Couple Let Baby Starve To Death While Raising Virtual Baby Online

[Hissyspit]

South Korea has real problems with online game addition in the 'PC Bangs' (Internet cafes).

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/05/couple-let-baby-starve-to_n_487287.html

Couple Let Baby Starve To Death While Raising Virtual Baby Online
First Posted: 03- 5-10 10:26 AM | Updated: 03- 5-10 11:41 AM

A Korean couple allowed their child to starve to death because of their addiction to raising a 'virtual' child in a Second-Life-style game online known as Prius, reports say.

Kim Yoo-chul, 41, and Choi Mi-sun, 25, would feed their three-month-old baby only when not at 12-hour-online sessions in a local internet café. The pair were obsessed with raising their internet child, called Anima, resulting in the neglect of their unnamed real daughter.

After one such session in September the couple found their daughter dead and called police. An autopsy found the baby died from prolonged malnutrition.

"The couple seemed to have lost their will to live a normal life because they didn't have jobs and gave birth to a premature baby," Chung Jin-Won, a police officer, told Korean press. "They indulged themselves in the online game of raising a virtual character so as to escape from reality, which led to the death of their real baby."

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[slackmaster]

1. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this story

So I won't do either.

I have personally seen the effects of addiction to social networking sites.

[Bluebear]

3. I think laughing would be an odd response.

[blondeatlast]

36. No kidding. nt

[Maru Kitteh]

25. I rather think laughing about the starvation of a helpless infant might

... might, not is indicative of some manner of anti-social personality disorder.

[Solly Mack]

2. Damn

[KittyWampus]

4. this sounds like a science fiction cautionary tale.

[reflection]

5. That is so sad.

Did the couple have no one to confide in, to turn to? What a horrible story.

[Richardo]

6. Two sterilizations, stat.

I think they've proven that they are disqualified to reproduce anymore.

[Lance_Boyle]

11. Unless South Korea has co-ed prisons, I doubt future reproduction will be an issue

for this pair. Lifetime in a cell sounds about right for each. And maybe they should be offered food a couple times a month.

[Cerridwen]

7. "online game addiction"

"lost their will to live a normal life because they didn't have jobs and gave birth to a premature baby"

Erm, it ain't the online game addiction that is the problem. It is a symptom. Of course, pointing at the addiction as the problem is much sexier.

[KittyWampus]

8. what do you think the psychological profile is?

[Cerridwen]

15. Is it psychological or sociological?

Or is it the point at which the two converge?

We could blame the individuals and thereby relieve society (intersecting systems maintaining the status quo) of its role of creating/perpetuating an environment in which psychological problems are ignored or exacerbated or we could examine what the hell is going on in this world in which a couple with a baby are able to ignore the baby and no one notices.

Of course, that's just a start and it would take some very heavy lifting. I say we just blame the individuals and ignore the rest.

[Hissyspit]

10. Well, yes. Online game addiction as a symptom of broader problems is a real problem.

[Warpy]

9. The couple will be punished for the rest of their lives

Meanwhile, the criminal system of deregulated capitalism will continue on without a whisper of guilt, creating more desperate people looking for any means to escape its effects while a few men get unimaginably rich.

It's hard not to feel sorry for the parents as well as that poor baby. The destruction of hope can lead to all sorts of hideous things, from alcohol to gambling to living a false life that distracts from the real one.

It's too easy to blame them for acting alone. They didn't.

[Lance_Boyle]

12. Hard not to feel sorry for these murderers? Really?

And a rant on capitalism as the cause? You might just be a bridge too far from sanity on this one.

[Gin]

13. eye for an eye would fit their punishment...let them see how it felt to be starved

to death...the only way these people understand is to share the same experience...

[Warpy]

17. Empathy

is what I've been blessed with. People who condemn without considering context have not.

Yes, these people will be punished in order to make an example of them. No, it won't do any good while the system that produced them is still rotten.

[mopinko]

21. +1

[flying rabbit]

24. +2

[proteus_lives]

29. Screw that.

Empathy? For a couple of numbfucks who let a baby starve to death?

Online game addiction? Yeah right. It's actually called mommy and daddy didn't give a fuck.

They both belong in prison for the rest of their lives. Paper the walls of their cells with pictures of the child they killed.

[Maru Kitteh]

27. I love you Warpy so I mean this in the nicest way possible. Are you NUTZ?

South Korea has UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE.

What these two "parents" did was unimaginably cruel and completely avoidable.

Millions of people in similar circumstances and worse have not behaved so reprehensibly as these two did.


I hope they rot.

[Warpy]

34. Uh, this part

"The couple seemed to have lost their will to live a normal life because they didn't have jobs and gave birth to a premature baby,"

Their hope had been destroyed. That makes people nuts. I can afford compassion for such people.

It doesn't make any difference. The people lacking empathy will decide their fate and a rotten system will continue to deprive other people of hope.

[proteus_lives]

30. Yeah, yeah. No is responsible for their own actions.

That line of thinking makes me :puke:

[Warpy]

35. What part of not acting alone didn't you get?

Words have meaning, read all of 'em.

But don't worry, the system will be held blameless and people like you will decide their fate.

[arcadian]

14. Humanity has officially jumped the shark.

[Kievan Rus]

16. People can really get addicted to these games....lots of stories at wowdetox.com on this

[librechik]

18. David Cronenberg wants the movie rights.

God, what a bizarre tragedy.

[arthritisR_US]

19. OMG, reverse evolution in operation. n/t

[tridim]

20. DON'T DATE ROBOTS!

[Leftist Agitator]

22. That is one of the sickest things I have ever heard.

It's enough to make you want to be a Luddite.

[Divine Discontent]

31. a horribly painful to stumble upon cautionary tale of addiction - what callous & selfish people who

clearly didn't have a problem stuffing tofu, rice and noodles into their own mouths I'm sure... sigh. I feel sorry for them only in regards that they ever...


met.

[WVRICK13]

23. Defective People Should Not Reproduce

Of all the insane things. Let them starve to death and escape reality in total.

[canetoad]

26. Just one moment

Did I see 'Defective People Should Not Reproduce' written above?

I won't invoke Godwins but the very fact I've mentioned it tells you where this post is coming from.

[Maru Kitteh]

28. Define "defect" please.

Heart murmur?
Dwarfism?
Type I diabetes?

[WVRICK13]

33. Socially Defective As In

sociopathic, lacking empathy. Things that prevent you from caring adequately for your children and/or pets.

[donco6]

32. OK, I've been into games before, but -

I haven't even neglected my DOG, let alone a child. I really don't have any pity for these people and hope they are punished appropriately.