Tragedy Or Instant Darwinism - The Case Of The Online Suicide (Trees And Things)

skeptic: Re: Very sad, but nothing new

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 08:56:13 EST

That's exactly right; this incident is sad, but nothing new. People have been committing suicide throughout history, so we can hardly blame the internet. The internet is just an oddity of this case. However, I do think that aside from the

postillion: Re: Very sad, but nothing new

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 18:43:01 EST

The article says that the kid suffered from bipolar...so it seems that it wasn't a matter of attention but mental health here.

I will say that what I find somewhat shocking everytime I see it is the comment "instant Darwinism" to snigger at somebody's d

thefadd: Re: Very sad, but nothing new

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 18:10:57 EST

Yeah, all too frequently the best course of action to take toward people who cry that they're going to commit suicide is to ignore them. Making the big deal with lots of attention is frequently all they're looking for and feeds into their negative behavior

port1080: Very sad, but nothing new

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 14:23:16 EST

As Griner points out, this isn't all that much different than people in a crowd egging someone to jump off a building. I also don't think you can really hold justin.tv responsible - it sounds like they reported it to the appropriate authorities as so