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Every time I see videos like this I’m astonished by how blasé onlookers are about the whole thing. I know it’s armchair quarterbacking but please don’t be like

Every time I see videos like this I’m astonished by how blasé onlookers are about the whole thing. I know it’s armchair quarterbacking but please don’t be like the people in the video. If the Earth is erupting in front of you: turn and run. Don’t stay there filming. Don’t gently jog while constantly checking over your shoulder. Turn. And run. I’m not saying panic. I’m not saying trample anyone in front of you. But get to a safe distance with alacrity. You have no idea if the situation will rapidly escalate, and you may only have one opportunity to put enough distance between you and the unfolding situation. Assume the worst until you know better. In this scenario, falling rocks are a concern. Superheated steam is a concern. Poisonous gases could have been a concern. Corrosive liquids could have been a concern. Lava could have been a concern. Further eruptions could have been a concern. For all of these your odds are improved with distance. In the moment you have no idea of the full extent of the dangers and in many cases by the time you realize it’s too late. That said I’m very thankful nobody was hurt in this incident.

Murky3515 2y ago
I don't understand the psychology of it either. It's like they think that appearing overly concerned about something potentially dangerous is more embarrassing than being killed by something actually dangerous. That or they have lived such safe and sheltered lives that they cannot identify real danger. I don't have any other explanation.
- secstate 2y ago
  Years ago there was a hurricane that made it up the New England coast. I remember a story of a father and daughter in Acadia National Park who had wandered out onto some exposed rocks (with about 40 other people) to watch these huge waves crash just below them. Eventually one wave was larger than the others and it knocked all 40 people onto their asses, while dragging the father and daughter (who were right on the edge) into the ocean. The father drowned. All I could think was how colossally dumb you had to be to assume the waves just going to sit there crashing below you. It was clearly a huge storm surge. And then how horribly tragic and preventable the outcome was. Some people, man. EDIT: Misremembered it. Three people were swept out, and it was the 7-year-old daughter who died. God damn, how awful. https://www.bangordailynews.com/2009/08/23/news/three-swept-out-to-sea-at-thunder-hole/ https://www.bangordailynews.com/2009/08/23/news/three-swept-...
  - wahern 2y ago
    Here on the US West Coast so-called sneaker waves kill a handful of people every year, sometimes sweeping (and killing) entire families into the ocean who were strolling along a beach with unthreatening surf. I was oblivious to this until the 3rd or so incident that caught my attention, then on a hunch poked around with Google search enough to realize (after over 15 years living in the Bay Area) it's actually a regular occurrence. It happens on some stretches more than others, and its more likely in the winter, but it's not confined to "dangerous" beaches and can happen at any time. For some reason it hasn't captured the public's (or media's) attention to become a "thing"--a known hazard that people keep in mind. Every incident tends to be reported in isolation, notwithstanding any blurbs about recent incidents if they happened to occur close enough in time and locality. It's natural to qualify and rate tragic events by degree of perceived "innocence". Families swept off quiet beaches to their doom without warning is about as innocently tragic as you can get. That said, some incidents are arguably less innocent then others, such as fishermen venturing onto narrower stretches of beach at low tide during winter, when Pacific surf is stronger and more varied. But even then usually it seems people aren't doing anything that onlookers would consider inviting tragedy, and quite often it happens on well trafficked beaches and during times of the year that people wouldn't consider risky. Fortunately I grew up along the Gulf Coast so Pacific surf has always felt ominous to me. OTOH, I have a higher risk tolerance than many others, especially of younger generations, so maybe it's a wash for me.
    - FireBeyond 2y ago
      I had one in Oregon with my then 8 or 9 year old step daughter. We were on rocks WELL above the wave line (like 6+ feet, dry rock leading the surf maybe 20 feet away). And (this is where I screwed up) we were about 50-100 yards out on this outcrop (so rapid scramble not possible). Then, sneaker wave. I basically had her jump up "into my arms" so to speak, wrap arms around my neck, legs around my waist, while I situated myself as best I could, and grabbed onto rock with both hands. The water came up to my waist. That was a genuinely terrifying experience.
- joemi 2y ago
  I would assume it's more due to them not realizing that this isn't just something that periodically happens at the park (like Old Faithful). It might seem unusual, but they don't know how unusual or dangerous it is. It might just be no more unusual than a low road near a body of water that gets a tiny bit flooded in one spot after a heavy rain -- the kind where locals who know about it just drive through because it's only an inch or two deep but visitors might be more hesitant about. In the case of this explosion, the aftermath video shows that it was indeed very unusual and dangerous.
- xeromal 2y ago
  It's not that. I was on a plane where a guy tried to break open the door to the outside mid flight and it takes a good 30-60 seconds for people to comprehend reality and make a decision. It's easy to judge from a screen but when an actual disaster hits, the brain does weird things
  - yongjik 2y ago
    To be fair, you cannot really open a door of an airplane mid-flight (due to pressure difference), so passengers were in fact in much less danger than they perceived.
    - K0balt 2y ago
      Yeah, the door opens in before it cams over to opening out (or can be thrown out onto the wing in some cases), so it’s being held in place by about 3000 kilos of force at typical cabin pressures. Good luck trying to pull it open. Now, near the ground before the aircraft is pressurised, it could be dangerous mostly because it could pose a risk to the aircraft structure or systems if it tears off and impacts the aircraft in flight. Other than that, a jetliner can fly perfectly well with a door open at low altitude. (Not sure about special large cargo doors though)
    - Reason077 2y ago
      This is true when the aircraft is at altitude, but there have been cases of passengers opening doors in flight at low altitude, where there is little or no pressure differential: https://news.sky.com/story/amp/passenger-arrested-after-plane-door-opened-mid-flight-explains-he-felt-uncomfortable-12890574 https://news.sky.com/story/amp/passenger-arrested-after-plan...
  - pixl97 2y ago
    It typically takes much longer for people to process and make 'intelligent' decisions on novel information than we realize. Again, typically the brain will skip these checks and go into fight or flight mode where you punch or run without knowing what you are doing. I'd like to think we break a lot of this response in the modern world by not being around a lot of spontaneous dangerous stuff, which leaves us gawking at times.
- highcountess 2y ago
  It is a combination of those factors along with what I call TV-Brain, a subconscious assumption that it’s not real, it’s just like when I see it in the rectangle. Remember, most people in the western and especially American world, simply do not experience real world risks and dangers, everything is so sanitized and cleaned and protected and safe, that they simply do not connect reality with their own demise or even a risk to it. On a related note, it is alway why I believe there are so many and increasing numbers of injurious contacts with bisons, moose, elk, bears, etc in Yellowstone, because they think they’re cuddly animals that they saw in wildlife documentaries and know from cartoons and tv stories of the child that is friends with the talking bear, etc. most people are simply so detached from reality that they simply have no reference for what they are doing that is extremely dangerous to their continued state of being alive.
