zepoodle wrote:
LockeColeMA wrote:
The girl's not to blame? Hell yes she is. She drank pesticide, and nobody held a gun to her head to make her do it. It's a very sad event, and a gross overreaction from a young mind, but I'm sure the vast majority of people watching the doomsday predictions didn't gulp down some Bug-B-Gone. Her family tried to divert her attention, even. In the end it came down to the girl being neurotic* and offing herself. Sad, yes, but her own fault.
I'd say if anything, it was a selfish event. She couldn't just wait for the end like the rest of us? I bet the fireworks are going to be awesome if a blackhole is actually created. Er, or the lack of all fireworks, since light can't escape...
*By neurotic I mean of course she wasn't quite right in the head. Doesn't change the fact that she did indeed kill herself. Lots of "not quite right in the head" people live perfectly fine lives.
If you tell a suicidal person the world's going to end and they kill themselves? Yes. It is your fault. It's not their fault they're suicidal, but you don't get off scot-free for provoking them. It's like filling their bathroom with sleeping pills and razor blades and hanging nooses in their bedroom.
No it's not even CLOSE to that situation. It's like someone looking at the daily terror level, seeing it's orange, offing themselves because they're more likely to die in a terrorist attack. Or going to your church, hearing about the end of times, and killing yourself to beat God to the punch.
The news program said the world was ending? Fine. Did they say "The world is ending, go drink pesticide?" or "The world is ending, kill yourself now, here's the top ten ways!"? No way. They said something... well, irrational but with some truth to it ("some" being a 1 in 10 billion chance of truth), and an irrational mind took it waaay too far and killed herself. There is no logical progression there that a rational person would make. As I said, I'm sure tens or hundreds of thousands of people watched the same program and didn't kill themselves. The news program might be fear-mongering, but the girl made her own decision and killed herself.
The only argument I could see is that her impaired state of mind made it impossible to make a rational decision. In which case it's the girl's mind's fault. No one can predict 100% what a response will be to anything we do, but no one would predict an outcome like this because
it is not rational. If it's not a rational and logical conclusion following from the program, then I say it's not the news program's fault.
Still a pity. Also, was the girl suicidal? I mean, like, depressed? I don't recall reading that in the paper. If she killed herself but wasn't a depressed suicidal, I'm guessing the family history has a lot more to do with it than the precipitating action (ie, the news).
Edited, Sep 13th 2008 11:22am by LockeColeMA