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Tuesday, July 23, 2013

No, We're Not Totally Screwed As A Species Yet

Considering the kind of summer we've been seeing, you may look at the news, you may see the world tearing itself to ribbons and coming to verbal and physical blows with each other over anything and everything, and you may watch the world devolving into chaotic entropy more and more with every passing day, and you may decide, you may have already decided in fact, to just give up. To say, 'screw it, let it all burn, I don't even care anymore'.

Maybe this will help. Maybe if we had an example of people actually coming together and getting something seemingly impossible done.

Dateline, a train platform in Saitama, Japan. A woman in her 30's fell between the (stopped) train and the boarding platform. The train weighs 32 tons. It is rush hour. How do you get her out? Apparently, you get her out by being one of 40 passengers who lined up against the train and shoved it to one side until the crew can retrieve her. They were able to do this because the train was built to be able to lean to one side as a shock absorber.

The train was only eight minutes late. After being shoved aside by 40 people in the middle of rush hour.

Of course, perhaps it's a way of payback. For reference, this is what normally happens on a Japanese train at rush hour:


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