VisionAndPsychosis.Net©
In Montgomery Alabama
Copyright 2003 Edit January 2011
If you found this page using a search engine,
Enter the site from the HOME page.
Foxconn Factory Suicides
Page under construction
This page should be considered as a stack of index cards. There will be repetitions in text until the first edit.
Before you begin reading: One of the hardest to understand and accept things about this phenomenon is that it cannot be consciously experienced. Because of the way your brain functions subliminally to detect threat-movement the conscious mind is unaware any thing is happening.
This problem is a part of your every day life. A low level of exposure is normal for everyone and harmless. Trouble begins when you create a situation that allows massive exposure in a compact time frame. This may be several hours each day for a week or more. See the Introduction on the Home page for examples.
The crowded conditions on the Foxconn City-factory appear to have created the "special circumstances" for Subliminal Distraction exposure. The low number of suicides, fourteen at several sites, out of 400,000 workers at one factory indicate the suicides are doing something the other workers are not doing to have a level of exposure for the full mental break from SD exposure.
As more people report the conditions and interview workers there are other hints that this is Subliminal Distraction at work. Workers have reported that they continue to have hand movements after leaving the assembly line. They say they can't stop their mind racing so they can sleep.
Some sites argue that the suicide rate at Foxconn is lower than the rate for China as a whole. That is a false argument. The problem is sampling. The work force at Foxconn is not a random sample of the population in general. No such comparison can be made.
An investigation to determine that Subliminal Distraction is at fault would review every previous suicide for their work location and after work activities.
I succeeded in reaching someone in China working to solve the problem using an email address from an activist group in Hong Kong. We had two email exchanges. So far there has been no action. Although a PH.D. he did not understand the communication.
To understand what a Subliminal Distraction episode is like, read the suicide note of Mark Barton, Atlanta Day Trader killer (Bottom of this page)or watch the explanation by Stevie Ray Vaughn on the Hollywood page here.
Perform the demonstration of subliminal sight and habituation in peripheral vision to understand why this exposure is not detectable by the victim. Demonstration
As of August 6th 2010 there have been fourteen suicides and one attempted suicide of workers in Foxconn factories in the Peoples Republic of China. They typically jump from the upper floors in buildings with dormitory style rooms that one report said have 8+ people in each room. (The total is now 18 in July 2011.)
In January 2011 a female engineer that had been sent home for bizarre behavior committed suicide. In the last few days, May 26, 2011 another worker living at an off factory apartment jumped from that roof .
The business has held meetings counseled employees, hired Buddhist monks and 100 councilors in the attempt to stop the deaths. At one point employers tried to get employees to sign a pledge not to commit suicide. Workers have been organized into groups to watch each other for signs of depression or an oncoming suicide. This latest suicide shows that none of those precautions worked.
In fact one of the recent suicide attempts involved jumping into nets that had been erected at the second floor level around dormitory buildings. The worker had to know the nets were there. But she jumped anyway.
I have tried to tell colleges this for several years. Counseling won't work to prevent suicides because when the mental break happens the person is not in their right mind at the point of suicide. In fact the altered mental state might include misperception of ongoing situations around them.
Activists blame strict conditions of 12 hour shifts with ten minute bathroom breaks every two hours, low wages, and military style management as the cause. Others have argued it is the working conditions where young workers from rural China are away from home and family without that support.
None of the reasons given include Subliminal Distraction exposure.
There have been 60 suicides at France Telecom in the last three years. Those workers have a 35 hour week. Even dividing that 60 by 3 to show an average of 20 per year France Telecom's rate is higher than Foxconn in China, almost double. Why? In France workers can afford home computers and can cause Subliminal Distraction exposure at home.
There are clothing sewing sweat shops in New York with conditions worse than Foxconn. You never hear of a suicide or mental break in those shops. Why? The sewing machines and stacks of work to be done and finished work put those sewing machine operators further apart than assembly line workers at Foxconn. That separation provides limited Cubicle Level Protection. Peripheral vision is blocked or movement of the adjoining worker is far enough away to prevent its detection in subliminal sight.
Suicide notes have been left that blamed the uncertainty and frequently changing work locations. Unions blame privatization of the French communication company and poor management. French workers left from the time it was owned by France cannot be fired. The CEO was fired but the deaths continue. One of the last was a self immolation with gasoline in a parking lot.
Union spokesmen claim that workers that cannot be fired are treated poorly to encourage them to quit.
First look at this video. There are scenes of factory workers seated too close side-by-side so that they should have Cubicle Level Protection.
