Tell me this isn't !#$%ed up...

[Gregjazz]

Sounds a little like http://www.savetoby.com

But a whole lot more horrible.

[Khris]

I actually think it's very interesting. Especially reading the hate mail they get.
There are basically three kinds of people:

-"It's a scam! How dare you, you lazy #&!%, get a job!"

That's people who get ripped off by big companies for their entire life without even noticing it (just like every other hard-working person), flaming a person they know practically nothing about because they ask for money.
Probably the same people who'd love to donate to charities every now and then if they could afford it just to brag about it and to feel better about themselves.

-"I've raised a child/children and had no/very little/barely any money. You can do it. Blah blah blah ..."

Easy to write, now that they finally sit on their fat asses in paid houses in front of their PCs, after struggling for ten years or more, working their butts off to pay rent and feed their children. Bravo.

-"Don't kill the baby you murderers! A life is worth more than 50k!"

If I had the choice, I'd rather be aborted than grow up in a crappy apartment, constantly overhearing my parents argue about their jobs, the car's latest repair bill (if there even is a car) and all the other stuff that puts down young, struggling parents.
There are all different kinds of people who ruin their kids lifes, be it those assholes that shove their kid on some stage at the age of 5 because they never made it big themselves, or those who beat them, neglect supporting their talents, stuff them with hamburgers although they get fatter and fatter and thus mocked at school and so on.
Yet when somebody wants to (quickly and painlessly) kill an unborn "child", a lump of flesh without conscience, to spare them a miserable childhood, suddenly everybody screams and rants and goes apeshit.

I'm for pro-life

I'm tired now. And I still think it's probably a hoax.

[voh]

Apologies, I thought I included a second paragraph but seemingly I didn't.

In addition to my not caring about the thread topic, there is the following. There are those who say it is horrendous (if true) but hilarious and genius (if a scam). I think it's neither horrendous, nor genius, either which way it turns. It's one of thousands of websites trying to get attention, trying to get noticed, possibly make a few bucks off of (or get attention for a problem) and then it'll disappear quicker than it arrived.

The reason why (aha! this is what I definitely shouldn't have forgotten to post) I can't muster any form of interest for such a website is because it's been done so many times that I wonder why others get all riled up over it nonetheless.

Besides, if it's true and that kid gets aborted, what's it going to matter? If it's true and they decide to keep it, what's it going to matter? Nothing. It'll have no result in your life, yet still some of you act as if it's hurting you personally.

If I knew the guy/girl/twat who made such a site I'd kick his ass. Since I don't, I'm going to opt to ignore it and hope that it goes away quickly.

[i k a r i]

I can't believe there are assholes who donate money to this scammer, what a bunch of retards.  :
And even if it's true, (wich is not) I would spend my money helping other families who doesnt have 1/10 of what this people is asking to not ABORT his baby, RIDICULOUS!


(lots of hate comments here)

[space boy]

The following Q&A is taken from the FAQ section on www.oddworld.com
Not quite the same situation as with the "parents" but it's also about morals and money. It's the first thing that came to my mind after reading the first post so I thought I'd just share it with you:


Q: In the game I noticed that in the first game Abe and Mudokons have 4 fingers then in Abe's Exoddus they have only 3 fingers. What happened with the 4th finger?

A: Well, it's a long story that needs to be told. So here it is... Japan has a strict discriminating policy against any simulated characters entering their country with four fingers. Historically, Japan has had a subclass of meat packing workers that were typically looked down upon in their society. In later days, the blatant displaying of a four fingered hand gesture, intentionally directed at another, came to mean that you were calling them a member of the meat packing sub class. Which, we understand, was not at all a compliment.

It appears that the four finger connection with the meat packing class was due to work related accidents, but was so frequent that it came to symbolically represent the sub class. It seems as though this is a part of the Japanese history that some groups within Japan would like to see forgotten. Therefore, it is at great risk that you publish four fingered characters in Japan, as you may very likely end up in legal battles with a vociferous pressure group. This group claims that this type of representation is equivalent to and as degrading as the yellow star forced to be worn on Jews by the Nazi's during the Second World War.That is, it's offensive and degrading unless they can extort enough money out of you. Then it's all okay. Case in point: We were told that the Walt Disney Corporation is charged five million dollars a year by this group so that Mickey Mouse may live in Japan and retain his original four fingered design. Otherwise, old Mickey would need to see a surgeon and have something done about that insulting forth finger.

