Parents let three month old baby starve to death because they were obsessed with caring for a virtual child.

[Vy'drach]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/05/korean-girl-starved-online-game

Figured y'all'd find this discussion worthy.

So now it begins.

[LoneWolf]

[unoservix]

um

what is there to discuss?

inb4 someone blunders in saying it should be totally cool to starve your real children to death in favor of your fake internet children

[Vy'drach]

um

what is there to discuss?

inb4 someone blunders in saying it should be totally cool to starve your real children to death in favor of your fake internet children

Eh, dunno. Figured someone would find something to discuss, gaming in cultures (as apparently Korea has lots of game related deaths), or other things.

[Thu'um]

oh my.....

[unoservix]

well i am going to take the courageous step of standing up for the importance of neglecting your real children in favor of your virtual children

what do you need real children for anyways? you know what real children do? they poop. that shit's disgusting. down with real children, i say!

[Patch93]

..........Excuse me while I go blow my brains out....

In case you can't tell, I'm being sarcastic. Still, this is fucking stupid.

[Wes]

Do you get extra welfare benefits for having online children?

[Faisul]

^ Ha,

Can't say I have much to say about this. All in all, it's really a testament to the tragic extremes to which the maladjusted of society will go to find some comfort. While it's certainly a sad thing that the child died, I can't imagine that couple being all there mentally, at least not enough to provide a good upbringing for the baby.

Some East Asian societies tend to have very strict societal norms about conformity and propriety, and if you fall out of that framework you often end up with little recourse but to become either some species of basement troll or sociopath - much like you would anywhere else, really. These folks just chose the path of least resistance, I guess - complete apathy to a reality that seemed to scorn them at every turn (and a child that actually needed stuff like food and cleaning) for some virtual ideal baby thing.

[Dr. Orange]

Is there a more logical reaction?

[Sideways]

Who in their right mind would spend more time with a fucking virtual child then their own flesh and blood? If you're not going to take care of your child, why did you have it in the first place? Having a child IS NOT an excuse for getting more welfare from your government and getting more handouts.. it's not fair to those of us who work all our lives and put into the system for you to abuse it. I hope the parents go to jail for this.

[Vy'drach]

Who in their right mind would spend more time with a fucking virtual child then their own flesh and blood? If you're not going to take care of your child, why did you have it in the first place? Having a child IS NOT an excuse for getting more welfare from your government and getting more handouts.. it's not fair to those of us who work all our lives and put into the system for you to abuse it. I hope the parents go to jail for this.

Don't think they had the baby due to welfare. Also, does Korea even have a welfare system?

[Sideways]

Wasn't aware it was in Korea, but oh well. Still pisses me off. Having a kid is a serious responsibility and I shudder for our world thinking about this current generation and when they decide to have kids. It's only gonna get worse.

[DZComposer]

I hope this doesn't come off as racist, but Dafuq is going on in Korea? People play Starcraft until they drop dead, they neglect their children in the name of video games, and they believe that sleeping in a room with a running electric fan will kill you.

I am at a loss for words on this one. I mean, when I play games for more than 6 hours in a single session, I get a headache and generally feel like shit. How anyone can just keep going, foregoing biological necessities like food and using the bathroom is quite beyond my capcity. I mean, if I'm playing a game and I get hungry, fuck the game, I going for a hamburger. Or if I need to dispose of some waste, I will be going AFK for a moment to either take a piss or drop a deuce.

[Vy'drach]

Well Korea is the country where one can be a professional gamer. They tend to take their gaming to a whole new extreme of extreme.

[CrypticQuery]

I hope this doesn't come off as racist, but Dafuq is going on in SOUTH Korea? People play Starcraft until they drop dead, they neglect their children in the name of video games, and they believe that sleeping in a room with a running electric fan will kill you.

Fix'd. Sorry, but I imagine the North Korean alternative will be much, much worse. xD

[Sideways]

I hope this doesn't come off as racist, but Dafuq is going on in Korea? People play Starcraft until they drop dead, they neglect their children in the name of video games, and they believe that sleeping in a room with a running electric fan will kill you.