When workers interact while working the movement in peripheral vision is not subliminally detected. You can't "detect" movement that you are aware of in conscious sight.
This phenomenon requires that the victim engage deep mental investment to the point that they are unaware of things happening around them. You would do that when you read a book or watch TV to the point of suspension of disbelief.
Concentrating to perform a series of parts insertions and adjustments to the electronic product would allow that exposure.
The problematic scene comes at time mark 2:30 just eight seconds from the end of the clip.
In this video there are views of the Foxconn City/Factory showing the size of the dorm buildings.
While workers are shown crowded together on the assembly line without Cubicle Level Protection that may be the same circumstances in other factories where the suicides don't happen. Concentration to a level of at least light dissociation for events around you is necessary. If you are consciously aware of movement beside you exposure can't happen.
One of the last suicides was a worker in a "plastics packing department." Without knowing the situation of her job it suggests that it is the dormitory living arrangements that allow exposure for the mental break of Subliminal Distraction and a suicide while in that confused altered mental state.
To decide or settle that issue a description of her work place and job would be necessary.
Sony Ericsson Factory _ Compare the work conditions in this video to Foxconn.
Do you see the difference. Machines do work at Sony that many Foxconn workers perform seated side-by-side.
Workers that must make quick decisions and that have detectable movement in their peripheral vision should never be this close together. The expression seen here might be daydreaming. That would allow exposure. She may not be an assembly line worker but a supervisor of some type. The picture cuts off the area in front of her. Her arm tag seems different.
That facial expression may be "flat affect" an indication of ongoing exposure. This picture does not show movement like the eight seconds of video in the first YouTube clip.
Direct interaction between workers would prevent exposure.
You cannot subliminally detect something in your conscious sight.
The second worker from the right has hair combed forward to block peripheral vision. She cannot detect movement hidden by her hair.
To have Subliminal Distraction exposure you must engage full mental investment so that you are no longer aware of anything happening around you.
Most people can learn to consciously ignore threat-movement once you learn what it is and that it is not dangerous to you.
When you do that the normal startle will stop. But you can't stop seeing anything in your vision field. That means the brain will continue to subliminally detect movement near you. If threat-movement is detected you can't prevent your brain's reaction to it. That reaction is an attempt to startle.
Since this entire process happens subliminally the effected worker is unaware anything is happening to them.
That's why the cubicle was created. Workers using cubicles are not aware of the protection the walls around them offer by blocking peripheral vision.
The full cubicle would not be necessary here. But some peripheral vision blocking scheme should be used between concentrating workers put too close together. A pair of safety glasses with side vision blacked out might solve this problem.
.
One question often asked is why all the workers aren't having mental breaks?
If you have alerts for stories from this incident you would be aware that many of these workers have psychiatric symptoms of fear, anxiety, depression, and trouble sleeping. The mind races and you cannot drop off to sleep. If those symptoms were expressed here in the United States the diagnosis would be ADD.
That means many worker have SD exposure to cause these reported symptoms but just not enough to cause the full mental break and potential suicide.
In
this picture the first worker has her hair on her left side combed forward which
would block her peripheral vision on that side.
You can see that the last worker on the right has her hair combed forward so it also blocks peripheral vision.
That would prevent both of those workers having Subliminal Distraction exposure from the side that is blocked.
The center worker has no such protection.
You cannot subliminally detect movement that is in your conscious sight. That would mean that detected threat movement may not be the adjoining worker but the occasional movement of a worker further away.
Dorm Rooms
Typical housing has dedicated rooms for eating, sleeping, entertaining, watching TV, and cooking, But dorm rooms typically are a single large room where everyone lives, sleeps, and spends off duty time. They might read, watch TV or movies on computers, surf the Internet, or play video games. It is different from an apartment that would have separate rooms for these different activities.
When someone engages an activity such as reading a book. using a computer, playing video games, or even daydreaming the confines of the room keep the residents close together so they can detect each other's movement in peripheral vision. That would create a large number of opportunities for Subliminal Distraction.
Understand, because the source of movement to cause an attempt of the vision startle reflex is not identified when you do not startle, turn and look at the movement, you can have exposure from more than one source.
Think of it this way. If you sit using a computer or reading a book where people can walk close beside you there would not be recognition of who the person is. It does not matter whether the same person walks back and forth or different people walk by. Your brain cannot recognize an object in far peripheral vision because color and shape information is not available in that area of your vision. It is Subliminal Peripheral Vision.
