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DiscussionSuicide is okay
Thread starterSadbanana
Start date
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I don't think there is anything wrong about it. Death is natural part of life and it's inevitable. There is absolutely no difference between dying right now, or dying in 30 years. In the end we will lose absolutely everything. So there is nothing permanent to lose. After we die, it won't metter what we achieved, how much we enjoyed our lives or which part we got to explore and on which we missed out. There will not be a you to remember it anyway.
I personally believe life is only worth living when you are enjoying it. If you only keep living for others you are making yourself into their tool for happiness. If you are not happy, or if there is a lot of suffering lying ahead, there is nothing wrong with deciding to check out.
People say suicide is irrational. But it's strange that only humans out of all animals do it. I think the reason why we commit suicide is because our more developed brain can percieve time and abstract concepts. So it's capable of making the calculation that when we are suffering now and it seems it's only going to get worse, it's not worth it.
I'm not saying that everyone who is suicidal has made the correct decision. But I think a lot more people than society is willing to admit are better of dead.
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camusfan_ig, twistedtransistor47, delinquentsandwich and 26 others
Of course. I agree with you. But there's too much taboo, perhaps religious or moral or just pure lack of understanding. I wish everyone could think like you and everyone else here.
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camusfan_ig, delinquentsandwich, Dinozauria and 7 others
For me it'll always be the positive solution to find peace from this existence so torturous, cruel and dreadful that I just always saw as a mistake, for me non-existence is just all that's desirable, it solves everything for me as after all if I don't exist I cannot suffer, there is no suffering in the peace of non-existence where this existence that never should had been imposed is all gone and forgotten about, non-existence is just all I hope for.
To exist truly is an abomination and it's so painful and dreadful how the suffering and torture of existing can continue for decades longer just for one to face the terrible agony of old age, to exist will always feel like the most terrible, undeserved punishment to me.
Context: In episode 8 of Season 1, a plane is destroyed by Omni-Man. The pilot's parachute malfunctions, and he is in free-fall. He thinks he is going to die. But flying superheroic Mark saves him. He is grateful, and after deep breaths, says "You saved my life!". Omni-Man then comes down, and kills him. Mark says "NOOO!". Omni-Man says "What? Why are you unhappy? He was gonna die anyway—30 years from now, right now, what does it matter". (It's worth noting that Viltrumites—Omni-Man's galactic race—have way way longer lives than humans. Mark, shocked, says "At least he would have had a life.")
There IS a difference. You think you can just declare, sua sponte, that ALL experiences that life allows for, are totally worthless? There are countless people here who HAVE experienced things that are worth experiencing. Love, awe, revelation, inspiration, art, friendship, creation, curiosity; and you may devalue these things to yourself, but to say there is "no difference"—that is a blatant lie. You can say you do not care for the difference: that does not at all erase it from reality. Nihilism is not a nuke—it's merely a dismissal.
I'm not saying that everyone who is suicidal has made the correct decision. But I think a lot more people than society is willing to admit are better of dead.
I think a lot more people here are unwilling to admit some people are actually better off living.
Euthanasia for people with terminally ill diseases, that is defensible. But it is really really weird to make vague gestures towards the whole body of society and say "a lot are better off dead". It's convenient—you don't have to give any reason, you don't have to deal with the messy reality of both bad and good existing and persisting in people's lives; you just get to make easy, snappy, self-satisfying statements. It's terrible philosophy, but fun rhetoric.
A little bit of reason does not give us omniscience. One can very easily misinterpret a situation, mistake the solvable for the unsolvable, and countless other fuckups. Your invocation of reason is best bracketed with this statement:
"Most of us think of ourselves as thinking creatures who feel, but we are actually feeling creatures who think."
"Nothing wrong" is a comfy pipe dream: it's a serious action that should be regarded seriously. You can't just look at a complex issue such as suicide and say "Nothing wrong" and act like you've solved the whole deal. You are bleaching the subject of nuance if you rub out the endless inherent sharp points of it all into a "yeah nothing wrong".
