David Foster Wallace an Apparent Suicide 232
snydeq passes along the news that David Foster Wallace was found dead Friday at his home in Claremont, California. Wallace's wife found her husband had hanged himself when she returned home at 9:30 PM Friday. The novelist, essayist, and humorist, best known for his 1996 novel Infinite Jest, was 46. Wallace had been awarded a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" in 1997.
Netcraft confirms it (Score:2, Funny)
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - David Foster Wallace was found dead in his Claremont home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the American community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to Society and true American patriotism. Truly an American icon.
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For those modding up, this is a copy of a Stephen King troll.
NAFTA (Score:3, Funny)
I've referred to NAFTA as "The Sin of O.N.A.N." ever since reading Infinite Jest.
I'm sorry to hear of his passing.
RIP David Foster Wallace (Score:4, Interesting)
I had the opportunity to meet David at a book signing. He was an incredibly gracious and friendly individual who will be missed by many in the literary field as well as everywhere else.
From the Harvey Mudd student list (Score:4, Informative)
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Infinite Jest one of the best books... (Score:3, Insightful)
Infinite Jest was an amazing book. Foster Wallace was an incredible writer. Very interesting and depressing. Time to read the jest again - ..
And with it, finally (Score:2)
The death of deconstruction and semiotics. Which is either terribly arch or exactly what it itself would have predicted.
A brief personal narrative (in the style of . . .) (Score:4, Informative)
(crossposted from Blacknell.net [blacknell.net])
Sad [latimes.com].1 David Foster Wallace2, along with perhaps only William Gibson, had a reader in me for everything he wrote. So dedicated was I to his Infinite Jest that I carried it in planes, trains, and autobuses over three continents.3 If you've never read any of his work, maybe you could start with this brilliant 2005 essay on political talk radio [theatlantic.com].4
1And I say sad in some weirdly personal sense that comes from both finding his writing deeply compelling in itself, and identifying his work with a period of time in my life which is not missed, but stands out as significant in recollection.
2David Foster Wallace (or DFW, as he is popularly known among fans) also provided (albeit completely unknowingly) some of the reason that Blacknell.net exists today. The blog that inspired me to start my own was written by an alumnus of the law school I had just started in. He, in turn, had been motivated to write online (in a format once known as an "online journal") while he read Infinite Jest (nb. This same author once had an essay published in the same collection [amazon.com] as DFW). An early autobiography of this online journal community is available here [diaryhistoryproject.com] (it is amusing to consider how much energy was expended on the subject of diary v. journal, only to have blog become the accepted appellation).
3 A massive tome of a book with 1200 pages of writing to be relished and consumed (in addition to being read) I took two years to complete it, taking it to Panama [flickr.com], Venezuela [flickr.com], and Britain [flickr.com]. I've since reread it (in sections, while it wasn't lent out).
4Even though it isn't entirely representative [signonsandiego.com].
(Ah, for want of a superscript tag . . .)
This sucks (Score:2, Interesting)
I think it sucks(1) that he(2) died.(3)(4) We (5) need more (6) like him.(7)(8)
(1)Here, literally, I'm, of course, speaking metaphorically. I don't mean it literally sucked (like, say, the 500 dollar an hour prostitute sucked the republican hypocrites shriveled cock), but rather figuratively sucked (like, say, the republican hypocrites bill to put you in jail for the same prostitution related behavior). Incidentally, by "it", I can't tell if I mean the whole universe or his dying or if those might not be
Let me be the first to say... (Score:3, Interesting)
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!
If you don't want to leap into "Infinite Jest," start with "Girl With Curious Hair."
a little personal irony (Score:2)
it's strange,
i was feeling a bit blue just a couple days ago, and was considering rereading IJ to cheer me up: it's a book which always puts things in perspective and makes me laugh, and i especially appreciate that it makes *me* feel smart and witty, as if DFW were loaning me a portion of his verve and charm for a while.
IJ is in my opinion the best novel in the english language,
and DFW's suicide at such a young age is a huge loss to literature.
my thoughts go out to his family, friends, students, and fans.