  - lanstin 2y ago
    The first time I visited the Everglades there was a family that had been at Disney for some time and the kids would not believe the many enourmous alligators laying around were real. On the other hand, my two year old (who had been hitting kids in preschool and getting a lot of "don't hit" messaging, turned and queried, of an alligator on the boardwalk about ten or twenty feet in front of us "No hit the Alligator?" While my heart and heart rate spiked, I swiftly grabbed him up and agreed, "yes, no hit the alligator!"
  - FireBeyond 2y ago
    The other side of that is "everything is very survivable on TV". Like you see constant explosions and people just getting knocked over, dusting themselves off, and keep going. Real life, a lot less so.
- beejiu 2y ago
  It's not necessarily psychology, it could be an involuntary stress response called freezing behaviour. It's where you stop, become hyper alert and observant of your surroundings to make a conscious decision about how to act. It's basically the conscious alternative to fight or flight.
  - Murky3515 2y ago
    I'm talking about the people in the video who saw what happened, then very casually and slowly turned and strolled away.
    - dmurray 2y ago
      Who? Everyone in the video is running by 6 seconds in, and it reasonably takes 2-3 seconds to be clear that this isn't just a normal geyser eruption. Some of the runners are shambling or in a very light jog, but that looks like it's down to form or fitness rather than being blasé. I don't see anyone "strolling".
      - Murky3515 2y ago
        The woman in the white shirt, tan shorts only started running because the people behind her started running. She was strolling away from the explosion. Same with green shorts in the foreground. We don't actually see him run, just walking away. These people have no sense of urgency around danger, or they cannot recognize danger.
- ordu 2y ago
  If you run in a panic when normal geyser erupts, it would be embarrassing, right? Now, what is a normal geyser eruption and what is not normal? If you never tried to research this, you do not know. So we come to an uncertainty. This seems pretty big, and probably is not normal, isn't it? Or it is? So you are not sure, should you shake off social norms of behavior (being calm, not shouting, acting like a grown adult) and to switch to a survival behavior (running away, shouting commands "run" to others, dragging people with you by their limbs, or doing whatever you think is the adequate behavior for such a situation). Looking at the video carefully, people in a few seconds come to a conclusion that this is dangerous and start moving away, but they didn't get away from norms of everyday behavior. These two different priorities (to act normal or go to the survival mode) are still there, and they are still fighting in minds of people for a dominance. Their response was "gently jog while constantly checking over your shoulder", because they decided it is dangerous and you need at least jog away, but they are feel that they may be underestimating (or overestimating) the danger, and they keep themself aware of the events to be able to change their behavior accordingly to them. The very situation prompts for rapid change from a normal mode of existence to a survival mode, and there is no clear unambiguous signal that it is the case. The geyser erupts? Didn't we come here to watch geysers? Wouldn't it be embarrassing to run from the geyser? There are a lot of questions, and System 2 is a slow one. People are educated to keep System 1 in a check and to think things through. They are educated to know some dangerous situations and they can react to them immediately, but this is something unusual, they are not trained for it, and their minds become overwhelmed by a massive visual stimulus and by all the thoughts and ideas that may be relevant, but only System 2 could decide and to prioritize them properly. When I was watching the video I instantly saw that it is dangerous, but I was prompted about it by the article, so I was ready to see something impressive AND dangerous. Therefore I'm not sure would I be better in that situation if I was watching it in real life without any prompting. > they have lived such safe and sheltered lives that they cannot identify real danger. I wrote about it above, but I want to stress it out: 1. we are conditioned to think before acting, 2. most of us have no experience with geysers and we cannot access the hazard level of a geyser at the first glance, and we know that we can't, so... goto 1.
  - creer 2y ago
    There is also the imperative to get the video. Which for once was well done.
- JoshTriplett 2y ago
  > It's like they think that appearing overly concerned about something potentially dangerous is more embarrassing than being killed by something actually dangerous. This is a real psychological phenomenon. Most people don't want to be the first person to yell "fire!", or to appear to take a situation more seriously than it warrants, because they might be wrong and they'd stand out as being wrong and feel embarrassed. That feeling can "stick" shockingly long after you'd think the situation was obvious. We have not socially normalized and trained the concept that it's better for people to occasionally be understandably wrong than to delay reacting to problems. The right reaction to quick reactions that turn out to be incorrect should be "Thanks for calling attention to what might have been a problem!", not an array of signals that all convey "what a weirdo".
- prewett 2y ago
  Having been there recently, it definitely would not have been immediately clear to me that there would be a problem. The boardwalk is next to the pools but clearly not in structural danger. The videos show the eruption being basically vertical, so if you aren't directly next to it, it isn't obvious that the ejecta will spread out a little, and that doesn't happen for a couple of seconds. So if you aren't right next to it, it initially doesn't seem unsafe. Also, you are likely to visit this area before Old Faithful, so the most you will have seen is some steam going up. My visit was the first time I'd ever seen a geyser, so I would have had no idea what to expect, and presumably the boardwalk is in a safe location. If it were unsafe, they wouldn't have built the boardwalk there, right? (And it doesn't seem like anyone was injured, so...)
voisin 2y ago
The same could be said of how many people barely reacted to the shooting in the Trump assassination attempt. For god’s sake, if someone is firing, hit the deck!
beejiu 2y ago
Most people are familiar with "fight or flight", but there's a third response which is "freeze". That's probably what you are seeing in the video.
- xeromal 2y ago
  Lots of mammals do this too. I've walked up on a deer where it's so confused as to how you got close to it that it just stands there deciding what to do.
  - mxyzptlk 2y ago
    In deer, it could be a case of chronic wasting disease
    - CoastalCoder 2y ago
      Or maybe too accustomed to human company.
      - throwaway173738 2y ago
        Yeah the deer out where I live will let you pet them if you are deliberate about it.
    - datavirtue 2y ago
      You poor deer.
  - dheera 2y ago
    That's actually a very evolutionarily logical response to encountering a predator though. Most predators can outrun deer (and ever more so, humans). If you start running, they WILL instinctively chase and kill you. If you stand there, look big, and stare at them like you don't give a shit, predators actually start to question their own confidence and there is a good chance they will walk away rather than take a chance with you. As for geological events, I imagine evolution hasn't really optimized much for that. They are extremely rare, if you're a deer standing on an erupting volcano you can't exactly outrun it either.
mycodendral 2y ago
