Sad story from India

Via Discover, this shit depresses the hell out of me.

A teenage girl in central India killed herself on Wednesday after being traumatized by media reports that a "Big Bang" experiment in Europe could bring about the end of the world, her father said.

It would have been a funny story to laugh at the silly culture that takes unfounded doomsayers too literally, or a media outlet over selling the credibility of kooks for better ratings, except for the fact that a teenage girl is dead.

Now, the fact that she did this obviously shows she had some mental health issues to start with, so I'm not blaming others for her death. But I was particularly bothered by this quote from her father:

"We tried to divert her attention and told her she should not worry about such things, but to no avail," he said.

Divert her attention? I could maybe buy that as reasonable parenting if there were a real threat that they simply couldn't do anything about, like a tsunami or something. But in this case, we have a world of credible, demonstrable evidence available that there was absolutely nothing to worry about. All he had to do was treat his daughter like an adult, which is, unfortunately, about the last resort many parents will take.

He wasn't the only idiot around though:

But in deeply religious and superstitious India, fears about the experiment and the minor risks associated with it spread rapidly through the media.

In east India, thousands of people rushed to temples to pray and fast while others savored their favorite foods in anticipation of the world's end.

I don't know how much MSNBC is over selling this point. I'd be interested what percentage of Indian citizens really took the threat seriously.