How could you really think that? Dumas awards

[Jagos]

Sometimes in life, there are things so amazingly and mind numbingly obtuse, or stupid that you seriously have to look at the story or video again because... It's a wonder how these people live. This is one of THOSE threads for when the Emperor has new clothes, the frog has kissed the princess, staying a frog, or you can't fathom how dumb people are.

But I poured lemon juice on my face! (http://mindhacks.com/2010/02/11/the-burglar-with-the-lemon-juice-disguise/)

*facepalm*

[Professor Smarmiarty]

I thought this was going to be a thread about the works of Alexandre Dumas :(

[EVILNess]

I thought this was going to be a thread about the works of Alexandre Dumas :(

You are seriously too smart for your own good.

[Magus]

You are seriously too smart for your own good.

Especially since when I saw the thread title I was all equipped with a joke about the sequel having the Fifth Musketeer be a mentally handicapped man who teaches them the true meaning of friendship, but was ninja'd by Smarty with his utterly simplistic response.

[Krylo]

...So was the thread title supposed to be dumb ass awards?

[akaSM]

Maybe it's just me but, I remembered this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPTfwW89UIY).

[Magus]

...So was the thread title supposed to be dumb ass awards?

There is such a thing as the Darwin awards (http://www.darwinawards.com/), but it requires that the subject die (or at least become sterile) because of the stupid action.

[Kim]

I thought this was going to be a thread about the works of Alexandre Dumas :(

I thought someone was complaining about an awards show named after Alexandre Dumas as they did not agree with who won the awards.

[Magus]

What would one win a Dumas award for? Flynning? Sprawling historical epic revenge-fantasy novels? Getting out of prison after 20 years when DNA evidence exonerates you?

[CABAL49]

I thought this was going to be a thread about the works of Alexandre Dumas :(

The Count of Monte Cristo was one of the greatest books I have read. The dude was amazing.

[Jagos]

...So was the thread title supposed to be dumb ass awards?

It's French.

Link (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/111884-Chinese-Parents-Sell-Kids-To-Fund-Gaming-Habits)

Two young parents were recently revealed as having sold all three (three!) of their children so they could play online videogames at internet cafes.

According to Sanxiang City News, the parents are Li Lin and Li Juan and are both under the age of 21. The first sale occurred in 2009, when they sold their second child, a baby girl. The girl went for under $500, but their first child (this time a boy) was sold soon after for $4,600. Then, the couple sold their youngest child, also a boy, for another $4,600.

Selling your kids for video games?! Seriously?! I... What can I say to slap them?

[Kyanbu The Legend]

WTH!? O_o

That is a seriously fucked up couple. I'm shocked that they did it for free time. Even more so that they even consider this at all!

[Azisien]

Damn, I didn't know they were worth money. I just threw mine out!

[Kyanbu The Legend]

Azisien! Too soon man, too soon!

[Bard The 5th LW]

Link (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/111884-Chinese-Parents-Sell-Kids-To-Fund-Gaming-Habits)

Selling your kids for video games?! Seriously?! I... What can I say to slap them?

Sounds less "stupid" and more "reprehensible and disgusting" to me.

[Jagos]

Sounds less "stupid" and more "reprehensible and disgusting" to me.

I just read how China's bureaucrats confiscate babies after the first one.

Then there's the entire "only one child policy" in general.

I'm getting more and more jaded about China being some great bastion of progress.

[Seil]

I was gonna link The Darwin Awards, but someone beat me to it while I was at work. In retrospect, this - and I include selling your children in this - is less Darwin Awards and more... Fernand Mondego.

[Magus]

China: Where male children sell for 9 times as much as female children.

[Seil]

http://images.wikia.com/candh/images/4/45/Tree_fort.jpg (http://www.gameinformer.com/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/CommunityServer-Discussions-Components-Files/23/2654.Calvin-and-Hobbes_5F00_Meeting-of-GROSS.gif)

[PyrosNine]

I don't know about Alexandre Dumas or awards for being stupid...but I do know about awards for people whose grasp of logic, reason, and whatnot lead them to fail the second point mentioned in the article, and sometimes because of the third one.

http://improbable.com/about/
http://improbable.com/ig/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List of Ig Nobel Prize winners (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ig_Nobel_Prize_winners)

I own one of the books from this prestigious award handing out people, and I have learned of both idiots and scientists, and mixes in between.

