Post: #1

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/...iend-in-g/

What in the hell is a grown ass man doing taking a selfie? Note to self, don't hang around dudes who take selfies, they are an accident waiting to happen.

Quote: One man’s attempt to take a selfie while standing in the Ganges river has resulted in seven deaths, after six others drowned one-by-one attempting to save him - and one another.

Even for India, which has the unenviable record of more ‘selfie deaths’ per year than any other country, the scale of the tragedy is unprecedented.

The accident took place at the Ganga Barrage bridge in Kanpur (formerly Cawnpore) on Wednesday, when Shivam Gupta, 19, slipped from a sloped, algae-covered platform that leads down to the river.

Five of his college friends, as well as a 31-year-old local called Maqsood, jumped in to try to save him but were all swept away by the current, according to a survivor. Two of the victims, Shivam and Satyam Gupta, were brothers.

The river is currently running high and with a strong current due to the arrival of heavy monsoon rains, which have hit northern and central Indian the past week.


Despite the danger, the partially-submerged platform is a popular spot for taking photographs and bathing in the river, which is considered holy by Hindus.

Since September last year, 24 persons have drowned in the river at Kanpur, mainly youths, officials said.

“Youngsters who throng the Ganga barrage in large numbers often risk their lives while bathing in the river,” Shalabh Mathur, a senior police chief, told the Indian Express, referring to the Ganges by its Hindi name.

“They go deep into the river and slip on the rocks. Before they can realise what went wrong on their part, they are caught in the swirls of Ganga.”

Following the tragedy, district authorities have now ordered the construction of barriers around the Ganga Barrage bridge, and police will be deployed to arrest anyone who ventures onto the sloped platform.

Half of all recorded deaths resulting from self-taken photographs took place in India last year.

So far this year, a man in Kerala was seriously injured taking a selfie with an elephant at a temple festival in April, and a teenager in Chennai was killed by a train after posing near railway tracks.

Police in Mumbai have called for “no selfie zones” to be introduced at popular but dangerous locations after a tragic accident claimed two lives in January.

India overtook the US this year to become the world’s second-largest smartphone market, with 220 million users, behind only China.

Post: #2

The most impressive piece of information in there is that up until this year, the US was the 2nd largest smartphone consumer on the planet, bested only by China who has 4 times the population of America.

It's surely that per capita, The States outrank every other country in smartphone use by a landslide. We are the most smartphone addicted nation.

Post: #3

It is impossible to go to the gym these days without seeing girls playing games with their phones or listening to music. Totally socially isolated. If a shooting ever happened in a gym, a lot of girls (and guys) wouldn't hear it unless they were hit by a stray bullet. Smart phones really are the bane of a well-adjusted society.

Post: #4

Smarphone culture fucking sickens me. I've been saying it for years and it's only gotten worse. It's affected every facet of how we communicate with one another and how we go about our day-to-day lives, and I personally thinks it has introduced far more negatives than positives.

People text and drive, are perpetually distracted, pay less attention to eachother and the world around them and more attention to themselves and their device. People spend more time taking pictures and videos of shit than actually experiencing it and appreciating it. People shut themselves off from others while living in an illusion that they are more "social" than ever before. People are more narcissistic, self absorbed, ignorant, disrespectful, entitled, all social and cultural issues contributed by the use of smartphones. Everyone feels the urge to always look "busy."

It's a fucking blight on humanity, honestly.

Post: #5

Quote:Experts estimate that more than 3000 million litres of untreated sewage from these towns along the Ganges are pumped into the river every day. By the time it reaches Varanasi, whose untreated sewage (or most of it) is also pumped into the waters, it becomes a sewer and the sixth most polluted river in the world.

What a shitty way to die.

Post: #6

I guess the lifeguards were on duty in the gene pool there.

The smartphone phenomena is just one more data point on the linear regression of communications. The half life of new communication mediums are shortening rapidly. With IG and SnapChat people don't even need to text or type out letters they just post a picture.

Phone->email->text->FB->IG->??? I shudder to think what comes next but I have a bad feeling it has electrolytes.

Post: #7

(06-23-2016 01:02 PM)General Stalin Wrote:  Smarphone culture fucking sickens me. I've been saying it for years and it's only gotten worse. It's affected every facet of how we communicate with one another and how we go about our day-to-day lives, and I personally thinks it has introduced far more negatives than positives.

People text and drive, are perpetually distracted, pay less attention to eachother and the world around them and more attention to themselves and their device. People spend more time taking pictures and videos of shit than actually experiencing it and appreciating it. People shut themselves off from others while living in an illusion that they are more "social" than ever before. People are more narcissistic, self absorbed, ignorant, disrespectful, entitled, all social and cultural issues contributed by the use of smartphones. Everyone feels the urge to always look "busy."

It's a fucking blight on humanity, honestly.

