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Suicide=Selfish?

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DanEile Inexplicable Student from Ireland Since: May, 2010
Inexplicable Student
#101: May 2nd 2011 at 2:58:43 PM

[up] Of course they'll be missed. Don't be foolish. Depression is a serious illness and some are better at coping with it than others.

edited 2nd May '11 3:02:12 PM by DanEile

"You can only come to the morning through the shadows."
BobbyG vigilantly taxonomish from England Since: Jan, 2001
vigilantly taxonomish
#102: May 2nd 2011 at 4:26:23 PM

Vyctorian, you're making the value judgement that it's better to live a life of pain than to cease to exist completely. Good for you, and I agree, but that's subjective; not everybody is going to feel the same way and I see no reason why they should.

I've seen lives destroyed by depression. If you're coping with it, that's admirable. But not everybody is the same as you.

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joeyjojo Happy New Year! from South Sydney: go the bunnies! Since: Jan, 2001
Happy New Year!
#103: May 2nd 2011 at 6:01:57 PM

While society typically seen those who commit suicide out of depression as 'weak', there are some illneses where there is an almost expectation you should do yourself in.

If you tell someone that your Living Will said that if you became brain dead vegetable, they should keep you alive regardless of quality of life or cost they will look at like you are some sort of werdo.

edited 2nd May '11 6:02:45 PM by joeyjojo

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KShade Since: Apr, 2011
#104: May 2nd 2011 at 6:59:51 PM
Thumped: Wow. That was rude. Too many of this kind of thump will bring a suspension. Please keep it civil.
BobbyG vigilantly taxonomish from England Since: Jan, 2001
vigilantly taxonomish
#105: May 2nd 2011 at 7:12:54 PM

I realise this is a sensitive topic, but let's try to stay polite, yeah?

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Jackerel SURPRISE from ur sentry Since: Feb, 2011
SURPRISE
#106: May 2nd 2011 at 7:44:37 PM

OP: In my opinion, depends on what responsibilities the person had, and to a point, especially if the person took care of a family.

Was Jack Mackerel. | i rite gud
Vyctorian ◥▶◀◤ from Domhain Sceal Since: Mar, 2011
◥▶◀◤
#107: May 2nd 2011 at 9:49:41 PM

Mu opinion maybe subjective but the Selfishness is universal especially if someone was relying on them ( A father, mother, care giver), then it goes from just plain selfish to practically Sociopathic.

also for the vegetable comments I've actually stated to be kept alive if that happens to me, I will fight my way out, others have done it before.

edited 2nd May '11 9:51:33 PM by Vyctorian

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DanEile Inexplicable Student from Ireland Since: May, 2010
Inexplicable Student
#108: May 2nd 2011 at 11:50:11 PM

[up] That's a pretty big assumption to make. Coming back from total brain death isn't exactly common. And it's not like an effort of will is a guaranteed cure for, y'know, anything ever.

Also, sociopathy is commonly caused by environmental factors (e.g. parental abuse) so... Not really sure what you're getting at by bringing that into the debate, unless you're referring to the abnormal lack of empathy? In which case, criticising these people for their lack of empathy is pretty hypocritical when you're demonstrating a complete lack of sympathy for them.

edited 3rd May '11 12:27:50 AM by DanEile

"You can only come to the morning through the shadows."
GameChainsaw The Shadows Devour You. from sunshine and rainbows! Since: Oct, 2010
The Shadows Devour You.
#109: May 3rd 2011 at 12:52:04 PM

^He said practically sociopathic, not actually sociopathic. You don't have to be an actual sociopath to have sociopathic tendencies, and if someone gets depressed enough to the point their own misery prevents them from recognising others troubles...

The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.
Tongpu Since: Jan, 2001
#110: May 3rd 2011 at 1:42:26 PM

Suicide never causes joy for anyone.
Other people's suicides have caused me joy. Because it ended their suffering, because it allowed them to avoid imprisonment, because it validated my POV, because it shocked the survivors into re-evaluating their beliefs. Nobody I hate has committed suicide, but I imagine it's only a matter of time.

It doesn't take much nerve to resort to something that'll all be over in a minute. (Well, depending on your method of course.)
The amount of nerve required has nothing to do with it being over in a minute and everything to do with the fact that it involves dying. There exists a very strong instinctual aversion to dying. There does not exist a strong instinctual aversion to doing things which last longer than a minute. The amount of nerve required by suicide is a direct result of the effort required to overcome the aforementioned aversion.