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A tremendous loss. It seemed like David Foster Wallace could write brilliantly about everything (and with his famous tendency for digressions, footnotes, and endnotes, did his best to actually write about everything). Brilliant nonfiction essays, hilarious short stories, and of course, mindwarping novels. Infinite Jest contains multitudes- it's a novel about tennis and addiction and entertainment and American hegemony and Quebec separatism and commercialism and physical deformity and a thousand other thi
Footnotes (Score:2)
The description of footnotes in Infinite Jest reminds me of Wilson by David Mamet. Would Wilson be considered "in the style" of Infinite Jest?
He also wrote an excellent popular math book! (Score:5, Informative)
No slashdot discussion of DFW is completely without mentioning Everything and More. In addition to his fiction, he wrote an excellent non-fiction book about the history of mathematical infinity. Unlike most popular math books, it was interesting and not condescending. He clearly taught himself a good amount of Analysis in order to write so well on the subject. If any slashdotter wants to see what made this guy great, you'd do well to start there. Not only is it excellent writing, it's technically coherent and you'll likely learn something.
Appropriate here may be what he had to say about the popular story of Georg Cantor going insane trying to understand infinity (specifically the distinction between the infinity of integers, and the "larger" infinity of the real line):
"To lament Cantor's failure to describe infinity, is like feeling sorry that St. George lost to the Dragon. It is both wrong and insulting." (paraphrased)
Of course no one is lamenting DFW's failures per se, but I can't imagine many accomplished postmodern writers caring to get the grip on modern mathematics that DFW did. He didn't go for the low-hanging fruit, this guy.
Re:He also wrote an excellent popular math book! (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, the problem wasn't the distinction between these two infinities (he successfully and famously proved that with his diagonal argument) but rather whether there are any infinities in-between the infinity of the integers (aleph-0) and the infinity of the real line (the continuum, c). Specifically, he tried unsuccessfully to prove that the next higher infinity after aleph-0, called aleph-1, was equal to c.
As it turns out, this problem is unsolvable unless we assume it as an additional axiom of ZFC (Zermelo-Fraenkel with Choice) set theory, called the continuum hypothesis (CH), which states aleph-1=c. Goedel showed that is was OK to add CH to set theory without causing a contradiction (i.e. CH is consistent with the rest of ZFC set theory). That CH is independent, i.e. unprovable from the other axioms, was finally shown by Paul Cohen in 1963. He did this with a brilliant new technique he invented called "forcing", which became a stepping stone for a whole slew of amazing new discoveries about the "universe" of mind-bogglingly huge infinities that we mere mortals can barely even begin to grasp.
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It's in fact the subtitle that made me buy the book! I only made it halfway though, I expected a faster pace to get to the real "meat" of infinity. I might give it another chance now.
Depression ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Depression ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. Depression is a "weakness" as much as diabetes or cancer is.
Mod parent up! (Score:2)
This short post by an AC is an excellent point.
Re:Mod parent up! (Score:5, Insightful)
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The One who gives the disease, provides the cure.
Suicidal Hanging? (Score:3, Interesting)
If you want to kill yourself, fine, go right ahead. Your life, end it if you wish.
But why in the world would anyone commit suicide by hanging? There are plenty of other options to choose from. Especially when most suicidal hangings are done WRONG and end up taking loads more time to die than they had intended.
Don't do it. It's stupid. Pick something else.
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Slip knot suspension is a little better than hanging, but both are better than suffocation, cutting, drowning in the tub, or overdosing because, with a strong rope and enough height, suspension or hanging better protect you from unconscious survival reflexes (whether it's tearing the bag open, not being able to cut under the veins, climbing out, or vomiting--all while unconscious). Carbon monoxide poising is on par with hanging because it is easy to not go far enough with both of those methods. The only bet
Consider the Lobster (Score:4, Informative)
If you like David Foster Wallace or would like to get a good idea of his style without diving headfirst into a novel, check out Consider the Lobster and Other Essays. It has the full range of his work, from literary criticism to a hilarious essay describing his trip to a porn convention and various rambling thoughts on pornography's relationship with "regular" society and art. There's some really great stuff in that.
RIP DFW.
Sometimes the finest minds resort to it. (Score:2, Interesting)
"No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun--for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax--This won't hurt" -- Hunter S. Thompson, suicide note.
