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Notes -
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1j1ye6n30no
(Non pay wall link)
Tragic end.
I feel bad for the dude - honestly a hearty laugh is all I want when people violate social norms like this and show us how frankly evil our institutions can be.
Sure I can blame the dude for every lie told but it only permeates my life several levels deep … the association of someone like Arday and my life only really touches when the walks start crumbling down.
What gets me mad is the institutions.
It’s their fault! Every step of the way someone, anyone, could have stepped in and stopped folly.
But things snowball and here we are.
I don’t even know what I’m supposed to learn from this, and I don’t know how I can help make the world a better place than I left it. People used to change the world I feel like, and I’m only changing the people around me … which is something!
I’m 100% reading the biography about this.
At the end of the day the only person who can kill themselves is obviously, themselves. We can talk about how hard it is to weather harassment and controversies and whatever, and how much anyone in particular "deserves" to have mean stuff said to them, but I have always been against the idea of blaming others for someone else's choice, regardless of how grim it is. Just turn off the computer/leave the room/whatever if people are being mean and you don't like it, they have free speech to say awful stuff and tough shit deal with it. Tons of other people live with seeing awful stuff about them all day, just check the comments of any controversial minority group content creator like outspoken jews or trans people to see evidence of that. There is no shortage of meanness on the internet and if that existing means no one else can speak then why even have the internet to begin with?
The only place I can think of at the top of my head where there is a meaningful exception is with school bullies, and that's only because the government mandates attendence for anyone who isn't being home schooled (which isn't possible for many families) thus making "just leave" not an option.
It sucks that Arday died, but no one is at fault for a suicide except for himself. We can't give up our freedoms to criticize and mock just because someone else might do something bad (whether that be suicide or murder or whatever).
You don't seem to have studied the subject of suicide at all. It's not really a choice in many cases. But the result of burdens utterly overwhelming coping resources. Someone with major depression can't make (or not make) the same choices you can make.
No but I do understand basic logic and know that "someone killing themselves" necessarily means "someone killing themselves". It is the suiciders very own action.
I'm all for suicide prevention and trying to help people out, but there is no world in which it's not their choice. If it wasn't their own actions then it wouldn't be suicide it would be murder. If you're arguing for some expansive definition of the phrase where it involves other people then go ahead I suppose, but under the general meaning that I was using suicide is necessarily their own choice, even if we agree it's an illogical one.
If not, who do you propose we should charge for Arday's death, if someone else is responsible? Maybe the writers at the Guardian or the Telegraph.
Who's proposing to charge anybody for Arday's suicide?
It's good to distinguish between what's good and what's legal with the understanding that law can never completely account for the complexity of moral judgement. There are bad behaviors that perhaps should never be made illegal, but that doesn't mean we can't still consider them bad.
I don't know how we can say "X is responsible for Y's death" and "X should not be punished" at the same time. Causing another person's death is one of the worst things that someone can do, and should be disincentived!
I'm one of the most libertarian small government people here and completely agree, and have argued this about drugs and children transitioning and all sorts of other controversial topics. But causing the death of another person is not something I would ever make an exception for, it's literally harmful to others. That is like the one thing law is for.
The thing here isn't that causing death should be legal, it's that mean words != causing death.
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It is in England.
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