I'm not sure if this would count as selfish, but a friend of mine in insurance told me once about a middle age man who canceled his life insurance before he committed suicide to make sure his wife would be financially destitute after his death.
Excellent. If people are going to call you selfish anyway, you might as well run with it.

but if they want to take their lives like cowards they will not be missed,
Of course they'll be missed. That's practically the whole reason the meme "suicide is selfish" exists.

edited 3rd May '11 1:43:28 PM by Tongpu

DanEile Inexplicable Student from Ireland Since: May, 2010
Inexplicable Student
#111: May 3rd 2011 at 2:08:04 PM

[up][up] That's what I suspected, but I wasn't sure. Which is why I asked him to clarify what he meant.

On the other hand, he's still criticising these people for their lack of empathy while demonstrating practically no sympathy himself so my point still stands. Regardless of how selfish or thoughtless these people may seem, they're still people, and moreover mentally ill people who deserve our respect and help.

edited 3rd May '11 2:14:47 PM by DanEile

"You can only come to the morning through the shadows."
Mandemo Since: Apr, 2010
#112: May 3rd 2011 at 3:05:36 PM

When person goes trough suicide, not plans, he is no longer thinking clearly. The fact that his desire to to die has already overidedden his survival instict, which happens to be very stong in humans, already tells that his subconciusness has given up trying to sort the mess.

Calling it selfish... I don't know, yes and no. It's both selfish to try to prevent someones died upon premise "it will cause grief to me" as well as do suicide on "it will end my grief". It's case by case, really. You can't put simple rules when it's selfish or not.

MostlyBenign Why so serious? Since: Mar, 2010
Why so serious?
#113: May 3rd 2011 at 3:23:51 PM

Why is it treated as a given that wanting to die constitutes irrationality or "not thinking clearly?" The survival instinct is just that: an instict, a predilection we have inherited from our ancestors, who, for the most part, were selected from among those organisms that were predisposed to avoid death for at least long enough to reproduce. The desire to live is, however, no more objectively valid than the desire to not live.

edited 3rd May '11 3:26:00 PM by MostlyBenign

BobbyG vigilantly taxonomish from England Since: Jan, 2001
vigilantly taxonomish
#114: May 3rd 2011 at 3:34:54 PM

I would ordinarily expect that a person who was thinking rationally would not want to die (except perhaps in truly, exceptionally horrible circumstances), but you're right, that doesn't have to be the case.

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Tongpu Since: Jan, 2001
#115: May 3rd 2011 at 3:41:42 PM

Why is it treated as a given that wanting to die constitutes irrationality or "not thinking clearly?"
Because people tend to forget that just because a psychiatric disorder tends to involve a particular symptom doesn't mean that the symptom always has to involve the disorder. You'll notice people do the same thing in other instances. e.g. acting like every instance of callousness/selfishness is a manifestation of antisocial personality disorder.

MostlyBenign Why so serious? Since: Mar, 2010
Why so serious?
#116: May 3rd 2011 at 3:52:04 PM

My question was largely rhetorical; I imagine the answer is, in almost all cases, that people can't help but to universalize their personal preferences.

Even the concept of a "disorder" is a manifestation of this tendency: it ultimately just means that a particular person deviates from the norm in a way, or to a degree, that is perceived to be alarming.

rbx5 Rbx5 Since: Jan, 2001
Rbx5
#117: May 3rd 2011 at 4:16:24 PM

Not only is suicide a sin, it is the sin. It is the ultimate and absolute evil, the refusal to take an interest in existence; the refusal to take the oath of loyalty to life. The man who kills a man, kills a man. The man who kills himself, kills all men; as far as he is concerned he wipes out the world. His act is worse (symbolically considered) than any rape or dynamite outrage. For it destroys all buildings: it insults all women. The thief is satisfied with diamonds; but the suicide is not: that is his crime. He cannot be bribed, even by the blazing stones of the Celestial City. The thief compliments the things he steals, if not the owner of them. But the suicide insults everything on earth by not stealing it. He defiles every flower by refusing to live for its sake. There is not a tiny creature in the cosmos at whom his death is not a sneer. When a man hangs himself on a tree, the leaves might fall off in anger and the birds fly away in fury: for each has received a personal affront. Of course there may be pathetic emotional excuses for the act. There often are for rape, and there almost always are for dynamite. But if it comes to clear ideas and the intelligent meaning of things, then there is much more rational and philosophic truth in the burial at the cross-roads and the stake driven through the body, than in Mr. Archer's suicidal automatic machines. There is a meaning in burying the suicide apart. The man's crime is different from other crimes — for it makes even crimes impossible. —GK Chesterton

As someone who has considered suicide in the past (and attempted it once), I can attest to the truth of this.

edited 3rd May '11 4:16:46 PM by rbx5

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BobbyG vigilantly taxonomish from England Since: Jan, 2001
vigilantly taxonomish
#118: May 3rd 2011 at 4:35:30 PM

What a vicious thing to say.

