[UA] Suicide countdown

[Doctor Jest]

What makes it an obvious hoax is that I've seen this same stunt many 
times before. Or variations on the theme. Google "Hell On Earth Suicide" 
for an example that fooled the mainstream media for at least a good 24 
hours. I saw that one from the sidelines, half on the inside and half on 
the outside. And, having been online for a good decade and a half, I 
know a good online hoax when I see one.

Come on, this isn't just a claim to someone committing suicide, it's a 
claim to RITUAL SEPPAKU LIVE ON THE INTERNET. If you know several 
aquaintences who have committed ritual hari kari live on a webcam, then 
perhaps I stand corrected, but the sensationalist nature of this whole 
thing just screams "HOAX!" to me as loud as can be. Coupled with the 
fact that all links to this person or anything having to do with this 
alleged broadcast are all dead links seems to suggest that perhaps 
people are taking this a mite more seriously than it's warranted. Sorry, 
but this doesn't add up.

That's the thing about the internet. When the website first went up, 
alot of people were convinced the "Blair Witch Project" was real, too. 
People are indeed so very quick to believe things they read online. I 
don't know why.

If I'm wrong, well, it's about 2am on Saturday by my reckoning, so I 
guess if there's a body in the AM, I'll be eating crow. In fact, if 
anyone would like to make a friendly wager, I'll be happy to accomodate. 
I'm sure enough to put my money where my mouth is on this one. It's a 
hoax, definitely. Some lame excuse to why she couldn't do it will be 
proffered soon enough. Watch and see.

...On the other note, I ran a BBS system about 12 years ago. One of the 
door programs I ran was a "Chat with Lisa" program, which was designed 
to emulate a horny slightly drunk chick hotchatting with whomever was on 
the other side (but not without some good coaxing, of course... and it 
would use being drunk as an excuse when someone started questioning if 
it didn't make sense for some reason). I sometimes would watch people 
chat with this program back and forth as if it was a real person. I 
don't know how many believed it was real, and how many just played 
along, but I have seen people type some very intimate and personal 
things to a computer program. I am certain more than one person had some 
very private moments with that program. I am sure more than one person 
was complete fooled by the A.I.

> On 8/18/06, Doctor Jest <doctorjest at darkdungeons.net> wrote:
>> Obvious hoax.
>
>  What makes it an obvious hoax?  Just the fact the "No one would do
> such a thing?"  If that's the case...you know, I have several
> acquiantances who'd probably prove you wrong.  Whether or not the
> original girl /actually/ intends on commiting suicide is the debate at
> the core of half of this thread...  But whether someone, upon hearing
> a girl make a remark like that on her blog, would go to the trouble of
> setting up a webpage just to mock her?  That sound pretty believable.
> I am curious why you say it must be a hoax.
>
>  Hoaxes on the internet make me think of a whole host of paradoxes
> associated with the internet in general - it's this completely
> anonymous place, where people can be completely untrustworthy - and
> yet, at the same time, people are /quicker/ to trust than anywhere
> else.  It creates a feeling of interconnectedness and community - and
> yet these communities are composed largely of people who will never
> even meet.
>
>  Makes me wonder if I can come up with something based around the
> /whole/ of the internet being a hoax...  Maybe there isn't any
> internet out there at all, but just a computer program run by the
> government(or someone else?) that takes in what you type - searches,
> URLs, e-mails, chat messages - and performs an algorithm that spits
> back at you what you expect to see, maybe with a bit of twist of what
> you /want/ to see added on top("I want to be enraged","I want to be
> comforted", etc).
>
>  Unfortunately, I know in real life some of the people I talk online
> with, so there goes that idea.
>
>  Although I bet that finding out your longtime e-mail chat buddy whom
> you have confided all your secrets in over the years is /actually/ a
> Dr. Laura type program spitting things back at you would be worth an
> Isolation check, eh?
>