Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

techstartups.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 717 posts

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#201

Post by Bancakes »

worker767424 wrote: post #198
Bancakes wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, it was a Kurdish soldier on the ground getting shot in the head with a AK from point blank. There were no bits and fragments flying around, his skull just broke apart and his head flattened uncannily like a squished rubber toy and his eyes popped out. In another video, a ISIS (?) soldier gets shot in the head, and falls to the ground. We see him struggling to get up while a viscous red liquid pours out the si…

> I consider it an important milestone. Milestone in what?

Maturing and learning of the dangers around us. We can't wait for natural selection to teach us, it's good to have a rough idea of how non-telegraphed and rapid emergency situations are.

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#203

Post by ddingus »

ridethebike wrote: post #192
ryandrake wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for sharing. I’m glad you recovered and very sorry about the others. My own family happened to escape it but my wife lost several loved ones. > While all this was going on, I am surrounded by people who think it is all fake, nobody is dying, etc... The saddest, craziest stories are the ones who, while the tubes were going in, used their last voluntary breaths to cry “How is this happening? The virus is a hoax!…

My relative tells everyone that "this whole covid panic" is blown out of proportion - he got covid and it was "meh, no worse than flu" for him

Those are the worst. They have a mild case and there basically is no convincing them otherwise, unless someone close to them has a different experience.

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#204

Post by Apaec »

spoonjim wrote: post #55

Four LiveLeak videos will always stay in my head. WARNING: even in text this stuff is horrifying. Stop reading if you don’t want to have nightmares. 1) an ISIS video where a 7 year old kid or so goes through a building where a bunch of hostages are tied up. He shoots them dead in succession. He looks like he’s about to cry throughout the whole video — but he doesn’t. 2) a completely covered up woman(?) in Iran is exe…

There's a site called theync.com(I suggest not going there), which was always more gruesome than LiveLeak.

I never understood how they operate. Always thought search engines should ban the site or something.

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#205

Post by wyattpeak »

jamestimmins wrote: post #189
buryat wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's just sick entertainment covered by explanation "I need to see how horrible the world is", and being the audience you create demand for future shock content at expense of human lives. There're better ways to educate yourself and make the world a better place.

After the photojournalist James Foley was beheaded by Isis, I read a thoughtful editorial arguing that we shouldn't watch it, in part because people were ultimately doing it not to become more informed, but to test their ability or willingness to stomach it. It also argued, that ultimately this was a form of entertainment. To address the argument that we should "see how horrible the world is", I think it's worth aski…

I think what's gained is a visceral appreciation for such events which prompts further action.

There's a reason why, when spruiking for donations, organisations like UNICEF like to show pictures of suffering children, and read first-hand accounts. These are the things that motivate people to act. We're not perfectly rational beings. We're all well aware that there are poor and starving people in the world, and mostly we do nothing about it. It's that emotional reaction that prompts us to act.

Reflecting on it instead might be sufficient, but if so then it's demonstrably not what people do, or else those pitches wouldn't be as successful as they are.

That action, to me, is the point, and it comes in many forms. Some active, like for instance donating to a cause. Some passive, like changing opinions on an ongoing war that your country is party to.

Sure, some people are watching it for entertainment value. Is that a big problem, if it changes opinions nevertheless? And from reading the other comments on this thread, I think it's apparent that it changes opinions.

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#206

Post by LeCow »

ddingus wrote: post #203
ridethebike wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My relative tells everyone that "this whole covid panic" is blown out of proportion - he got covid and it was "meh, no worse than flu" for him

Those are the worst. They have a mild case and there basically is no convincing them otherwise, unless someone close to them has a different experience.

I mean, that's 99.6% of everyone that gets it.

In which case everything everyone here is saying has been blown out of proportion.

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#207

Post by AussieWog93 »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #157
ryandrake wrote: post #38

I happen to think a lot of the pandemic denial and downplaying had to do with the media's refusal (for valid privacy reasons) to show what was actually going on in ICUs everywhere. The lack of graphic coverage kept the pandemic's worst effects out of sight, out of mind for a lot of people, allowing them to focus on and rage against the less important side-issues like how awful masks are and how upset it made them to…

Perhaps the lack of graphic Covid videos isn't because people are too shy to post them. Covid is nasty, but at the end it's just another respiratory viral disease, a.k.a. "common cold". It's just that before we ignored the human toll of the "common cold". (Yes, it is nasty and causes e.g. strokes and heart attacks and pneumonia. It's a leading cause of death that we never bothered to report before because we're so de…

The common cold generally doesn't cause people to cremate bodies on mass in the streets, which I suppose proves the grandparent's point.

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#209

Post by _carbyau_ »

bartread wrote: post #182
PostOnce wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first point, sad as it is, reminded me of this article I read, which gives clarity on how child soldiers are made in a way that I haven't read elsewhere, despite reading books on exactly that subject https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-p... Not related, but I'll just close by saying I didn't have the same respect that I now have for rotating shafts at industrial facilities until I saw some…

Some months back I saw footage of a lathe accident in a Russian factor (it was on Reddit but possibly the footage was linked from LiveLeak). Similar to you I have developed a much stronger respect for heavy machinery. It's even made me more careful when I use obviously much smaller power tools at home. Tools like circular saws, mitre saws, and even angle grinders have the ability to irreversibly change your life (or…

Circular saws, mitre saws are sold with protective elements where I live. To respect, but it won't jump out and hurt you.

Angle grinders are next level, fundamental "respect or you'll be maimed" stuff.

Angular momentum is not as fundamentally easy to judge and is easily underestimated.

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#210

Post by lamontcg »

ryandrake wrote: post #38

I happen to think a lot of the pandemic denial and downplaying had to do with the media's refusal (for valid privacy reasons) to show what was actually going on in ICUs everywhere. The lack of graphic coverage kept the pandemic's worst effects out of sight, out of mind for a lot of people, allowing them to focus on and rage against the less important side-issues like how awful masks are and how upset it made them to…

The US media also just likes to try to protect the emotions of the consumer. Some of the articles I've read of scuba diving accidents in the Mexican press are very NSFW by contrast and they'll just show you a dead guy in a wetsuit. In fact a lot of lifeleak content comes from new stories in other countries. Most Americans don't want to think about death and their own mortality or anyone else's mortality and want NSFW warnings splashed over anything remotely unsettling.
Post reply on HN