The actual article mentioned is an Ignoble award winner, David Dunning and Justin Kruger's research paper on competence and incompetence, or at least how we perceive ourselves based on our own level of competence, and the lemon juice story is mentioned as well.

The book's blurb at the end suggests that a copy of the research paper would be an excellent gift to anonymously send to supervisors, managers, friends, and parents, repeatedly as required.

[Amake]

I'm just fascinated with that bank robber. In all the movies he watched as a child, and I assume there was many, did anyone's face ever disappear from the screen for any reason? Did bank robbers not wear masks? Did anyone ever discuss this method of disguise compared to others, in movies or outside? Did anyone even ever act as if they had any idea that this remarkably simple, well-known and incredibly useful trick existed? Did he ever take a picture of someone who had lemon juice on them? Did he examine the difference of the effect of lemon juice on the face compared to other parts of the body? Did he do his research by taking a picture of himself?

The answer to all of the above must be no. This isn't just a singular glitch in the logic process. It's as if this bit of non-knowledge probably imparted by a playground friend existed in his mind in a complete vacuum separate from every possible connection to knowledge itself. I don't see how else could he fail to ask himself such basic questions as "If this works, why don't people do it?" or even "Is there some way I can test if this works before I gamble my life on it?"

[Professor Smarmiarty]

I don't see whats so bad about selling your kids. Kids get better life, you get better life, people who bought them get better life- everybody wins. Like assuming you sell them to people who aren't like sex-trafficking drug lords.

Really the surprising thing is how much they got for them, particularly in china where you can get in trouble for having excess children.

[Amake]

The better solution would probably be to not have kids in the first place if you're going to sell them, but what are you going to do when you're denied sexual education and there's a free market. It's like adoption except it'll also tend to redistribute wealth to the poor. As long as you're competent to decide the buyers are going to be decent parents of course. Adoption agencies may be better for that really.

[Magus]

Precisely. The whole reason you aren't allowed to sell your kids is you are going to sell them to the highest bidder. Drug lords and sex traffickers pay way more than poor old sterile Mr. and Mrs. Li down the street

[Jagos]

Dude, what the cluck?! (http://consumerist.com/2011/07/lawsuit-walmart-falsely-arrested-me-made-me-lose-my-job-had-husband-deported-over-290-worth-of-chick.html)

I mean seriously... All this for $2.90?!

A former Walmart employee in Alabama has filed a lawsuit against the retail behemoth, alleging that she and her husband were wrongly accused of stealing $2.90 in chicken neck bones, an accusation the plaintiff says led to her losing her job and having her husband deported.

Note to self. Alabama is not a place to raise smart people.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

Dude, what the cluck?! (http://consumerist.com/2011/07/lawsuit-walmart-falsely-arrested-me-made-me-lose-my-job-had-husband-deported-over-290-worth-of-chick.html)

I mean seriously... All this for $2.90?!



Note to self. Alabama is not a place to raise smart people.

That...really doesn't seem real.
At all.

Not even considering that even if this whole thing went to trial, which it pretty clearly wouldn't. $2.90 worth of goods would at worst be a misdemeanor offense. There's no way a case would go through for deportation over that.

[Jagos]

PDF (http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/07/26/Deported.pdf)

It's real...

[pochercoaster]

PDF (http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/07/26/Deported.pdf)

It's real...

I'm still confused. Among other things, it claims that the INS was involved in 2007 when it ceased to exist in that name in 2003. That's the least crazy part of the story though. Are you sure the website you pulled that from is legit? o_O

[Jagos]

Right there at the bottom (http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/07/26/38455.htm)

[Kyanbu The Legend]

Not surprised that this is real. Just one of the many things Americans aren't proud about their country doing.

[Fifthfiend]

these people (http://nuklearforums.com/)

[Kyanbu The Legend]

Oh I see what you did there...

