How horrible...

[phyco126]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21844203/

[Benevolent_Ghaleon]

I read the entirety of this situation on Digg.

It IS sad that she killed herself and it IS absurd that adults were involved in this, but c'mon...that girl is an idiot. why would this new "hot" guy inexplicably want to talk to her recently after a falling out with a friend? a message from "him" claimed that she wasn't very nice to her friends. that, accompanied with what i mentioned before, should have made it a dead giveaway.

suicide is ridiculous. she got called fat and a slut. what if EVERY girl that ever had those slurs thrown in her direction went ahead and offed themselves? how many would be left?

As much as i'd rather not be a jaded prick, i'm leaning in the direction of natural selection so to speak. if someone is dumb enough to let something like THIS propel them toward suicide, then maybe the world is better off without them.

[Werefrog]

It IS sad that she killed herself and it IS absurd that adults were involved in this, but c'mon...that girl is an idiot. why would this new "hot" guy inexplicably want to talk to her recently after a falling out with a friend?

The prefrontal cortex isn't completely developed until the end of adolescence. This is the part of the brain that is involved in judgment. 14 year-olds do not think in the same way that we do.

[phyco126]

...that girl is an idiot. why would this new "hot" guy inexplicably want to talk to her recently after a falling out with a friend? a message from "him" claimed that she wasn't very nice to her friends. that, accompanied with what i mentioned before, should have made it a dead giveaway.

suicide is ridiculous. she got called fat and a slut. what if EVERY girl that ever had those slurs thrown in her direction went ahead and offed themselves? how many would be left?

As much as i'd rather not be a jaded prick, i'm leaning in the direction of natural selection so to speak. if someone is dumb enough to let something like THIS propel them toward suicide, then maybe the world is better off without them.

And obviously, you don't understand the science and facts behind depression and suicide, so before you go off and call someone who committed suicide an idiot and that they deserved it, do some research and take a few psycology classes.

Until you walk in their shoes, you don't know what the reasons are, you don't understand how it feels. No one does, until they go through it themselves.

[Benevolent_Ghaleon]

i've known of MANY people that age and younger that would've seen through this. a 14 year old that has been overweight forever has enough judgment to know that a sudden interest from a guy that is clearly out of her league is a fishy situation. you combine that with him making a remark about how she treats her friends and the fact that she quite recently dropped a friend and it should be screamingly obvious even WITHOUT a hindsight bias.

[Werefrog]

i've known of MANY people that age and younger that would've seen through this. a 14 year old that has been overweight forever has enough judgment to know that a sudden interest from a guy that is clearly out of her league is a fishy situation. you combine that with him making a remark about how she treats her friends and the fact that she quite recently dropped a friend and it should be screamingly obvious even WITHOUT a hindsight bias.

Again. You're looking with the wrong eyes. Try a different pair of glasses. That's one of my rules.

[Benevolent_Ghaleon]

Her parents already being familiar with her depression means that they should've definitely been watching better.

"My daughter who struggles with depression ran off crying...oh well..!! is it time to cook dinner already!? i better hop to it!"

i also never said she deserved any of this. i'm just saying that in the greater scope of things that perhaps things'll be easier and better for the world if the people that are unstable enough to kill themselves go through with it. it sounds heartless and sort of is, but i can view humanity in a similar way to viewing other living things and their daily struggles.

[GhaleonOne]

i also never said she deserved any of this. i'm just saying that in the greater scope of things that perhaps things'll be easier and better for the world if the people that are unstable enough to kill themselves go through with it. it sounds heartless and sort of is, but i can view humanity in a similar way to viewing other living things and their daily struggles.

I'm not going to jump on you like some are probably going to do after these comments, but I will say, please tread lightly with this subject here. You haven't been around long enough to know that a close friend of many of ours here on this board committed suicide 2 and a half years ago. You're very likely to run into a lot of harsh reactions with a number of people here if you continue in this line of reasoning.

[Benevolent_Ghaleon]

Suicide is certainly a sad and unpleasant thing, but i'm desensitized to the subject. i've known people who have made the ridiculous choice. some i were close to, others not so much. i still care about them but i definitely think less of them for it.

[phyco126]

See, I think the people who cause other people to hurt themselves (and in even more unfortunate occasions, others) are the ones that would make the world a better place.

Still, think less of them all you want, think the world is a better place without them, and keep thinking that this is a black and white subject. I've heard that ignorance in bliss, so be blissful.

Just a note, I certainly don't see this world as being better off without them. People still are dying in the Mid-East, people still suffer worldwide from poverty and health, people are increasingly more violent and rude, and I sure as hell as miss Nicole, and I likely wouldn't count as much more than an aquintance. I fail to see how the world benifits, or how I would benifit, from the loss/suicide of someone.