Not everyone is a dogmatic solipsist who regards the world as dead if they are. People caring about what their affect on the world after they are gone, is not "irrational" but a perfectly defensible and rich thing that endless great people have indeed pleasured from. I show you words from Hamilton:
Legacy. What is a legacy?
It's planting seeds in a garden you never get to see
I wrote some notes at the beginning of a song someone will sing for me
America, you great unfinished symphony, you sent for me
You let me make a difference
Well damn, I guess all suicidologists and philosophers should hop out a window then, for you have discovered "the" reason why people commit suicide. I mean really, we may as well just construct suicide booths everywhere now, because the question is entirely settled.
You do realize that perceptions of time and abstract concepts are SUBJECTIVE, right? Meaning that they can CHANGE with context? That they are inseparable from context and pecularities of a personal lens?
You are basically framing suicide as an act of intelligence; attributing suicidality to human sapience. But suicidality in reality does not come from "amazing awareness", but feeling emotionally overwhelmed, feeling fucked up, like there's no way out. It's nowhere NEAR as simplistic as you make it out to be.
It is also capable of catatrophically fucking it up and being hunted to all hell by emotionally crushing perceptions that very easily stem from false premises. The example of human vulnerability to false premises—and how this absolutely seizes the emotions, hijacks them—is exposed rawly in teenagers wanting to commit suicide after their first breakup. When you hail conviction itself, the human mind itself, unconditionally—believing that merely having time perception and theorization makes you somehow infallible—you cover up the fact that the human mind is flawed, and easily makes mistakes in decision making. The capacity for abstract thought too births the capacity for delusion. Whether it is "delusion" or "truth", that would vary from case to case. But you ought explicitly disclose the possibility, at the very least—which your post, at this moment, does not.
Decoded: "I think a lot of people are better off dead". Notice how there is no reason provided. And notice how you are absolutely unspecific of just who these "more people" are. Your statement is a nothing burger. It's a whiff; excessively vague.
One of the proposed examples of animal suicide would most likely be the suicidal behavior of tarsiers that are kept in captivity. Tarsiers are nervous and shy by nature, and do not thrive in captivity. Many activities associated with captivity, such as camera flashes, being touched, and being kept in an enclosure, can stress the tarsiers. This stress can lead to sore eyes, which is an indication of a poor diet, and the lighting usually used in captivity can cause long-lasting damage to the eyes. When they feel too stressed out, they start beating their heads against hard surfaces, which leads to death.[48][49][50][51][52]
What matters is not some ABSTRACT "end", but the REAL "now". There are things that exist now. There are things that are actually capable of being experienced. Your abstractly excessive fast-forwarding does not at all change what is on the screen at this very moment: reality.
If enjoyment does not matter, then how come the lack of it is sufficient for destroying life? Enjoyment DOES matter. Exploration DOES matter. Are you saying people kill themselves over things that do not matter‽‽
Exploration and enjoyment are truly real things, that no amount of philosophizing will erase from the world. You can assign them no value. But that would be done without any reason, in this case, in the case your post presents.
Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur
What can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.
Not necessarily: if one finds personal value in living for others, and genuinely enjoys it—then they are far better described as turning others into their tool for happiness. And really, instrumentation, to play a role, to do something—especially with one's desire in play—when it is practiced ethically, is not necessarily bad at all. You say "tool". I say "role one chooses to engage in". Why shame people for wanting to choose what they do with their lives? It seems a bit misplaced to accuse people of being "tools" if they want to be altruistic. Seems a bit odd, no?
I don't get why there is an issue with helping others. It can truly be a great source of meaning and solace; and perhaps its effectiveness at adding meaning and solace to life, is why this very thing, altruism itself, is lambasted as being "tooly", "slavely", by those who say life's meaning and goodness is totally absent or sorely exhausted. There are such cases where cutting oneself off feels more slavely than free: Freedom is not just separating oneself off from everything. It is clearly understanding what binds us, how, and why; and how one can establish not just an extreme striking out of all things, but actually engage into a thrifty harmony; being aware of what one needs, wants, and what gives freedom, gives binds, and what empowers, and disempowers.
