Argentine man kills himself on TV

[Nebbiolo]

It was more a point about at what point do we act and take responsibility for our own actions? The guy shot/hung/torched himself, took an overdose with vodka, whatever, no one sat him down put a gun to his head and made him do it, it was his of own volition.

That was my reference to nanny stateism.

A man in a highly distressed and vulnerable state cannot think clearly. As a human being, he deserves at worst to be ignored. To goad him is clearly sick and twisted. I can easily imagine that the goading might well lead to his death. Therefore, it is highly possible that this man died because those idiots encouraged him. They should be brought before the courts on a charge of causing death by reckless behaviour.

 

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A man in a highly distressed and vulnerable state cannot think clearly. As a human being, he deserves at worst to be ignored. To goad him is clearly sick and twisted. I can easily imagine that the goading might well lead to his death. Therefore, it is highly possible that this man died because those idiots encouraged him. They should be brought before the courts on a charge of causing death by reckless behaviour.

So the individual or individuals responsible (if there are any) for his highly distressed and vulnerable state get off?
What if the people in internet land didnt actually know him? what if they only thought he was attention seeking? or had experience of wind up merchants before?

death by reckless behaviour ??? what could that equate too? the 7 years three months the driver got for killing the 10 and 8 year old along with crippling the father? (it was the drunk goal keeper - happened recently)

"clearly sick and twisted"...you can "imagine" can you? How much will this reckless internet behaviour squad cost to setup and run? will it monitor gamblers? people jerking off too much? imbiciles posting a host of detritis on football forums? Where do you draw the line?

 

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A man in a highly distressed and vulnerable state cannot think clearly. As a human being, he deserves at worst to be ignored. To goad him is clearly sick and twisted. I can easily imagine that the goading might well lead to his death. Therefore, it is highly possible that this man died because those idiots encouraged him. They should be brought before the courts on a charge of causing death by reckless behaviour.

So the individual or individuals responsible (if there are any) for his highly distressed and vulnerable state get off?
What if the people in internet land didnt actually know him? what if they only thought he was attention seeking? or had experience of wind up merchants before?

death by reckless behaviour ??? what could that equate too? the 7 years three months the driver got for killing the 10 and 8 year old along with crippling the father? (it was the drunk goal keeper - happened recently)

"clearly sick and twisted"...you can "imagine" can you? How much will this reckless internet behaviour squad cost to setup and run? will it monitor gamblers? people jerking off too much? imbiciles posting a host of ditritis on football forums? Where do you draw the line?

 

[Nebbiolo]

you can "imagine" can you?

Yes, I can "imagine". It's not difficult, you simply consider a situation and play "counterfactuals". Think of all possible events that can occur from it. Any one of these events is "imaginable", even if it happens to be counter-to-fact in this situation.

 

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Yes, I can "imagine". It's not difficult, you simply consider a situation and play "counterfactuals". Think of all possible events that can occur from it. Any one of these events is "imaginable", even if it happens to be counter-to-fact in this situation.

Ok, so where do you draw the line of responsibility?

 

[Nebbiolo]

Ok, so where do you draw the line of responsibility?

You've not provided a scenario for me to ponder on. Assuming that you mean the situation above, I would say that at the least there is moral responsibility. At the most there is actual physical responsibility for the man's death; that is, if it is true that the words of these little shits encouraged the man to take his life, these people are guilty of manslaughter in my opinion. Whether the law could make a charge of manslaughter on a case like this, I do not know. However, the law is changed to incorporate all types of behaviour. It would be up to the police to prosecute a worthy case, and for the courts to either throw it out or not, as the case might be. Now, I freely admit that proving manslaughter would be tricky. But this is the fact of the matter: incitement to kill, either be it from suicide or murder, happens. It is not a trivial matter.

 

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Father of two children...

 

[Nebbiolo]

is that for real?

 

[toffeestillidie]

i saw the report on the news the other day, it was on local news so i believe the kid was from my area. his dad was talking about how shocked he was that people just watched his son die without doing anything. imagine being in his position, where your son could have been helped but people simply chose not to.

this whole thing reminds me a bit of the Serj Tankian music video for Empty Walls, where it shows a bunch of kids basically acting out the different events of the war on terror in a playroom, as though the whole thing is a game. Then at the end of the video, they see a military funeral procession and are forced to confront that the whole thing isn't a game, and it has real effects.

the association may seem like a stretch, but i really think that people today have trouble disassociating pretend things with reality, possibly because the reality of our world is so difficult to confront. i firmly believe that if people had connected with more people who die at war on a personal level, they definitely would not have approved of the invasion of iraq, but it was the media's job to remove the personal repercussions of the war for many families from spectacle and "lets go kick some ass" mentality (anyone heard the toby keith song where he talks about the war as lighting them up "like the 4th of july" imo equating a military strike that kills people to a celebratory date is just sick). this same phenomenon seems to play out here, where people are so used to seeing the absurd online, that they don't connect that this person is actually dieing.

theres no way these kids would have reacted like this if someone had killed himself in person in front of them. it seems that people tend to treat information they receive through a screen differently, no matter how real whatever is being depicted is.

