# Man dies after possibly eating a wild gecko on a dare.



## nuttylizardguy (Jul 2, 2019)

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/r...r/news-story/6866e45f046a1dcfe7cdcce4ff9a1e42

I nominate this cretin for the 2019 Darwin Award for Stupidity.


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## TheRamiRocketMan (Jul 2, 2019)

The article is very sensitive, but I'm personally struggling to conjure up any sympathy.


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## RoryBreaker (Jul 2, 2019)

A bit harsh the title of the thread.

Being as it occurred in Brisbane, chances are the said gecko was an Asian house gecko. Those things are everywhere up here these days.

Tragic that a party stunt led to death while on the turps. There was also another guy last year that things went bad after eating a slug in a similar incident.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.ne...s/news-story/08b0e700a8d6d6c6709d2dd92dfeaa8f


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## Sdaji (Jul 2, 2019)

Pretty harsh, guys. A man has literally lost his life, leaving behind a grieving family including three young daughters, and you wish to mock and insult him because there is speculation that he might have eaten one gecko? All of us, including you, have done worse things than eating an animal. I don't condone it, I absolutely oppose it, but people deliberately kill countless reptiles every day, and while I'd go as far as trying to educate them against needlessly killing harmless reptiles, I would almost never wish death on people for it, nor mock them after it happened. In this case we're not even sure it happened, there are just some drunk people who say he was dared to do it, but no one can confirm he actually did.
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RoryBreaker said:


> A bit harsh the title of the thread.
> 
> Being as it occurred in Brisbane, chances are the said gecko was an Asian house gecko. Those things are everywhere up here these days.
> 
> Tragic that a party stunt led to death while on the turps. There was also another guy last year that things went bad after eating a slug in a similar incident.



That's a good point for those mocking a dead man while his family grieves. The gecko (which we're not even sure he ate) was almost certainly an invasive pest anyway.

The day these two people die they will no doubt get more sympathy than they currently deserve. I hope they change the way they view the world before that day.


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## TheRamiRocketMan (Jul 3, 2019)

Sdaji said:


> ...you wish to mock and insult him because there is speculation that he might have eaten one gecko? All of us, including you, have done worse things than eating an animal. I don't condone it, I absolutely oppose it, but people deliberately kill countless reptiles every day, and while I'd go as far as trying to educate them against needlessly killing harmless reptiles, I would almost never wish death on people for it, nor mock them after it happened.



It's not that I don't regret what his family is going through, of course I do, and of course I don't think he deserves what he got. For heaven's sake I indirectly kill animals every day through my consumption of meat, or through feeding my animals.

I'm struggling to come up with sympathy because quite frankly it should be obvious that you shouldn't eat wild animals on a dare. It's like when somebody dies in car crashes when they neglect to wear a seat-belt, or when someone dies taking an ecstasy pill at a festival. It's incredibly sad but these deaths are so easily preventable that I personally struggle to relate.


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## Sdaji (Jul 3, 2019)

TheRamiRocketMan said:


> It's not that I don't regret what his family is going through, of course I do, and of course I don't think he deserves what he got. For heaven's sake I indirectly kill animals every day through my consumption of meat, or through feeding my animals.
> 
> I'm struggling to come up with sympathy because quite frankly it should be obvious that you shouldn't eat wild animals on a dare. It's like when somebody dies in car crashes when they neglect to wear a seat-belt, or when someone dies taking an ecstasy pill at a festival. It's incredibly sad but these deaths are so easily preventable that I personally struggle to relate.



You may not take drugs or ever drive without a seatbelt, but I have no doubt that if we were to closely examine your life you do things more risky all the time without even thinking about it, and if you genuinely never do anything at all out of the ordinary which carries some level of risk just for fun, you must be one very dull person. I can certainly say I've frequently taken far greater risks than eating a gecko, most people worth knowing do, and most of the time they don't get incredibly unlucky like this unfortunate man did. We don't even know if he ate the gecko, and if he did, we don't even know that's what caused his death. Bacteria is on literally everything, it could potentially have come from anywhere. It might have been the leftovers he ate a day or two earlier which had been in the fridge too long (which would actually fit the timeline of his death better) or maybe he played with a dog which licked his face after eating **** in the garden, or maybe someone didn't wash their hands after wiping their **** before shaking his hand and then he scratched his face. We'll never know, but the fact that with this being the case you are still willing to show a complete lack of sympathy and a desire to come out and express that lack, says a lot about who you are.