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since this is becoming a forum on suicide (Score:2)
the rules are simple:
1. sound of mind, unsound of body: suicide is ok. euthanasia is morally sound for the terminally ill
2. unsound of mind, sound of body: suicide is not ok. if you are mentally ill, that casts a question mark over your decision making abilities. as such, a decision to end your life when you are not mentally sound is not a decision anyone else should respect, simply because it is not free will which is guiding the decision
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What if you have an incurable mental affliction, are rarely happy, and feel consistently over a sustained period that you would rather die.
Should that not then be respected as much as for "unsound of body" reasons?
its logically impossible to respect (Score:2)
the idea is to respect free will
but if your decision making process is under the effect of a disease OF your decision making organ, then you aren't making decisions based on your free will
therefore, the decision to commit suicide by someone mentally ill cannot be respected, if you respect free will
in fact, all suicides who have been stopped or unsuccessful have reached a point later in their life where they were glad they didn't succeed
its amazing what modern psychopharmacology is capable of. its not a perm
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in fact, all suicides who have been stopped or unsuccessful have reached a point later in their life where they were glad they didn't succeed
What a ridiculous over-gerneralisation. If their reasons were sound, then either they get it right the second time, or it's too late an they have to die naturally and horribly. Maybe like this poor lady [watoday.com.au] - too weak to take the Nembutal, and vomiting up excrement.
please read my top post (Score:2)
there you will find that i condone euthanasia
suicide due to mental illness is not the same thing
mind versus body (Score:2)
is a valid conceptual demarcation
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Have you read Catch 22? I like how you've taken what some would consider a symptom of insanity -- the desire to commit suicide -- and turned it into a proof of insanity: the idea that all who commit suicide are obviously, by the very act, insane. My free will ends where your sympathy and imagination end? Hell no.
We are more than logical thinking machines; all of our decisions, even the ones we think most obvious and logical, are filtered through a squishy chemical mess of a thing we call a brain. When we se
RIP DFW (Score:2, Insightful)
They can kill you, but the legalities of eating you are quite a bit dicier.
This is a great loss. Just the other day, I finished reading 'Consider the Lobster', and I thought every one of those essays was interesting, funny, informative and insightful.
I hope it's not selfish to say that I'm sad that now there will never be a new 'Infinite Jest'.
I guess living is... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:With great genius comes great madness (Score:5, Insightful)
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it's well documented that great artists, writers, and people with other forms genius have a much higher incidence of mental disorders than the normal population.
generally speaking, creative/artistic individuals have a greater disposition for bipolarism. conversely, the children of mathematically gifted parents are more likely to develop autism or Asperger syndrome. that's why there's such a higher concentration of kids with Asperger syndrome in Silicon Valley.
Re:With great genius comes great madness (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, the parents in Silicon Valley tend to be wealthy enough to get their kids diagnosed with Asperger's, and medicated/trained into being "better" students... just a thought.
I'm suspicious of how well documented this link really is; let alone, that any evidence is totally observational. Of course the randomized study would be grossly immoral, even if it were possible.
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if the high incidence of Asperger/Autism in Silicon Valley is strictly due to it being a more affluent neighborhood, then wouldn't similar increases in Autism be observed in other more affluent neighborhoods? and why Asperger/Autism in particular, and not other mental disorders like ADHD, bipolarism, anxiety disorders, etc.? Asperger Syndrome isn't called the "Geek Syndrome" for nothing.
and i think it should be noted that observational evidence is different from anecdotal evidence. any kind of hard science
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I didn't say it was "strictly" due to that. There are many other possible explanations; the most tragic would be that ground-water contamination from industrial pollutants (the very industry which drew the bright parents there) is to blame; your explanation is not quite as bad, but still kind of sad. These may all be true to some degree, or none of them.
And lo and behold! Try googling "autism income diagnosis" and "adhd income diagnosis" for many citations that diagnosis is in fact positive correlated with
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Well that's just great. Their online articles only go back to 1988. Never mind.