It is unlikely that these workers make enough to own a
computer or any of the devices they make. In Asia computers are in cafes and you
rent them or rent their use with Internet access time. Video game playing
parlors have similar situations. Their computers are lined up side by side so
that long term users must have Subliminal Distraction exposure. There have been
fights and at least one death when a thirteen year old dived from a upper floor
in his apartment building. Reporting at the time suggested he had become
addicted to a popular computer video game.
See the pictures below of Foxconn company computers for workers. They have separate workstations but the workstations do not have Cubicle Level Protection. Each individual location contributes a portion of the total exposure needed for the mental break.
Computers for workers
Computers for workers use are supplied by Foxconn. They have one computer for every 750 workers. As you can see from these two pictures they are not used to capacity.
You can see that the CPU tower is correctly located below the work surface in these workstations.
That fact would prevent Subliminal Distraction exposure from blinking lights on the computer.
But there is no peripheral vision blocking panel between users. They can still subliminally detect each other's movement while using these computers.
Internet Cafe Video Game Playing Parlors
Photo Credit Oregon Live
As you can see there is no attempt to provide peripheral vision blocking protection in video game Cafes in China.
Fights at these Cafes are common and there has been at least one suicide. I follow an English language on-line newspaper for that information. Not every case would be reported.
There have been video game playing addiction issues in Asia. It has been suggested that code be put into the game to reduce game performance the longer it is played to discourage extremely long game playing sessions.
These game players are not being addicted to the game but to the subliminal
stimulation of their subconscious mind by Subliminal Distraction.
This is shown by cases of addiction to performing Qi Gong. There is a single case reported from China of a self trained Qi Gong user becoming addicted to the exercise. The psychotic-like beliefs and strange behaviors of Falun Gong members are caused by that same stimulation.
When either Qi Gong or Kundalini Yoga group sessions are performed correctly with eyes-open meditation the exercises are engines for Subliminal Distraction exposure. Mental problems from these two exercises have been noted for 2500 and 3000 years respectively. Users credit powerful supernatural forces for the effect. Do you really believe waving your arms and legs about in unison with others can summon supernatural forces?
As far as your brain can tell exposure at a video game playing venue or exposure on the assembly line is the same.
A guess is that crowded product assembly lines create a low level of Subliminal Distraction exposure but not enough to cause the full mental break or serious symptoms. When the worker then goes back to their room, or visits a computer rental cafe or game playing parlor, additional exposure would push them over the edge to have a sudden episode of deep despondency that leads to the suicide.
Because there have not been a very large number of these deaths the suicides are doing something everyone else doesn't do.
The argument that this number of suicides is normal for China is false. The problem is in the sampling. What are the age groups and occupations for suicides in the whole of China versus the age demographics for the factory city population? The employees at Foxconn do not represent a random sample of the general population of China. Suicides in China do not happen in a single business.
Another question to ask is have there been suicides in support workers such as fireman, grounds keeper, and janitor? My limited information says no.
Were any of the suicides Qi Gong users, video game players, knowledge workers using cubicles in offices?
Foxconn would have to interview roommates of suicides to find out what they did that might have caused Subliminal Distraction exposure in the dorm room. Months later it is too late for that.
Working several extra shifts in a compact time frame might allow just the badly designed assembly line to cause enough exposure for the mental event.
How do you stop it?
Educate the employees about Subliminal Distraction exposure then use those groups that have been organized to monitor behaviors for suicide to monitor performance in avoiding Subliminal Distraction exposure. If Subliminal Distraction is the cause of these suicides they would just stop.
That's the no-cost way to stop them. But redesigning the assembly lines and providing single person dorm rooms would eventually be necessary.
Can I Prove this connection?
No. But nothing else has worked and my course of action uses things already in place. If you perform a Google search for "Suicides + Foxconn" you will find discussions that tap each person's personal beliefs. They blame the victim, the system, Apple computers, and greedy capitalists. Pick one! (This factory makes the Apple IPod.)
Too-small Single-room living arrangements
If you are a frequent reader on this site you know one way to establish the
cause of events is to find an identical one with known outcomes. In the 1880's
in Mooselake Maine such an event happened. French Canadian lumberjacks had a
bizarre behavior that came to be known as Jumping Frenchmen of Maine.
It is also called a "command behavior" or "startle matching behavior."
When startled a lumber jack would perform any action commanded of them or match
any action shown them. They exhibited hyper-startle and high suggestibility.
They would repeat their own last words or the last words of someone speaking to
them. That behavior is usually only seen in catatonic schizophrenia. A New York
neurologist investigated and wrote several papers that were published and
circulated around the world. Today one group of experts think it was a inherited
neurological problem. More recent studies said ever thing seen in this case
could be explained by operant conditioning. Neither group is aware of Subliminal
Distraction.