"Nothing wrong" is one hell of a stretch. I call for the repudiation of this hasty, hasty injunction. Suicide is a serious decision that has severe and permanent affects, and concerns on the nature and impacts of suicide should never be dismissed hastily as "nothing", but rather carefully understood, in light of the complexity that underlies the human mind and human world.
Perceiving time does not mean you can see the future. Perceiving abstract concepts does not mean you can 100% simulate the real world in your head, with no questions asked, no mistakes made. The human mind is easily seduced by delusion: and is hasty to accept suicide as a Final Solution. Suicide is nothing more than an absolute, bottom of the barrel, last resort option. Every other option should be thoroughly explored, before suicide.
And just because something is not permanent, does not make it worthless. Are you saying we only have license to value the eternal? That is ridiculous—we enjoy sweet food even though its taste does not last forever, we enjoy laugh even as we cannot eternally attend to it, we enjoy love even when it parts—goodness and duration are two entirely separate dimensions indeed. It is a terrible conflation, confusion, to fail to recognize the (very real) difference between these two.
Everyone experiences periods of unhappiness—does this mean everyone ought contemplate suicide for that? Expecting everyone to be happy all the time to rule out suicide, is quite an ambitious ask.
And suicide is not "checking out", it's literally obliterating yourself. It's not like checking out of a hotel where you can just go back. This anemic euphemism is quite the misrepresentation—suicide is not casual.
And—as elucidated earlier—one can very easily have distorted perceptions of the future, of certainty, uncertainty, because of how complex the mind is.
You cannot see the future. Imagine sacrificing reality for things that may not actually happen—as many have. In extreme cases such as being under threat of being captured as a war prisoner and tortured for information, where you have true certainty that terrible things will happen—there is a case for "yeah we're fucked". But that is NOT in the abstract at all. That is an immediate threat in the moment. That's not abstraction—it's immediate perception of the world around you. And so that case is not covered under your "abstract concept" ability you invoked earlier.
If, by the virtue of charity or the circumstance of desperation, you ever chance to spend a little time around a Substance-recovery halfway facility like Enfield MA's state-funded Ennet House, you will acquire many exotic new facts. […}
[N]o single, individual moment is in and of itself unendurable.
People say suicide is irrational. But it's strange that only humans out of all animals do it. I think the reason why we commit suicide is because our more developed brain can percieve time and abstract concepts. So it's capable of making the calculation that when we are suffering now and it seems it's only going to get worse, it's not worth it.
The key difference is from the use of logic, to the misuse of it.
Socrates said, "The misuse of language induces evil in the soul." He wasn't talking about grammar. To misuse language is to use it the way politicians and advertisers do, for profit, without taking responsibility for what the words mean. Language used as a means to get power or make money goes wrong: it lies. Language used as an end in itself, to sing a poem or tell a story, goes right, goes towards the truth.
A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it. Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight. By using words well they strengthen their souls. Story-tellers and poets spend their lives learning that skill and art of using words well. And their words make the souls of their readers stronger, brighter, deeper.
You can say anything you like. You can say anything you like. But I am afraid the very specific—universalizing—case of suicide that you paint here, does not hold up to investigation of it, with reality in hand. Abstraction is one thing. Reality is another. I have written this post to elucidate that difference.
There is "philosophization", "calculation", and then actual dissection, actual analysis, honest consideration. This produces different results than just submitting, succumbing, to default programming. Abstract concepts can bind us and deceive us—it does us well to use our abstraction abilities to remind ourselves of reality, and drag us back, out of what they drag us into. "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition."
The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
In such a case—as ours—where we possess a mind greatly capable of enacting visions of temporality, rich development of concepts both in the real and in the abstract, we must recognize the risk as well as the power that this poses. It possesses great power!—and we can very easily end up wielding this against ourselves, as well.