I am at a loss for words on this one. I mean, when I play games for more than 6 hours in a single session, I get a headache and generally feel like shit. How anyone can just keep going, foregoing biological necessities like food and using the bathroom is quite beyond my capcity. I mean, if I'm playing a game and I get hungry, fuck the game, I going for a hamburger. Or if I need to dispose of some waste, I will be going AFK for a moment to either take a piss or drop a deuce.

They also kill their mothers who complain they spend too much time on video games..

I thought I played too much video games, but damn. I agree. If I get hungry, I get off and eat. I dont go for 50 hours and die.

[Thu'um]

I hope this doesn't come off as racist, but Dafuq is going on in Korea? People play Starcraft until they drop dead, they neglect their children in the name of video games, and they believe that sleeping in a room with a running electric fan will kill you.

I am at a loss for words on this one. I mean, when I play games for more than 6 hours in a single session, I get a headache and generally feel like shit. How anyone can just keep going, foregoing biological necessities like food and using the bathroom is quite beyond my capcity. I mean, if I'm playing a game and I get hungry, fuck the game, I going for a hamburger. Or if I need to dispose of some waste, I will be going AFK for a moment to either take a piss or drop a deuce.

that because we are only normal men, Koreans are like the spartens of gamming. When they are born they are inspected, from the time they can pick up a controller they are baptized in the leassons of gamming, taught never to take a piss break, never to pause the game, that death at the keyboard is the greatest glory one can achieve in this life. Koreans, the finest gamers the world had ever known.

[Milkyway64]

that because we are only normal men, Koreans are like the spartens of gamming. When they are born they are inspected, from the time they can pick up a controller they are baptized in the leassons of gamming, taught never to take a piss break, never to pause the game, that death at the keyboard is the greatest glory one can achieve in this life. Koreans, the finest gamers the world had ever known.

Funny stereotype, but on the whole untrue. Different regions are different at different types of games popular there. For Korea it's RTS and MMO's. However, give them a FPS and they will suddenly not look quite as skilled. It's a practice, and there are exceptions.

I for instance am good at a lot of azn games, like bullet hells. This makes me seem to be at a godly sort of status because no one over here plays much of those.

[sroberson]

Ajc, I had a good 'lol' over your post

But seriously though, is it just the news that we hear? Is it isolated to just the South Koreans (or largely anyways?). I can't help but think it a bit odd that the United States is deemed the country of excess and decadence when we aren't up and ruining lives with video games to the extent of causing death like this and other articles. While I am by no means defending North Korea or justifying a lot of the things they do, I can't help but wonder if they view these events in the South as yet another example of the United States trying to invade/destroy their culture.

[Thu'um]

Funny stereotype, but on the whole untrue. Different regions are different at different types of games popular there. For Korea it's RTS and MMO's. However, give them a FPS and they will suddenly not look quite as skilled. It's a practice, and there are exceptions.

I for instance am good at a lot of azn games, like bullet hells. This makes me seem to be at a godly sort of status because no one over here plays much of those.

well i was really just pulling for lol's

[Drasiana]

But seriously though, is it just the news that we hear?

Yes.

The news likes doing this, you see. Pick the crazy, more "interesting" stories, run those alone, and suddenly you have swarms of people who have a very distorted image of the respective countries or subcultures it's discussing because that's all they ever hear about them. Korea isn't alone in video game stupidity casualties, and in fact "stupidity casualities" are a staple of humankind as a whole. Korea has made an interesting industry out of video gaming, that much is true, but it's not that fair to go "wow look at those wacky Koreans dying after marathon-gaming" when we have people in America dying after scarfing down a buttload of cockroaches.

So, as tragic as it is that these people were so detached from reality that they savoured the existence of a digital baby over their own, it's not entirely fair to write it off as WOW, KOREANS, AMIRITE?

...or as EVIL WELFARE QUEENS, which kind of came out of nowhere there buddy.

[Prince Elite]

This is a truly horrendous act on these people's behalves, everything i could put into words has already been spoken. I just wanted to add my name to the fray and say how despicable these people are.