I don't agree with it. That quotation ignores both the actual intent of the person committing suicide and the actual consequences for everybody but the individual in question.

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rbx5 Rbx5 Since: Jan, 2001
Rbx5
#119: May 3rd 2011 at 5:46:58 PM

^...No, I'm pretty sure it directly addresses the consequences for the person in question when it calls it the ultimate sin; and it addresses intent as well when it says how there are numerous justifications for suicide, but none are actually valid. In other words, suicide is never ok, regardless of your reasons for doing it; you do both the world and yourself a disservice.

I'll turn your neocortex into a flowerpot!
StrangeDwarf Since: Oct, 2010
#120: May 3rd 2011 at 6:46:13 PM

It doesn't matter. Suicidal people need help, not lectures about how selfish they are.

...

-kicks something and gets out of the thread-

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Tongpu Since: Jan, 2001
#121: May 3rd 2011 at 6:58:31 PM

What a vicious thing to say.
I suppose that's one way of looking at it. Personally, in all sincerity, as someone who's contemplated suicide a lot and is still pro-suicide, I had the opposite reaction. In going to extremes to condemn suicide, the author has unintentionally praised it. From my perspective, his speech portrays suicide as something to be proud of, not just a practical solution to a problem. It makes suicide glamorous. It makes it out to be the biggest "FUCK YOU" you could possibly give to the world.

BobbyG vigilantly taxonomish from England Since: Jan, 2001
vigilantly taxonomish
#122: May 3rd 2011 at 7:09:17 PM

@ rbx 5: I said the consequences for everyone but the individual, not the individual themselves.

And I said nothing about validity. That doesn't make his generalisations any more accurate as far as the actual intent is concerned.

Suicide certainly could be motivated that way, but that's not necessarily the intent, and the consequences obviously do not actually involve all women feeling insulted or all men dropping dead. If suicide causes nobody to die, be robbed or be raped, and if the one committing suicide did not intend to kill, rob or rape anybody, then suicide is not equivalent to those things, no matter what Chesterton might consider it to symbolise.

Also, the implication that rape is bad because it causes women to feel "insulted" is kind of stupid.

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jasonwill2 True art is Angsty from West Virginia Since: Mar, 2011
#123: May 3rd 2011 at 7:19:37 PM

This is not directed at anyone, but this is my bit.

I do not think that suicide is selfish.

There are A LOT of people with life-long problems, and this notion that it is a "temporary" problem usually only applies to something like a teenage girl losing her boyfriend, not someone who was sexually abused and has to live with the resulting issues for their whole life.

This is real life, not TV. No magical speech will cure it, there really isn't much of a thing called 'closure'. There is no 100% healing for those really deep emotional scars. Look at it this way; if you break a bone, it will show for the rest of your life, or if you get a deep enough cut, the scar will stay for YEARS if not your whole life.

Put in abuse and mental illness, and it is selfish to call someone selfish because you can't understand what it is like to suffer from mental illness, and sexual abuse as well as a childhood full of emotional abuse and scape-goating.

Call someone selfish for wanting excruciating pain to end, I DARE YOU. Call someone selfish for wanting all their years of pain to end, I DARE YOU. Call a permanent answer to a life-long problem, that WILL impact their well-being for their whole life selfish. I DARE YOU.

I agree, however, that it can be if they have children to take care of, but then again... would it be better for them to raise these kids, or give them to someone who can take good care of them? I am not advocating suicide, but if a parent is suicidal, it might be best if the child is taken away.

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Sarkastique Hey, gorgeous from Baltimore Since: Dec, 2010
Hey, gorgeous
#124: May 3rd 2011 at 9:50:00 PM

Yes, I think it's selfish.

No, I don't see why that should stop anyone from doing it, unless they're a parent.

Memento Mori
Jeysie Diva of Virtual Death from Western Massachusetts Since: Jun, 2010
Diva of Virtual Death
#125: May 3rd 2011 at 10:49:03 PM

Re: Wanting to die meaning not thinking clearly.

One factor is that, based on my own experiences and what I've heard from other suicidal people, sometimes the person doesn't actually want to die, exactly, in that they'd be perfectly happy to keep living if they could get their life to actually be happy and fulfilling. It's the fact that they nothing they can see or do seems to achieve that goal that's what wears them down and makes them want to give up. It's not necessarily that dying is appealing, just that it seems better than a miserable life that shows signs of staying that way indefinitely.

...Also, jasonwill 2's post = QFT.

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