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## TheRamiRocketMan (Jul 3, 2019)

Sdaji said:


> You may not take drugs or ever drive without a seat belt, but I have no doubt that if we were to closely examine your life you do things more risky all the time without even thinking about it, and if you genuinely never do anything at all out of the ordinary which carries some level of risk just for fun, you must be one very dull person. I can certainly say I've frequently taken far greater risks than eating a gecko, most people worth knowing do, and most of the time they don't get incredibly unlucky like this unfortunate man did.



I suppose what I missed in my first response was the risk-reward calculation. Many things might genuinely be more risky than eating a gecko, and there are probably things I have done which are riskier, but eating a gecko has no intrinsic reward. Why do something that has a degree of risk and where there is absolutely no reward or gain? He's not helping anything or anyone, nor doing anything good for himself by executing this pointless endeavor.

Take a genuinely riskier practice like mountaineering. Mountaineers risk their lives in a much greater capacity, but they do it for the thrill of the adventure and for the physical challenge. Where is the thrill of eating a gecko? I don't think the two are equatable as I think you might imply. Risk is only valuable when there is a potential payoff, and the potential payoff here was null. It was a pointless act of cruelty with no opportunity to gain and an inherent risk this person made. In this instance that risk (potentially, as you pointed out) resulted in his death, leaving behind a family that can only grieve and wonder why. 



Sdaji said:


> ...but the fact that with this being the case you are still willing to show a complete lack of sympathy and a desire to come out and express that lack, says a lot about who you are.



You may cast judgment, I can live with that.

I am curious though: To me, sympathy entails a degree of common feeling and understanding between people, sharing their emotional state and understanding their position and feelings towards the world. My question to you would be in what capacity do you understand this man's decision making thereby allowing you to relate to him emotionally? I'm genuinely struggling to conjure a state of mind where I could justify that course of thinking which I guess is why I'm struggle to sympathize.


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## Sdaji (Jul 3, 2019)

TheRamiRocketMan said:


> I suppose what I missed in my first response was the risk-reward calculation. Many things might genuinely be more risky than eating a gecko, and there are probably things I have done which are riskier, but eating a gecko has no intrinsic reward. Why do something that has a degree of risk and where there is absolutely no reward or gain? He's not helping anything or anyone, nor doing anything good for himself by executing this pointless endeavor.



I think the term 'I was drunk' would likely come into the explanation if he did eat the gecko, it was the cause, and he was able to discuss it with us now. The reward is actually fairly similar to the mountaineering example, you just don't relate to it as much. You talk about mountaineering as a thrill and challenge. For many people, eating a live gecko would be quite a challenge. Actually, probably most people would find it a mental challenge. The thrill comes from both doing something which is in some way challenging, and in this case, impressing the crowd. Whether or not you or I find it impressive or challenging, many people would, and clearly we both know that. You don't actually help anyone by climbing a mountain. There's no cure for cancer or answers to the universe's mysteries up at the top. People climb a mountain for the challenge, to say 'I did something difficult'. It's actually extremely similar to the motivation for eating a gecko. Given that climbing a mountain is equally pointless - you literally get no reward other than personal satisfaction and impressing other people, just like eating a gecko when dared to, and sure, you could say you get exercise, but you can do that just as effectively without risking your life by doing it on a mountain, do you have no sympathy for those who die climbing mountains? It is very much the same thing. I used to skydive, I knew people who died doing it, I had a friend die doing it. I've had two friends killed by snakes. Non snake people very often express similar scorn and contempt as yours towards people killed by snakes when those people were deliberately interacting with them. I'm guessing you would disagree with that contempt, which makes your own in this case quite hypocritical.



> Take a genuinely riskier practice like mountaineering. Mountaineers risk their lives in a much greater capacity, but they do it for the thrill of the adventure and for the physical challenge. Where is the thrill of eating a gecko? I don't think the two are equatable as I think you might imply. Risk is only valuable when there is a potential payoff, and the potential payoff here was null. It was a pointless act of cruelty with no opportunity to gain and an inherent risk this person made. In this instance that risk (potentially, as you pointed out) resulted in his death, leaving behind a family that can only grieve and wonder why.



