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

From: J. R. Molloy (jr@shasta.com)
Date: Wed Apr 18 2001 - 23:23:08 BST

  • Next message: J. R. Molloy: "Re: Darwinizing Culture: The Status of Memetics as a Science" 

    Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id XAA12274 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 18 Apr 2001 23:28:02 +0100
Message-ID: <03c801c0c856$28525180$795d2a42@jrmolloy>
From: "J. R. Molloy" <jr@shasta.com>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
References: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745DA4@inchna.stir.ac.uk> <002b01c0c7f1$0ef42160$5d0abed4@default>
Subject: Re: Is Suicide Contagious? A Case Study in Applied Memetics
Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 15:23:08 -0700
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400
Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk

    From: "Kenneth Van Oost" <Kenneth.Van.Oost@village.uunet.be>
    > And in addition, what about a lynch- party ( sorry Aaron), the scape-
    > goat- principle where " murder " is committed by a group by the former
    > and spirit away by the " suicide " of the victim by the latter !?

    Good examples, Kenneth.

    Here's another article about Suicide Contagion:

    http://www.afsp.org/research/articles/gould.html
    Suicide contagion is not a new phenomenon. Evidence of suicide clusters and
    imitative deaths has been reported in accounts from ancient times through the
    twentieth century. Concern about suicide contagion has increased due to a
    number of highly publicized suicide outbreaks among teenagers and young adults
    in recent years and to new evidence that a significant number of suicides
    appear to be associated with suicide stories in the mass media.
    ---------------------

    --J. R.

    Useless hypotheses:
     consciousness, phlogiston, philosophy, vitalism, mind, free will, qualia,
    analog computing, cultural relativism

         Everything that can happen has already happened, not just once,
         but an infinite number of times, and will continue to do so forever.
         (Everything that can happen = more than anyone can imagine.)

    ===============================================================
    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

    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Apr 18 2001 - 23:31:09 BST