I felt the same way when watching the Trump Assn. attempt. The number of people in the stands who just remained standing and gawking with no self preservation instinct (duck!) was eerie.
odyssey7 2y ago
Agreed: don’t end up like Lot’s wife.
- sebastiennight 2y ago
  Someday close to the Dead Sea we'll find Edith's clay tablet with what would have been the ultimate TikTok video of an epic rain of fire
renewiltord 2y ago
Everyone is always an expert in hindsight. "If I saw that, I would have". You need to first determine "this is unusual" which takes a long time. That's why despite so many Internet experts being instant responders, most people in these videos are not. If you're like that, how come you're not in the video running? Because you're not a fast responder in real life.
swatcoder 2y ago
It's a big boardwalk feature at a high-profile park and sees hundreds of visitors a day with vanishingly rare incident. It triggers the same kind of passive trust that people bring with them to Disneyland or a dinner theater, where guests default to thinking everything is part of the show and needn't warrant actual concern. It's the same reason people get too close to the wildlife there. It's thoughtful of you to encourage people here to be more vigilant, but the lack of that vigilance is a direct outcome of the park trying to culture an experience of safety and wonder instead of danger and awe (in its traditional meaning).
- freedomben 2y ago
  Exactly. It's very well developed and seems an incredibly "safe" environment. People aren't in the mindset that there could be danger (even if they should be). It takes processing time before people even realize that this isn't normal. Also there's social proof all over. When it goes off people look around, see that nobody else is bailing, so they assume things are ok. It takes a little time to override that tendency and get people to start moving.
  - giantg2 2y ago
    "People aren't in the mindset that there could be danger (even if they should be)." This could be said of life generally. It seems like very few people even have a minimal level of situational awareness while walking to the mailbox or walking through a store.
    - actionfromafar 2y ago
      And having that situational awareness at all times can easily result in exhaustion.
      - giantg2 2y ago
        Not really. There are different levels of situational awareness. One doesn't have to be on high alert. Just being alert enough that you hear a pallet jack coming down the cross aisle is more alert than half the people seem to be.
xyst 2y ago
If it erupted as per your hypothetical, then they wouldn’t have stood a chance anyways. Video wouldn’t exist because the headline would read as “Dozen of tourists died at Yellowstone due to sudden eruption” I think we underestimate people’s reaction to dangerous events. Surprisingly, most people will appropriately respond. Millions of years of evolution, right?
- bluGill 2y ago
  These incidents are rare and isolated enough that the few they take out or not makes no differece to the survival of the population and thus correct response isn't an advantage so it never got selected for.
- SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
  That's why it's important to live stream the calamity.
nashashmi 2y ago
There is a funny meme About this: cameraman never dies.
- sebastiennight 2y ago
  Disaster movie directors hate this one simple trick!
lofaszvanitt 2y ago
People are overly comfy and out of touch with reality.
- ren_engineer 2y ago
  this, I feel like a lot of people are just so abstracted away from harsh reality in the modern world that many don't take things seriously. Massive normalcy bias and enhanced bystander effect. A lot of people's first instinct is to pull out their phone and record something as well
aaron695 2y ago
[dead]
subsubzero 2y ago
agree, but also slightly disagree. I was here last year and alot of these geysers erupt like clock work(see Old Faithful). Yellowstone pulls in many tourists from Asia and Europe and and also urban areas of the US and there is nothing like what is there where they come from. Also you have many a placard saying geyers erupt on a regular basis around that area, and also there is a well defined boardwalk around them (for your saftey and to not disturb the area around you) that was vetted by geologists and park rangers. So some of the tourists perhaps thought it was typical, when what happened was extremely abnormal.
jarsin 2y ago
Ever since I watched that documentary on the steam volcano eruption that killed all those tourist in New Zealand I would never go near anything steam related coming out of the ground.
metadat 2y ago
If you check out the video (https://youtube.com/watch?v=Z64etOuLZDQ https://youtube.com/watch?v=Z64etOuLZDQ), most people did in fact immediately begin running and urging others to do the same. I appreciate your concern for folks' safety, though I'm not sure how the criticism applies to this instance. The bystanders behaved reasonably.
- deleted 2y ago
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- y-c-o-m-b 2y ago
  Did you watch the whole thing? Skip to the 1:15 mark where people go back. The criticism is absolutely warranted here. I guarantee none of those people are capable of predicting what comes next after an explosion like that. I certainly don't. What if the next one is beneath where they're standing at the 1:15 mark and beyond? I'm not sure how OP's comment doesn't reflect HN's standard of quality. It's exactly the type of quality response that's appropriate for this instance. I'd say your response isn't quite up to it if anything because you're making an argument against someone that is encouraging safety and well-being; and for no apparent reason at all but to point out someone is flawed? I don't get it.
  - metadat 2y ago
    After it stopped and no additional material was being expelled, they do go back to look. Not recommended, but how often are big eruptions followed by even bigger eruptions? Are you saying they should've run away from the park for the entire rest of the day or trip? See @Saurik's sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41051381 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41051381
    - y-c-o-m-b 2y ago
      Three simple facts here: 1) This is obviously abnormal enough for the people in the video to flee 2) the aftermath - (1:15+) - clearly demonstrates it was unsafe to be there and 3) there is no way to predict if the next eruption would be equally abnormal or worse unless one were trained in this field There is no arguing those facts, it's 100% clear from that video you linked. Am I going to stay away from the park the rest of the day? I don't know, maybe. It really depends on the circumstances. I am not a volcanologist. I'm not even a scientist. I don't understand the specifics involved here. If it were me, and I can clearly see something abnormal happened, I would NOT risk going back unless I can somehow verify it was safe to do so. That's common sense. It might involve finding a park ranger to speak with or calling the ranger station to get more information. I've been to the geyser at Iceland where they have signs that explicitly tell you about the unpredictable nature of it and how people have been badly burned. This is not a no-risk situation, especially when the situation is not the norm. I've been to the big island of Hawaii during volcanic activity and they explicitly tell you to stay away from it due to the gasses, rocks, lava, etc. Maybe that elevates my skepticism over the safety here, but it seems that's for good reason. EDIT: here you go mate, you don't need to look at Hacker News comments. Take it from the Park itself: https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/news/240723.htm https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/news/240723.htm > Biscuit Basin, including the parking lot and boardwalks, are temporarily closed for safety reasons. The Grand Loop Road remains open. > Park staff and staff from USGS will monitor conditions and reopen the area once deemed safe.
nzgrover 2y ago
yes, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Whakaari_/_White_Island_eruption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Whakaari_/_White_Island_e...
orthecreedence 2y ago