[rpgdemon]

He dropped the www, is what he did. Anyone who does that, deserves a Dumas award.

I like my www.

[Toastburner B]

While the complaint itself seems to be real, the story remains hard to believe.

From my understanding, it seems highly unlikely they would be facing jail time for petty larceny (which, if my research is correct, this case is), let alone have the judge think it was a serious enough issue that they deserved to be denied bail, unless they were repeat offenders or for some other factor. Also, from my understanding, if you work Loss Prevention, you don't stop someone for shoplifting unless you have hard proof, other wise you open the company up to lawsuits (like this one), and you certainly don't yell threats at someone in public for it (which some stuff I read seems to indicate is illegal in Alabama, if not in all states). Seriously, if things went down like the complaint claims, it was because the stars were aligned just right and Cthulhu declared these people were going to have a bad day.

I also find the story suspect because a Google search of the plaintiffs name only comes up with the story linked to here, as well as a few others that linked to the same website. I find this odd because people love "WAL-MART IS EVIL!" stories, especially "WAL-MART IS EVIL AND RACIST!" stories. Remember that story about the Wal-Mart line hopper a few years back? (http://abcnews.go.com/WN/woman-cut-line-walmart-prison/story?id=9107365) Media firestorm! Here we have a very similar story that has the same two hooks (Evil Wal-Mart and racism), combined with the hot-button topic of illegal immigration (not specified, I know, but an easy conclusion to reach as the story states that the woman's husband was not a US citizen and subsequently deported), and no one, not even the local news site, is touch this story besides this one site? I dunno, something isn't adding up here.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Precisely. The whole reason you aren't allowed to sell your kids is you are going to sell them to the highest bidder. Drug lords and sex traffickers pay way more than poor old sterile Mr. and Mrs. Li down the street

Do they? I thought they just stole kids and shit and trick parents into unloading them super cheap on the promise of big profits in the future. You're a shitty trafficker if you're paying top dollar for your kids. Mr and Mrs Li the rich old couple who have never done this before and don't know the value of kids are going to pay way more.
I hope they held an auction though that would be sweet.

[Krylo]

Do they? I thought they just stole kids and shit and trick parents into unloading them super cheap on the promise of big profits in the future. You're a shitty trafficker if you're paying top dollar for your kids. Mr and Mrs Li the rich old couple who have never done this before and don't know the value of kids are going to pay way more.
I hope they held an auction though that would be sweet.

Mr. and Mrs. Li are just going to go to a legal adoption agency because if you buy children you have no way to claim legal right over them without also going and paying a forger to make a birth certificate, etc. which means you can't enter them into school, or really let anyone know you have them ever.

There's no reason for someone who isn't a slave trafficker to buy children. Unless they have some kind of history that makes them unable to adopt (like pedophilia, beating children, etc.) and they just really really want a child that they will never legally own and thus must hide.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

There's no real reson for a trafficker to buy children for such massive amounts either. Particularly in China where people are just throwing them away.

Looking it up on the google I can't find solid sets of statistics but some say that orphanages in china require a donation that is generally between $3000-$5000. This is on top of agency fees and legal fees and all other things. This might be heaps cheaper than going through an orphanage and less hassle. As for getting kids into school, it's china- the country is built on bribes.

It just seems totally ridic to me that this is how child smugglers would operate.

[Krylo]

A trafficker can make a lot more than 4k off a kid, and if you buy a kid you don't have to worry about kidnapping charges which tend to be reported far sooner, have more evidence available, and all around just be a lot harder to avoid than if you buy a kid from parents who, presumably, aren't going to go straight to the cops because their child is missing.

And 4k is also cheaper than ending up in prison for kidnapping.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Maybe but considering the rampant nature of child trafficking in China the police don't really seem to do anything about it.
$4000 is 2 years average income in china, bribes got to be cheaper than that and surely you could get babies to sell babies for cheaper.
Maybe that is the oging rate for child traffickers but if it is I might get into that field, I reckon the market needs some competition.
E: Thinking about it maybe 2 years wage is about right.