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Re:Japanese Suicide Apartments by ck2 on Saturday December 12, 2015 @05:32PM (#10724436)
The older the place you live in, the more likely someone died there.

And given how old civilization is, I bet someone probably died within 1000 feet of where you live right now.

Certainly hundreds of animals have died around you for sure, many within your lifetime.

In fact you probably ate a dead creature today.

WTF is with people and "ghosts" ?

Re:Japanese Suicide Apartments by PhasmaFelis on Saturday December 12, 2015 @06:15PM (#10724594)
If one did believe that the disembodied spirits of the dead could be trapped on earth near the place where they died, it's not really much of a additional stretch to postulate that they would be specifically bound to a physical structure, or their pre-death conception of "home."

It's weird to me how so many people's approach to mythbusting is "if ghosts were real, they would behave according to this set of rules I just made up, and they clearly don't, therefore ghosts aren't real." A much better argument would be "There is no evidence whatsoever of ghosts existing, therefore ghosts aren't real." There's no need to try to define ghosts as elementary particles or whatever.

Re:Japanese Suicide Apartments by cperciva on Saturday December 12, 2015 @07:05PM (#10724775)
And given how old civilization is, I bet someone probably died within 1000 feet of where you live right now.

Unless you live at the top of a tall skyscraper. Civilization is old, but people living in mid-air isn't!

Re:Japanese Suicide Apartments by fbbbbb on Saturday December 12, 2015 @05:40PM (#10724471)
I would say that someone died within 1000 feet from where you live, while you actually lived there. This is probably true, unless you live in a remote house.

And they all forget to count ghosts from microorganisms and insects.

Re:Japanese Suicide Apartments by krapp on Saturday December 12, 2015 @06:00PM (#10724538)
It may be that, in Shinto Buddhism (the predominant religion in Japan,) the "ghosts" of microorganisms, insects, etc. don't exist, or aren't worth worrying about, because they're part of the natural order.

Also bear in mind that, if one believes in reincarnation and animism, "ghosts" on earth may be considered a special case, when the expectation is that most spirits rejoin the karmic cycle (or whatever.)

Re:Japanese Suicide Apartments by gotchange on Saturday December 12, 2015 @06:59PM (#10724757)
Superstition (proto-religion) is the enemy of reason.