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Notes -
Please don't tell anyone.
Why? Does committing suicide mean you are automatically relieved of accountability for all of your actions? I don't think my response is callous at all, on the contratry, it's the the performative sympathy strangers display for the the person who commits suicide that is insincere, Machiavellian, and callous. I feel more sympathy for his parents and siblings (if any) who have live with that gaping hole in their life, wondering if they could have done something, wonder where they went wrong. FWIW, that is an experience I have personally lived and to some degree will live every day for the rest of my life. He could've chosen differently. He could've chosen not to let some dumb story cut his life short (again, assuming it even has anything to do with it -- he could have had other issues we know nothing about, in which case I may have more sympathy, as I stated above).
The "it made him kill himself!" sympathy mongering drives me mad. I don't take a strict view here--I think people can bear moral blame for someone else's suicide. But in this particular case, based on what we know and plausible inferences, his (hypothetical) suicide is all on him. Maybe if the story was published, and all his family and friends and workplace spontaneously disowned him, there'd be moral blame to share around. (Mostly on those people, though, not the story writer.) But that seems unlikely to be the case.
Despite the framing of the comment, where I share Thomas's objection, I don't believe for a moment that this story caused his suicide or meaningfully contributed to it. If it did, someone would bring receipts, if only for the scandal-click value. It really smells like a classic j*urnalist sensationalism-by-implication play.
Agreed
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