I've seen people at Yellowstone pet bison and surround grizzly moms walking with their cubs for a quick photo op. I don't think a lot of these people have a real concept of nature and the unlimited ways it can kill or permanently injure you.
saurik 2y ago
I honestly can't tell which part you think wasn't normal. Other people have kind of poked back at what you are saying, but I feel without really questioning which part of this you don't like, as it kind of sounds as if you are just saying "don't hang around near geysers... and, thereby, don't go to visit Yellowstone". If you saw this same video but without the black color, would you have run? Because that would feel a bit silly to me: these kinds of explosions are happening all around you the entire time you are there. Some are even larger than this one, and you don't just stay as they happen: you sit on a bench and wait for an hour or two hoping to see it while you are there, and there are giant clocks trying to estimate when the next eruption will be. Now like, what if the color were grey and there was mud? Some of the geysers have mud. Most of these are not a concern. What was a concern here was the black color... but as someone who has spent a bunch of time filming these geysers I found the black color so confusing that it really took me a moment to go "oh shit those are rocks". I could easily see myself having that pause we see from the other people before they all start running. But, again: I don't feel like you are saying "these people should know rocks are dangerous" or "this was obviously different and you should be informed and on your toes ready to run"... you seem to be saying that, if you were standing somewhere and the ground suddenly exploded that you'd of course run; and, maybe that would be the absolute safest thing you could do, but then... why are you even there in the first place, if not to see an explosion of superheated steam? Also, remember that the entire region seriously smells like sulfur and other strange gases... this is an area of terrain that people have long ago artistically (maybe even mythologically) described as the doorway to hell, between the smells, the color, the explosions, and the regions of trees that are either scorched, petrified, or merely poisoned. It honestly does make sense to question why people visit such an area in the first place, but once you decide to be there... well, it seems strange to question why you don't see everyone panicking about the explosion.
jayknight 2y ago
You see all kinds of things splashing and shooting out of the ground at Yellowstone. It would be easy to initially assume this is just another splashy thing you normally see. From the videos it seems people figure out this isn't the norm in about the right amount of time.
doe_eyes 2y ago
It's really easy to offer advice like that on the internet, but having found myself in a couple of unexpectedly dangerous situations in real life... it just happens. You're not as rational as you think you are. I keep going back to these situations and thinking how I should have acted differently, but it's not how your brain works at the time - not unless you train for it beforehand. Even on a conscious level, this advice just doesn't work. If you duck for cover because a nearby car misfires, you're gonna get mocked or worse. Modern life gives as far more opportunities to overreact than to underreact to risk, so to appear rational and function in a society, we learn not to be too jumpy.
- stouset 2y ago
  This isn’t a car misfiring. This is a large eruption of tens of feet in front of you. Even primed to anticipate geysers, this needs be setting off alarm bells. The quicker you can assess danger and override your social instincts that minimize your response in a situation like this, the more likely you are to survive. Yes it’s easy to armchair quarterback. I have no idea if I would perform any better than those in the video. But we should all aim to respond more accurately when in actual danger.
ignoramous 2y ago
> I'm astonished by how blasé onlookers are about the whole thing When people are in groups, they make decisions about risk differently from when they are alone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupshift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupshift > please don't be like the people in the video A person is less likely to take responsibility for action or inaction when other bystanders or witnesses are present. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility
gensym 2y ago
About a year ago, I was in the United Club at O'Hare, and the fire alarm went off. I was getting a Bloody Mary when it happened, so I left my drink on the bar, went to the table where my family was, and said "let's go". Other than the sound of the alarm, you wouldn't know anything was happening. People were still getting food from the buffet, sitting at their tables, like nothing was going on. A minute after we left the area, everyone else came out - not all willingly, it seems. Fortunately, the fire turned out to be nothing (flare up in the kitchen, I heard) and we were let back into the club after a bit. I learned quite a bit about human nature that day.
- AmericanChopper 2y ago
  A life time of fire drills teaches everybody that a fire alarm is just some box tickers way of pointlessly interrupting your day to confirm that nobody has forgotten how to walk out of a fire exit. You can pretty safely bet your life that nothing bad is happening.
lmm 2y ago
Meh. It takes an incredibly fine-tuned level of danger for run vs jog to make a difference.
pants2 2y ago
Looks like it would be difficult to run in this scenario where you’re confined to a narrow wooden platform. You’d either have to start shoving people off or risk burning your feet in the ground below.
compiler-devel 2y ago
Adding this to my copypasta collection
whyenot 2y ago
Are we watching the same video? The people in the video I saw turned and started running almost immediately.
- Keyframe 2y ago
  Yeah, even away from (their own) kid. I am judging, but I haven't been in the situation. What I know is I couldn't live with that.
dheera 2y ago
Unfortunately we have created a reward system that gives a huge number of "followers" to the one who records. Followers are capital that translate to money (cf. cougar guy, hawk tuah, etc.) Someone could be the next to monetize their following as the "yellowstone lava dude". Can we somehow instead create an socioeconomic system that instead rewards those that turn and run? Like if you can prove that you turned and ran, you don't have to pay taxes that year to the IRS. The government in turn saves money on rescue efforts of sorts. It all works out.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago
  > Unfortunately we have created a reward system that gives a huge number of "followers" to the one who records. What's unfortunate about that? Everyone else benefits from the recording.
deleted 2y ago
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beardedwizard 2y ago
They had to go that way to get back to the parking lot. The alternative would be walking on the ground, which is even more dangerous and why the boardwalk exists. Every time I see posts like this admonishing people I am astonished by the apparent ego of the authors and the power of assumptions.
- stouset 2y ago
  Nowhere in my post do I criticize the direction in which onlookers left the scene. My concern was the lack of urgency in their response.
xattt 2y ago
In a similar vein, I’ve heard an old priest say that if you start seeing a supernatural phenomenon, including the second coming of Jesus, don’t stick around.
0x1ceb00da 2y ago
Or it wasn't that big. It's hard to tell the actual scale of the explosion from a phone video.
nilamo 2y ago
We will all die. But if a historic event can be captured on film, the event can be studied in greater detail. I'm all for people choosing to place their very lives at risk in order to further our scientific understanding of the universe.
francisofascii 2y ago
Humans take risks all the time to fulfill our desire to explore or see wondrous things. Travelling to space for example. Maybe all the other intelligent life in the universe is prioritizing survival.

