60-Second Mind

World Wide Suicide: A Self-Termination Community Grows on the Web

An investigation published in the 'British Medical Journal' reveals that Web searches for information on suicide will likely result in links to pro-suicide sites, which often encourage and facilitate suicide and suicidal ideation.














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Podcast Transcript: One of the darker Internet trends is the spread of pro-suicide Web sites. Victims meet online, exchange the best methods and may even make a pact to terminate themselves as a group.
 
An investigation published in the British Medical Journal this week found that Web searches for information on self-murder are likely to return sites that encourage, and even facilitate, suicide attempts.
 
Of 240 sites analyzed, just under half provided methods for taking one's own life, and 45 of those openly encouraged suicide.
 
The top three most frequently occurring sites in any Web search were all pro-suicide and gave information on the speed, reliability and likely amount of pain associated with various methods. Furthermore, chat rooms may exert peer pressure or reinforce ones' resolve to commit suicide, the authors wrote.
 
There is no regulation of suicide sites in the U.K., but the authors suggest that self-regulation by Internet service providers or the use of filtering software can help block the more damaging Web sites. Australia has made such sites illegal and service providers in Japan and South Korea have already started to block them.

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  1. 1. Chuck Darwin 05:27 PM 4/14/08

    "Self-termination community"? Hard to imagine how a community whose members keep killing themselves can sustain growth.

    Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
  2. 2. paulcanning 12:38 PM 4/15/08

    .. and the link is ... tinyurl.com/6o9t4o

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  3. 3. Pauli Ojala 06:01 AM 4/20/08

    It is only logical, if our school books in biology are true:

    ”Some shrink from the conclusion that the human species was not designed, has no purpose, and is the product of mere mechanical mechanisms – but this seems to be the message of evolution”. Douglas Futuyma tarkoitti tsygootin ohella varmasti ihan keski-ikäisiäkin. Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution, 1983, s. 12-13

    ”Natural selection can favor egotism, hedonism, cowardice instead of bravery, cheating and exploitation.” Banaanikärpästen herra Theodosius Dobzhansky. Ethics and Values in Biological and Cultural Evolution, Los Angeles Times, June 16, 1974, s. 6.

    ”Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind.” George Gaylord Simpson, The Meaning of Evolution, revised edition New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967, p. 345.

    ”Ethics is an illusion, that our genes cause”. Tieteenfilosofi Michael Ruse ja kohuttu sosiobiologi Edward Wilson. Evolution and Ethics, New Scientist 108 (1985) 50.

    ”Unbridled self-indulgence on the part of one generation without regard to a future one is the modus operandi of biological evolution and may be regarded as rational behavior” W.H. Murdy, Anthropocentrism - A Modern Version, Science March 28, 1975, s. 1169-1172.

    “We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs… in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated commitment to materialism… we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.” Richard Lewontin, The Demon-Haunted World. New York Review of Books, 9.1.1997 s. 31.

    More quotes on the vulgar evolutionary indoctrination:
    http://www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Quotes-on-Evolutionism-Nazism-Darwinism-Haeckelism.html

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