http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/police-say-taiwanese-woman-has-committed-suicide-while-chatting-with-friends-on-facebook/2012/03/27/gIQAo8igdS_story.html

Someone killed herself, and documented it on facebook.

Can anyone make sense of it?

Is this evidence that we are supposed to intervene, to impose our intentions, to probe into things, and so on?

_________________
Johan

Of what? It seems pretty clear to me.



Nope, but if you are ever in that situation and think you might help someone by probing it, then by all means, do it.

_________________
I eat ego's for breakfast!
Sincerely, Ego.

This is the extreme end of the spectrum, most of everything else falls somewhere below this.

The point is that we can't know anything without probing - this woman was joking about it. Many people feel lonely, depressed, sad, but outwardly present themselves as happy. This is becoming a huge thing in the facebook and blogging age. So much of the communication in social media is to some extent about reaching out into consciousness for companionship. I wouldn't write this if I getting a response didn't feel good. It's not just "getting answers" (which I don't really expect), but it feels good when other people are sharing my thoughts.

Many of the comments that say "congratulations!" or "good work!" actually have the opposite intent behind them; "great bragging, a-hole, now please shut up". People can sense it. If they use it to feed the ego, it's bad.

I suspect there is some form of overarching pedagogic theme here about honesty, connecting with people, the role of ego, and it wouldn't be possible without social media. Exactly what it is, I can't make sense of.

_________________
Johan