[meg]

i remember being 13, and how retarded i was at that age.

combine that with serious depression, and being overwhelmingly smitten, and i can see a girl impetuously attempting suicide. not to mention, BG--children lack the cynicism to think of someone as "out of their league," and people will believe things easier if they WANT to believe them.

imagine the swell of joy she experienced when someone took serious interest in her--and how much harder she crashed when even that person turned and said "the world would be better off without you, you fat slut." i mean, when you're depressed, those are words you are struggling to NOT believe. to hear them echoed back at you from someone who had, however briefly, been your whole reason for happiness?

no, it was not the right, wise, or strong thing to do. but deep depression will make people weak and desperate and foolish. withhold your condescension. she was just a child.

[Benevolent_Ghaleon]

Meg is cool for not coming off with a 'tude.

i remember my teen years and i recall being able to look at girls and tell which ones were clearly in a league to which i didn't apply. i knew many others who could also tell. kids aren't as smart as adults but i don't think you guys are giving them enough credit. i've noticed that kids are viewed as dumb when it comes to tragic situations and in others people talk about what kids these days are capable of.

i think she'd have to be fighting the realisation rather hard to not piece it together. why would "he" suddenly know how she treats her friends? why would these changes not be gradual in the least? this prank isn't very elaborate and is rather poorly thought out. it certainly shouldn't have required the help of adults.

as far as the better world thing goes, i'm basically thinking that the more people who aren't stable enough for self-preservation leave, the more the ratio turns towards the world having more people who'll make productive efforts and accomplishments in life rather than ending it all.

[Werefrog]

as far as the better world thing goes, i'm basically thinking that the more people who aren't stable enough for self-preservation leave, the more the ratio turns towards the world having more people who'll make productive efforts and accomplishments in life rather than ending it all.

Ernest Hemingway
Virginia Woolf
Kurt Cobain (well okay, maybe not)

These names instantly come to mind. Also, have you thought about flipping your perspective? Maybe, it's society that's the problem and not those who would kill themselves. If you look at the stats on depression, you'll see that the majority of them are women. What does this suggest? It suggests that there are cultural influences on depression. (Of course, there are biological theories as well). Maybe, you should be thinking about how society should change to prevent such things.

Also, I hope you don't feel that I was patronizing you. In my second post, I was just talking like a character from Phoenix Wright (who is also my hero:D ).

Also, more psychological information: low serotonin levels (a feature of depression) are associated with increased impulsivity. So maybe your friends that you feel made a bad choice really had little choice in the matter.

Edited for scientific accuracy.

[Benevolent_Ghaleon]

perhaps i should've said who'll CONTINUE to be productive and whatnot.

also, women are a ridiculous amount more emotional than men are. women are masters of the molehill into a mountain trick. i do agree that society has changes it should make since it has been telling women for so long about their supposed inabilities that they've grown to consider themselves much less intelligent and capable than they truly are.

[Werefrog]

perhaps i should've said who'll CONTINUE to be productive and whatnot.

I think this is my last post here. I think Meg and Phyco have summed up everything pretty well. I'll just say that this is a pretty sad way to think about life. How far away is this from saying that society is better off without the mentally and physically handicapped? It doesn't seem far to me. And I'm leaving before Godwin's law comes into effect.

[Benevolent_Ghaleon]

perhaps i should've said who'll CONTINUE to be productive and whatnot.

I think this is my last post here. I think Meg and Phyco have summed up everything pretty well. I'll just say that this is a pretty sad way to think about life. How far away is this from saying that society is better off without the mentally and physically handicapped? It doesn't seem far to me. And I'm leaving before Godwin's law comes into effect.

i don't figure that'll go on unless someone calls ME a nazi or something.

yeah your post is a bit chilling because i read it and then considered it. evidently, i'm evil because i can say that in SOME ways, it might actually be a better world. but look at Stephen Hawking! he has plenty to give the world and he's handicapped. i can't really think of what the retarded people will be able to provide, though.

[ilovemyguitar]

...And suddenly I understand B_G a little bit better.

Frankly, it's unfair and tyrannical to evaluate a person's worth based solely on how they contribute to society (i.e., how they improve other peoples' lives), especially when their ability and/or inclination to do so is affected by something they're not entirely in control of. And if you think a clinically depressed 14 year old has total control over his or herself, you simply don't understand the nature of depression, no matter how many depressed people you may have known.

[Alunissage]

It's so easy to be contemptuous of people who aren't you in situations that you're not in, isn't it?

