It’s natural to be curious about death but if someone were to obsess over watching videos of people dying, that probably would not be healthy.

Not really – I think that US news is generally a bit over sensitive about this.

I saw it on our news along with sorrow and grief and regret and worry about the design. He hit that post and fell backward like a raggedy ann doll. I’m not surprised that news people quit showing it. I sure hope no-one who loved him saw it.

People are curious. Why else would the Faces of Death videos be so popular.

I don’t know. It seems like death is one thing that defines us all. We measure our success by how much we have done VS how close we are to death. You will rarely hear someone say a 98-year-old has tons of potential. You can either bury your head in the sand and act like its a college paper deadline (something you believe won’t happen until it is too late contrary to all other evidence) or you can confront it face to face. Being reminded of death, I think, is a reminder to appreciate life. I doubt that man suspected he would die that day. Or that week or year for that matter.
-Dan

Hosting the video and charging people to watch it, would probably be immoral.

That would be profiteering off other people’s misfortune. That’d be like being a lawyer… erm… I mean, that’d be awful!

Joking aside, yes, I agree. Charging people to watch it would be immoral. Just hosting it for free, though? I’m not sure. Does the family have a say? Should the family have a say? Or is it part of the public domain, like people jumping to their deaths from the Twin Towers?

How’d it look?

I wouldn’t consider it all that immoral. Not nearly as immoral as making it so widely available to the public.

@dverhey So, you’d be fine with a small website hosting the video, but protest youtube or google videos hosting it?

They kept playing it over and over on the news in slow motion on the news this morning, so apparently the media doesn’t think so…

I think it is a bit morbid, yes. I don’t know if I would go as far as calling it immoral. I can understand people being curious, but I, personally, have no desire to see anyone’s death. It seems almost like an invasion of privacy to me. However, I’m not a fan of censorship, so I suppose if a video is there, and people want to see it, they should have that choice. I’m making the choice to not watch it. It seems wrong to me.

Yes, I think it’s pretty morbid. Immoral? Not necessarily. But not having any kind of idea how his family feels about it being aired is enough for me to not want to watch. I wouldn’t want to watch it anyway, but I definitely believe that his loved ones should be taken into consideration. Watching it doesn’t give anyone any kind of new information – the news is all over the place – so reading how he died says everything already.

I dunno… My best friend’s death is still fresh in my mind, so if for some weird reason his suicide had been caught on tape, and people had the ability to watch it and chose to do so, if I ever met one of them face to face… It wouldn’t be a nice encounter.

Why don’t they show us video of soldiers getting evaporated by IED’s?

Canada stopped showing our dead soldiers being unloaded from the airplanes that brought them back from Iraq and Afghanistan, (another today), and I think that’s a good thing.

@Dan_DeColumna Personally, if I was the family of the killed luger, I’d feel awful if that video was up anywhere.

Curiosity is one thing but obsession is another. I’ve watched some disturbing stuff and I usually regret it. I never want to be desensitized to death unless I’m forced to be in a life or death situation for survival. I read somewhere that it’s a strange phenomenon that due to the level of exposure we have to this stuff that we can replicate physiological states that are usually reserved for battle or extreme circumstances. It’s not normal to be walking around with spikes of adrenalin and high levels of anxiety. And worse if we were to become completely without empathy that could be a kind of pathology.

I wouldn’t want millions of people to be able to watch a video of my death over and over again. Although I do agree that it’s natural to be curious about death, and to see it . . . I myself watched the video, so I can’t pass judgment on anyone.

I also felt like watching the video when I heard about it but I’m glad I didn’t find it. I did watch the video of saddam Hussein getting hanged and I regretted it straightaway.

I would say that it would be both answers, due to the fact of, I work in a profession where people die in front of me every day, and watching it online seems to be a tad bit sick in my mind. I have watched videos of decapatations before, although its nothing like watching someone die in front of you…. Unless of course you are watching a live video of someone being decapitated online.

@Jay170590 : I would have to say, I actually enjoyed watching him get hung. it just meant that one more terror is gone.

Maybe 4 or so years ago, I watched a video of a man getting his head being cut off with what looked like a huge Arabian knife with a curved blade. I wish I had never seen it.
Maybe a year ago, I watched a video of a guy who put some kind of bomb around his neck, and blew his head off.
It wasn’t ask bad as the other one, but it was still hard to watch.
I wouldn’t say we watched these videos out of vain, but out of curiosity.