Murky3515 2y ago

I don't understand the psychology of it either. It's like they think that appearing overly concerned about something potentially dangerous is more embarrassing than being killed by something actually dangerous. That or they have lived such safe and sheltered lives that they cannot identify real danger. I don't have any other explanation.

secstate 2y ago
Years ago there was a hurricane that made it up the New England coast. I remember a story of a father and daughter in Acadia National Park who had wandered out onto some exposed rocks (with about 40 other people) to watch these huge waves crash just below them. Eventually one wave was larger than the others and it knocked all 40 people onto their asses, while dragging the father and daughter (who were right on the edge) into the ocean. The father drowned. All I could think was how colossally dumb you had to be to assume the waves just going to sit there crashing below you. It was clearly a huge storm surge. And then how horribly tragic and preventable the outcome was. Some people, man. EDIT: Misremembered it. Three people were swept out, and it was the 7-year-old daughter who died. God damn, how awful. https://www.bangordailynews.com/2009/08/23/news/three-swept-out-to-sea-at-thunder-hole/ https://www.bangordailynews.com/2009/08/23/news/three-swept-...
- wahern 2y ago
  Here on the US West Coast so-called sneaker waves kill a handful of people every year, sometimes sweeping (and killing) entire families into the ocean who were strolling along a beach with unthreatening surf. I was oblivious to this until the 3rd or so incident that caught my attention, then on a hunch poked around with Google search enough to realize (after over 15 years living in the Bay Area) it's actually a regular occurrence. It happens on some stretches more than others, and its more likely in the winter, but it's not confined to "dangerous" beaches and can happen at any time. For some reason it hasn't captured the public's (or media's) attention to become a "thing"--a known hazard that people keep in mind. Every incident tends to be reported in isolation, notwithstanding any blurbs about recent incidents if they happened to occur close enough in time and locality. It's natural to qualify and rate tragic events by degree of perceived "innocence". Families swept off quiet beaches to their doom without warning is about as innocently tragic as you can get. That said, some incidents are arguably less innocent then others, such as fishermen venturing onto narrower stretches of beach at low tide during winter, when Pacific surf is stronger and more varied. But even then usually it seems people aren't doing anything that onlookers would consider inviting tragedy, and quite often it happens on well trafficked beaches and during times of the year that people wouldn't consider risky. Fortunately I grew up along the Gulf Coast so Pacific surf has always felt ominous to me. OTOH, I have a higher risk tolerance than many others, especially of younger generations, so maybe it's a wash for me.
  - FireBeyond 2y ago
    I had one in Oregon with my then 8 or 9 year old step daughter. We were on rocks WELL above the wave line (like 6+ feet, dry rock leading the surf maybe 20 feet away). And (this is where I screwed up) we were about 50-100 yards out on this outcrop (so rapid scramble not possible). Then, sneaker wave. I basically had her jump up "into my arms" so to speak, wrap arms around my neck, legs around my waist, while I situated myself as best I could, and grabbed onto rock with both hands. The water came up to my waist. That was a genuinely terrifying experience.
joemi 2y ago
I would assume it's more due to them not realizing that this isn't just something that periodically happens at the park (like Old Faithful). It might seem unusual, but they don't know how unusual or dangerous it is. It might just be no more unusual than a low road near a body of water that gets a tiny bit flooded in one spot after a heavy rain -- the kind where locals who know about it just drive through because it's only an inch or two deep but visitors might be more hesitant about. In the case of this explosion, the aftermath video shows that it was indeed very unusual and dangerous.
xeromal 2y ago
It's not that. I was on a plane where a guy tried to break open the door to the outside mid flight and it takes a good 30-60 seconds for people to comprehend reality and make a decision. It's easy to judge from a screen but when an actual disaster hits, the brain does weird things
- yongjik 2y ago
  To be fair, you cannot really open a door of an airplane mid-flight (due to pressure difference), so passengers were in fact in much less danger than they perceived.
  - K0balt 2y ago
    Yeah, the door opens in before it cams over to opening out (or can be thrown out onto the wing in some cases), so it’s being held in place by about 3000 kilos of force at typical cabin pressures. Good luck trying to pull it open. Now, near the ground before the aircraft is pressurised, it could be dangerous mostly because it could pose a risk to the aircraft structure or systems if it tears off and impacts the aircraft in flight. Other than that, a jetliner can fly perfectly well with a door open at low altitude. (Not sure about special large cargo doors though)
  - Reason077 2y ago
    This is true when the aircraft is at altitude, but there have been cases of passengers opening doors in flight at low altitude, where there is little or no pressure differential: https://news.sky.com/story/amp/passenger-arrested-after-plane-door-opened-mid-flight-explains-he-felt-uncomfortable-12890574 https://news.sky.com/story/amp/passenger-arrested-after-plan...
- pixl97 2y ago
  It typically takes much longer for people to process and make 'intelligent' decisions on novel information than we realize. Again, typically the brain will skip these checks and go into fight or flight mode where you punch or run without knowing what you are doing. I'd like to think we break a lot of this response in the modern world by not being around a lot of spontaneous dangerous stuff, which leaves us gawking at times.
highcountess 2y ago
It is a combination of those factors along with what I call TV-Brain, a subconscious assumption that it’s not real, it’s just like when I see it in the rectangle. Remember, most people in the western and especially American world, simply do not experience real world risks and dangers, everything is so sanitized and cleaned and protected and safe, that they simply do not connect reality with their own demise or even a risk to it. On a related note, it is alway why I believe there are so many and increasing numbers of injurious contacts with bisons, moose, elk, bears, etc in Yellowstone, because they think they’re cuddly animals that they saw in wildlife documentaries and know from cartoons and tv stories of the child that is friends with the talking bear, etc. most people are simply so detached from reality that they simply have no reference for what they are doing that is extremely dangerous to their continued state of being alive.
- lanstin 2y ago
  The first time I visited the Everglades there was a family that had been at Disney for some time and the kids would not believe the many enourmous alligators laying around were real. On the other hand, my two year old (who had been hitting kids in preschool and getting a lot of "don't hit" messaging, turned and queried, of an alligator on the boardwalk about ten or twenty feet in front of us "No hit the Alligator?" While my heart and heart rate spiked, I swiftly grabbed him up and agreed, "yes, no hit the alligator!"
- FireBeyond 2y ago
  The other side of that is "everything is very survivable on TV". Like you see constant explosions and people just getting knocked over, dusting themselves off, and keep going. Real life, a lot less so.
beejiu 2y ago
It's not necessarily psychology, it could be an involuntary stress response called freezing behaviour. It's where you stop, become hyper alert and observant of your surroundings to make a conscious decision about how to act. It's basically the conscious alternative to fight or flight.
- Murky3515 2y ago
  I'm talking about the people in the video who saw what happened, then very casually and slowly turned and strolled away.
  - dmurray 2y ago
    Who? Everyone in the video is running by 6 seconds in, and it reasonably takes 2-3 seconds to be clear that this isn't just a normal geyser eruption. Some of the runners are shambling or in a very light jog, but that looks like it's down to form or fitness rather than being blasé. I don't see anyone "strolling".
    - Murky3515 2y ago
      The woman in the white shirt, tan shorts only started running because the people behind her started running. She was strolling away from the explosion. Same with green shorts in the foreground. We don't actually see him run, just walking away. These people have no sense of urgency around danger, or they cannot recognize danger.
ordu 2y ago
If you run in a panic when normal geyser erupts, it would be embarrassing, right? Now, what is a normal geyser eruption and what is not normal? If you never tried to research this, you do not know. So we come to an uncertainty. This seems pretty big, and probably is not normal, isn't it? Or it is? So you are not sure, should you shake off social norms of behavior (being calm, not shouting, acting like a grown adult) and to switch to a survival behavior (running away, shouting commands "run" to others, dragging people with you by their limbs, or doing whatever you think is the adequate behavior for such a situation). Looking at the video carefully, people in a few seconds come to a conclusion that this is dangerous and start moving away, but they didn't get away from norms of everyday behavior. These two different priorities (to act normal or go to the survival mode) are still there, and they are still fighting in minds of people for a dominance. Their response was "gently jog while constantly checking over your shoulder", because they decided it is dangerous and you need at least jog away, but they are feel that they may be underestimating (or overestimating) the danger, and they keep themself aware of the events to be able to change their behavior accordingly to them. The very situation prompts for rapid change from a normal mode of existence to a survival mode, and there is no clear unambiguous signal that it is the case. The geyser erupts? Didn't we come here to watch geysers? Wouldn't it be embarrassing to run from the geyser? There are a lot of questions, and System 2 is a slow one. People are educated to keep System 1 in a check and to think things through. They are educated to know some dangerous situations and they can react to them immediately, but this is something unusual, they are not trained for it, and their minds become overwhelmed by a massive visual stimulus and by all the thoughts and ideas that may be relevant, but only System 2 could decide and to prioritize them properly. When I was watching the video I instantly saw that it is dangerous, but I was prompted about it by the article, so I was ready to see something impressive AND dangerous. Therefore I'm not sure would I be better in that situation if I was watching it in real life without any prompting. > they have lived such safe and sheltered lives that they cannot identify real danger. I wrote about it above, but I want to stress it out: 1. we are conditioned to think before acting, 2. most of us have no experience with geysers and we cannot access the hazard level of a geyser at the first glance, and we know that we can't, so... goto 1.
- creer 2y ago
  There is also the imperative to get the video. Which for once was well done.
JoshTriplett 2y ago
> It's like they think that appearing overly concerned about something potentially dangerous is more embarrassing than being killed by something actually dangerous. This is a real psychological phenomenon. Most people don't want to be the first person to yell "fire!", or to appear to take a situation more seriously than it warrants, because they might be wrong and they'd stand out as being wrong and feel embarrassed. That feeling can "stick" shockingly long after you'd think the situation was obvious. We have not socially normalized and trained the concept that it's better for people to occasionally be understandably wrong than to delay reacting to problems. The right reaction to quick reactions that turn out to be incorrect should be "Thanks for calling attention to what might have been a problem!", not an array of signals that all convey "what a weirdo".
prewett 2y ago
Having been there recently, it definitely would not have been immediately clear to me that there would be a problem. The boardwalk is next to the pools but clearly not in structural danger. The videos show the eruption being basically vertical, so if you aren't directly next to it, it isn't obvious that the ejecta will spread out a little, and that doesn't happen for a couple of seconds. So if you aren't right next to it, it initially doesn't seem unsafe. Also, you are likely to visit this area before Old Faithful, so the most you will have seen is some steam going up. My visit was the first time I'd ever seen a geyser, so I would have had no idea what to expect, and presumably the boardwalk is in a safe location. If it were unsafe, they wouldn't have built the boardwalk there, right? (And it doesn't seem like anyone was injured, so...)