If you view these words of Hamilton in a metaphorical light—say, for example, projecting "philosophy", or "cognition", "thought process", onto "government"—you find words that not only grapple, but warn. That warn us that things ought not be left unchecked—lest they rage tyranny without limit, born from limitlessness.
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Why should we not practice doubt within that very mind's power who threatens us in such oomph? Such emphasis, that so easily deceives. Such pathos, that easily floods us, seduces us. Such perception, that easily narrows, harrows, to chokepoints—that can frame us. That can frame our lives. That can frame our world. That can frame all possibility itself. That can frame whatever we can do, the real affects of our hands and words and things—make them all seem useless, like a phone that rings. But who are we to say we can have conviction over the full affects of our actions? Who are we to say that what I have written here today may not be read by someone passing by? Who am I to say that every single word and utterance, every little gesture, I have exposed from my self into the lives and minds of other people, may be of some affect? Is it not truly ambitious to say that NO affect at ALL has been made? Because that is just as presumptious as saying my affects have decided the lives of everyone I have met. Because to claim NO affect at ALL has been made—this is an extraordinary claim, and yes, it requires extraordinary evidence. An onerous weight indeed!!! Onerous onus probandi!
Isn't such ambition easily to utmost detriment as it is to utmost drive? Truly, there is a drive to falsehood to be had, and it easily drives with such flame like that of one who believes what they say is righteousness. But what we feel and how the world is are two very different things indeed—we so easily wrap into one emotion at a time, thinking we can judge the whole world inside of it. But the world of ourself exists throughout all emotions—to see our lives in unmitigated detail, we would need to feel every emotion at once. We would need to remember EVERY memory EVER—at ᴏɴᴄᴇ!!! Isn't that an ambitious thing to ask of us flawed humans? We are not omniscient, nor are we arbiters of certainty, or rationality; we are works trying to work things out.
We do not possess dominion over all of nature—and our ability to reason does not give us any right to say we see all truth in the world and that no other creature can see even a whiff of it. Because are there not colours that other creatures can see, that we cannot? Are there not truths that creatures easily remain aware of, that the human can forget? Why, the human may very well be seen as stupid for any thing it does, in the eyes of an animal. Would not the animals marvel at our seizure over food, and shelter, and living conditions? Would not those birds that sail skies upon skies in mere days, be somewhat in awe over our immense capacity to gather things? I need not proceed through the entirety of the animal kingdom to illustrate my point—but if you wish, I may delve further.
And this is all said without cracking into that word, "worth", and how subjective it is—and that such subjective things do not so easily submit to "calculation", as you put it. Life is not a math problem to be calculated. "Life is not a problem to be solved but an experience to be lived." (Frank Herbert, Dune.)
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i agree for the most part. i also don't view suicide as irrational. if someone decided to end their lives for whatever reason, it needs be respected, all reason is valid and it's their choice. what i see irrational is trying to help people who don't wanna be helped with the idea of "you still have so much to live for" etc. no. some people have decided that their lives are not worth living anymore. i'm sure that people who have decided have thought about the repercussion of their actions since death is permanent and will impact the people around them. that's why you cannot thread suicide impulsively. it needs to be well thought of. however, the worthiness of one's life is subjective. only you and yourself can decide.
same goes with people who choose recovery, i hope nothing but the best for those people who still see hope to find solace, chasing that light at the end of the tunnel.
i agree for the most part. i also don't view suicide as irrational. if someone decided to end their lives for whatever reason, it needs be respected, all reason is valid and it's their choice. what i see irrational is trying to help people who don't wanna be helped with the idea of "you still have so much to live for" etc. no. some people have decided that their lives are not worth living anymore. i'm sure that people who have decided have thought about the repercussion of their actions since death is permanent and will impact the people around them. that's why you cannot thread suicide impulsively. it needs to be well thought of. however, the worthiness of one's life is subjective. only you and yourself can decide.
same goes with people who choose recovery, i hope nothing but the best for those people who still see hope to find solace, chasing that light at the end of the tunnel.
