Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site mit-amt.MIT.EDU
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!bellcore!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!mit-amt!simsong
From: simsong@mit-amt.MIT.EDU (Simson L. Garfinkel)
Newsgroups: net.suicide
Subject: Re: Re: Reno: Thanks
Message-ID: <101@mit-amt.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sat, 1-Mar-86 14:38:18 EST
Article-I.D.: mit-amt.101
Posted: Sat Mar  1 14:38:18 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 3-Mar-86 01:13:37 EST
References: <5050@alice.uUCp>
Reply-To: simsong@mit-amt.UUCP (Simson L. Garfinkel,E15-345M,0360,2256162)
Distribution: net
Organization: MIT Media Lab
Lines: 35
Keywords: death, witty, simson, bjo-b, bmoc, ciq, ntsc, xxyzz
Summary: Refutes the refutable

In article <5050@alice.uUCp> bjob@alice.UucP (Barbara J. Orlando-Bimmler) writes:
>I don't want to talk to him, I'd just like some evidence he's real.
>This whole things smacks distinctly like an attention-getting ploy
>generated by you to bolster your sagging self-image.  Well, I'm sorry
>to say that net.suicide is *not* the place to appeal for sympathy.
>Try net.poems.
>				BJO-B

Barbara,
	How do you validate that somebody is real? If I was to create a user
named "nemesis" on mit-amt, create a finger entry with the name
Barbara J. Orlando-Bimmler, give nemesis an address, a phone number (which
you could call and get somebody who would happily take a message for
Barbara), a date of birth and a brief life history, would that make
nemesis@mit-amt a "real" person?

	For that matter, how do you know that I am a "real" person? How do I
know that you are? And does it really make a difference?

	Let's try to keep the discussion on net.suicide off of these
meta-issues. I'm sure that there are plenty of people who have considered
suicide in their lives -- quite a few of these people have attempted, less
of them have been successful. If you speak to people who have considered
suicide but not followed through, most of them feel that they are better off
for not having killed themselves, but some do feel otherwise.

	It's been said that suicide is an appeal for sympathy, a cry for
help. Although I don't believe that this is in fact the governing motive in
all cases, I am sure that it is sometimes. If so, then an appeal to
"net.suicide" which you consider to be an "appeal for sympathy" is the first
step in kind to an actual suicide attempt.

	Or something like that.