voisin 2y ago

The same could be said of how many people barely reacted to the shooting in the Trump assassination attempt. For god’s sake, if someone is firing, hit the deck!

beejiu 2y ago

Most people are familiar with "fight or flight", but there's a third response which is "freeze". That's probably what you are seeing in the video.

xeromal 2y ago
Lots of mammals do this too. I've walked up on a deer where it's so confused as to how you got close to it that it just stands there deciding what to do.
- mxyzptlk 2y ago
  In deer, it could be a case of chronic wasting disease
  - CoastalCoder 2y ago
    Or maybe too accustomed to human company.
    - throwaway173738 2y ago
      Yeah the deer out where I live will let you pet them if you are deliberate about it.
  - datavirtue 2y ago
    You poor deer.
- dheera 2y ago
  That's actually a very evolutionarily logical response to encountering a predator though. Most predators can outrun deer (and ever more so, humans). If you start running, they WILL instinctively chase and kill you. If you stand there, look big, and stare at them like you don't give a shit, predators actually start to question their own confidence and there is a good chance they will walk away rather than take a chance with you. As for geological events, I imagine evolution hasn't really optimized much for that. They are extremely rare, if you're a deer standing on an erupting volcano you can't exactly outrun it either.

mycodendral 2y ago

I felt the same way when watching the Trump Assn. attempt. The number of people in the stands who just remained standing and gawking with no self preservation instinct (duck!) was eerie.

