Stanford Med School Student Arrested for Poisoning Classmates' Water Bottles
1–10 of 14 posts
Re: Stanford Med School Student Arrested for Poisoning Classmates' Water Bottles
#2"but I really didn't mean to harm people"
More like didn't mean to get caught. Terrible person.
Re: Stanford Med School Student Arrested for Poisoning Classmates' Water Bottles
#3I was hoping that this report was some April fools' prank, but it seems to be corroborated by a source that's better for all things Stanford. http://www.stanforddaily.com/2015/03/30/graduate-student-cha...
Re: Stanford Med School Student Arrested for Poisoning Classmates' Water Bottles
#4[deleted]
Re: Stanford Med School Student Arrested for Poisoning Classmates' Water Bottles
#5"but I really didn't mean to harm people" More like didn't mean to get caught. Terrible person.
I'm not even going to try to defend her actions, but I think you might be underestimating the power of going on and off antidepressants on top of graduate school at Stanford.
Re: Stanford Med School Student Arrested for Poisoning Classmates' Water Bottles
#6[deleted]
Or perhaps even inadvertently selected against.
Re: Stanford Med School Student Arrested for Poisoning Classmates' Water Bottles
#7> Zheng's attorney has indicated in court documents that she may plead not guilty by reason of insanity, which can be a tricky defense to mount
Unless you somehow get mainstream press to make a victim out of the perpetrator. Maybe with long articles where it's repeated ad nauseam that the poisoner and saboteur was not herself, was stressed, was depressed and had headaches.
Re: Stanford Med School Student Arrested for Poisoning Classmates' Water Bottles
#8"but I really didn't mean to harm people" More like didn't mean to get caught. Terrible person.
Except this seems to be more a case of severe mental illness than conscious morality, as far as the facts go. Not that any mental illness renders a person criminally dangerous or unable to account for their actions (in fact the vast majority of mental illness cases don't), but in this particular case it would seem at least possible that doing harm was partly beyond her conscious control. Also, if she wanted to get attention/help, you can argue that she meant to get caught, whether or not she also meant to cause harm.
Either way, I really hope all the affected are healthy, safe and taken care of physically and emotionally. Hopefully she will receive adequate psychiatric care, as well as be prevented from harming others.
Re: Stanford Med School Student Arrested for Poisoning Classmates' Water Bottles
#9> Zheng's attorney has indicated in court documents that she may plead not guilty by reason of insanity, which can be a tricky defense to mount Unless you somehow get mainstream press to make a victim out of the perpetrator. Maybe with long articles where it's repeated ad nauseam that the poisoner and saboteur was not herself, was stressed, was depressed and had headaches.
Except a) sounds like it might be true, and b) the outcome of "not guilty by reason of insanity" should be, well... many years of being removed from society in order to prevent further damage and possibly an attempt at treatment/rehabilitation. Which is basically what criminal sentences should be like; at least in situations like this that involve irrational harm of others with no personal gain, which you cannot correct by disincentivizing them with punishment.
Re: Stanford Med School Student Arrested for Poisoning Classmates' Water Bottles
#10[deleted]
>screening for psychological stability
and what Stanford, or we - society as a whole, is supposed to do with such people? Throw them away? I think a lot of scientifically talented or creative people are not that "stable". At least a bunch of good mathematicians i knew back at University were "strange".