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i believe ADHD is on the rise largely because it's being diagnosed more (and possibly over-diagnosed). and there may be a correlation between income and ADHD diagnosis. but i did in fact do a search for "autism income diagnosis" as you suggested, and i could find no studies which support such a link.
of course, short of identifying the exact genes that trigger autism/Asperger and bipolarism, it's going to difficult to prove a direct causal link between these disorders and exceptional mental abilities. and i
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I was referring to this http://www.autismspot.com/news/Survey-finds-minority-low-income-students-less-likely-receive-Autism-diagnosis [autismspot.com] unfortunately I couldn't get it to resolve to anything more substantial without registering.
I looked up that "Mathematicians of Genius" paper; it was a speculative retrospective analysis of whether various genius mathematicians fit the Asperger's guidelines. Many of them did, and despite the totally subjective nature of this, I'm willing to buy it for the moment. I don't doub
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i wouldn't go so far as to say that Asperger is linked to greatness, but i think it does cause a proclivity for analytical thinking and mathematics. you often hear of autistic savants who can count the number of leaves in a tree at a single glance, or can calculate the day of the week that any date past or future falls upon, or other similar feats. this cannot be a coincidence.
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ummm... no.
Aspergers isn't exactly hard to diagnose.
Re:With great genius comes great madness (Score:4, Informative)
here's a list [wikipedia.org] from Wikipedia that cites several sources. here [autism.com] is an article discussing the relationship between Autism/Asperger and genius. here [psychologytoday.com] is an article on Psychology Today that discusses a growing movement within academic circles that views autism and similar disorders as just part of the spectrum of neurodiversity that our society is comprised of. and if you do a search for "Geek Syndrome" you can find a Wired article that i believe may have been on Slashdot a few years ago. i also recall reading something a few years ago on PubMed that discussed the correlation between genius and mental disorder.
another interesting paper i read on PubMed also discussed the evolutionary advantage of Bipolarism. basically, the author(s) argued that while Bipolarism/Manic-Depression may present an evolutionary disadvantage to the individual, the genes have been perpetuated because it fosters altruistic actions which coincide with kin selection.
all of this makes a certain amount of sense to me. i've always felt that bipolarism endows an individual with greater capacity for emotional experience. this can be a beneficial trait to artists/musicians since good artwork is defined by its ability to evoke strong emotions, and, likewise, good artwork is often inspired by emotional trauma in the artist's life. but greater emotional depth can also enable one to better empathize with others, which could potentially lead to altruistic behavior.
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There seem to me to be rational and completely reasonable reasons to commit suicide. The prospect of a life that is only painful to oneself and others, complete hopelessness, serious illness... But at the same time, suicide seems so far from our base animal behavior that it must also incorporate some kind of thinking that goes far, far against the norm.
Whichever is the case, I can only add my regrets that Wallace is gone.
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This is a myth. For instance, Shakespeare was by most accounts a gregarious, sane and happy fellow.
Re:With great genius comes great madness (Score:4, Insightful)
"most accounts?" There's hardly any information about the person William Shakespeare.
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> There's hardly any information about the person
> William Shakespeare.
That's just totally wrong.
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Heh. A walk through San Francisco disproves that.
I prefer to think of it as tortured soul syndrome (Score:2, Interesting)
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"'Nuff Said."
I doubt this person was mad, depressed perhaps, or overwhelmed by sadness. But insults are the retreat of the ignorant against men they don't know and who's thoughts they don't or cannot understand.
Is it too early... (Score:2)
... to start thinking about the casting for the "Infinite Jest - the movie"?
I mean... Angelina and Brad are not getting any younger...
P.S. Yes. I am joking. Dark humor and stuff like that.
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Truth be told, Angelina would make a pretty good P.G.O.A.T.
I'm not sure what role Brad would play though. Maybe Himself? That could work, especially after his work in 12 Monkeys.
Re:Very Very sad (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Very Very sad (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently you never had anyone close to you commit suicide and therefor cannot understand why I consider people who take suicide willingly complete egoistic and ungrateful morons.
Those who commit suicide because they are mentally ill (schizofrenic, and such) and do not know right from wrong are excluded from this definition as they cannot possible be blamed for this utterly stupid and ultimate egoistic act.
Okay Troll I'll bite.
As a survivor of having a close relative commit suicide I can easily say that by the time they commit the act they are already mentally ill.