Context: In episode 8 of Season 1, a plane is destroyed by Omni-Man. The pilot's parachute malfunctions, and he is in free-fall. He thinks he is going to die. But flying superheroic Mark saves him. He is grateful, and after deep breaths, says "You saved my life!". Omni-Man then comes down, and kills him. Mark says "NOOO!". Omni-Man says "What? Why are you unhappy? He was gonna die anyway—30 years from now, right now, what does it matter". (It's worth noting that Viltrumites—Omni-Man's galactic race—have way way longer lives than humans. Mark, shocked, says "At least he would have had a life.")
There IS a difference. You think you can just declare, sua sponte, that ALL experiences that life allows for, are totally worthless? There are countless people here who HAVE experienced things that are worth experiencing. Love, awe, revelation, inspiration, art, friendship, creation, curiosity; and you may devalue these things to yourself, but to say there is "no difference"—that is a blatant lie. You can say you do not care for the difference: that does not at all erase it from reality. Nihilism is not a nuke—it's merely a dismissal.
I think a lot more people here are unwilling to admit some people are actually better off living.
Euthanasia for people with terminally ill diseases, that is defensible. But it is really really weird to make vague gestures towards the whole body of society and say "a lot are better off dead". It's convenient—you don't have to give any reason, you don't have to deal with the messy reality of both bad and good existing and persisting in people's lives; you just get to make easy, snappy, self-satisfying statements. It's terrible philosophy, but fun rhetoric.
A little bit of reason does not give us omniscience. One can very easily misinterpret a situation, mistake the solvable for the unsolvable, and countless other fuckups. Your invocation of reason is best bracketed with this statement:
"Nothing wrong" is a comfy pipe dream: it's a serious action that should be regarded seriously. You can't just look at a complex issue such as suicide and say "Nothing wrong" and act like you've solved the whole deal. You are bleaching the subject of nuance if you rub out the endless inherent sharp points of it all into a "yeah nothing wrong".
Not everyone is a dogmatic solipsist who regards the world as dead if they are. People caring about what their affect on the world after they are gone, is not "irrational" but a perfectly defensible and rich thing that endless great people have indeed pleasured from. I show you words from Hamilton:
Well damn, I guess all suicidologists and philosophers should hop out a window then, for you have discovered "the" reason why people commit suicide. I mean really, we may as well just construct suicide booths everywhere now, because the question is entirely settled.
You do realize that perceptions of time and abstract concepts are SUBJECTIVE, right? Meaning that they can CHANGE with context? That they are inseparable from context and pecularities of a personal lens?
You are basically framing suicide as an act of intelligence; attributing suicidality to human sapience. But suicidality in reality does not come from "amazing awareness", but feeling emotionally overwhelmed, feeling fucked up, like there's no way out. It's nowhere NEAR as simplistic as you make it out to be.
It is also capable of catatrophically fucking it up and being hunted to all hell by emotionally crushing perceptions that very easily stem from false premises. The example of human vulnerability to false premises—and how this absolutely seizes the emotions, hijacks them—is exposed rawly in teenagers wanting to commit suicide after their first breakup. When you hail conviction itself, the human mind itself, unconditionally—believing that merely having time perception and theorization makes you somehow infallible—you cover up the fact that the human mind is flawed, and easily makes mistakes in decision making. The capacity for abstract thought too births the capacity for delusion. Whether it is "delusion" or "truth", that would vary from case to case. But you ought explicitly disclose the possibility, at the very least—which your post, at this moment, does not.
Decoded: "I think a lot of people are better off dead". Notice how there is no reason provided. And notice how you are absolutely unspecific of just who these "more people" are. Your statement is a nothing burger. It's a whiff; excessively vague.
What matters is not some ABSTRACT "end", but the REAL "now". There are things that exist now. There are things that are actually capable of being experienced. Your abstractly excessive fast-forwarding does not at all change what is on the screen at this very moment: reality.
