Internet Suicide Pacts Surge in Japan 571
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."
Fitting? (Score:2, Insightful)
Suicide (Score:1, Insightful)
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.
Land (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem with Internet Recluses (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Japan's suicide factors (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Blown out of proportion... (Score:2, Insightful)
Your hunches are worthless (Score:1, Insightful)
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.
Where is the world going? (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:Suicide (Score:5, Insightful)
Many women kill themselves in violent "reliable" ways, they truly wanted to die, and of course many of the women who took a bunch of pills truly DID want to die, but most who slash their wrists in a very shallow way or who take pills are really making a call for help. They do not truly wish to die and so should be differentiated somewhat from actual suicide attempts that failed (such as botched gunshot wounds, many people attempt to shoot themselves without realizing the parts of their brains which are actually essential, that should most certainly be considered an actual attempt).
Your Rights Online: Internet Suicide Pacts Surge i (Score:2, Insightful)
what the fuck does people killing themselves at the same time as other people using the internet have to do with my "rights online"?
Re:Blown out of proportion... (Score:3, Insightful)
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 [washingtonpost.com].
The solution to the world's problems is never allowing people to suffer.
Re:Where is the world going? (Score:5, Insightful)
Suicide statistics in Japan (Score:5, Insightful)
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."
Japanese culture isn't more f'd up than ours... (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:The problem with Internet Recluses (Score:3, Insightful)
Why, oh why, must people take one or two people from their life and form an opinion based on anecdotal evidence on a planet with 6 billion folks. Trust me, excercise and sun does not cure a depressed person. Not leaving the house and not talking to people will help you become drepessed, but sun and fitness sure as hell aint the cure for the vast majority of people who suffer from depression.
Sheesh.
Re:Fitting? (Score:5, Insightful)
It is very possible that these people can be very creative or smart and are in a temporary rut. Or it is also possible that they have somekind of illness like bipolar or manic depression, which is treatable.
Plus, I bet that almost all of them have friends or family that would be very upset with this.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Culture (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Right to guns and beer (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
This isn't about suicide. It's about MURDER. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The problem with Internet Recluses (Score:4, Insightful)
But you see, it doesn't necessarilly go both ways. Lack of activity can aggravate or cause depression, but that does not mean that depression can be cured by activity and sunshine. "More than one thinks?" I don't think so. The notion that one need only get some exercise and "cheer up" is age-old and quite pervasive. It's taken decades to get people to understand that dealing with clinical depression isn't simply a matter of putting on a happy face and taking a walk in the sun. Not to cast aspersions, but the problem is people like you, who've never had to deal with real depression. Just about everyone experiences depression at one time or another, but the vast majority of people only need a little activity, a little more sleep, a change in environment, etc. to fix it. Real clinical depression, the kind that is considered a problem is effectively defined by the fact that fighting it is not simply a matter of getting some exercise and sunshine. Yeah, sure, most people are cured by a walk on the beach, but none of them are the kind of people who're suicidal.
Re:This isn't about suicide. It's about MURDER. (Score:3, Insightful)
By that logic, I gave my girlfriend her MA by encouraging her to go to grad school. Give me a break.
In the end, they, and only they, are responsible for thier actions. That "peer pressure" copout didn't work when it was extracted from the ass of the "War on Drugs" in the 80s, and it doesn't excuse anything now.
Re: Too much ice cream is a bad thing though too (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:How to make someone kill themselves (Score:3, Insightful)
Japanese, on the whole, place significant value on helping others rather than fulfilling personal desires; not to an extreme, of course, but enough so that Dilbert has no real-life reference point here, for example. The lifetime employment system you mention is partly due to this, and partly due to the willingness of many Japanese to allow organizations to take care of them rather than taking control of their own lives. The younger generation is certainly beginning to change that, as you mention, but not because of some dislike of this mental pressuring; it's the result of an increased emphasis on private life and personal growth, which the old system doesn't have much (if any) leeway for.
Interpersonal clashes do happen, of course, and as you suggest, the Japanese prefer causing embarrassment to using physical violence. But if you consider things like "overwork" and "deprivation of sleep" to be personal attacks, then I'd seriously suggest finding another job, or possibly another country to work in, because the vast majority of the Japanese people I know consider that perfectly normal. In fact, working overtime has traditionally been seen as a positive trait, the sign of a hard worker, and if that means you have to cut down on your sleep, so be it.
And describing Japan as a "nation of recluses" is simply wrong. Wikipedia says [wikipedia.org] that the hikikomori population was around 1.2 million in September 2004, or less than 1% of the population; even limiting it to the 10-40 age range, that's still on the order of 3-5%, which matches my own experience. A serious problem, yes, but hardly a "nation of recluses".
Re:This isn't about suicide. It's about MURDER. (Score:3, Insightful)
It comes with being a social animal.
Re:This isn't about suicide. It's about MURDER. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This isn't about suicide. It's about MURDER. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Japanese Culture (Score:1, Insightful)
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.
Re:How to make someone kill themselves (Score:2, Insightful)
(I don't see how anyone can say, "One race's women are superior to another's." There's just so many beautiful women out there of every race. But that's just me. I just don't want anyone to think that I'm part of that Asian chicks-only clique.)
But just because people like that are not emotionally equipped to handle a proper analysis of another culture, it does not necessarily follow that this guy is totally off his rocker. I think it's the height of racist stupidity to go around calling people gaijin (Japanese for "foreigner," with an emphasis on an "outsider" status, to those not in the know) and claiming that they can't even come up with a basic understanding of Japanese culture. Are Japanese people somehow so complex and special that nobody outside their culture could possibly understand them? Flipping that one around, is American culture beyond Japanese understanding? How about Russian culture? Or French culture? Why or why not? Is it because American culture is so simplistic and pathetic that the Japanese mind can easily understand it?
Or is it just your "inscrutable Asians" racist stereotype rearing its ugly head?
The Japanese are not some incredibly special case. They are humans, just like everyone else.* They are not immune to being understood by people not raised inside their own cultural norms. If you have a disagreement with the conclusions of the parent, argue your point with facts and logic.
*except for the ones that are really Saurians and part of the conspiracy to pilot the Spaceship Earth into the sun to make way for a new hyperspace bypass.