 

[Nebbiolo]

this whole thing reminds me a bit of the Serj Tankian music video for Empty Walls, where it shows a bunch of kids basically acting out the different events of the war on terror in a playroom, as though the whole thing is a game. Then at the end of the video, they see a military funeral procession and are forced to confront that the whole thing isn't a game, and it has real effects.

the association may seem like a stretch, but i really think that people today have trouble disassociating pretend things with reality, possibly because the reality of our world is so difficult to confront.

That sounds like Baudrillard's Hyperreality, the idea that the spread of mass media and personal technologies such as computers and television somehow distances individuals, who then go on to create some kind of simulated world where nothing really makes an impact on life. To me this sounds a tad over the top. There were enough people on that site that were shocked by events. If we are to allow ourselves to think in this hyperreality way, it is kind of allowing for moral responsibility to be thrown away as we march into the abyss. Those who cried "do it" and those that laughed at him swinging are morally responsible. they are not living in a dark corner away from the real world. They are as much part of it as you and me.

theres no way these kids would have reacted like this if someone had killed himself in person in front of them. it seems that people tend to treat information they receive through a screen differently, no matter how real whatever is being depicted is.

Unfortunately, there was case not so long ago (in London I think) where a man was threatening to throw himself from a high building. A crowd gathered to watch. Some individuals in that crows did indeed shout to the man to throw himself off.

 

[toffeestillidie]

That sounds like Baudrillard's Hyperreality, the idea that the spread of mass media and personal technologies such as computers and television somehow distances individuals, who then go on to create some kind of simulated world where nothing really makes an impact on life. To me this sounds a tad over the top. There were enough people on that site that were shocked by events. If we are to allow ourselves to think in this hyperreality way, it is kind of allowing for moral responsibility to be thrown away as we march into the abyss. Those who cried "do it" and those that laughed at him swinging are morally responsible. they are not living in a dark corner away from the real world. They are as much part of it as you and me.


Unfortunately, there was case not so long ago (in London I think) where a man was threatening to throw himself from a high building. A crowd gathered to watch. Some individuals in that crows did indeed shout to the man to throw himself off.

i agree that they are morally responsible and should be held accountable for their actions / be committed because they are obviously sick, i just think that technology did have some kind of impact

 

[Nebbiolo]

i agree that they are morally responsible and should be held accountable for their actions / be committed because they are obviously sick, i just think that technology did have some kind of impact

If that is true, and technology does have this impact, would you go as far as to agree that the the internet, or indeed other forms of media and communication, needs policing properly, or at least more vigilantly?

 

[toffeestillidie]

If that is true, and technology does have this impact, would you go as far as to agree that the the internet, or indeed other forms of media and communication, needs policing properly, or at least more vigilantly?

not sure, i am dead against censorship in most forms. i'm not sure its something that itself needs to be policed, as it may just be a mark of the changing times. think about the progression from face to face conversation to cell phones to text messages, or atms or self checkouts at grocery stores, i think this effect is largely unavoidable.

that being said, it wouldn't hurt for there to be somewhat more accountability associated with the internet. people tend to think they can say or do anything on the internet because of the anonymity factor, so i would be okay with slightly reducing that anonymity, so that in serious cases like this one something can be one.

 

[Nebbiolo]

not sure, i am dead against censorship in most forms. i'm not sure its something that itself needs to be policed, as it may just be a mark of the changing times. think about the progression from face to face conversation to cell phones to text messages, or atms or self checkouts at grocery stores, i think this effect is largely unavoidable.

that being said, it wouldn't hurt for there to be somewhat more accountability associated with the internet. people tend to think they can say or do anything on the internet because of the anonymity factor, so i would be okay with slightly reducing that anonymity, so that in serious cases like this one something can be one.

I'm not really that bothered by censorship, if it is censoring nasty material. Everyone knows, and you have alluded to it, that what we consume can effect certain individuals in rather negative ways. To believe opposite would also be to commit oneself to the idea that a book, play, film or song was incapable of improving character. And we all know that these things can and do improve us as people.

Thus, to censor violent porn (rape depiction) or homophobic and racist literature, for example, would not make me bat an eyelid. I'll freely admit that the line cannot be drawn haphazardly. Free speech and expression are important liberties, but there comes a point when that freedom threatens to infringe on the freedoms of innocent groups.

 

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At what point is a person responsible to themself not to associate with certain unpleasantries in day to day life and via the internet?

Are throw away comments like....hearing john prescott is ill and announcing ''nothing trivial I hope!" to be punishable by death?
How literal are you going to take every word posted on the internet? Will it only be comments involving harm/serious harm/death that get put under the microscope to accrue firing squad fodder? - or, will comments like "you're an arse hole/prick/swine" be considered damaging to the mental health and well being of an individual and suddenly be responsible for pushing someone closer too or over 'the edge'?

I can sit here quite content and say, im glad adolf hitler is dead. paul gadd should be strung up by the balls and bled like a pig till he's dead. the sooner osama bin ladens head is on a pig pole on the white house lawn the better.

Sometimes some individuals have to be condemned because of their own actions.

Then again, I am aware that there are some individuals in this world that dont like to address such stark realities or even admit to such evil being present in their blissful little bubble.