If enjoyment does not matter, then how come the lack of it is sufficient for destroying life? Enjoyment DOES matter. Exploration DOES matter. Are you saying people kill themselves over things that do not matter‽‽
Exploration and enjoyment are truly real things, that no amount of philosophizing will erase from the world. You can assign them no value. But that would be done without any reason, in this case, in the case your post presents.
Not necessarily: if one finds personal value in living for others, and genuinely enjoys it—then they are far better described as turning others into their tool for happiness. And really, instrumentation, to play a role, to do something—especially with one's desire in play—when it is practiced ethically, is not necessarily bad at all. You say "tool". I say "role one chooses to engage in". Why shame people for wanting to choose what they do with their lives? It seems a bit misplaced to accuse people of being "tools" if they want to be altruistic. Seems a bit odd, no?
I don't get why there is an issue with helping others. It can truly be a great source of meaning and solace; and perhaps its effectiveness at adding meaning and solace to life, is why this very thing, altruism itself, is lambasted as being "tooly", "slavely", by those who say life's meaning and goodness is totally absent or sorely exhausted. There are such cases where cutting oneself off feels more slavely than free: Freedom is not just separating oneself off from everything. It is clearly understanding what binds us, how, and why; and how one can establish not just an extreme striking out of all things, but actually engage into a thrifty harmony; being aware of what one needs, wants, and what gives freedom, gives binds, and what empowers, and disempowers.
"Nothing wrong" is one hell of a stretch. I call for the repudiation of this hasty, hasty injunction. Suicide is a serious decision that has severe and permanent affects, and concerns on the nature and impacts of suicide should never be dismissed hastily as "nothing", but rather carefully understood, in light of the complexity that underlies the human mind and human world.
Perceiving time does not mean you can see the future. Perceiving abstract concepts does not mean you can 100% simulate the real world in your head, with no questions asked, no mistakes made. The human mind is easily seduced by delusion: and is hasty to accept suicide as a Final Solution. Suicide is nothing more than an absolute, bottom of the barrel, last resort option. Every other option should be thoroughly explored, before suicide.
And just because something is not permanent, does not make it worthless. Are you saying we only have license to value the eternal? That is ridiculous—we enjoy sweet food even though its taste does not last forever, we enjoy laugh even as we cannot eternally attend to it, we enjoy love even when it parts—goodness and duration are two entirely separate dimensions indeed. It is a terrible conflation, confusion, to fail to recognize the (very real) difference between these two.
Everyone experiences periods of unhappiness—does this mean everyone ought contemplate suicide for that? Expecting everyone to be happy all the time to rule out suicide, is quite an ambitious ask.
And suicide is not "checking out", it's literally obliterating yourself. It's not like checking out of a hotel where you can just go back. This anemic euphemism is quite the misrepresentation—suicide is not casual.
And—as elucidated earlier—one can very easily have distorted perceptions of the future, of certainty, uncertainty, because of how complex the mind is.
You cannot see the future. Imagine sacrificing reality for things that may not actually happen—as many have. In extreme cases such as being under threat of being captured as a war prisoner and tortured for information, where you have true certainty that terrible things will happen—there is a case for "yeah we're fucked". But that is NOT in the abstract at all. That is an immediate threat in the moment. That's not abstraction—it's immediate perception of the world around you. And so that case is not covered under your "abstract concept" ability you invoked earlier.
Something being "rational" is NO vindication to it. Besides, you are well aware you can use logic to reach untruths, right? Let me show you:
The key difference is from the use of logic, to the misuse of it.
You can say anything you like. You can say anything you like. But I am afraid the very specific—universalizing—case of suicide that you paint here, does not hold up to investigation of it, with reality in hand. Abstraction is one thing. Reality is another. I have written this post to elucidate that difference.
There is "philosophization", "calculation", and then actual dissection, actual analysis, honest consideration. This produces different results than just submitting, succumbing, to default programming. Abstract concepts can bind us and deceive us—it does us well to use our abstraction abilities to remind ourselves of reality, and drag us back, out of what they drag us into. "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition."
