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I loved playing with fireworks as a kid, and surprisingly have all appendages and senses intact, I even considered pyro as a job - so I definitely get the appeal.

I just think it's time that we left it to the professionals. Unless you are engaging in science or physics, I don't see the value in letting them off yourself.

~~It's also weird that America's birthday is celebrated using a Chinese invention.~~ Edit: bad point, I stand corrected.



> It's also weird that America's birthday is celebrated using a Chinese invention.

Not really. America is an amalgamation of all the countries and cultures that emigrated to it. It’s one of the best things about it.


That’s such a strange thing to say. Should we only use things invented in the last 300 years on the 4th of July?


Now I wonder who invented wheat, or sugar (used to make cake)?

Also hotdogs are made with Wiener sausages, which are from...


> Now I wonder who invented [...] sugar (used to make cake)?

If you're talking about the refined product, then India. If you're talking about the plant, then New Guinea and Taiwan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sugar


beef or pork if you’re lucky


In the production of these hotdogs no animals were harmed!


I tried tofu dogs for the first time on the grill, they were pretty good.


I highly recommend the ground tofu for taco's, you would never know they are meatless.


Das Auge ist (man) mit.


Austria! nothing bad came from Austria


The people of Frankfurt would like to have a word!


No more using the English language, either.


You mean since it was invented by Indians, Germans and the French?


And introduced by the English, instead of being properly American like Navajo or Lakota or such.


You literally just explained the value.



Fell free to leave it to the professionals then. That has always been your right.


Maybe leaving it to professionals would make more sense, but the majority of people aren’t in favor of it. I’m not even in favor of it and I had a couple fireworks bursting right outside my balcony last night. I was on the balcony and a ducked, though I would have been fine if I didn’t. Maybe require a brief safety training before purchasing? I’m not sure exactly what is going to reduce stupid behavior with explosives.


> I just think it's time that we left it to the professionals.

Pulling up the ladder behind you, eh? So nice of you to think of the children.


Yes, because what I was doing was objectively dangerous. Dueling used to be a commonly accepted practice, yes even killing - pity that ladder was pulled up! What about the children's chemistry sets that included uranium, mercury, and cyanide?


The uranium wasn’t really dangerous, unless you swallowed it. Common U-238 has a half-life of about 4.5 billion years, so it’s not actually very radioactive. The most dangerous thing about it is its toxicity as a heavy metal, but plenty of other elements of a chemistry set are at least as dangerous.


Yeah I played with those sets with my dad.


I think consensual duels should still be legal. Numerous states have laws about mutual combat where it is perfectly legal to beat the fuck out of each other.


Fireworks for me, but not for thee.


[flagged]


I concur, this would be good for developing cheap drone warfare capabilities. I mean, I love loud explosions and the sound of freedom because I'm not a wuss, but we need to get our drone game on China's level.


Get the drone show up and open it up to amateurs trying to shoot down the drone show for maximum adversarial drone warfare preparedness!


That would unironically be an amazing festival activity. A drone lightshow open to public participation where the different colors are tied to swarms engaged in a battle royale.

I also can't wait for the return of traditional blood sport events with bipedal robots as the contenders (but I digress).



Pollution too.

Microbits of plastic, atmospheric smoke, splintered pieces of wood, wildfires.


freedom loving Democratic socialist here, this stance is very St Thomas Aquinas of you. let people continue to do the things you did without pulling up the ladder behind you. it's just for a night or two, the animals will live.


Everything needs to have a reason. Fireworks don't have a good reason, even ones that are professionally done. Just because its tradition doesn't mean it should be auto accepted.


No, everything does not need to have a reason! "Just because" or "I just wanted to" do not inherently make the activity useless, nor mean that it should be discontinued.


If an activity is harmful is some way, but not beneficial in any other way (just because one "likes" it doesn't count"), the reasons to ban it outweigh the reasons to keep it


Agreed. No video games or sex before marriage either.


If there is actual harm being done, i.e reason to ban them, then sure.

In the case of video games, I ironically agree on ban for kids on video games with online multiplayer. Kids should be forced to socialize in person in way greater ration that their online time to see that online personas are not real

In the case of sex before marriage, the opposite is probably true.


This is almost certain to backfire. Better: make drone shows more available, and maybe subsidise them with a tax on fireworks.




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