The Tragedy of the Internet

Several days ago it was reported that a young man committed suicide after being encouraged to do so by ChatGPT, one of the most prominent “AI” (it’s not actually Ai, but a large language model) products on the market and widely used by many people. While it is clear the AI played a major role in this young man’s suicide we have known since its inception that “AI” is a notoriously unreliable product that is actively designed to entrap users and keep them hostage as long as possible by offering affirmative responses—i.e. telling people what they want to hear—which in turn causes the most vulnerable to use these AI chatbots as replacements for real relationships and real interactions with real people.

There have been many documented cases of what is being called “AI psychosis,” but what struck me as most alarming in the reporting about this sorry tragedy was not the AI component, but all the many other warning signs and problems that should have led to him getting help instead of ending his life. One of the most alarming signs that this young man was not okay was mentioned in a single, innocuous line in a major newspaper, that he was into “looksmaxing.” Looksmaxing is a portmanteau of ‘looks’ and ‘maximize’ which is a current trend among young men which seeks to maximize aesthetic beauty according to the standards of delusional, self-hating young people obsessed with physical appearance and online popularity. The article presents what is actually an obsession as nothing more than an incidental interest, when in reality ‘looksmaxing’ is a symptom of some of the most severe and dangerous conditions of body dysmorphia (a person not accurately conceptualizing their physical appearance) and low self esteem which is fueled by a lethal combination of personal insecurity and online engagement farming. The internet is an amazing tool which can be used to disseminate knowledge, increase commerce, and bring people together, but the generations of younger Gen X and Millenials with children have now used the internet as a replacement for parenting and in the process exposed many of their children to dangerous and duplicitous actors bent on farming views and clicks at any price, even that of the life of other people.

What is most egregious in the case of this young man is that his own mother is a mental health therapist, and the young man’s account interacting with ChatGPT details even how he failed at his first attempt trying to hang himself, then purposefully exposed his red and injured neck around his mother hoping she would see it, which she did not, apparently because this young man was also never actually taught how to ask for help or to communicate even with those of his own family. This may sound like a failure of the therapy occupation but, as I discuss in depth in my book The Perfect Child, most therapists are the Karpman ‘Helper’ type which themselves lack effective interpersonal tools and life skills whom are incapable of actually solving such problems, and this young man unfortunately was at greater risk because his own mother was a mental health therapist, not in spite of it. While his suicide was absolutely a product of interacting with the chat bot which not only encouraged him to do it but provided instructions and advice on how to and how to prevent others from knowing about it, it was also a consequence of lacking effective life skills to handle problems at the root of his despair and desperation, such as low self esteem, rejection, physical health, interpersonal communication, depression, self-care, acceptance, inclusion, meeting our own needs, personal responsibility, and other skills that many parents ourselves do not possess and therefore cannot pass on to our children which in turn makes our children more vulnerable to influence, pressure, stress, duplicitous actors, exploitation, etc.

People have always committed suicide, and this is not a problem of new technology and, like my own personal experience struggling with suicidal depression, is fueled by the fundamental inability to handle life due to the lack of life skills required to effectively handle life and its challenges. But especially in an age when such skills are becoming more and more mandatory it is even more dangerous to lack these when becoming a parent, because the inability to empower our children to meet these challenges then exposes them to greater consequences of failure or inadequacy. The mother of this unfortunate young man, like many people, likely dealt with problems in one of the only ways she knew how, which was to simply ignore things we find uncomfortable or inconvenient, and unfortunately in many cases the consequences of ignoring realities of life are things as losing a loved one, getting fired, or even getting cancer as discussed in my article The Deadliest Cause of Cancer. Many parameters of life absolutely are not conducive to ignoring, and will absolutely mete even unbearable consequences, but the solution to this problem is not self-will or attempts to control life. Indeed a response to an article like this might be a desire to sit down with your children and tell them about this suicide and how we are available for our children if they ever need to talk. But in fact that is absolutely NOT the correct way to handle this situation, because in doing so we would stress out our children by introducing them to a painful and horrifying tragedy which they should be spared until they are adults, and telling children they can come to us if they ever need help puts the responsibility of doing so ONTO THEM, and they may not feel capable of doing that or in shouldering such responsibility. Children should in fact simply feel able to approach parents for assistance, not be told they should do it, and this in turn is achieved NOT by instructing our children but through our own behaviors and attitudes about life that we unconsciously transmit to them through our own unconscious conception of life.

In order to help our children we must start with ourselves, for instance this poor mother would have needed to learn new skills herself so that she could in turn then pass them on to her children, as we cannot give what we do not ourselves possess. This process is discussed in detail in The Perfect Child which, chapter by chapter, teaches empowering mental health skills and self-care skills that can empower parents to first take care of our own needs and then as a result become empowered in turn to help our children, through example, which is the only effective way to parent, and if feelings of discouragement and doubt accompany that challenge it is only because you have never been taught how to be effective, and is far easier to achieve than you might think (all you have to do is start reading it!).

The reality in today’s world is that if you are not actively empowering your child to handle the complexities of life through effective self-care skills they will be swept up in the dysfunction, fear, and hate that nefarious forces spread through the internet and, no, simply avoiding the internet is not the solution either since all children eventually grow up and will require skills to navigate the complex world of adulthood. If you do not actively take a role in empowering your own children, by first empowering yourself, they will not be prepared for it. Oppositely, the act of taking care of our own needs demonstrates to children how they can in turn take care of theirs, and there is far more power in self-care and effective life skills than anything evil the internet can bring, so simply doing an act of self care like reading The Perfect Child and teaching yourself the skills it discusses is a relatively easy way to do that.

Such tragedies also cut to the core of what it means to live, and why bad things happen, which are all existential problems that we all face at some point or another throughout our lives. If you want to also understand karma, tragedy, pain, loss, and the deeper forces that govern the Universe, go read my new book Under A Libra God.