this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2024
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Mildly Interesting

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This is for strictly mildly interesting material. If it's too interesting, it doesn't belong. If it's not interesting, it doesn't belong.

This is obviously an objective criteria, so the mods are always right. Or maybe mildly right? Ahh.. what do we know?

Just post some stuff and don't spam.

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[–] southsamurai 139 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Damn, I don't think that's mildly interesting at all. That's a book I want to read

[–] [email protected] 121 points 1 month ago (2 children)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/413371.Worldwalk

The book in question. He was housed by over 400 families while on his walk.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Did the families take turns, or did they all walk with him?

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Their bodies formed the structure which housed him.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

On that sombre note:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairngorm_Plateau_disaster

It was only on Monday afternoon, when the parents were gathered at the school, that the news came that five of their children were dead. The father explained that the boy who survived was the smallest student in the party; maybe the others (two women leaders, four girls and one boy) had been huddling round him to protect him from the cold

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Surprised I've never heard of this, despite me going to the Cairngorms once

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

The boy who survived has never talked about the incident. Can you imagine coping with the guilt of feeling the warmth of your classmates cocooned around you fading gently away one by one, leaving you alone with only the memory of their sacrifice....

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago

Simultaneously, it inspired the Mortal Engines movie.

[–] southsamurai 8 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 85 points 1 month ago (7 children)

Welp there you have it. If you want to challenge his conclusion you must walk long and hit more countries than he did.

[–] [email protected] 82 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That's overkill. I only need a mile and his shoes.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)

But then you don't get to sing that 500 miles song. At least go 5 miles while muttering about multipliers between verses.

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[–] Imgonnatrythis 55 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Wow even the guy that wanted to be the man that fell down at your door only walked 1000 miles. This is pretty hardcore.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Probably just really wanted to escape Ohio.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 month ago (1 children)

On April 14, 1970, during an 11g slingshot maneuver on the remote side of the moon on the Apollo 13 mission, Astronaut Jim Lovell achieved what every other person born in Ohio has always dreamed of:

Getting as far away as humanly possible.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Michael Collins has him beat though because he got to do it alone in blissful silence, with nobody around to ask him if he's working hard or hardly working.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Going to be a lot more of those next year.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 month ago

People really will find any excuse to leave ohio

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I've been a bunch of places all over the world and I would agree. The world isn't terrible.

All the assholes who live in it however...

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Despite the horrid things that occur in this world, I do believe that people are fundamentally good and want to do good for the people around them. The people that do evil things were not born that way.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Sociopaths exist and they rule the world.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Yep, the majority are good people that assume others are good people too. And they get ruthlessly exploited by sociopaths that end up ruling everyone and forcing all of us to live our lives along their zero-sum worldview.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 month ago

Don't underestimate the corruptive influence of power and privilege either. I know it's unpopular to humanize the people who ruthlessly exploit others, but they aren't necessarily innately selfish, and are just as much a product of circumstance as others. The wealthy are perhaps the most alienated from the material and human cost of their wealth by a system that is designed to do so, and they are rewarded for behaving selfishly.

If you reduce the complexity of the world to "most people are good but the few bad people ruin it for everyone," then you run the risk of thinking that the solution to the problem is to remove the "bad people" from power and replace them with "good people." You'll inevitably be disappointed when the "good people" turn out to be "bad people" after experiencing power and privilege.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

Probably some narcissists too

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

In my experience, the vast majority of people are good. Like 99.9% of them. But there's still evil people in this world. My grandmother is one, she's tried killing my siblings twice, (the first time looked like negligence, after the second she wasn't given another chance.) and gave her husband brain damage. Thankfully, she's not related to us by blood.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I wouldn't count a multiple day walk as a single walk.

When you get to sleep, it starts a new walk.

Otherwise I have been having a walk for my entire life.

[–] Cracks_InTheWalls 13 points 1 month ago

I'd argue that if it's conceived of as a journey with a set end point - "I'm going to walk from Vancouver to Toronto", by way of example - you could consider it a single walk. If you're just walking everyday without a set end point in mind, I'd agree with you.

Maybe 'journey by foot' is the better phrase here, idk.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 month ago

"I just gotta see this for myself."

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago

How many roads must a man walk down?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (2 children)

It would be a white guy in the 1980s. “Yeah the world isn’t that terrible”

Dudes don’t even have to think twice walking to their car at night.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 month ago

Did you read the post? Seems like he did have to think twice.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

Absofuckinglutely, imagine being black and walking through rural counties in the US much less other countries. The average person "might" leave you alone but the police absolutely will not.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago

I think it's an amazing story that he was able to find his way back home after walking such a long distance!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

Well yeah, the world and by extension your life is mostly harmless. It's quite the statistical anomaly when you do get harmed but it's not to say it's impossible.

People do tend to get stuck in that awareness of chance of harm and often over prescribe it to certain parts to keep up the fear. That's probably cause people are also mostly stupidly uninformed.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (2 children)

There were bandits in 1987??

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago

Only three years later some bandits tried to break into a kids house over Christmas.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago

Still are in some parts of the world. Less arrows and swords more guns and machetes

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Most life-changing discovery: make videos of yourself bumming around the world and total strangers will send you money.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

SIR, YES SIR.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Sounds like an average playthrough of STALKER.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Daniel Pearl would like a word

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Walk... Hhard

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Bro had no enemies, what a madlad

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Petition to rename this epic journey as "The Walk For The Ages".

I want a book, movie, and an epic ballad with at least a dozen dozen stanzas!

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