In my experience it takes at least some serious mental instability to even consider suicide as an option.
Quick frankly you should be ashamed of yourself for holding the viewpoint you do. They failed and broke but know this - the people around them failed as well and many of us, myself included, will carry that failure to our graves with us.
And if I could find the bridge you live under I would drag you out into the sunlight with the rest of us and stake you out in it until you realize how important it is to help those around you.
'Scuse me now while I go shower to remove your nasty trollish smell from my presence.
Re:Very Very sad (Score:5, Insightful)
You are judging the motives of suicides based on your own culture and ideals. Culturally and societally, there are reasons and causes for suicide that have nothing to do with mental instability historically and presently.
Personally, I view the act as an act of desperation, escape or destruction that can never be undone or repaired and should be avoided until absolutely all other options are explored and tested. There are times when I feel suicide may be appropriate, for example, in the case of the terminally ill. (My mother died of "natural causes" brought on by a degenerative nervous disorder and prayed for death and my own salvation for more than a year of unceasing misery before she finally died, choking to death in her sleep... presumably in her sleep... odds are good that she actually awoke while choking and dies of suffocation which I understand is actually rather painful.)
Suicide is a subject I have given a great deal of though and observation to. I find that suicides are too often unsuccessful, especially among women, and the chances of survival are too great. For this reason alone, suicide should be considered a very bad idea -- people just don't die the way they do in the movies. Hanging, for example, is a pretty horrible way to go -- you don't just magically die... and that death is ridiculously messy and disgusting.
There are a variety of other issues to concern one's self over and yes, some of them are rooted in family, society and culture. But generally speaking, people grow up within their own cultural ideals and beliefs. It is inappropriate to judge one culture, society or even an individual based specifically on your own ideals and beliefs. In it's own way, it is a form of prejudice as bad as any other.
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You are however correct in that I forgot about many other types of suicide such as for fatal illnesses and honor related suicides. However as far as I'm concerned both should be rare events.
Regardless the article is concerning a singular suicide and that's the subject I used to frame the discussion in my mind.
My apologies to all for feeding the trolls. I just have serious
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Brings to mind a rather memorable mass suicide, where a large number of gentleman remained upon a sinking ship so that the women and children could use the too few lifeboats and survive. Ones wonders whether that would happen any more in today's modern society or would they all behave like a pack of panicked wild animals attempting to survive for every possible moment.
It brings to mind the question, if a guilty conscious and the associated negative karma greatly increase the fear of death and distorts o
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In other words, "If you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear." Right?
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No, stress means pressures applied to something, usually expressed as a ratio of force to area. Instability is what you get when the stress is excessive, or the structure flawed: the normal stresses are what provide guidance to our paths, and even give us the traction with the world to interact with it.
To say that 'stress is indeed a form of instability' is to ignore the existence of normal, day-to-day stress.
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I lost some good friends to suicide and I myself tried to kill myself when my mental illness and stress in my life became too much for me to take anymore. Part of that was trolls on IWETHEY, Kuro5hin, etc telling me to go kill myself or the "shotgun mouthwash now!" comments. I even had coworkers and managers telling me to kill myself. This sort of abuse happens to mentally ill people, and in some mental states we actually do it or try to kill ourselves.
Once or twice I had to fake my suicide online via an al
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I'm sorry, I really am. I have mental illnesses and the pain and suffering gets to be too much. Sometimes an alter ego comes out and takes over because my pain is too much to bare that a space pirate ninja from 4096AD takes over so he can deal with the pain and suffering.
I hit the doughnut hole and they won't cover my psyche medicine any more, but I see my doctor this week and maybe I can get samples so I won't be out. They refuse to give me samples until I see my doctor and the pharmacy wants $200 for a mo
Suicide depends on pain (Score:2)
As a survivor of having a close relative commit suicide I can easily say that by the time they commit the act they are already mentally ill.
If someone were to slowly torture you, turning one piece of your body to mush after the next in the most painful agonizing way - I'm talking medieval torture - crushing bones, destroying internal organs slowly, cutting, stabbing, burning - pain that didn't leave you so you could sleep or eat or function - so that you knew you were going to die but that it were going to
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You're not a "survivor" if you were never in any danger. Claiming to be disgraces the memories of those who died tragically.
