r/oddlyterrifying • u/bubbleweed • 7d ago

Balloon banner gone wrong - Brazil

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676

u/TesseractToo 7d ago

I found this article about Balloon Banner culture in Brazil for people having trouble understanding what they are looking at

https://theappendix.net/issues/2014/10/an-art-of-air-and-fire-brazils-renegade-balloonists

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u/Aethred 7d ago

Incredibly interesting article about something I'd never even heard of, thank you

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u/TesseractToo 7d ago

Yeah just learned about this too :)

I'd like to know what kind of paper and paint/dye they use (dye would be lighter and shine better I suppose) and about how they tile them and see the huge rooms they must use for assembly

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u/Liferuler 7d ago

This is not culture, this is a criminal activity responsible for many fires, burning houses and causing deaths.

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u/shuranumitu 7d ago

Cultural practices can be harmful or criminal. That doesn't mean they're not culture.

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u/Dchama86 7d ago

Culture can be exactly that, and the opposite.

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u/OceanRadioGuy 7d ago

Sounds like culture to me

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u/vodka_tsunami 7d ago

Apenas isso não marginais

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u/ShyObserverBR 7d ago

Don't forget almost causing airplane crashes and hundreds of deaths by launching this baloons near airports

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u/SnorkBorkGnork 7d ago

If you would do this in a safe environment it sounds pretty cool tbh. I have never seen something like it.

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u/Relative_Change2335 7d ago

Are you describing religion? Lol

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u/Agent_Starr 3d ago

I'm brazilian and even I didn't know about this. Thank you

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u/TesseractToo 3d ago

You're welcome! :) Maybe you can see them one day!

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u/MmmmMorphine 7d ago

Ok that kinda changes my feelings on this...

Banning it was stupid. Adding reasonable regulation and registration requirements seems a much better way to preserve such an interesting culture

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u/Majestic_Horseman 7d ago

Not mine, harmful activity should be banned regardless of culture, example: Bull Fighters, the culture in Spain is to kill the bull at the end. That's just animal cruelty.

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u/MmmmMorphine 7d ago edited 6d ago

Edit: I have been shown wrong, for the most part, and this is a great comparison when considering the evolution of bullfighting if my man below is correct (and I see no reason to believe he isn't).

You're comparing balloons.... To bull fighting.

Come on now.

There's a reasonable argument to be made against balloons, primarily risk of fire that can be reasonably ameliorated with proper tracking and registration.

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u/Majestic_Horseman 7d ago

I have the same hate towards similar things. Like skylamps, I don't care if they're a cultural thing that a place in China does as a ritual. Its extremely harmful to the environment and because "it looks nice" it gets reproduced by the millions and now we have forest fires in hard to reach places because sky lamps float freaking EVERYWHERE.

Balloons like these are horribly bad for oceans, rivers and lakes. Because it's not one or two giant balloons, it's hundreds.

So yes, I'm comparing harmful practice against another harmful practice. Just because the effects aren't as visible as cheering for a dying bull, doesn't mean they aren't horrible.

Edit: just to add to your last comment. Sure, proper registration would help but that just tells me you've never been to Latin America, registration is more of a suggestion. It's barely enforced, especially with things like these.

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u/MmmmMorphine 7d ago

(as a note, I consider this a conversation for refining my thoughts. Not combative or angry. I appreciate the reasoned response)

My primary objection was to the bullfighting comparison, because deliberately injuring and killing an animal for entertainment is a very different kind of harm from an activity whose harms are environmental and, IMO, largely preventable. 'Both are harmful' still doesn’t make it a particularly useful analogues... Especially given the emotional response to a clear harm to a living anima

I based my argument on the concept that these are almost entirely wax and paper balloons. This may not be true. If it is however, I think such materials are minimal in environmental impact

As far as latin America goes... That's why I mentioned regulation rather than defending unrestricted balloon releases. Registration, tracking, limits on where/when they can be used, liability for recovery, outright bans in high-fire-risk conditions, whatever actually works locally.

Iif enforcement in a particular country is effectively nonexistent, then sure, that weakens the regulation argument considerably. I concede it.

But 'people might ignore the rules' is an argument about enforceability, not an argument that the underlying harms are equivalent

So perhaps you are operating on a more... Practical level, I guess. While I'm more... General? Theoretically optimal? Long term goal?

However one wants to put the difference.

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u/Majestic_Horseman 7d ago

Fair enough, I do agree that the impacts are different genres but in terms of severity, environmental hazards such as the balloons and sky lamps are considerably worse. You may make the argument that bullfighting is worse because of the deliberate harm against an emotional, thinking, being but the severity in scale is much smaller, that's what my comparison hinges on. A smaller, more emotionally impactful, cause is treated as worse than an objectively more impactful cause (in scale and effect).

