Florida’s “Nub City,” Where Residents Cut Off Their Own Appendages for Insurance

This reminds me of a story about an old man who had a lot of debt that wanted to collect life insurance. He tried getting himself killed going to rough neighborhoods and hurling insults and racial slurs (he was white) but no luck. Finally he got someone to hold a knife against a steering wheel while the man thrust his chest against it, killing himself in return for his ATM and pin.

The man got caught and sent to jail and the insurance paid out, since it technically wasn't a suicide, as the man went to jail.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/10/2...

> In the 1980s, documentary filmmaker Errol Morris attempted to shoot a documentary about the town, but after he received death threats and was beaten up by the Marine veteran son of a Nub Club member, he turned his movie into a slice of life documentary about the eccentric residents of the town entitled in a film called Vernon, Florida.

I've seen the documentary, and it's fine - I enjoyed it. But, to imagine what it could have been if it was about what was really going on there.

I have read of the practice of mutilating children so they can make money begging.

Having unintentionally lost a fingertip, the misery can be lifelong as any touch to the end can be extremely painful (allodynia). Prosthetics help enormously.

Self-amputation and -mutilation is horrifying to me in a gut-punch, slightly titillating way.

Kinda off-topic, but I'm trying to find a webfic that I read a few years back, about teenagers in a small town who become guardians of the forest (witches). One of them shapeshifts to kiss a boy she likes(?)

The bit that really stuck with me was a dark ritual gladitorial tournament, where kids come back crippled, missing limbs, or dead. It happened at night in a liminal dreamworld, but the consequences were real.

I think what gets me about that kind of thing, is that in the modern world most blood sacrifice is hidden. People pay in time and sweat, in long term health, and it's never as obvious as losing a hand.

Damaging yourself to establish credibility is probably as old as the concept of war.

In history class our teacher pointed to certain practises and living conditions as a sign of how harsh society back then was.

I can't help but think about how future history teachers will explain some of the things going on right in one of the richest nations on earth.

This sounds like the plot to Saw XI.

50 of the town's 700 residents.

I can believe there was a lot of insurance fraud claiming dismemberment, but I don't believe people actually removed their own limbs, and this article provides no evidence it actually happened.