I know it's taboo to bring up the Holocaust in Internet discussions, but this coaster and the verbiage that the Wikipedia article uses ("unloading of corpses" in particular) creeps me out at a level similar to the industrial processes the Nazis invented to perform mass murder. The coaster would probably be horrifying to watch, too -- people would scream for the first drop and the first few inversions, and then you would hear an eerie silence.
The thing I found to be most offensive is that it does 24 passengers at a time. That's really what makes it creepy. It's like they're not even trying to make your death special. If I'm going to die on the most lethal roller coaster ever designed, I don't want the last thing I see to be the backs of 22 screaming heads. And do you really need to kill 360 people an hour? Is demand for suicide really that high? I don't think so. Pull out 23 of those seats and put in a few video cameras. And play me Ride of the Valkyries or something on the way down so I can go out feeling like a badass.
And don't "unload" me. You build a massive corpse ejector into that train that launches my body through the air across the people waiting in line onto a giant trampoline over a body funnel. I'll roll right into the plastic souvenir coffin, which my family can purchase at the photo booth along with the final video for $49.99, with free drink refills included for the duration of their stay at the park.
Wow where do I start with this? I LOLed at least 3 times reading this, but the idea that this is at a theme park with other rides is probably the best part.
You in the front seat, headphones with ride of the valkyries, and 23 other people who haven't spent as much time thinking about it as you (probably the vast majority of people who are contemplating suicide) and you get your wish without compromising the efficiency of the machine.
If I wanted my death to be boring and efficient, I could do that without building a 500-ton suicide machine. This method requires some measure of spectacle, hoopla, and even a bit of ballyhoo. What I really want is for a kid to see me die and tell himself, "Now I want to be a terminal metastatic oncology patient when I grow up, because I will never in my whole existence see anything as awesome as that guy's crowning moment of self-euthanasia, unless I can also strap myself in to the very same harness and dare to dream of dreams beyond sleep." And wow, is that kid precocious, or what?
I come from Germany, the country that not only raised the bar when it comes to the industrialized killing of its population, it pretty much redefined the scope of evil achievable with cult-like dictatorships empowered by modern technology.
Euthanasia as used in the article is a form of newspeak introduced by the Nazis, a cynical redefinition that constitutes a corruption of the word's original meaning.
As such, the word choice used here makes me just as uncomfortable as the concept itself. Originally, euthanasia (greek for "good death") is a means of ending a life for which the only perspective left is suffering. In this sense, the word is still being used (appropriately) in conjunction with terminal illness where it does have a place as part of the right to self-determination exercised by patients who make the conscious and informed decision to end their lives in order to avoid this suffering.
I really wish people would stop taking hints from the Nazis when it comes to vocabulary, even if it's on purpose. "Death Coster" or "Ride of Doom" would be perfectly sufficient.