Lumberjacks would stop work at sunset. They had hours before sleep to repair clothes, sharpen tools for the next day, or read. That put sometimes more than a dozen men in a single room. Each person engaging deep mental investment while repairing tools or sharpening them could have Subliminal Distraction exposure.
The startle matching behavior disappeared in Maine and Southern Canada when modern logging equipment replaced bunkhouses of men in remote lumber camps.
An identical behavior happens in Malaysia. It is called Latah. Although disappearing and switching victims from men to middle aged women it is still present in villages that live in single-room long houses. Village men now go outside the area for work and women sit on porches running the entire length of a village long house. While they perform household duties that require mental investment children and other villagers that remain at home walk by them creating threat-movement in their peripheral vision. That's Subliminal Distraction exposure. (Small city apartments would serve to create the same exposure if large families live in the too-small rooms.)These women called Latahs, when startled, will jump, dance, or disrobe if commanded to do so.
These startle-matching behaviors were eventually discovered around the world. They exist as Culture Bound Syndromes and happen anywhere too-small single-room traditional or ethnic housing is used.
There has been at least one case discovered in a worker on a factory floor. It is reported in Simmons', "Boo! Culture, Experience, and the Startle Reflex."
That's two cases to demonstrate complex behaviors can be created by Subliminal Distraction in too-small single-room situations even though almost no one is aware the problem exists. Those that are aware of it believe it will only cause a temporary episode of confusion. In this case the risk is what a factory worker might do while experiencing that confused temporary episode so that they do not survive. it.
So how does this connect to the Foxconn suicide situation?
Multi-person dorm rooms in the Foxconn factory copy this exposure description.
But the Foxconn situation involves suicide?
An individual's reaction to the fear, paranoia, and panic the oncoming mental break creates is shaped by personality, beliefs about reality/consciousness , and values the worker holds. Will the person react with fear, then run and hide? Will the person decide someone is responsible and seek to get even? Will the victim experiencing the episode react with deep despondency and give up, then see no way out except to end it all?
The situation with long tiring hours, living alone, with low income might shape the outcome of the mental break but it doesn't cause it. Those factors believed to be worker maltreatment are not responsible for the mental break. Because with Cubicle Level Protection the metal events would not happen then suicides would not happen with the same people in the same situation.
When my wife had this mental event she hallucinated that thousands of dollars were missing because of accounting mistakes she had made. There were no mistakes and no money was missing. The morning after I stopped her going to work she was near tears and said, "It will just kill my mother if I go to jail." The full story is on the Personal Experiences page.
These beliefs are so intense that although hallucinations they are very real to the person experiencing them. That would include despondency and the belief that there is no way out and no reason to go on.
I have found cases where parents talked to their college student for hours to resolve a problem worrying the student. They failed to detect that the student was in an altered mental state and approaching a suicide
Often the statement from family and friends after a college suicide is that the victim seemed normal and upbeat a few hours before the suicide.
One of the features of this phenomenon is that it can strike like lightening The person is normal one minute and dead by suicide before anyone is aware there is a problem. Yes, there are cases where a student began to fail and had episodes of fear or depression for months. It can happen both ways.
From these discovered cases and our personal family experience it is evident that some people are capable of disguising their situation. When my wife began to react to exposure It seemed like a normal dispute in a badly run university payroll office.
It was only when she said something obviously impossible that I realized something was wrong. She insisted that certain monthly payroll accounting reports had not been done in six months.
***************************************************
Site page constructing paused here September 11th 2010. This much has been prepared for responses to emails sent to China September 2nd.
Suicide Note Mark Barton Atlanta Day Trader killer 1999
Un-attributed Fear
This note, left on his computer, was the first thing police saw when they entered the Stockbridge apartment of Mark Barton.
"July 29, 1999
6:38 am
To whom it may concern,
...I'm so sorry. I wish I
didn't. Words cannot tell the agony.
Why did I ? I have been dying since October.
To wake up at night so
afraid, so terrified that I couldn't be that afraid while awake.
It
has taken its toll. I have come to hate this life in this system of things. I
have come to have no hope...
I don't plan to live very
much longer, just long enough to kill as many of the people that greedily sought
my destruction.
You should kill me if you can. "
BBC News Friday, July
30, 1999 Copy/Paste Barton's Note, The full text is available from several
sources
CNN site for the note http://www.cnn.com/US/9907/30/shooting.letters.02/
