feel sorry for them.
I feel like you missed the point also. My post was not about feeling sorry for them, it was about whether or not the deaths of such people would have the positive effect upon human genetics that so many seem to be suggesting (with varying degrees of sincerity).

Personally, I don't really feel sorry for such people. In fact, there are some that I'm legitimately sad to hear have survived their ordeal, despite how much of an edge lord that surely makes me sound like. this person. I would prefer if such people never sat behind the wheel ever again, one way or another. Not only do you have to be an absolute cretin to play phone games while driving, but you'd also have be a selfish asshole to put your virtual Pokemon above the lives of other drivers/pedestrians.

It's a shame when people kill themselves out of their own stupidity, but it's even more of a shame when such people take others with them when they do. So as horrible as this might sound, I'd rather such people find a nice tree to end their lives against, rather than remaining on the road long enough to take others with them.
 

VoidWanderer

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Sep 17, 2011
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My main concern with this game, is predatory people using it to grab victims. Apparently I forgot that there are a lot of people who get too absorbed into things to pay attention...
 

Adam Jensen_v1legacy

I never asked for this
Sep 8, 2011
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FirstNameLastName said:
I feel like you missed the point also. My post was not about feeling sorry for them
But mine was. The "collective gene pool" part is an exaggerated expression that serves to demonstrate how much I don't give a fuck what happens to these imbeciles. Kids are an exception obviously. They can't be held responsible for their stupidity the same way adults can.
 

Thaluikhain

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Jan 16, 2010
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Eh, a zillion people play Pokemon Go, a handful of them do something really stupid while doing so.

Significantly more people die because they are texting or talking on their phones. This isn't a big deal.

EDIT: Actually, going off cliffs because people have been following the thing on their phone isn't unprecedented, it's just normally bad GPS navigation.
 

BarkBarker

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May 30, 2013
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Why would anyone act so reckless.....for only a fraction of the first gen, can't wait till they put badass pokemon on the moon and inspires me to become an astronaut.
 

Tanis

The Last Albino
Aug 30, 2010
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Alt Title:
'Idiots Do Idiot Things And Get What's Coming To Them.'
 

crimsonspear4D

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Sep 26, 2009
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Damn, well if you ever wanted a study with how VR games can affect lives I guess this is as good of an entry as any. They're phones now but soon they'll be glasses, headsets, helmets... it'll be unending. But I do blame people more than I do the products, I mean, we have all have self-awareness we should know when something around us is a dangerous environment or situation.
 

Charli

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Nov 23, 2008
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Parasondox said:
Humans. We just be dumb sometimes. How the hell are we the superior species, again?
I think a couple of cases, countable on one hand vs millions of others using it responsibly will preserve us a few extra years.