In such a case—as ours—where we possess a mind greatly capable of enacting visions of temporality, rich development of concepts both in the real and in the abstract, we must recognize the risk as well as the power that this poses. It possesses great power!—and we can very easily end up wielding this against ourselves, as well.
If you view these words of Hamilton in a metaphorical light—say, for example, projecting "philosophy", or "cognition", "thought process", onto "government"—you find words that not only grapple, but warn. That warn us that things ought not be left unchecked—lest they rage tyranny without limit, born from limitlessness.
Why should we not practice doubt within that very mind's power who threatens us in such oomph? Such emphasis, that so easily deceives. Such pathos, that easily floods us, seduces us. Such perception, that easily narrows, harrows, to chokepoints—that can frame us. That can frame our lives. That can frame our world. That can frame all possibility itself. That can frame whatever we can do, the real affects of our hands and words and things—make them all seem useless, like a phone that rings. But who are we to say we can have conviction over the full affects of our actions? Who are we to say that what I have written here today may not be read by someone passing by? Who am I to say that every single word and utterance, every little gesture, I have exposed from my self into the lives and minds of other people, may be of some affect? Is it not truly ambitious to say that NO affect at ALL has been made? Because that is just as presumptious as saying my affects have decided the lives of everyone I have met. Because to claim NO affect at ALL has been made—this is an extraordinary claim, and yes, it requires extraordinary evidence. An onerous weight indeed!!! Onerous onus probandi!
Isn't such ambition easily to utmost detriment as it is to utmost drive? Truly, there is a drive to falsehood to be had, and it easily drives with such flame like that of one who believes what they say is righteousness. But what we feel and how the world is are two very different things indeed—we so easily wrap into one emotion at a time, thinking we can judge the whole world inside of it. But the world of ourself exists throughout all emotions—to see our lives in unmitigated detail, we would need to feel every emotion at once. We would need to remember EVERY memory EVER—at ᴏɴᴄᴇ!!! Isn't that an ambitious thing to ask of us flawed humans? We are not omniscient, nor are we arbiters of certainty, or rationality; we are works trying to work things out.
We do not possess dominion over all of nature—and our ability to reason does not give us any right to say we see all truth in the world and that no other creature can see even a whiff of it. Because are there not colours that other creatures can see, that we cannot? Are there not truths that creatures easily remain aware of, that the human can forget? Why, the human may very well be seen as stupid for any thing it does, in the eyes of an animal. Would not the animals marvel at our seizure over food, and shelter, and living conditions? Would not those birds that sail skies upon skies in mere days, be somewhat in awe over our immense capacity to gather things? I need not proceed through the entirety of the animal kingdom to illustrate my point—but if you wish, I may delve further.
And this is all said without cracking into that word, "worth", and how subjective it is—and that such subjective things do not so easily submit to "calculation", as you put it. Life is not a math problem to be calculated. "Life is not a problem to be solved but an experience to be lived." (Frank Herbert, Dune.)
You are dissecting what I said word for word, but you miss what I actually mean. And I'm pretty sure you used AI to write that wall of text, but just in case you actually made the effort I will engage with it. I also assume you are a prolifer lurking on this forum. If someone you loved died to suicide I'm sorry.
So let's start by establishing the basic premise. Suicide is not inherently bad or good, I'm sure we can at least agree on this. So the only question is where is the line when suicide becomes a good idea.
You might be willing to accept it if the person is terminally ill. That's easy to imagine, you don't need whole lot of empathy to see that the person is fucked.
But a lot of people have valid reasons to die, even if they are not so bluntly obvious. Your argument was that life is not worthless if you experience joy, awe, love, connection and yada, yada. I completely agree. The issue is that not everyone has access to it.
If you have depression you might just not be able to experience it at all. Sure your argument might be "just cure depression". But it's not that simple. You can have depression for decades and many people fight with it their whole life. CPTSD is also strong factor. Not everything can be magically cured.
