
Choking game, also known as the fainting game - amingilani
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choking_game
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ChuckMcM
Two of the people I've known in my life have died this way[1]. There are many
ways to die, and we all die eventually, but dying from intentionally inflicted
asphyxiation has always struck me as exceptionally stupid and tragic.

I understand that people place a different value on their life, and things
like skydiving are thrilling and life changing with a chance of death if
something goes wrong. I don't always share the same risk/reward profile that
is neccesary for someone to asphyxiate for thrills.

[1] One as a child doing this using a plastic bag and one as an adult
presumably practicing the erotic version.

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malms
Skydiving isnt more dangerous than riding a motorbike daily.

Also even though a agree with your bigger point its not really what happens
here. People are just being stupid here, not even understanding they are
playing with their life.

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londons_explore
What is the chance of death per hour of skydive?

I bet it's considerably higher than per hour of crusing around on a
motorbike...

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AstralStorm
Actually it is much lower, because people who skydive tend to carefully check
safety and many motorbike drivers don't - and other road users do not take
care either.

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londons_explore
Skydiving in the USA has one death per 130k jumps. Since a jump from a typical
14k feet takes about 60 seconds of freefall, that means there is a death every
2,200 skydive-hours.

There were 390 motorcyclist deaths per billion vehicle miles in the USA in
2006. Assuming motorbikes average ~40mph (between city and highway), that
works out a death every 64,000 motorbike-hours.

So skydiving is significantly more dangerous per unit time.

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caymanjim
When I was around ten years old, way back in the early 80s, friends of mine
used to do this. I never took part, because skating the edge of death didn't
seem like any fun to me. To this day, I've never been unconscious other than
to sleep. If I had to have my leg amputated and there were a local-anesthetic-
only option, I'd choose that (not that I'd likely be able to convince a
surgeon to do it).

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amingilani
I actually did partake, as a 90's kid, but I didn't know how dangerous it
could be. To us, it was a harmless game the older kids had played in their
time. I tried Googling this at the time but the information on it was scarce.

The Wikipedia article has fleshed out since then to include some risks, and
links to asphyxiation for a more thorough analysis. We had no idea why it
happened at the time.

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tokai
"that since 1995 at least 82 youths between the age of 6 and 19 have died in
the United States as a result of the game"

That doesn't seem too dangerous to me, compared to many other dangerous
activities teenagers do.

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Waterluvian
This falls in my perspective of having solved so many problems, we re-weigh
the ones that are left.

The number of children who died on farms back in the 1800s early 1900s
probably eclipses this number by a few orders of magnitude.

Not saying this is a bad thing. But I think about it a lot as a new-ish parent
trying to navigate the layers upon layers of extra safety that my parents find
a little absurd.

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beckler
I had a few friends in high school that did this. I only witnessed it twice,
and both times made me pretty uncomfortable.

The very first time I saw one of my friends do this, I didn't believe he had
actually passed out, so I lightly tossed a tennis ball at his crotch and he
didn't react at all. I felt bad when he woke up in pain though, but I honestly
thought he was faking. He was out for maybe 20-30 seconds.

The second time this girl we all knew did it, and we freaked out because
everyone normally woke up in under a minute, but she didn't wake up for almost
four minutes.

We started discouraging people from doing it after that.

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thatswrong0
Wow I totally forgot I had this done to me as a freshman in high school by an
older kid who claimed he had practiced it at his martial arts class.
Interesting experience - kind of psychedelic and dream like. Heard music and
saw weird dancing elephant visuals. Woke and was extremely confused -
completely forgot what I had agreed to. Apparently I was sort of shaking and
seizing for some amount of seconds.

Glad I wasn’t killed now that I think about it. Definitely would chalk it up
to curiosity and a bit of peer pressure.

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huhtenberg
This appears to be a variation of "do a bunch of sit-ups quickly, with your
back against the wall, stand up, hold your breath and let a comrade push on
your solar plexus". Not sure about feeling high, but the faint rate is around
100%.

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benj111
The version I 'heard of' involved a joint also.

~~~
ksaj
Yup, the Super Toke. It didn't really make you higher, but it did give you
headrush for a completely unrelated-to-pot reason.

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ozzmotik
oh i remember this all too well. when i was in high school, there was a kid in
the same grade as me who ended up dying because he did this. and then me being
the curmudgeon that i was, decided to go on MySpace af the time and
essentially say that the kid was stupid for doing something like that and
deserved what he got (not sure that I feel that way anymore, as it turns out,
aging is a great way to develop empathy!) and then suddenly started receiving
threats on my life from his "friends". good times!

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hlieberman
Moral panic.

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kennyadam
What does this have to do with anything Hacker News-related?

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guessmyname
> _What does this have to do with anything Hacker News-related?_

Nothing, although some people will come up with explanations to say that
_“this article is interesting and that’s why it was upvoted”_ but the reality
is, today is Sunday, and Sundays are always characterized by random _—usually
non-tech related—_ articles in the front page. I personally don’t mind it,
this is a good way to learn about topics that usually people don’t talk about.
To me, it feels like clicking the “Random Article” link on WikiPedia [1].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random)

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ttul
I wonder if this is one of those things that kids should be taught to do
safely, rather than just saying “don’t do that.”

Being hypoxic briefly isn’t likely to kill you. But doing it over and over and
over, or using a plastic bag, or... fainting and hitting your head. Those are
reasons you might die.

