Wait, your link says it’s not real. I mean, the challenge is real but 4 people haven’t died. They mention two deaths in Alabama that occurred before the challenge was a thing.
Random internet search says it takes 1000-1250 foot pounds of torque to break a neck.
A 200 pound person only has to fall 5 feet to make that happen. When you factor in the additional speed, the less controlled angles, and probably drinking, it's shocking the number of deaths isn't higher.
I’m not sure how you arrived at this conclusion but the math is wrong. Did you just multiply 200 pounds by 5 feet and arrived at 1000 footpound? Your units don’t work at all. A weight under a certain acceleration falling for a specific distance has a certain amount of kinetic energy (E=mgh). Energy =/= Torque.
I was a bit surprised to hear “victims broke their necks instantly,” so I was hoping for someone else to do some math to back it up. Sigh…
Assuming ≈1000 ft/lbs to break a neck, and a 220 lb 6’10" person (so we can exclude the head to get ≈ 200 lb 6’), if it were possible for them to keep their body completely rigid, simply laying them horizontal, only supported by their head in a fixed orientation, would produce ≈ 600 ft/lbs (CoM 3’ from the moment) on the neck. Which is actually a surprising testament to the strength of the human neck.
The actual math for determining the torque on the neck from a worst-case scenario of a person jumping off a moving boat and hitting the water head-first with a stiff vertical posture is a bit above my pay grade. You’d have to calculate the resistance of the water over time as the head makes contact and starts deflecting, vs how much of that force gets transferred to the body and starts to rotate it towards the water.
But just conceptually, doesn’t make a ton of sense to me, as someone with a fair amount of experience with hitting the water at high speed; I used to barefoot water ski. Sucks hitting the water that fast, but the worst injury I’ve sustained is a ruptured ear drum.
If there’s anything I’ve learnt from video games, then it’s that water is always safe, no matter how much speed you fall with.
If there’s anything I’ve learnt from slamming my own waterski’s snout into the back of my head and being sown at hospital with 11 stings, then it’s that water is very much not soft at high speeds and water resistance is a bitch.
Maybe I'm entering the cranky old women yelling at kids to get off her lawn phase of my life-- but why are all the TikTok challenges always something ridiculously dangerous? (Emphasis on "ridiculous")
Cool looking stuff tend to be fast, high, spectacular. And those tend to be harsher on body or straight up dangerous. Even the bucket challenger decade ago was about spectacular large cold water bucket.
Also action movies with stunt actors have taught us a wrong lesson on what is normal and what is dangerous
TikTok was designed to promote stupid, inane, and self-destructive memes to Americans (westerners in general).
It’s the exact opposite of how it works in China. You would never see this kind of stupid shit on Chinese TikTok.
I’m sure there are plenty of people producing interesting stuff on TikTok, Just as with any user submitted content site, but that’s not what the algorithm wants to make sure everybody sees.
I am under the impression that if you are likely to die because of doing these, you likely were going to do something equally stupid and deadly with or without internet guidance at some point.
Even if they did, most people don't really grok what that means. Most people's mental models for reference frames are intertial and without transition, so the idea that they're still travelling at the speed of the boat, say, when they hit the water, and not the speed of the water, doesn't make intuitive sense to them.
They left the boat. To them, that means they're no longer moving with the boat.
I'm not so sure about this. If we apply the same logic to cars, it's immediately obvious that almost everyone understands this concept quite well -- jumping out of a moving car is dangerous, precisely because you'll be moving when you hit the ground.
I think they're underestimating how quickly the boat is moving, and how quickly you'll slow down when you hit the water.
I don’t think people realize that water is H A R D when you hit it above a certain speed. No different than belly flopping off a bridge and completely disintegrating your innards.
It’s transferring known data to a different situation that people don’t seem to be doing at all.
Yes, exactly. People know the street is hard. People don't dive head first into the asphalt on the regular when they're standing still.
They don't expect water to be any different when going fast than when not.
And, like, obviously people have a sense that getting out of a speeding car is dangerous. They intuitively know that the road is speeding past them and that that speed differential will cause pain, injury, or worse. But I don't think they really understand themselves as a moving object in all of that.
The car is moving fast, and "getting out of a moving car" is dangerous, as opposed to "being a high velocity object" is dangerous.
The mental model is different, and incomplete, so some things seem like they should be possible when they're not.
People understand you’d get hurt jumping out of a moving car (even still, people sometimes try it) but often underestimate the amount of force a vehicle moving at various speeds can apply. Huge difference between 30 mph and 60 mph.
They do point out that people seem a bit extra dumb in front of a camera when acting for social media. It’s also weird the photos in the OP made me think it was young women doing this shit - buts its 4 men and 1 was a dad with 3 kids and his wife on the boat (who filmed his death).
So that means 1) this guy managed to procreate and thus dodged Darwin 2) these people were smart enough to survive to for awhile so double check yourself before you wreck yourself on social media
I appreciate the Darwin Award concept when moderated tactfully. Like you said, it was a matter of time. So framing these news bites into learning moments has potential value to others imo.
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