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Internet Suicide Pacts Surge in Japan
darkmonkeh writes "The number of Japanese who killed themselves in online suicide pacts rose sharply last year, according to the BBC. Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, and the pacts may appeal to those scared to die alone. These Japanese internet 'suicide clubs' accounted for at least 26 deaths in the last 2 months."
Anyone else find it fitting that this comes right after the thread about Darwin? Natural Selection sure works wonders
The majority of suicides in Japan are young girls. Part of the reason is because in the culture of Japan girls are considered inferior in many ways.
The majority of suicides in the US are young boys (~86%). I'm not trying to start a flamewar but I think our culture has reversed and that the suicide rate is a good metric. Young boys who have problems in education are considered inferior while if a young girl has a problem she will get all the help she needs. ~60% of new students in our colleges are women and men are being pushed to the side as if they are inferior. Eventually we may get to the point where France is (for example, ~70% of all new judges are women). Many people like to pretend that this problem does not exist. The US and Japan have the same problems, except they affect different genders.
They have so little land. They're all packed in there tightly. Scientists have done experiments with rats where they give them enough space and resources for 50 of them, start them with 10, let them breed, and then let nature take its course. What happens is that eventually they start fighting over resources (predictable) but also get mental illnesses at a much higher rate. They also started engaging in self-destructive acts. I think we see the same thing with Japanese people now. What, 130 million people in a (mountainous) area the size of California? They all have to be wage slaves because there's no cheap land to move to when your job gets shitty, so they just have to "take it". Problem is, a lot of them can't take the high stress that the wage slave-drivers try to milk out of them. "We got 30 people who can replace you. Work harder!" Yeah, you can probably imagine how it feels. It doesn't help that the Bank of Japan's policies are keeping the economy in the gutter by inflating the money supply so your same shitty wages buy you less and less.
Rank my idea: http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/node/531
Is that they never get out - see the sun or get excercise. 30 minutes a day wards off all types of ailments, including depression (when was the last time a psychologist prescribed this?)
I heard in China that they have mandatory exercise (in some parts, like around 20 minutes a day) throughout the day, including outdoor community facilities which people are encourage to use. I wonder how Japan, especially Tokyo, is in this regard - especially office workers.
one of the big factors in japanese suicides is the competitiveness and pressure placed on the students in the schooling system.
True, but is it a trend on the rise? If so, maybe they can nip it in the bud.
Japanese are, on average, in better shape and longer-lived than Americans - and that goes for teens and young adults as well. Before worrying about Japan's high suicide rate, perhaps you should worry about this: in addition to a suicide rate of 12 in 100,000 persons (most recently measured in 1997), America also has a death by _homicide_ rate of 7 in 100,000. By comparison, Japan's rate is only 0.6 in 100,000.
There's more: American servicemen are constantly raping, murdering, and accidentally running over Japanese citizens, but we hardly ever hear about that.
So what's worse? The country where a higher percentage of people take their own lives because they can't deal with what the world around them has become, or the country where one in 14,000 people dies at the hand of one of his or her countrymen and which exports rapists and killers?
You do the math.
-- Let him who is without spelling error ignite the first flame --
Then I visited East Africa where I found a priviledged few among a sea of poverty and hopelessness. But what struck me is the ease the Africans took life as. They seemed to be happy, always thinking that the following day would be a better one. They even shared the little they had, something very rare in a major city in the USA for example.
This makes me wonder....What is it that we in the west miss out? Why is it that suicide rates in the so-called first world are significantly higher than those in the third world? Can we still call ourselves developed? I doubt.
Where is the world going?
Your Rights Online: Internet Suicide Pacts Surge in Japan
what the fuck does people killing themselves at the same time as other people using the internet have to do with my "rights online"?
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Reel that back in.
Suicide does not have a significant effect on population. Not only that, most developed countries including Japan are having to deal with the prospect of a shrinking population. In fact, they call it their biggest problem.
The solution to the world's problems is never allowing people to suffer.
Some of the culturally insensitive postings by slashdot readers is a bit disturbing. Having lived in Japan for several years, it is clear that Western morals regarding suicide do not necessarily apply in this complex and ancient culture.
In addition, readers need to do their homework before posting factual errors or made-up numbers regarding its prevalence. More than 40% of the suicides in Japan are motivated by health-related reasons (older people whose health is failing). These suicide pacts comprise a very small percentage (less than 1%).
Anyway, below are some statistics from 2003 in an article that appeared in The Japan Times on July 23, 2004:
"A record 34,427 people committed suicide in Japan last year. (2003)
The figure, up 7.1 percent from the previous year, remained above 30,000 for the sixth consecutive year, the National Police Agency said in a report released Thursday.
The report says 8,897 people killed themselves over financial difficulties, up 12.1 percent from a year earlier and topping 8,000 for the first time since the NPA began keeping statistics on suicides in 1978.
Suicides motivated by financial difficulties accounted for a quarter of all suicides in the year, comprising the second-largest group, compared with 11.2 percent in 1994.
Almost 60 percent of the suicides in 2003 were by people in their 50s and older, it said.
Health reasons were the motivation for the largest number of suicides in 2003, prompting 15,416, or 44.8 percent of the total, to take their lives. Some 8.5 percent committed suicide due to family problems.