Not to mention the world is going down hill. Economy is crushing people, loneliness tops the charts, job market is terrible, culture is extremely toxic. A lot of people might be in terrible situations. Homeless or on brink of homelessness, completely isolated with terrible social anxiety or being constantly abused. If you are trying to solve the psychological problems when the real life problems that caused them are still there, it's like trying to dry yourself while under water.
"It always can get better." Yes. But what is the probability of that. Our brains are prediction machines. You can't just dismiss all our predictions as "Depression delusion". Sometimes when we are in very bad spot, it doesn't take a genius to see the chance is sometimes equal to winning a lottery. So am I now going to experience tremendous suffering for the rest of my life because of the small chance that some miracle could save me? That's a gamble not everyone is willing to take.
There is asymetry when it comes to suffering vs happiness. Many people would agree that one night of actual torture metters more than one year of laughter. Suffering is horrible and it takes a whole lot of positive things to make up for it.
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Soumatou, delinquentsandwich, flowerbomb and 4 others
I think that suicide can be justifed if someone had been suffering both mentaly or physicaly and feeling intensive pain for a long time without hope to recover. We all wanna feel good and escape from pain but unfortunaly not everybody is able to reach that goal and death ends any suffering.
I find thinking about suicide very calming because I am aware that I have option to stop feeling anything but currently I still have some hope and wanna see future because I am still young (only 18yo) and there is no back after you commit suicide. The good thing is that everyone will die one day so any suffering will eventually stop
I think that suicide can be justifed if someone had been suffering both mentaly or physicaly and feeling intensive pain for a long time without hope to recover. We all wanna feel good and escape from pain but unfortunaly not everybody is able to reach that goal and death ends any suffering.
I find thinking about suicide very calming because I am aware that I have option to stop feeling anything but currently I still have some hope and wanna see future because I am still young (only 18yo) and there is no back after you commit suicide. The good thing is that everyone will die one day so any suffering will eventually stop
"It always can get better." Yes. But what is the probability of that. Our brains are prediction machines. You can't just dismiss all our predictions as "Depression delusion". Sometimes when we are in very bad spot, it doesn't take a genius to see the chance is sometimes equal to winning a lottery. So am I now going to experience tremendous suffering for the rest of my life because of the small chance that some miracle could save me? That's a gamble not everyone is willing to take.
And I find it hilarious that whenever this point is brought up they go silent.
Yea its easy to say "well life gets better," "the setback is worth it for the comeback" BLAH BLAH BLAH but WHEN, and HOW LONG will it stay "better" until it eventually goes to shit again.
These are the same people that also say "life is not linear" so they shoot themselves in the fucking foot by spewing that cookie cutter bullshit.
They make it seem like you only need ONE depressive or suicidal episode to have a LONG LASTING life of happiness and clarity when thats not the case at all (especially in a fucked up world like this).
I agree that it's not irrational, Nobel Prize winning philosopher Albert Camus also considered it to be philosophy's most important question as to why people don't commit.
Your post is however only from your own perspective. Have you ever read or listened to stories of people that are left behind? It's devastating for them. The external effects of my decision are something that's holding me back right now.
I recently wrote this Zen-like nonsense about how the topic of death should be approached more personally, from the perspective of "existence," without deluding oneself with unnecessary fantasies or beliefs, in a post titled something like "Why is life so hard?", I think it fits better right here: "...for everyone, life's difficulties and inner peace are purely individual and depend on far too many external and internal factors; very few people are even capable of considering possible ways to overcome these difficulties and find their own inner peace within their emotional states. Some may perceive my text as a repressive psychological lecture, but the point is quite different: you will leave this life in peace, without inner pain or gnawing emptiness, or at least with the conviction that you did everything you could." In my view, it is somewhat strange to transfer concepts from the realm of "existence" into the realm of "non-existence," which has no characteristics of its own, this is literally an attempt to destroy or build a staircase to nowhere using philosophical or logical concepts.
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