RE: Is Suicide Contagious? A Case Study in Applied Memetics

From: Wade T.Smith (wade_smith@harvard.edu)
Date: Tue Apr 17 2001 - 19:52:36 BST

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    Subject: RE: Is Suicide Contagious? A Case Study in Applied Memetics
    Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 14:52:36 -0400
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    On 04/17/01 11:31, Paul Marsden said this-

    >The problem is therefore demonstrating the plausibility of the suicide
    >contagion hypothesis ETHICALLY. All I have done here is increase the
    >plausibility of the suicide contagion hypothesis by showing that our
    >interpretation of situations as suicidal can be influenced by the presence
    >of suicide around us.

    Or our interpretation of situations as holy, or astrological, or
    shamanistic, or, whatever, can be influenced by the presence of same
    around us.

    Ethics, is, yes, the question with suicide contagion experimentation,
    IMHO.

    Perhaps, historically, the study of medieval Japan and modern, circa
    1960, Japan, may serve to supply enough data sets that we may remove
    ourselves from the realm of influence in this regard.

    - Wade

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