Imagine an instant, painless suicide was available to everyone...

[Darkover]

Wouldn't that put a lot of pressure on our quite dystopic, capitalistic system to make itself worth living for everyone?

People like to choose the path of least resistance, or the path of least suffering. If you remove the barrier to a painless suicide, it would not mean that everyone would instantly choose that option because, you know, "life is suffering". People are still attached to loved ones, pleasures, dreams and goals, or alive for religious reasons etc. And it doesn't change the scariness of death for many, because making dying painless doesn't solve the question if there is more suffering to come on the other side or if blissful nothingness awaits you.

Still, it would probably cause a chain reaction of suicides affecting many families, but it would quickly balance itself out, leaving alive the people that may suffer, but not unbearably, and there are enough people that love and affirm life. Depending on how dystopic our world is, the greater or lesser the percentage of people that leave this world.

 

[Praestat_Mori]

Given the number of people living on earth it'd still be a minority who really would commit suicide. SI is the best protection even with the most peaceful method available imo. It won't affect the world economy / system at all.

 

[Slow_Farewell]

It's an interesting exercise for sure. I took the title literally so that means regardless of race/gender/creed/mental constitution the method would be available to the,.

I'd agree that there is a good chance that it would have a global effect.

I'm thinking of something along the lines of age. Let's take Sasu as an example. If we were to take the number of Gen Z people who would take that option, then it would follow that there would be less people who would be able to take up economic roles for a prolonged period (if i remember correctly, productivity goes down after about 50 years of age). I guess it would be like what's happening with Japan, where there are less and less young people which in turn affected their economy.

The existing structure for order might very well crumble first, which would mean the existing dystopic capitalist system wouldn't "...make itself worth living for everyone?".

Or hey maybe i've just seen too many terminator movies.