The moral of this story is... if you want to pay, then it's ok. If you don't want to pay, then it's a horrible insult to our culture. In other parts of the world we have a word for these types of two-faced tactics. We call it extortion. If it is truly offensive and degrading, then don't allow it at all. But to allow it for a price... is to belittle the case altogether. It suggests that the real truth behind these groups is that they are using the darker moments in their own cultures' history as an excuse to coerce money out of content providers.

Well, being that this is Oddworld, we felt that this seemed like a perfect addition to the Abe story. We thought it was ironically perfect that he was being discriminated against for being who he was. As the message came from Japan, "They don't like his kind here, with the sincere suggestion," Just chop off one of his fingers cause you don't have the money to pay up..." caused us to feel that we indeed needed to allow Abe to go through the suffering that goes along with being a poor slob at the bottom of the Food chain. Yup, we chopped off his finger so that the Japanese wouldn't get offended (or paid). He didn't like it one bit, but due to the fact that their ain't much he can do about it... we decided that he could donate his finger rather than us donating five million dollars. Such is life in Japan when you're a four-fingered meat packing worker.
And that is how Abe lost his finger in Japan. He's still pretty pissed off about it, but we convinced him that with the amount of games sold in Japan, he still might be able to get his message through to their culture someday. As a true believer in his cause, he felt that the sacrifice of a finger was but a small price to pay in hoping to shed some light on discriminations and injustices the world over.

[TerranRich]

space boy... WHAT??

[space boy]

It's another example of a situation where money is a factor while it should not be.  ¬¬
Too confusing?

[Hudders]

space boy's right.

If the shoe was on the other foot:

"Pay me lots of money or I'll abort your baby"

It'd be called extortion.

[Sylpher]

They did a great job at getting the exact reaction they wanted. It is interesting how willingly people will dump their entire life wrenching stories on someone while lashing out at how horrible they are.

Oh, and for future reference. If the first paragraph has a link to the hate email on a site of this nature for 'entertainment' value... Maybe that should hit an alarm or two in your brain.

[Nikolas]

Well...

A prank...

Spoiler

MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!

[close]

[Mr Jake]

Did anyone actually fall for/believe it?

... You must be new here.. Welcome to the internets...

[space boy]

How unsurprising.

[Andail]

I love when people try their darnest to be smart instead of discussing the moralities of the specific question.

I think most people here said something like "it might be a hoax, but this is what I think of the deal, per see, be it a joke or not, which it probably is, but anyway...", so I don't know who needs to be lectured, really.
It's like every year in the April's fools thread - half of the posters are just hellbent on telling everyone how they didn't fall for it, as if anyone was actually interested.

[Raggit]

When I clicked the link just now it said, "Look at what you made me do!  There was never a baby, you got fooled, no money was collected. 200,000 people got pranked.
Suck it."

Apparently the joke was up today.

[Gord10]

The thing that confuses me: Didn't anyone really donated them? I believe they could collect at least a few bucks...

Heh... This is internet.
By the way; the background image of the website is horrible, indeed. Are they real aborted babies?

[HillBilly]

The thing that confuses me: Didn't anyone really donated them? I believe they could collect at least a few bucks...

Heh... This is internet.
By the way; the background image of the website is horrible, indeed. Are they real aborted babies?

Aborted fetuses usually look like bloody beans with limbs or roadkilled frogs, so my guess would be they're stillborn, or aborted way, way too late. These kind of pictures are popular among rallying pro-lifers.

I'm no expert, though.

[Huw Dawson]

There are three kinds of gullible people. The ones who get scammed in real life, the ones that get scammed by a TV show, and at the bottom, the ones that get scammed on the internet.

Fortunatly, this wasn't a scam, mearly a prank. Although one that proves that there are alot of stupid people on the internet.

Also, abortion sucks. But it's sometimes better than to bring an unwanted child into the world in an area that has low amounts of adopting people. It largely depends on the situation.

- Huw

EDIT: Abortion arguements are alot easier to argue about if you use a proxy arguement. The "Too Posh To Push" arguement is a good one - Caesarian sections chosen by rich women who just couldn't be bothered to go through labour. Caesarian sections save lives - like my sisters. But they are also open to abuse by arrogant rich people. Does that mean that we shouldn't allow sections, as they could be open to abuse? Or do we allow sections and grin and bear it?

Bear in mind, abortions are generally only used by truly desperate single mothers, or as a sort of euthanasia on unborn children that have very bad mental/physical defects.

Oh, and HillBilly, you probably have put me clean off all food for the rest of my life. >_<