I addressed this above, but you are projecting your own standards universally upon all people, which is inappropriate. It makes no sense. What thrills people depends on them personally, and your own personal standards apply only to yourself. I routinely eat foods which most western people could no, and most of those who do find it quite thrilling or challenging. For me, and probably you, handling a snake is nothing, but to some people, handling a harmless python is a massive accomplishment, and to others, it is something beyond their capability. The level of accomplishment, thrill and adventure, depends on the individual person/people involved. For some people, talking to a stranger is a massive accomplishment which deserves congratulations. I have a strange phobia (I won't discuss it here as it'll get off topic) and for me to face it is extremely difficult, but to almost anyone else in the world, doing the exact same thing is nothing.



> I am curious though: To me, sympathy entails a degree of common feeling and understanding between people, sharing their emotional state and understanding their position and feelings towards the world. My question to you would be in what capacity do you understand this man's decision making thereby allowing you to relate to him emotionally? I'm genuinely struggling to conjure a state of mind where I could justify that course of thinking which I guess is why I'm struggle to sympathize.



I think this paragraph demonstrates what I meant when I said your statement says a lot about who you are. You seem incapable of sympathising with someone simply because you can not understand that their standards of challenge, adventure, reward, achievement, etc, while different from your own, are still valid and do exist.

You say sympathy entails common feelings and understanding between people. I would have hoped that the fact that this man was a father, a partner, a friend, someone who loved and was loved by others, meant you could relate to him on some level. I don't even need to understand what he was thinking when he did whatever he did to sympathise. He could have misjudged how slippery the floor was and taken the risk of walking on the tiles rather than waiting for them to dry, fallen and broken his neck and I'd sympathise. But even if it was important to understand the situation, assuming the gecko story is true, surely you can see that to him and his mates, eating the gecko was a dare based on their feeling that it was scary or took some level of mental fortitude or they would find it funny or amazing, and he wanted to impress them and challenge himself. Even if we think that's stupid and even if it's true that it's stupid, we can surely understand that. I mean, I know of people who have died because of their own stupidity, and I still sympathise with some of those cases. He wasn't trying to hurt anyone, there's nothing to suggest he was a bad person, he seems to have been a loving person who was well liked, and that seems to be enough to sympathise or at least not speak harshly.


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## TheRamiRocketMan (Jul 3, 2019)

Sdaji said:


> I think the term 'I was drunk' would likely come into the explanation if he did eat the gecko, it was the cause, and he was able to discuss it with us now. The reward is actually fairly similar to the mountaineering example, you just don't relate to it as much. You talk about mountaineering as a thrill and challenge. For many people, eating a live gecko would be quite a challenge. Actually, probably most people would find it a mental challenge. The thrill comes from both doing something which is in some way challenging, and in this case, impressing the crowd. Whether or not you or I find it impressive or challenging, many people would, and clearly we both know that. You don't actually help anyone by climbing a mountain. There's no cure for cancer or answers to the universe's mysteries up at the top. People climb a mountain for the challenge, to say 'I did something difficult'. It's actually extremely similar to the motivation for eating a gecko. Given that climbing a mountain is equally pointless - you literally get no reward other than personal satisfaction and impressing other people, just like eating a gecko when dared to, and sure, you could say you get exercise, but you can do that just as effectively without risking your life by doing it on a mountain, do you have no sympathy for those who die climbing mountains? It is very much the same thing. I used to skydive, I knew people who died doing it, I had a friend die doing it. I've had two friends killed by snakes. Non snake people very often express similar scorn and contempt as yours towards people killed by snakes when those people were deliberately interacting with them. I'm guessing you would disagree with that contempt, which makes your own in this case quite hypocritical.
> 
> ...
> 
> ...But even if it was important to understand the situation, assuming the gecko story is true, surely you can see that to him and his mates, eating the gecko was a dare based on their feeling that it was scary or took some level of mental fortitude or they would find it funny or amazing, and he wanted to impress them and challenge himself. Even if we think that's stupid and even if it's true that it's stupid, we can surely understand that. I mean, I know of people who have died because of their own stupidity, and I still sympathise with some of those cases. He wasn't trying to hurt anyone, there's nothing to suggest he was a bad person, he seems to have been a loving person who was well liked, and that seems to be enough to sympathise or at least not speak harshly.



Thank you for this reply, I think you have changed my mind. I was projecting myself upon another person more than I should have done. I personally don't drink and also don't see much appeal in 'pleasing a crowd', but I know many who do and I can see it was inappropriate to reverse engineer myself into that situation. I think the most convincing aspect of your argument was the relativistic treatment of accomplishment. I claimed something like mountaineering is an objective accomplishment while eating a gecko is objectively unimpressive. These are not objective claims.