You are not thirteen.

You are not clinically depressed.

You are not female.

To your "women are a ridiculous amount more emotional than men are. women are masters of the molehill into a mountain trick" I would respond that men are the masters of dismissing women's concerns on one pretext or another that always boils down to being that they're female -- if I were inclined to make generalizations like that, which I try to avoid. It's damned easy to say that people are making a fuss about nothing if the "nothing" is a condition which doesn't and won't ever apply to you... such as the condition of being female in a male-dominated world, being trained from infancy to know that the only measure of her worth is in how the males she encounters see her. And, again, it's damned easy to brush that off as not having a spine or not growing up or other incredulous superiority if you're not the one who's gotten that programming. Which, being male, you haven't. I won't even start in on the part about being called fat and cruel. Actually, I'd be mildly surprised to find that there are 13-year-old girls who don't contemplate suicide at some point, because life really is that cruel even without the godawful social networking site thing.

(Meg, is there some succinct Twistyism that covers this? I started reading the IBTP archives a month or so ago, from the beginning, and am still around Dec 06.)

Addendum: Even subtracting the idea of putting women down for caring about things you don't because they're women, you still accuse most of your respondents of "coming off with a 'tude" because they take issue with what you said. This would be another version of finding a pretext to disregard criticism of yourself, by claiming your critics merely have an attitude.

Regarding suicide and depression:

1) Depression is a real illness. It is not a moral failing. Saying that people who are unstable should kill themselves and thereby get out of the way of the rest of the world is not substantially different from saying that people with nut allergies or diabetes should gorge themselves on Snickers and remove themselves from the world. Or any other genetic defect.

(I had a friend who attempted suicide. It wasn't until he was recovering from that -- he was found before he succeeded, obviously -- that he learned that there was a family history of depression.)

2) Suicide is not always the result of mental instability. I can't seem to articulate my point about this, which relates to the person G1 mentioned, so I'll just say, again, that you are in no position at all to judge.

With all that I can't even begin to comment on the rest of the story. I'm just so dumbstruck at this blatant blaming the victim for being what society made her plus starting out several hundred yards behind due to depression that the horror of the rest of it almost pales.

[phyco126]

Bleh, I forgot what that is called in psycology, the whole blaming the victim thing. However, it's a widespread problem, and not even am in immune from that thinking at times.

Now, at the risk of being hated, I hearby declear godwins law now in effect.

I'm not going to call you a Nazi B_G, but...

i can't really think of what the retarded people will be able to provide, though.

You know, in some places it was the law that the mentally ill had to be castrated or whatever in order to not reproduce. In Nazi Germany, they where experimented on horribly and often killed outright. Why? Because they weren't just different, they where taxing other people's resources to provide for them, and often they didn't do anything productive for the world.

Your line of thinking is getting pretty close to this, I think.

And obviously, making a claim that they can't do anything productive shows that your really arn't educated in this area. I'm not bashing you, or calling you uneducated in a harsh mannor, but you really are. Take some psycology classes, you'll be amazed at how many mentally handicap people can still work and provide for themselves if given the opprotunity.

There are several classes of mentally handicap that we where taught. The group that where just under the 70 IQ range could normally still live on their own, very much dependent. Those below them could still work in protected workshops, but had to have someone care for them. I think there was another group below them that could work, but I can't remember. Then it does go down to the group that cannot work, and must always have someone to care for them, 24/7. There is no leaving that person alone. Yet they can still give something to the world! My psycology teacher was touched by a little boy who had to be carried around everywhere because his legs and arms didn't work, who had to be fed, who couldn't care for himself and had a IQ so low it couldn't be tested very well. But he touched her, because he still enjoyed life, he was happy when he saw certain people, etc etc etc. To me, changing someones life, or showing them things in a different light of understanding, is that not being productive to someone?

[Benevolent_Ghaleon]

I'm not saying i want handicapped and retarded people gone. i was just saying that there's a chance that the world may be more prosperous if the only people on it were capable mentally AND physically. that's all. there's no "hate speak" here.

and i said that the attitude was there. not that it was solely an issue of attitude. i'm familiar with criticism and don't really care if i get it. i know i can't truly understand clinical depression or being a woman. are you implying that you'd have to be a depressed woman (example: alanis morisette fans) to have a considerable opinion on this?

i also know that women are in a male-dominant society but things are certaining improving in many areas. this isn't the 40's anymore and you know it. many women are feminists or lean in that direction AND many women say "i'm enjoying this power i have over men with my attractiveness and i think i'll see where i can get with it.". other women stay respectable and choose not to go with feminism and manage to enjoy the current set-up. not all women think the same way about life.