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Is there a type of psychosis that causes those who are feeling 'unsafe' for whatever reason to seek out small, enclosed spaces? A kind of primitive instinct to hide where they can't be seen but feel 'surrounded'? Like the burrowing instinct in those with hypothermia.

Because I can quite understand that, in all of these cases, someone who feels they are being watched, maybe followed, that there are drones or cameras watching them, that people are talking about them - to find a small, dark (and therefore unfilmable) space just to feel safe for a moment...
 
Withdrawing from view and / or hiding are common reactions to stressful or fear-inducing circumstances. This sort of act or behavior doesn't have to be associated with a broader psychosis.

For example ... At one point in the elevator video Ms. Lam withdraws from view as much as she can and scrunches herself into the elevator's corner next to the control panel. She doesn't do this until after she seems to realize the elevator isn't behaving as she expected.
 
I like this chap's channel. He reviews the Netflix series here. I thought it was interesting that he said (paraphrasing here) people want a 'bad guy' to be responsible because that makes sense of the world, whereas if someone can just lose it and tragically end up like that, then no-one's safe, which makes people uncomfortable.

Also he highlights how the overconfidence and gullibility of the websleuths only adds noise to the case, because they don't use proper ('scientific') reasoning skills in order to weigh up what's important evidence and what's insignificant, they don't evaluate the information they have critically. So what they're doing isn't Research (although that's what they call it), it's just taking any and all information out there and trying to spin a narrative out of it. Which is what led to the increasingly bizarre interpretations of the evidence, and the conspiracy theories where they start relating totally unconnected things together. But they think they're cleverer than the police (who are actually doing the investigating) and are full of contempt for the work of the police. So with firmly held convictions, which are actually false, people start acting on those beliefs because they think they're true (and that's where it can get dangerous, hence the disgraceful attack on the musician). And that may bring various other current/recent events to mind - deriving from the same irrational way of thinking.

so I thought it was quite interesting :)
 
Withdrawing from view and / or hiding are common reactions to stressful or fear-inducing circumstances. This sort of act or behavior doesn't have to be associated with a broader psychosis.

For example ... At one point in the elevator video Ms. Lam withdraws from view as much as she can and scrunches herself into the elevator's corner next to the control panel. She doesn't do this until after she seems to realize the elevator isn't behaving as she expected.
I'd say that inserting yourself into a crawl space was a step beyond ordinary hiding, because of the effort involved in getting into there.
 
I'd say that inserting yourself into a crawl space was a step beyond ordinary hiding, because of the effort involved in getting into there.
It might be because they heard insects or a mouse scrabbling about in the crawlspace, so they went to investigate and either got stuck or had a heart attack.
 
I like this chap's channel. He reviews the Netflix series here. I thought it was interesting that he said (paraphrasing here) people want a 'bad guy' to be responsible because that makes sense of the world, whereas if someone can just lose it and tragically end up like that, then no-one's safe, which makes people uncomfortable.

Also he highlights how the overconfidence and gullibility of the websleuths only adds noise to the case, because they don't use proper ('scientific') reasoning skills in order to weigh up what's important evidence and what's insignificant, they don't evaluate the information they have critically. So what they're doing isn't Research (although that's what they call it), it's just taking any and all information out there and trying to spin a narrative out of it. Which is what led to the increasingly bizarre interpretations of the evidence, and the conspiracy theories where they start relating totally unconnected things together. But they think they're cleverer than the police (who are actually doing the investigating) and are full of contempt for the work of the police. So with firmly held convictions, which are actually false, people start acting on those beliefs because they think they're true (and that's where it can get dangerous, hence the disgraceful attack on the musician). And that may bring various other current/recent events to mind - deriving from the same irrational way of thinking.

so I thought it was quite interesting :)
One question i would ask is, did this guy have any previous knowledge of the case, background or information, or was he just reviewing a programme?
Also he says thay the issue of the open/closed lid of the water tank was blown up by people, but then says this was caused by mixed/misreporting, people can only form an opinion on something based on the information before them, if that information is wrong or it appears to change from time to time, it is obvious that those with a suspicious bent are going to seize on these inconsistancies as evience of a cover up/conspiricy, so if the reports of the initial investigation were accurate it would nip these issues in the bud. Another thing is the blaming of, so called web sleuths, for what happened to the musician is a bit misleading, the media are the ones that picked up on the story and ran with it, im reminded of the Christopher Jefferies incident, who was accused by the media of murdering Joanna Yeates, with no evidence what so ever, and whos life was made unbearable, there was even a film made about his wrongful castigation.
 
