Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Darwin Awards: profiting from the celebration of human tragedy.

Few people express disgust with the unethical nature of Wendy Northcutt's Darwin Awards, a profit-driven celebration of human tragedy, because the Darwin Awards employs the technique of dehumanization - through declaring that its award winners are less evolved than "us." The popularity of the Darwin Awards reinforces the contention that the mass of humanity, while capable of self-preservation, is easily manipulated into cruelty and callousness.

Ann Bartow tells me that Wendy Northcutt, the main beneficiary of the profits earned through laughing at other people's death or mutilation, will be in the "YearlyKos" conference. Kos and company should be ashamed, but people who champion the Darwin Awards by definition have no sense of shame.

I contributed to the Darwin Awards wiki. The original text was verging on an advertisement for Wendy Northcutt.