odyssey7 2y ago

Agreed: don’t end up like Lot’s wife.

sebastiennight 2y ago
Someday close to the Dead Sea we'll find Edith's clay tablet with what would have been the ultimate TikTok video of an epic rain of fire

renewiltord 2y ago

Everyone is always an expert in hindsight. "If I saw that, I would have". You need to first determine "this is unusual" which takes a long time. That's why despite so many Internet experts being instant responders, most people in these videos are not. If you're like that, how come you're not in the video running? Because you're not a fast responder in real life.

swatcoder 2y ago

It's a big boardwalk feature at a high-profile park and sees hundreds of visitors a day with vanishingly rare incident. It triggers the same kind of passive trust that people bring with them to Disneyland or a dinner theater, where guests default to thinking everything is part of the show and needn't warrant actual concern. It's the same reason people get too close to the wildlife there. It's thoughtful of you to encourage people here to be more vigilant, but the lack of that vigilance is a direct outcome of the park trying to culture an experience of safety and wonder instead of danger and awe (in its traditional meaning).

freedomben 2y ago
Exactly. It's very well developed and seems an incredibly "safe" environment. People aren't in the mindset that there could be danger (even if they should be). It takes processing time before people even realize that this isn't normal. Also there's social proof all over. When it goes off people look around, see that nobody else is bailing, so they assume things are ok. It takes a little time to override that tendency and get people to start moving.
- giantg2 2y ago
  "People aren't in the mindset that there could be danger (even if they should be)." This could be said of life generally. It seems like very few people even have a minimal level of situational awareness while walking to the mailbox or walking through a store.
  - actionfromafar 2y ago
    And having that situational awareness at all times can easily result in exhaustion.
    - giantg2 2y ago
      Not really. There are different levels of situational awareness. One doesn't have to be on high alert. Just being alert enough that you hear a pallet jack coming down the cross aisle is more alert than half the people seem to be.

xyst 2y ago

If it erupted as per your hypothetical, then they wouldn’t have stood a chance anyways. Video wouldn’t exist because the headline would read as “Dozen of tourists died at Yellowstone due to sudden eruption” I think we underestimate people’s reaction to dangerous events. Surprisingly, most people will appropriately respond. Millions of years of evolution, right?

bluGill 2y ago
These incidents are rare and isolated enough that the few they take out or not makes no differece to the survival of the population and thus correct response isn't an advantage so it never got selected for.
SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
That's why it's important to live stream the calamity.

nashashmi 2y ago

There is a funny meme About this: cameraman never dies.

sebastiennight 2y ago
Disaster movie directors hate this one simple trick!

lofaszvanitt 2y ago

People are overly comfy and out of touch with reality.

ren_engineer 2y ago
this, I feel like a lot of people are just so abstracted away from harsh reality in the modern world that many don't take things seriously. Massive normalcy bias and enhanced bystander effect. A lot of people's first instinct is to pull out their phone and record something as well

aaron695 2y ago

[dead]

subsubzero 2y ago

agree, but also slightly disagree. I was here last year and alot of these geysers erupt like clock work(see Old Faithful). Yellowstone pulls in many tourists from Asia and Europe and and also urban areas of the US and there is nothing like what is there where they come from. Also you have many a placard saying geyers erupt on a regular basis around that area, and also there is a well defined boardwalk around them (for your saftey and to not disturb the area around you) that was vetted by geologists and park rangers. So some of the tourists perhaps thought it was typical, when what happened was extremely abnormal.

jarsin 2y ago

Ever since I watched that documentary on the steam volcano eruption that killed all those tourist in New Zealand I would never go near anything steam related coming out of the ground.

metadat 2y ago

If you check out the video (https://youtube.com/watch?v=Z64etOuLZDQ https://youtube.com/watch?v=Z64etOuLZDQ), most people did in fact immediately begin running and urging others to do the same. I appreciate your concern for folks' safety, though I'm not sure how the criticism applies to this instance. The bystanders behaved reasonably.

deleted 2y ago
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y-c-o-m-b 2y ago
Did you watch the whole thing? Skip to the 1:15 mark where people go back. The criticism is absolutely warranted here. I guarantee none of those people are capable of predicting what comes next after an explosion like that. I certainly don't. What if the next one is beneath where they're standing at the 1:15 mark and beyond? I'm not sure how OP's comment doesn't reflect HN's standard of quality. It's exactly the type of quality response that's appropriate for this instance. I'd say your response isn't quite up to it if anything because you're making an argument against someone that is encouraging safety and well-being; and for no apparent reason at all but to point out someone is flawed? I don't get it.
- metadat 2y ago
  After it stopped and no additional material was being expelled, they do go back to look. Not recommended, but how often are big eruptions followed by even bigger eruptions? Are you saying they should've run away from the park for the entire rest of the day or trip? See @Saurik's sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41051381 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41051381
  - y-c-o-m-b 2y ago
    Three simple facts here: 1) This is obviously abnormal enough for the people in the video to flee 2) the aftermath - (1:15+) - clearly demonstrates it was unsafe to be there and 3) there is no way to predict if the next eruption would be equally abnormal or worse unless one were trained in this field There is no arguing those facts, it's 100% clear from that video you linked. Am I going to stay away from the park the rest of the day? I don't know, maybe. It really depends on the circumstances. I am not a volcanologist. I'm not even a scientist. I don't understand the specifics involved here. If it were me, and I can clearly see something abnormal happened, I would NOT risk going back unless I can somehow verify it was safe to do so. That's common sense. It might involve finding a park ranger to speak with or calling the ranger station to get more information. I've been to the geyser at Iceland where they have signs that explicitly tell you about the unpredictable nature of it and how people have been badly burned. This is not a no-risk situation, especially when the situation is not the norm. I've been to the big island of Hawaii during volcanic activity and they explicitly tell you to stay away from it due to the gasses, rocks, lava, etc. Maybe that elevates my skepticism over the safety here, but it seems that's for good reason. EDIT: here you go mate, you don't need to look at Hacker News comments. Take it from the Park itself: https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/news/240723.htm https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/news/240723.htm > Biscuit Basin, including the parking lot and boardwalks, are temporarily closed for safety reasons. The Grand Loop Road remains open. > Park staff and staff from USGS will monitor conditions and reopen the area once deemed safe.

nzgrover 2y ago

yes, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Whakaari_/_White_Island_eruption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Whakaari_/_White_Island_e...