Fuck you troll.
Ask more people than just the person in the mirror if they are "survivors" of someone close to them committing suicide and the answer is always the same - yes.
That death leaves something inside of you that is serious to deal with and I disgrace no one my claiming the title of survivor.
Re:Very Very sad (Score:4, Informative)
The word "survivor" has different contexts, and you're using it in a popular but not exlusive one.
"Person X is survived by their wife and children," is used simply to mean that when person X died, their wife and children lived on. It doesn't mean they all faced some danger together.
It only means that people lived on.
In fact, dictionary.com has "to remain alive after the death of someone," as the first definition.
It's correct to say that the family of a suicide are survivors.
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Actually, it is a common turn of phrase to say that friends and family members "survive" the deceased no matter how they died.
Read an obituary sometime, I'm sure you'll find something like "Bob is survived by his wife and three children."
But if you'd rather bash some guy over his choice of words than actually know what you're talking about, then go right on ahead and ignore commonly used alternative definitions.
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Very nice way to work Bush in there.
I'd add Saddam Hussein; he's as much scum as any of them, and if he'd offed himself earlier we would have taken our mass murder somewhere which, oh I don't know, had a nonzero probability of hiding ObL.
And to hell with your assumption that a suicide is weak, and that they should have done nothing instead of something. Maybe the suckage of their life was a hell of a lot worse than you could possibly imagine, and they knew that. Why should they have taken inaction instead o
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Those who commit suicide are to blame for their actions unless someone forced them to do so. If you feel pity the deceased but not those left behind then you are the inhumane one.
Re:Very Very sad (Score:5, Insightful)
Those who commit suicide are to blame for their actions
Blame? Whatever, we're not short on people, everybody should be allowed to kill them self. Only religious nut cases (i.e. the mis-informed) believe otherwise.
If you feel pity (for?) the deceased...
I'm so jealous, what could be easier?
Look dude, it's not your fault, you don't have to fight it so hard. They made their choice, you must let go, get on with your live, go and make your choices. You don't have to feel guilt for their death, you don't have project that guilt on to the deceased.
I see your pain, feel pity for you. I feel pity for you because you feel you deserve pity, and well that's kind of sad. I feel pity, because you feel so guilty about the death of your wife (this was your wife, right?), that you continue to blame her for your suffering longer after her last breath.
You must accept the the decision she made, not feel guilt, not feel a need to blame her. I get the feeling you lover her a lot, even if you're not the best husband in world.
Forgive you're wife, then forgive yourself. There is no point in wasting two lives over one death. Take care.
Re:Very Very sad (Score:4, Funny)
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Low self image& better world (Score:2)
You can't believe that the world would be better off with you dead - without giving yourself greater importance than EVERYTHING else in the world.
You are SO bad for the ENTIRE UNIVERSE that your death will cause a sigh of relief across the all of the existence.
Hell yeah suicidal people are egotistic!
They just express it differently than usually expected.
As for grateful... How about for being alive?
Yes. Its a pain and a constant struggle but sure beats the alternative.
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How do you know that? The only people who can say for certain that that is the case are dead people--and they ain't talkin'.
I asked them... (Score:2)
"Wouldn't you like to be alive?"
The silence of their approval was deafening.
I still can't hear very well with my right ear because of that.
Re:Low self image& better world (Score:4, Insightful)
You're arguing from a rational perspective here, but I don't believe people kill themselves while in a rational frame of mind. Instead it's an emotional choice, brought about either by events and an inability to deal with them, or a disorder that creates the belief that suicide is the only option.
Cool, rational debate isn't a feature of suicides.
Wrong (Score:2, Interesting)
1. Curiosity. What happens when you die? Is there life after death? Is there a supernatural expirience to death? Can I find a mechanism to kill myself temporarily then revive before brain damage and still find the above answers? Will my subjective expiriences of death counter those of other near death expiriences?
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> You can't believe that the world would be better off with you dead - without giving yourself greater importance than EVERYTHING else in the world.
You are SO bad for the ENTIRE UNIVERSE that your death will cause a sigh of relief across the all of the existence.