I obviously still think he made an stupid decision (if that is what happened) but I can see that I was coming at it the wrong way. I am probably a pretty different person from what he was but that doesn't make my opinion of accomplishment any more valid.


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## Sdaji (Jul 3, 2019)

TheRamiRocketMan said:


> Thank you for this reply, I think you have changed my mind. I was projecting myself upon another person more than I should have done. I personally don't drink and also don't see much appeal in 'pleasing a crowd', but I know many who do and I can see it was inappropriate to reverse engineer myself into that situation. I think the most convincing aspect of your argument was the relativistic treatment of accomplishment. I claimed something like mountaineering is an objective accomplishment while eating a gecko is objectively unimpressive. These are not objective claims.
> 
> I obviously still think he made an stupid decision (if that is what happened) but I can see that I was coming at it the wrong way. I am probably a pretty different person from what he was but that doesn't make my opinion of accomplishment any more valid.



I was quite surprised by your previous post which is why I took the time to give the response I did. It actually made me feel a bit bad for having been harsh myself as I could later see you were open minded, I'd wrongly estimated you, and I wondered if it might be one of those rare moments online when someone actually is open enough to come to a realisation. Thanks for the conversation, it has been interesting and inspiring.

In the case of the gecko eating, the perceived risk vs reward was presumably very low risk (which I'd agree is the case), high level of difficulty (ie. in their estimation - honestly, if I knew it wasn't carrying any parasites I'd eat a live Asian House Gecko for fairly low reward, but for many people this psychological difficulty would be extreme) and the high level of difficulty (even if only by their standards) means the reward is high in terms of feelings of accomplishment and social recognition. If for whatever reason you or I ate a live gecko right now, I would expect a very low chance of any significant problems, and I would expect a close enough to zero risk of death. The two risks are parasites (fairly low risk of getting a zoonotic parasite) and microbial (almost certain chance of having a very mild issue such as food poisoning which probably wouldn't actually be noticeable, a low chance of a moderate issue such as nasty diarrhea for a few hours, and a very low chance of anything worse). To put it into perspective, the vast majority of that risk comes from eating the contents of the lizard's lower guy (basically, the **** in the rear end of the guts), and geckoes commonly run around houses ****ting on everything including food preparation areas and food itself. I literally saw a gecko in this room a few minutes ago, if I looked hard I'm sure I'd find gecko **** on the walls in this room, and if I searched this whole building I'm sure I'd find a total of about a kilo of gecko **** on the walls. I see them in the kitchen literally every time I go into it, they run around on the bathroom towels, toothbrushes (partly for that reason I keep my toothbrush in a bag in my bedroom), they **** on the plates, pots and pans, etc. And, of course, geckoes aren't by any stretch the only health risk we face, or a particularly noteworthy one, so if it was a gecko, I think he got super unlucky.


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## TheRamiRocketMan (Jul 3, 2019)

Sdaji said:


> I was quite surprised by your previous post which is why I took the time to give the response I did. It actually made me feel a bit bad for having been harsh myself as I could later see you were open minded, I'd wrongly estimated you, and I wondered if it might be one of those rare moments online when someone actually is open enough to come to a realisation. Thanks for the conversation, it has been interesting and inspiring.



No worries. Don't feel bad about being too harsh, the internet is notorious for making it difficult to perceive other's intent. It's obvious from spending time on Reddit and YouTube that communication can break down badly when faces and tonality are removed from conversation.



Sdaji said:


> In the case of the gecko eating, the perceived risk vs reward was presumably very low risk (which I'd agree is the case), high level of difficulty (ie. in their estimation - honestly, if I knew it wasn't carrying any parasites I'd eat a live Asian House Gecko for fairly low reward, but for many people this psychological difficulty would be extreme) and the high level of difficulty (even if only by their standards) means the reward is high in terms of feelings of accomplishment and social recognition. If for whatever reason you or I ate a live gecko right now, I would expect a very low chance of any significant problems, and I would expect a close enough to zero risk of death. The two risks are parasites (fairly low risk of getting a zoonotic parasite) and microbial (almost certain chance of having a very mild issue such as food poisoning which probably wouldn't actually be noticeable, a low chance of a moderate issue such as nasty diarrhea for a few hours, and a very low chance of anything worse). To put it into perspective, the vast majority of that risk comes from eating the contents of the lizard's lower guy (basically, the **** in the rear end of the guts), and geckoes commonly run around houses ****ting on everything including food preparation areas and food itself. I literally saw a gecko in this room a few minutes ago, if I looked hard I'm sure I'd find gecko **** on the walls in this room, and if I searched this whole building I'm sure I'd find a total of about a kilo of gecko **** on the walls. I see them in the kitchen literally every time I go into it, they run around on the bathroom towels, toothbrushes (partly for that reason I keep my toothbrush in a bag in my bedroom), they **** on the plates, pots and pans, etc. And, of course, geckoes aren't by any stretch the only health risk we face, or a particularly noteworthy one, so if it was a gecko, I think he got super unlucky.