orthecreedence 2y ago

I've seen people at Yellowstone pet bison and surround grizzly moms walking with their cubs for a quick photo op. I don't think a lot of these people have a real concept of nature and the unlimited ways it can kill or permanently injure you.

saurik 2y ago

I honestly can't tell which part you think wasn't normal. Other people have kind of poked back at what you are saying, but I feel without really questioning which part of this you don't like, as it kind of sounds as if you are just saying "don't hang around near geysers... and, thereby, don't go to visit Yellowstone". If you saw this same video but without the black color, would you have run? Because that would feel a bit silly to me: these kinds of explosions are happening all around you the entire time you are there. Some are even larger than this one, and you don't just stay as they happen: you sit on a bench and wait for an hour or two hoping to see it while you are there, and there are giant clocks trying to estimate when the next eruption will be. Now like, what if the color were grey and there was mud? Some of the geysers have mud. Most of these are not a concern. What was a concern here was the black color... but as someone who has spent a bunch of time filming these geysers I found the black color so confusing that it really took me a moment to go "oh shit those are rocks". I could easily see myself having that pause we see from the other people before they all start running. But, again: I don't feel like you are saying "these people should know rocks are dangerous" or "this was obviously different and you should be informed and on your toes ready to run"... you seem to be saying that, if you were standing somewhere and the ground suddenly exploded that you'd of course run; and, maybe that would be the absolute safest thing you could do, but then... why are you even there in the first place, if not to see an explosion of superheated steam? Also, remember that the entire region seriously smells like sulfur and other strange gases... this is an area of terrain that people have long ago artistically (maybe even mythologically) described as the doorway to hell, between the smells, the color, the explosions, and the regions of trees that are either scorched, petrified, or merely poisoned. It honestly does make sense to question why people visit such an area in the first place, but once you decide to be there... well, it seems strange to question why you don't see everyone panicking about the explosion.

jayknight 2y ago

You see all kinds of things splashing and shooting out of the ground at Yellowstone. It would be easy to initially assume this is just another splashy thing you normally see. From the videos it seems people figure out this isn't the norm in about the right amount of time.

doe_eyes 2y ago

It's really easy to offer advice like that on the internet, but having found myself in a couple of unexpectedly dangerous situations in real life... it just happens. You're not as rational as you think you are. I keep going back to these situations and thinking how I should have acted differently, but it's not how your brain works at the time - not unless you train for it beforehand. Even on a conscious level, this advice just doesn't work. If you duck for cover because a nearby car misfires, you're gonna get mocked or worse. Modern life gives as far more opportunities to overreact than to underreact to risk, so to appear rational and function in a society, we learn not to be too jumpy.

stouset 2y ago
This isn’t a car misfiring. This is a large eruption of tens of feet in front of you. Even primed to anticipate geysers, this needs be setting off alarm bells. The quicker you can assess danger and override your social instincts that minimize your response in a situation like this, the more likely you are to survive. Yes it’s easy to armchair quarterback. I have no idea if I would perform any better than those in the video. But we should all aim to respond more accurately when in actual danger.

ignoramous 2y ago

> I'm astonished by how blasé onlookers are about the whole thing When people are in groups, they make decisions about risk differently from when they are alone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupshift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupshift > please don't be like the people in the video A person is less likely to take responsibility for action or inaction when other bystanders or witnesses are present. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility

gensym 2y ago

About a year ago, I was in the United Club at O'Hare, and the fire alarm went off. I was getting a Bloody Mary when it happened, so I left my drink on the bar, went to the table where my family was, and said "let's go". Other than the sound of the alarm, you wouldn't know anything was happening. People were still getting food from the buffet, sitting at their tables, like nothing was going on. A minute after we left the area, everyone else came out - not all willingly, it seems. Fortunately, the fire turned out to be nothing (flare up in the kitchen, I heard) and we were let back into the club after a bit. I learned quite a bit about human nature that day.

AmericanChopper 2y ago
A life time of fire drills teaches everybody that a fire alarm is just some box tickers way of pointlessly interrupting your day to confirm that nobody has forgotten how to walk out of a fire exit. You can pretty safely bet your life that nothing bad is happening.

lmm 2y ago

Meh. It takes an incredibly fine-tuned level of danger for run vs jog to make a difference.

pants2 2y ago

Looks like it would be difficult to run in this scenario where you’re confined to a narrow wooden platform. You’d either have to start shoving people off or risk burning your feet in the ground below.

compiler-devel 2y ago

Adding this to my copypasta collection

whyenot 2y ago

Are we watching the same video? The people in the video I saw turned and started running almost immediately.

Keyframe 2y ago
Yeah, even away from (their own) kid. I am judging, but I haven't been in the situation. What I know is I couldn't live with that.

dheera 2y ago

Unfortunately we have created a reward system that gives a huge number of "followers" to the one who records. Followers are capital that translate to money (cf. cougar guy, hawk tuah, etc.) Someone could be the next to monetize their following as the "yellowstone lava dude". Can we somehow instead create an socioeconomic system that instead rewards those that turn and run? Like if you can prove that you turned and ran, you don't have to pay taxes that year to the IRS. The government in turn saves money on rescue efforts of sorts. It all works out.

thaumasiotes 2y ago
> Unfortunately we have created a reward system that gives a huge number of "followers" to the one who records. What's unfortunate about that? Everyone else benefits from the recording.

deleted 2y ago

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beardedwizard 2y ago

They had to go that way to get back to the parking lot. The alternative would be walking on the ground, which is even more dangerous and why the boardwalk exists. Every time I see posts like this admonishing people I am astonished by the apparent ego of the authors and the power of assumptions.

stouset 2y ago
Nowhere in my post do I criticize the direction in which onlookers left the scene. My concern was the lack of urgency in their response.

xattt 2y ago

In a similar vein, I’ve heard an old priest say that if you start seeing a supernatural phenomenon, including the second coming of Jesus, don’t stick around.

0x1ceb00da 2y ago

Or it wasn't that big. It's hard to tell the actual scale of the explosion from a phone video.

nilamo 2y ago

We will all die. But if a historic event can be captured on film, the event can be studied in greater detail. I'm all for people choosing to place their very lives at risk in order to further our scientific understanding of the universe.

francisofascii 2y ago

Humans take risks all the time to fulfill our desire to explore or see wondrous things. Travelling to space for example. Maybe all the other intelligent life in the universe is prioritizing survival.