Huh? Just because you think the universe is better off without you doesn't mean you think you are the worst thing in existance. I think the universe would be better off without, lets say, hay fever. Does that in any way imply that I think hay fev
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Who read that as Stamford Wallace dead. I cheered. If you transform Spammers into non-humans, it is easy to cheer their demise.
Until I realised it was some guy I have never heard of. American Icon, true patriot? Maybe with his passing, you USians will need less of that.
He wrote a book that mostly makes fun of our dedication to corporatism and neo patriotism and all the things that have been wrong with our country in the past generation.
When they say 'true patriot' they mean the real one. Not a fox news patriot which are the worst kind.
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Yessir, never let your ignorance get in the way of a good USA bashing. If you'd taken the time to read up on Wallace (by clicking on the convenient link provided in the summary) you would have found out that he was exactly the opposite of what you surmised from your misreading of a satirical troll.
Re:Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet unlike you, he had the balls to sign his name to whatever he wrote.
Fuck off.
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You're not exactly showing a lot of bravery yourself, you cowardly little chickenshit punk. Identify yourself so I can beat your ass like you deserve - DO IT NOW!
Wow, I can find out who yourpusher is within two clicks of his comment. As opposed to 'strelitsa'... who is only known to us as "technical writer, rouge, dab hand with soldering iron".
This is, what, the pot calling the china black?
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Duh
Thanks, that adds to the conversation.
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"No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness." -- Aristotle
I try to refrain from responding to ACs, but this one needs clarification in my mind:
It is madness if it remains within your perception of reality, and Genius if it exceeds them, forcing you to re-evaluate your place/stance.
Re:Glamorizing suicide (Score:5, Insightful)
I would draw a clear and bright line between what you say about David Foster Wallace ("he took the coward's way out") and others' reactions ("fawning news coverage"). The second point, I totally agree with you on. The first, I vehemently disagree.
We don't know why DFW committed suicide, and we might neverk now. But in the vast majority of cases, "cowardice" isn't even a relevant concept. Depression -- real, deep depression -- is not just about being in a crappy mood. Real depression (and other kinds of serious mental illness) messes you up so deeply that up seems like down and you cannot make rational sense out of yourself or the world. To call someone a "coward" implies that were faced with a choice and, with faculties intact, made a weak decision. Like I said, not a relevant concept for suicide.
And for the exact same reason, all the tributes making this into some sort of penetrating existential act of a man who saw the world too clearly... please! DFW was a brilliant thinker and writer, but his death is a tragedy and a loss. It is not an artistic act.
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Why would having terminal cancer change anything? I hate to break it to you, but we're all going to die. Everyone has terminal cancer. If that's going to convince you to commit suicide you might as well get it out of the way now.
You have no idea what his life was like, or what sort of distress caused him to do this. Maybe he was mentally ill, something terrible had just happened to him, and he just became overwhelmed. It happens.
So take you condescending attitude and fuck off. DFW contributed a great
Re:Glamorizing suicide (Score:5, Insightful)
My uncle committed suicide a few weeks ago. All I'm going to relate is the position of his church implied by the words of the presiding priest. He used a quote (that I can't remember the attribution of) which went along the lines of, "When someone does this, it is no different than if they were set upon and murdered in the woods." My take on it was that the person had been overcome by some outside force. We don't have a problem who are physically overcome; we reserve our derision for people who are overcome mentally. Not very fair in light of the truth I learned in martial arts, which is that there is ALWAYS someone faster, stronger, or better trained than you. No matter how much we care to think nothing can overcome our will and clear thinking, it seems manifestly untrue in light of events like this.
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Cowardice? Do you think committing suicide is easy? It takes real courage and hard determination, although that doesn't mean it's commendable.
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Oh, no. Practice and the law of averages have caught up with many cowardly, poorly implemented suicide attempts of real wimps. Alocholism, and its cousin drunken driving, have been the means of many successful suicide attempts. So has arguing with somebody with a gun.
Glorifying suicide as 'courageous' leads to suicide bombers.
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I'm just saying that it seems like a lot of people are committing apparent suicide these days.
I'm reminded of a short story by Stephen King, Everything's Eventual [wikipedia.org].
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