A deadly joke

"was hardly a forseeable outcome"

Always starts the insincere apologies where someone does some dumbass thing.

It's a GWBush mantra; "hardly foreseeable" makes me think "you are dumbshit" but not in this case.

Originally Posted by joxer
Not in every country nor in every culture. For god's sakes I've heard that such radio show even exists a few days ago on this forum in this thread. I've never heard of such show before.

See… There was a time when to marry a 9year old girl was a common thing, hell even a religion was made out of it. But it wasn't common everywhere and definetly not in every culture. Corwin knows more about it.

In the end, whatever is common to you doesn't mean you should not respect other countries and other cultures where things like that are not common.

You are 100% right about respecting other cultures. I just though that Aussies and brits have similar shows in their radios.

And ofcourse these kind of pranks are unneeded entertaiment. Why do we always have to make fun of people by humiliating them. Prank calls are quite similar to tasteless reality tv programs. We would be so much better without them.

The very least they should have gotten the permission to air the call from the person who was pranked.

Yeah it's totally overblown. By the time the everyone gets done frothing at the mouth over this "crime" it will be a felony to make a crank call, prison with no chance of parole. The crank call will be the new DUI.

Then again, I'm somewhat sympathetic to the crankers. I can remember many a 9-year old sleepover, fueled up on coca-cola and doritos, we'd crack open the phone book and settle in for a night of crank calling people til the wee hours. Woe be to the poor unfortunates born with the name Harry Ball, Jack Hoff, Mona Lott, or Dick Hunter. I wonder how many people actually went outside to see if their refrigerator was indeed running. I'm sorry I feel no remorse for my crimes, for they were hilarious. Well, when I was 9 anyway…

But there's no way, that cannot be the sole reason she offed herself. It cant be that stupid. You commit suicide because your wife and child were killed in an auto accident, and you cant go on. You commit suicide after you kill your cheating wife and her lover. You commit suicide when youre diagnosed with some horrible terminal illness, and you'd rather go quickly then waste away. You commit suicide because there's no way youre going back for another 20 years in a turkish prison. You do not waste your life because a couple dildos play a practical joke on you.

Severe clinical depression is the major cause, around 80-90%.

pibbur

Originally Posted by xSamhainx
Yeah it's totally overblown. By the time the everyone gets done frothing at the mouth over this "crime" it will be a felony to make a crank call, prison with no chance of parole. The crank call will be the new DUI.

Then again, I'm somewhat sympathetic to the crankers. I can remember many a 9-year old sleepover, fueled up on coca-cola and doritos, we'd crack open the phone book and settle in for a night of crank calling people til the wee hours. Woe be to the poor unfortunates born with the name Harry Ball, Jack Hoff, Mona Lott, or Dick Hunter. I wonder how many people actually went outside to see if their refrigerator was indeed running. I'm sorry I feel no remorse for my crimes, for they were hilarious. Well, when I was 9 anyway…

But there's no way, that cannot be the sole reason she offed herself. It cant be that stupid. You commit suicide because your wife and child were killed in an auto accident, and you cant go on. You commit suicide after you kill your cheating wife and her lover. You commit suicide when youre diagnosed with some horrible terminal illness, and you'd rather go quickly then waste away. You commit suicide because there's no way youre going back for another 20 years in a turkish prison. You do not waste your life because a couple dildos play a practical joke on you.

You really don't know anything about why people do things, do you?

As I see it, there are two separate issues here.

1. Did they cause the suicide and do they deserve punishment?
2. Are crank calls evil, wrong or stupid?

My answers would be:

1. No, of course they didn't cause the suicide. Only one person can cause that. Did they inspire it? Maybe, but definitely not on purpose. Do they deserve punishment? Don't think so, and they've already been punished far worse than we could feasibly do.

2. Are crank calls evil? No. Are they wrong? I wouldn't know, but this one seems relatively harmless. Are they stupid? Yeah, I think they are.

Maybe I just don't understand humor at the expense of other people, unless it's something the people themselves would find amusing. Most of the time, it's not particularly funny to be the butt end of a joke in public - but I guess that's not important when you're being unimaginative and can't think of better ways to entertain the masses.

The fact that someone might be already in a fragile state doesn't mean that you are justified risking pushing them over the edge for laughs.

It might be a common joke in my home to trick each other into drinking milk for fun but if I do it on a random person and it ends out that he is severely allergic to it and ends up in a hospital am I without blame because I didn't know it? Ok maybe that person was stupid for falling into my obvious (to me) trap and he should have been more careful, but being gullible is not unethical or deserving of punishment - at worst it's a problem for the person that posses such a treat - taking advantage of it though, either knowingly or not, is a different matter.

But how could they have known that that would be the outcome? They couldn't, and that's why they shouldn't have made the prank to begin with.

That's the whole point of having "manners" or a commonly accepted social behavior: you treat someone in a way that can cause no harm until you know how them well enough to know how much they can take. Otherwise you too will pay the price. And I'm not talking about taking those guys to court or anything like that, it doesn't really matter anyway, I'm sure they won't be sleeping well for a while anyway.

Are we sure we know all the truth? I mean, what if the hospital or the "royal" family put pressure on the woman?

I am not try to justify anyone but in order to pass justice i need all the information. i never heard the joke, in general i don't like these kinds of jokes, but i also believe that such actions(suicide) need more depth than a joke.

The end of this story is a bad one and as holeraw said, the punishment for the two people will be a personal one.