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A comment on Seoul: At least 120 killed in crowd crush during Halloween festivities. Parent comment

Re:Seoul: At least 120 killed in crowd crush during Hallowee... by londons_explore on Sunday October 30, 2022 @01:52AM (#33391537)
You imagine people pushing others hard. But the reality is crushing can also be caused by thousands of people pushing gently. For example if there is a line of 1000 people, with person to person contact, and there is something nice in one direction (eg. The exit to a concert), or nasty in the other direction (encroaching fire or flood), then merely pushing with 1 lb of force means by the end of the line you have 1000 lbs of force, which would crush anyone.

The effect is made worse in 2 dimensions because of converging field lines having a force amplification effect.

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Re:Seoul: At least 120 killed in crowd crush during Hallowee... by throwaway894345 on Sunday October 30, 2022 @01:38PM (#33396653)
No, I'm not imagining people pushing others hard. Everyone has a choice:

1. passively propagate forward whatever force is being applied to them from behind

2. actively resist by applying some amount of counterforce (this doesn't mean the person in front of them experiences 0 force, but only that the force they experience is less)

3. actively add one's own force in addition to whatever force they are experiencing from behind

I'm positing that (3) is selfish even at low forces, even if you're near the back of the line, and your scenario of 1k people doing (3) with an individual contribution of 1lb of force describes 1k wrecklessly selfish people.

The moral I'm proposing--and it's a really fucking easy one--is don't fucking push people, even gently.

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