Men accounted for a record 72.5 percent of all suicides in 2003, contributing to the wider gap -- 6.97 years -- between the average life expectancies of men and women, as released earlier this month by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry."
it is mostly that the problems are supressed or ignored until it becomes very dangerous. If you look in the media there, there is alot of disturbing stuff that doesn't seem to reflect daily life at all, until it shows up in the news. I saw a post on /. recently about American neoslaves working themselves to death while Europeans enjoyed vacations twice as longs as ours, but what about the three months of rioting in France about the lack of jobs for the youth? Despite the incredible flamewars during the 2000 and 2004 elections, there was no violence. In the US, the media and popular culture often exaggerate minute aspects of life and make them seem like a crisis, which then the public focuses on like sheep (there's a reason what you watch on TV is called "programming"). The same thing happens with all this Newage (rhymes with sewage) crap going on here. Take terrorism for example:
US population: 295,734,134
9/11 deaths: 2,986
Number killed in Iraq (DoD confirmed as of Jan. 5, 2006): 2,182 total deaths
Number killed in Afghanistan: 259
Number of people killed by anthrax attacks: 5
TOTAL TERROR RELATED DEATHS IN USA: 5,432
Number of murders in the US in 2003: 16,528
- Americans are three times better at killing Americans than people
who are suicidally deperate to kill Americans.
Number killed in motor vehicle accidents in 2001: 42,443
- Cars are eight times more deadly than terrorists.
Vietnam War deaths: 58,226
American deaths in WWII: 400,000
% of Americans killed by terrorism: 0.0018367849279109593754233320932781%
Osama is a pussy. How about a War on Cars, or a more efficient use of the hundreds of billions of defense dollars? Let's target the real threats, like leaky dams and cars.
The 'Net is a waste of time, and that's exactly what's right about it. - William Gibson
After living here for about 6-7 years, and working in a Japanese office environment, suicide is the result of the non-violent way that the Japanese have dealt with getting rid of people you don't like.
The Japanese are no longer a violent race of people after the war, having said that, they are no less at peace with themselves or with others. Since they refuse to use violence, they have had to use other ways of controlling others - and the result is that the Japanese have evolved into a race of people who have learnt to push people's emotional buttons to defend themselves and get what they want.
The fact is, if you can mentally make a person turn on THEMSELVES - then you don't have to kill them. You feed them guilt, you over work them, you deprive them of sleep, you bully them, you ignore them, you socially ostracize them... all the while faking a smile at them and telling them that you like them.
OK, so someone gets angry and tries to use violence.... socially ostracized, arrested, lose your job, nobody will employ you, have a nice homeless life.
This is what the younger generation has been fighting against by refusing full term employment. This is why you have a nation of recluses. This is why some people are bumping themselves off.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
(Note: Ive been living in Japan for several years).
Suicide rates in Japan are high simply because in this culture, some things are considered worse than death. Suicide is a valid solution to many problems, and sometimes even considered a brave and honorable display of self-sacrifice. It has been this way since ancient times - look it up.
Now, I also wish they would stop, but its silly to blame it on living conditions of the Japanese, which are in fact, among the best in this planet, even for the people living in the country side growing potatoes.
POLICE: As if your life didn't suck enough, suicide is illegal, so now you have to go to jail.
Logic at work.
That's because of our views about suicide. It reminds me of some show about religion I once saw on the History Channel. A Rabbi was explaining his religion's policy on suicides, and it went something like this: A person who commits suicide can not be given full religious rites upon their death, but a special exemption is made for mentally-ill people, and all people who commit suicide are considered to be mentally ill. It was a cute little end-around their own beliefs, but I digress.
It's not that the US wants to throw suicidal people in jail, it's that if it's not illegal they have absolutely no way to have a judge force a suicidal person into counseling or psychiatric observation/care. The belief in the US is that something has to be wrong with you if you want to kill yourself, and they want to treat that. Whether or not that is a proper view is open for debate.
Suicide pacts encourage people to commit suicide, while in normal conditions the person could decide not to do it at the last minute. But in a group, this could result in peer pressure conditions. Encouraging someone to commit suicide is equivalent to killing him.
You laugh, but in america, you are a number.
Let me translate that for you:
America cares about your FICO score and the amount of your assets ONLY.
That's it.
Now. America and Japan are both very materialistic societies. (My wife is Japanese, from Japan, so I know).
American society, however, does make some allowance for "weird" and "geeky" people. In Japan, watch out if you don't toe the line. Otaku is a bad word over there (it's changing, ever so slowly).
In Japan, your criteria for "success" and "who you are" is "what high-school and college did you graduate from?"
In the US, you can change you FICO over time, and you can make more money over time. In Japan, you can never change your less-than-perfect educational achievements, so some people feel they would rather die than live a lifetime of ridicule and shame, forever to live in the shadows of those who have "excelled".
My wife was pushed to excel by her parents. She rebelled. She didn't kill herself. She left Japan. She said she could never "live" there. It's a good thing too.
I had 25 japanese at my house last night, from 1.3 year old to 40 year olds. They love Japan because it's their homeland. They love America because they feel accepted.
If the Japanese have their own children killing themselves, they should look in the mirror.
"Piter, too, is dead."
Regarding your post: The romanization is "jinshin jiko". It's most likely less than once per week. If you have rail near a dense enough population center, you get suicide. Suicide is common throughout the world.
1) Bullshit. Seppuku is just a way of executing a death sentence. It's from an archaic culture of a small Japanese minority. It's relevant to today as much as witch hunting and slavery.
2) Bullshit. It's "deru kugi wa utareru," not "deru kugi wa utarenakereba naranai." It's a descriptive idiom, not a prescriptive one. Know the difference.
3) Bullshit.
4) Bullshit.
5) Bullshit (the part about suicide. the rest I don't care)
Every culture has figured out suicide isn't benefitial, and hence they all naturally oppose it. Good luck with the marriage.