Fun Death Machine – The Weird Side of the Internet

Fun Death Machine – The Weird Side of the Internet – by Liam Sweeny.

Everything has heard of the “roller coaster of death.” It’s at the park near your city, or the one three hours up north. It’s got jet black paint with canary yellow flames that could be fire or the patterns on a yellowjacket. You have to sign a waiver, and should you be brave enough to brave it, you can buy yourself a T’shirt that proudly announces your feat of fearlessness.

But did you ever hear about the real roller coaster of death? Because you can’t find it anywhere, not built of steel or wood or gas-soaked cardboard. It’s called a ‘hypothetical death machine,” the brainchild of Lithuanian engineer Julijonas Urbonas. Utilizing speeds in excess of two hundred-and-forty miles an hour, a sixteen-hundred foot drop, and up to six coiled loops, a rider will experience the ride of their lives, ending in a death of gently passing out, the G-forces draining the brain of oxygen just long enough.

Funny thing, or maybe truly unfunny thing is that in the UK, it was suggested that this hypothetical death machine would be a good, human way of thinning out the population.

So if you were at the end of your rope, would you? I wouldn’t. Were this thing built somewhere, it would be the first roller coaster where the fear of failure could result in people not dying. And if this roller coaster were to catch on fire, and everyone perished, would it have been considered a failure or a success?

I’m very glad that this machine has not been built. I mean, who the hell thinks of this stuff? Euthanasia is a sensitive topic everywhere in the world, but this is just too perverse, even if it has good intentions.

I should mention that there is now a suicide and crisis hotline. It’s #988. Whether or not the hypothetical death machine is built or not, no one should ever have to be in a position to want to use it.

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