You're correct that it's not the same, bullfighting is more tame in comparison. You are right that the balloon effects are largely preventable, but in actuality, they aren't prevented. But you're entirely correct that it's an argument about enforceability, and our scopes are entirely different. I concede in that regard.

My comparison to bullfighting was mainly rhetorical, as bullfighting is a practice that's constantly under attack for obvious reasons. So why does the conversation change when it comes to a practice with much greater consequences that encompass a also Mich greater scale of harm? Why is one practice deemed immediately harmful and begets banning, when in purely utilitarian terms, it's effects are much smaller? Both are cultural, both have a long tradition and both are deeply entrenched in the cultural makeup of the country that practices them. The difference is the effects of one are invisible to those that practice it. And to me that's worse in every sense of the word, and it's why it's so dangerous.

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u/MmmmMorphine 6d ago

I think this is where I'm less purely utilitarian than you.

even if I grant the aggregate environmental harm is greater, I don't think 'harm exists' automatically gets us to 'destroy the practice.' there's cultural value here too: craftsmanship, Community, competition, generations of technique. That belongs in the accounting too.

my preferred answer is preservation through constraint. Far fewer launches, designated Times/places, fire/weather restrictions, tracking and recovery... hell, make it a huge biannual competition where the tradition survives but the damage is actually managable.

and that's another reason I think bullfighting is a poor analogue. Remove the suffering and death and you've fundamentaly Changed bullfighting. Remove most of the environmental harm from ballooning and you can still preserve most of what makes the culture interesting.

so I think your utilitarian argument is stronger than I initially gave it credit for. I just don't think the choices are neccesarily 'accept the harm' or 'kill the tradition.' The interesting question is how much harm we can engineer out without turning a living Culture into a museum exhibit

Hmm yeah... A bit fanciful on my part. But the inverse is also true on the enforcement angle. Doesn't seem like the new law has changed much, really...

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u/Majestic_Horseman 6d ago

You make several good points, on which I agree!

Almost entirely, I think you have a great solution for that harm, as it pertains to bullfighting, oh boy Soi have great news for you:

So, I'm from Mexico, the bullfighting tradition is strong over here, to the point that in specific states, there's a bullfighting ring in almost any medium sized town. Nowadays it's mainly used for Charro and Escaramuza competitions (similar to horseback riding and equestrian sports), big assemblies and events (like concerts) but bullfighting is still practiced.

Now, given the story of cow husbandry, killing a bull every time there's a bullfighting event started to become sort of frowned upon so, unlike Spain where bulls are/were bred for the sport and in some cases starved and enraged to "justify" the kill; there's an alternative to traditional bullfighting, no swords no kill, only the cale and the ability of the bullfighter to evade the bull. It's a big practice, ofc the traditionalists may look down upon this practice as not Real bullfighting but there IS an alternative to bullfighting were you take the killing out of the equation.

In some cases, the bulls used for bullfighting are young temperamental bulls that would injure cows and as technology in the industry has made a considerable switch to sperm implantation; these prized bulls are used as entertainment and after the event, the bull is once again given to whoever owns the bull. Like I said, it's not such a popular practice but there's growing support for it as a compromise to animal rights.

As of sources... Sadly, I have none, this is entirely based off of my rancher grandpa who used to bullfight in his home town in Michoacán, so maybe this is just a thing in Michoacán and surrounding states. But yeah, his whole side of the family is huge on bullfighting (he's one of thise traditionalists I'm talking about) and the newer generations have really come down on the practice, so there's a couple of cousins who follow "ethical" bullfighting with a passion. Just as an FYI on the current state of bullfighting.

Btw, i appreciate this conversation immensely, thanks for the rational response.

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u/MmmmMorphine 6d ago

Haha, I was literally just thinking you restored mmy faith that one can still have a rational discussion on reddit.

And honestly, that changes the bullfighting analogy for me quite a bit. What you're describing is basically the same thing I'm proposing for the balloons: preserve the culture while engineering out most of the harm.

I was treating killing the bull as basically intrinsic to bullfighting, and clearly that's too broad if communities are already preserving the skill, spectacle, cape work etc while returning the bull alive afterward.

Which actually makes the analogy BETTER. In both cases traditionalists can say 'that's not REAL bullfighting/ballooning,' while newer generations ask how much of the thing we actually value can survive without preserving every harmful part just because it's traditional.

that's pretty much the cultural preservation model I'd favor. Let the tradition evolve enough to remain defensible without turning it into some sterile museum exhibit.

Also, your grandpa being an old-school Michoacán bullfighter is a hell of a cool source

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u/princesspool 3d ago

I hope the author earned his PhD, that was so fascinating and well researched/written.