I think of it as such. Count the steps, breaths, and heartbeats in your life. If you spend 30-50% or more of them just "capturing" what you're doing to "show them" to others or catalog them for future viewing, listening, etc.. -- which you never will have time for, nor will anyone worth their weight in poop give a shit -- you spent 30-50% of your life stroking your ego while guys like us literally lived easily TWICE the life these fools do.

I take a few pics when I've got my daughter for memorabilia, that's it, and share very little online... not even a pic a month, that's my personal shit anyhow. So the conclusion is what we've arrived at years ago when the "smart Phone" dilemma hit the RVF. Be the commander of your own destiny, and subsequently others' because they're too afraid to live life to the fullest (like the YOLO selfie crowd claims), and clown these fools drowning in your wake as you slough off the added attention of having giant balls in a nutless society.

Trust, on MANY occasions in the pat 5 years I've had the feeling that on-lookers were thinking to themselves, while watching me live a life filled with actions, not words and selfies and pics and vids "damn, look at that guy go," only to catch them train spotting my active existence.

The dipshit that knocked over the priceless statue getting a selfie with it deserves life in prison IMHO. This guy in article definitely deserves the same.

Post: #8

One of the subtle tells I use to project higher social status is to never post selfies.

Hell, I think I've taken one selfie over the last couple of years.

Every other picture that I share with other people was obviously-taken by an outside observer. It suggests a) there's always other people around me; and, b) they're usually wanting to photograph me because they think I'm that interesting.

It also lessens the likelihood that a photo where I look good was artificially staged and taken and retaken until I looked 'just right' to project the desired image, the way women do.

See the subtle reinforcement cues to the viewer?

Post: #9

'Men'? Idiots and morons.

Post: #10

Post: #11

Darwin Award candidates

Post: #12

Perhaps it was IRT updating his okcupid account?

Post: #13

(06-23-2016 02:46 PM)AnonymousBosch Wrote:  One of the subtle tells I use to project higher social status is to never post selfies.

Hell, I think I've taken one selfie over the last couple of years.

Every other picture that I share with other people was obviously-taken by an outside observer. It suggests a) there's always other people around me; and, b) they're usually wanting to photograph me because they think I'm that interesting.

It also lessens the likelihood that a photo where I look good was artificially staged and taken and retaken until I looked 'just right' to project the desired image, the way women do.

See the subtle reinforcement cues to the viewer?

So I guess I should take the gym selfie out of my online dating profiles then?

Post: #14

(06-23-2016 01:02 PM)General Stalin Wrote:  Smarphone culture fucking sickens me. I've been saying it for years and it's only gotten worse. It's affected every facet of how we communicate with one another and how we go about our day-to-day lives, and I personally thinks it has introduced far more negatives than positives.

People text and drive, are perpetually distracted, pay less attention to eachother and the world around them and more attention to themselves and their device. People spend more time taking pictures and videos of shit than actually experiencing it and appreciating it. People shut themselves off from others while living in an illusion that they are more "social" than ever before. People are more narcissistic, self absorbed, ignorant, disrespectful, entitled, all social and cultural issues contributed by the use of smartphones. Everyone feels the urge to always look "busy."

It's a fucking blight on humanity, honestly.

You know, I used to think I was socially retarded. Convinced. For a long time. Then I realised: wait, it's everyone else! Smartphone culture has turned multiple generations of people into social retards. I came of age just as they began to go mainstream and it was easy to forget that it didn't used to be that way, when suddenly the entire paradigm of basic human interaction has been turned upside down.

Post: #15

Not surprised they're Indians. FOB Indians and Chinese down here are the most addicted to smart phones I know. They're constantly glued to the phones, talking non-stop and taking selfies with or without the stupid stick. One FOB Chinese chick walked off a pier here a couple of years back while glued to her phone, luckily someone was around to save her arse.

(06-23-2016 02:46 PM)AnonymousBosch Wrote:  One of the subtle tells I use to project higher social status is to never post selfies.

Hell, I think I've taken one selfie over the last couple of years.

Every other picture that I share with other people was obviously-taken by an outside observer. It suggests a) there's always other people around me; and, b) they're usually wanting to photograph me because they think I'm that interesting.

It also lessens the likelihood that a photo where I look good was artificially staged and taken and retaken until I looked 'just right' to project the desired image, the way women do.

See the subtle reinforcement cues to the viewer?

Those cues work great.

Almost all of my photos on FB are taken by others, many professionally at dancing or sports that I play. I don't take photos of myself at all, as I'm too lazy to do that and then upload or create albums, and I can barely hold the phone to take a selfie. Photographers love taking photos of me at dance events, live music or weddings as apparently I'm very expressive facially which they like, and a bonus point is that I'm always dancing with a pretty girl in those photos. Girls I've dated always notice this and bring it up, as they obsessively try to look up my photos on FB at the beginning. Sometimes they'd get jealous (even more of a bonus) when we run into the same girls in my photos.