Wow those geckos sound nasty. I haven't seen too many geckos here in Sydney, and when I have they have always been the native broad-tailed variety. They only really come in the house when it's cold outside.


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## Sdaji (Jul 4, 2019)

TheRamiRocketMan said:


> No worries. Don't feel bad about being too harsh, the internet is notorious for making it difficult to perceive other's intent. It's obvious from spending time on Reddit and YouTube that communication can break down badly when faces and tonality are removed from conversation.



Sounds like you have a rare ability to read text as it was most likely to have been intended! You're a metaphorical internet unicorn!



> Wow those geckos sound nasty. I haven't seen too many geckos here in Sydney, and when I have they have always been the native broad-tailed variety. They only really come in the house when it's cold outside.



Haha, in the tropics they get pretty much everywhere unless you're in a high rise a fair few floors up. Down in my home town of Melbourne I rarely saw geckoes inside houses, although the last time I was in Melbourne I visited my mother, and I was amused to see a marbled gecko on the wall of what used to be my bedroom which was also full of reptiles. Completely coincidental, and I've only seen geckoes on the inside walls of houses in Melbourne a handful of times, and never before in that house even in the years I lived there.

A lot of people in the tropics hate them because they **** on everything. In some countries in Asia they're absolutely terrified of them, sometimes because they think the geckoes can directly harm you, and in some countries because they think the geckoes are haunted, and sometimes both! I quite like them wherever the species are local, and they certainly do help keep down the unwanted insects like 'roaches and mosquitoes, and they pretty much keep all the spiders away (which I have mixed feelings about).


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## nuttylizardguy (Jul 4, 2019)

I have sympathy for the family who have been engrieved by this cretins stupidity. Being drunk is not and never is an excuse for stupidity. You'd think a family man would have matured enough to not endulge in purile and childish stunts but obviously not in his guy's case.

Those who give people the benefit of the doubt because they were drunk when they did "it" only encourage the stupidity. If that sounds harsh , so be it .

The man who died as a result gets zero sympathy and deserves none , and his drinking pals who somehow thought it would be funny and dared him are worthless toe-rags and pond scum IMO, he had a choice to say no and not kill a harmless wild gecko (introduced species or not - makes no difference).


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## Sdaji (Jul 4, 2019)

nuttylizardguy said:


> I have sympathy for the family who have been engrieved by this cretins stupidity. Being drunk is not and never is an excuse for stupidity. You'd think a family man would have matured enough to not endulge in purile and childish stunts but obviously not in his guy's case.
> 
> Those who give people the benefit of the doubt because they were drunk when they did "it" only encourage the stupidity. If that sounds harsh , so be it .
> 
> The man who died as a result gets zero sympathy and deserves none , and his drinking pals who somehow thought it would be funny and dared him are worthless toe-rags and pond scum IMO, he had a choice to say no and not kill a harmless wild gecko (introduced species or not - makes no difference).



You must have some pretty serious personal issues of some sort to post this. I feel somewhat sorry for you at this point. If you come upon an untimely death or some other misfortune, hopefully others won't have the same lack of understanding you have displayed here. I find that people who are so quick to judge others so harshly are usually doing so to deflect attention (including their own attention, sometimes especially their own attention) away from their own imperfections. If you think you have never done anything as stupid as eating a gecko, you are one deluded individual, and if it was actually true you'd be the most boring person one could ever have the misfortune of meeting. But in reality, we all do things more stupid and more dangerous than eating a gecko. And also, what an incredibly high horse one must be on to think that eating a gecko or suggesting it makes a human being entirely worthless, and what a bizarre thing for someone interested in reptiles to see no difference between an invasive pest and a native species. And, what a hero to be shoving daggers into a corpse.


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