My ex-boss went missing for days, he was found hiding behind the water tank in his loft/attic.
He'd had a breakdown, and never came back to work again.
The mind is a strange thing.

Yes, if you're psychotic, you're not behaving rationally. I don't know why this is so difficult to process for so many people. Well, I do, it's because it's just not rational in the first place. Making sense of the psychosis is a fool's errand.
 
Here's an interesting video by Scott Michaels of L.A's Dearly Departed Tours fame who follows Elisa's path though the Cecil Hotel, the elevator ride as well as a rooftop visit to the water tanks.

 
Just watched the Netflix doco which had Ron Howard and Brian Grazer as executive producers.

https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/docum...hing-at-the-cecil-hotel-release-date-netflix/

A good overview with interviews with people involved in the case. Basically, it's a case of Occam's Razor, she came off her medication, probably quite stressed out by how "real" that part of LA was, and killed herself accidentally. The signs were there, She had been moved out of a room she shared with two other girls for odd behavior. Her Tumblr blog displayed a long history of a very fragile M/S. The true horror of Skid Row was very obvious and she'd not kept with her medication regime. (She was on a pretty hefty mix of drugs, that leaned towards a psychotic and depressive element to her bipolar and would fit a dissociative disorder diagnosis too)

The real eye-opener was the Web Sleuth community. For people who pride themselves on their deductive reasoning, there was very little on display. The lack of critical thinking was incredible. The coroner paperwork where the wrong box was ticked, crossed out, (initialed btw and dated), and the right one ticked show's it was a cover-up between the authorities and the hotel? So you've never ticked the wrong box on a form? If it was a conspiracy wouldn't they just replace the paperwork? It was genuinely weird how over-involved and irrational a community gets, a real precursor to QAnon.

The hounding of the "musician" was also very scary.

The saddest thing, apart from the obvious death, was just how little the hotel did to protect young people from around the world who visited. The hotel had revamped part of it to attract young global travelers. Yet offered very little in the way of support or guidance in a very dangerous part of town.

I don't blame the Hotel Manager I think she was out of her depth and had nothing in the way of a budget to work with.

7 out of 10.
 
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Thanks NF. I might have to watch it. Had no idea Ron Howard was involved. Didn't know there was a CT based on a mistake made on a form. That's just lame. I just today scratched out my doctor's name on a form, after making two stabs at it and giving up.
 
Thanks NF. I might have to watch it. Had no idea Ron Howard was involved. Didn't know there was a CT based on a mistake made on a form. That's just lame. I just today scratched out my doctor's name on a form, after making two stabs at it and giving up.

There are a few things that the WS community just assumed was part of a foul play scenario which when explored wasn't.
 
The real eye-opener was the Web Sleuth community. For people who pride themselves on their deductive reasoning, there was very little on display. The lack of critical thinking was incredible. The coroner paperwork where the wrong box was ticked, crossed out, (initialed btw and dated), and the right one ticked show's it was a cover-up between the authorities and the hotel? So you've never ticked the wrong box on a form? If it was a conspiracy wouldn't they just replace the paperwork? It was genuinely weird how over-involved and irrational a community gets, a real precursor to QAnon.
If you're interested in the 'Web Sleuth' community I can recommend a documentary called 'Don't Fuck With Cats' which goes into some detail about them.

In the Elisa Lam documentary case, one of them was particularly distasteful - the guy who had someone touch her grave and film it for his personal 'closure'. It was really creepy and gross.
 
In my dream last night, I realised that Elisa Lam is an anagram of Malaise - what she appeared to be suffering from. And this started off a conspiracy based adventure where I was running around tying to solve her murder.

But then when I woke up I realised I had an L too many.
 
The saddest thing, apart from the obvious death, was just how little the hotel did to protect young people from around the world who visited. The hotel had revamped part of it to attract young global travelers. Yet offered very little in the way of support or guidance in a very dangerous part of town.

I don't blame the Hotel Manager I think she was out of her depth and had nothing in the way of a budget to work with.

7 out of 10.
I don't know how much an actual hotel could ever do to 'protect' young people. They are independent travellers, they are not in its care. It is largely up to the traveller themselves to acquaint themselves with the dangers of a locality. They are adults, after all. And they are staying at the Cecil because it's cheap. Young people will drink too much, take drugs, indulge in risky behaviour - there's not too much a simple hotel can do about that, they don't have a duty of care to their residents, apart from making sure that the hotel doesn't poison/kill them directly.
 
