From: Price, Ilfryn (I.Price@shu.ac.uk)
Date: Fri 10 Feb 2006 - 10:06:22 GMT
We have not heard from Paul Marsden for a while but he wrote a complete PhD and various papers examining this perspective.
If
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From: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk on behalf of Wade Allsopp
Sent: Fri 10/02/2006 09:53
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Suicide pacts in Japan
List, members may be interested in the following article describing the growth of suicide pacts in Japan.
Suicide (at least of the young and healthy) is surely on ethe the most dramatic form of "rebelling against the tyranny of the
genes". It is also a case of one particular meme propagating itself at the expense of a whole bunch of other memes (those carried
by the suicidees). The suicide pact phenomenon in Japan can perhaps be regarded as a way the suicide meme has found to help
overcome (exploiting the new technology of the internet) what might be called our "self preservation memes" by making suicide
psychologically easier.
Wade
Web suicide pacts surge in Japan
A blue sheet is covered on a car, left, where seven young men and women were found dead in a mountainside lot at Minano, near
Tokyo, on Tuesday October 12, 2004
Suicide pact deaths have shocked Japan
The number of Japanese who killed themselves in suicide pacts made over the internet rose sharply last year.
Police said 91 people died in the pacts in 2005, compared with 55 in 2004 and 34 in 2003, when the records started.
Alarm at the rise has led to increased vigilance by internet service providers, who now report suspected suicide pacts to the
authorities.
Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, and the pacts may appeal to those scared to die alone.
Police figures showed 34 internet-arranged suicide pacts were recorded last year. Of the 91 people who died, 54 were men and 37
were women, with most being in their twenties or thirties.
But the number of cases may now be falling. Twenty of the 34 cases took place in the first three months of last year, before
internet service providers started working with the authorities to tackle the problem.
In one case in February, three men and three women who had contacted each other via the internet shut themselves in a car and lit
charcoal burners, poisoning themselves with the carbon monoxide.
Guidebook
Suicide has become a widely discussed topic on many websites in Japan, and there is even a guidebook to the best places to kill
yourself.
The authorities have talked about closing down or regulating the websites.
But organisers argue that they offer a compassionate service to those who have given up all hope of the future.
Increasing numbers of young people in Japan are feeling alienated by modern life. Several thousand are termed "hikikomori" -
recluses who never leave their room, finding entertainment only on the internet.
The suicide pacts still make up a relatively small proportion of Japan's suicides.
More than 34,000 Japanese took their own lives in 2003, according to the National Police Agency - an increase of more than 7% from
the previous year.
Original article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4695864.stm
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This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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