I don't know how much an actual hotel could ever do to 'protect' young people. They are independent travellers, they are not in its care. It is largely up to the traveller themselves to acquaint themselves with the dangers of a locality. They are adults, after all. And they are staying at the Cecil because it's cheap. Young people will drink too much, take drugs, indulge in risky behaviour - there's not too much a simple hotel can do about that, they don't have a duty of care to their residents, apart from making sure that the hotel doesn't poison/kill them directly.
I do agree mostly. The only thing about that I'd take issue with was that the hotel didn't make it clear that the trendied-up part of the hotel shared a lift with the less salubrious parts of the building (iirc) which was giving the guests maybe a false impression of how risky/unrisky it wass actually inside the hotel.
 
I do agree mostly. The only thing about that I'd take issue with was that the hotel didn't make it clear that the trendied-up part of the hotel shared a lift with the less salubrious parts of the building (iirc) which was giving the guests maybe a false impression of how risky/unrisky it wass actually inside the hotel.
And maybe the hatches to the water towers should have been secured with a padlock
 
And maybe the hatches to the water towers should have been secured with a padlock
I do agree mostly. The only thing about that I'd take issue with was that the hotel didn't make it clear that the trendied-up part of the hotel shared a lift with the less salubrious parts of the building (iirc) which was giving the guests maybe a false impression of how risky/unrisky it wass actually inside the hotel.
But I guess the hotel wouldn't have any reason to think guests would be up on the roof? And surely guests could SEE that there was only one lift to serve the whole building? After all, gussied up or not, there was only one building; there are lots of hotels like this where the front and foyer are all smart and posh and the rest of the building looks as though it just fell out of the 1970s.

The hotel was what it was. I think the onus is on the guests to look about and think 'yep, this looks a bit dodgy, might have to watch myself here'. After all, the hotel staff will just take everything for granted.
 
I don't know how much an actual hotel could ever do to 'protect' young people. They are independent travellers, they are not in its care. It is largely up to the traveller themselves to acquaint themselves with the dangers of a locality. They are adults, after all. And they are staying at the Cecil because it's cheap. Young people will drink too much, take drugs, indulge in risky behaviour - there's not too much a simple hotel can do about that, they don't have a duty of care to their residents, apart from making sure that the hotel doesn't poison/kill them directly.

This was part of one of the most crime-ridden parts of LA. If I'm setting up a youth hostel and I'm a decent human being I'm going to have some posters made up with a few friendly warnings.
 
As I recall, the access to the roof was supposed to be secured, with alarms or indicators if it had been opened by unauthorized people. Seems the management were very lax with that. They had to know guests and others were partying up there, at the very least. Not securing the water tanks is surely illegal, given it's the hotel's water supply. I'm sure there are many examples of such slipshod management just about everywhere, but that doesn't make it right.
 
This was part of one of the most crime-ridden parts of LA. If I'm setting up a youth hostel and I'm a decent human being I'm going to have some posters made up with a few friendly warnings.
It's a budget hotel rather than a youth hostel though.
As I recall, the access to the roof was supposed to be secured, with alarms or indicators if it had been opened by unauthorized people. Seems the management were very lax with that. They had to know guests and others were partying up there, at the very least. Not securing the water tanks is surely illegal, given it's the hotel's water supply. I'm sure there are many examples of such slipshod management just about everywhere, but that doesn't make it right.
I'm not really quibbling - I am sure that Health and Safety would have a field day if they inspected. I'm just saying really that the hotel, whilst they have presumably some kind of H&S responsibilities, don't have a duty of care to the people staying there, other than to make sure the body of the hotel won't fall down around them and they won't get electrocuted in the shower. If you go somewhere and behave irresponsibly then surely the hotel shouldn't be held liable for your irresponsibility? Partying on the roof is as likely to cause falls from said roof as water tank deaths, do they have to net the entire roof to prevent falls when nobody is going to access the roof by accident?

I think I'm trying to ascertain where personal responsibility ends and public responsibility takes over, really.
 
It's a budget hotel rather than a youth hostel though.

I'm not really quibbling - I am sure that Health and Safety would have a field day if they inspected. I'm just saying really that the hotel, whilst they have presumably some kind of H&S responsibilities, don't have a duty of care to the people staying there, other than to make sure the body of the hotel won't fall down around them and they won't get electrocuted in the shower. If you go somewhere and behave irresponsibly then surely the hotel shouldn't be held liable for your irresponsibility? Partying on the roof is as likely to cause falls from said roof as water tank deaths, do they have to net the entire roof to prevent falls when nobody is going to access the roof by accident?

I think I'm trying to ascertain where personal responsibility ends and public responsibility takes over, really.
It is the duty of any establishment used by the public, to ensure that all fire exits are clear and unobstructed, all fire/emergency alarms are well maintained and in good working order, and to take all reasonable precautions to keep the public safe.
 
It's a budget hotel rather than a youth hostel though.

I'm not really quibbling - I am sure that Health and Safety would have a field day if they inspected. I'm just saying really that the hotel, whilst they have presumably some kind of H&S responsibilities, don't have a duty of care to the people staying there, other than to make sure the body of the hotel won't fall down around them and they won't get electrocuted in the shower. If you go somewhere and behave irresponsibly then surely the hotel shouldn't be held liable for your irresponsibility? Partying on the roof is as likely to cause falls from said roof as water tank deaths, do they have to net the entire roof to prevent falls when nobody is going to access the roof by accident?

I think I'm trying to ascertain where personal responsibility ends and public responsibility takes over, really.
You're absolutely right and of course hotel staff cannot be responsible for determining if a guest signing in is particularly vulnerable, as this poor girl seems to have been. Even if staff were able to do so, how far should their or management's responsibility extend?
 
IIRC the door to the roof was alarmed and working but guests could access the roof from the fire escape. That's one of the reasons why the initial search didn't include the roof - the alarm had never sounded.

In 2019 I stayed with my family in a budget hotel in the UK and after a few days I ordered a taxi. The operator asked me a weird question, "Do you have the money to pay for it?". I replied that i did but thought it was a bit strange. The taxi never showed up and I was late to an appointment. I called again to complain and the opertaor apologised saying that the local council were using that hotel as a place to house vulnerable people. Some were newly out of jail, there were people with addiction problems and some with mental illnesses. As a result, people were ordering taxis but didn't have the means to pay for them. So they stopped sending taxis there just in case. They sent another sharpish.

It turns out that the entire ground floor was being used in this way but no one told us when we booked or checked in. After we were told it became obvious really (just by seeing who was hanging around outside) but before that we hadn't really noticed. It helped being in Covid quarantine so we didn't interact with any other guests.
 
In my dream last night, I realised that Elisa Lam is an anagram of Malaise - what she appeared to be suffering from. And this started off a conspiracy based adventure where I was running around tying to solve her murder.

But then when I woke up I realised I had an L too many.
I'm guessing that's better than having an E too many...
 
IIRC the door to the roof was alarmed and working but guests could access the roof from the fire escape. That's one of the reasons why the initial search didn't include the roof - the alarm had never sounded.

In 2019 I stayed with my family in a budget hotel in the UK and after a few days I ordered a taxi. The operator asked me a weird question, "Do you have the money to pay for it?". I replied that i did but thought it was a bit strange. The taxi never showed up and I was late to an appointment. I called again to complain and the opertaor apologised saying that the local council were using that hotel as a place to house vulnerable people. Some were newly out of jail, there were people with addiction problems and some with mental illnesses. As a result, people were ordering taxis but didn't have the means to pay for them. So they stopped sending taxis there just in case. They sent another sharpish.

It turns out that the entire ground floor was being used in this way but no one told us when we booked or checked in. After we were told it became obvious really (just by seeing who was hanging around outside) but before that we hadn't really noticed. It helped being in Covid quarantine so we didn't interact with any other guests.
Unlucky there Ringo. That is a case where I would indeed question the hotel's responsibility. What if something happened to you or someone else on the premises due to the activities of one of those mentally ill residents? I can see owners being held responsible due to their failure to disclose the nature of their accommodation, notwithstanding any rights of privacy of those ground floor residents.
 
…owners being held responsible due to their failure to disclose the nature of their accommodation, notwithstanding any rights of privacy of those ground floor residents.

I don’t think that mandating large posters outside hotels reading:

WARNING: HALF OUR PATRONS ARE INSANE DRUG ADDICTS

… is a workable business model.

;)

maximus otter
 
I don’t think that mandating large posters outside hotels reading:

WARNING: HALF OUR PATRONS ARE INSANE DRUG ADDICTS

… is a workable business model.

;)

maximus otter

The Welcome To Cromer signs on it's outskirts carry such a warning.
 
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