Martin Hart: So... what's the point of getting' outta bed in the morning?
Rustin Cohle: I tell myself I bear witness. But the real answer is that it's obviously my programming. And I lack the constitution for suicide.
--True Detective
Why do so few humans kill themselves?
81–90 of 226 posts
Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?
#82While interesting, this article seems to ignore the possibility that most people simply have a very strong desire to live. It assumes that if someone is suffering, and death would end that suffering, then suicide makes sense, and something weird must be going on to make people keep going. But this really doesn't make sense. The entire concept of suffering exists merely to keep us alive. We experience pain and despair…
It seems very likely that this is a context issue or typical mind fallacy.
The View From Hell is written by an anti-natalist and, if I recall, 'nonpracticing suicide'. This, I think, is someone who has a radically different baseline for "desire to live" than a lot of the people responding to it.
And, on the flip side, a statement like "the drive to survive is what's fundamental" might well sound completely bizarre to the writer. The idea that despair and sadness are about avoiding things detrimental to survival is at best situationally true, as evidenced by all the times when people find those feelings themselves detrimental to survival.
But aside from all of that, I think this doesn't invalidate the basic claim that a lot of the things stopping somewhat-suicidal people are not the desire to live. At the point where someone is considering suicide, their "life drive" wiring is obviously not a whole answer - so it remains relevant to look at the large number of suicide ideators who are held back by fear, or motivation issues, or other indirect reservations.
Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?
#83Remember that it's technically a valid evolutionary strategy to live to, say, 25, have a few kids, then off yourself. Suicide before reproduction is all that would be selected against.
That's a valid evolutionary strategy assuming your kids will be fine once you off yourself. If that plan lessens the chances of your children's survival to child-bearing age themselves, it would be selected against.
In a tribal society, the chances of them being fine would be greater than in the classic nuclear family. So it depends on a lot of other factors.
I'm not 100% sure how to interpret evolutionary minutiae in human society past the basic agrarian level. Factor isolation becomes quite difficult. E.O. Wilson effects come into play.
If I may, the Stoics thought suicide a perfectly acceptable reaction to being "checkmated" in life - if there was a significantly unresolvable ethical dilemma, fall on your sword. The Stoics were the principal competitors to the Church early on, which led to proscriptions against suicide ( some say ).
Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
You'd be literally adding chemicals to change people's brain chemistry to the water. The conspiracy theorists would be pretty justified I'd say. I think this is the sort of thing you should really decide for yourself individually.
We already remove chemicals from the water that change people's brain chemistry (e.g., lead). Adding something entirely helpful doesn't seem that different from removing something entirely harmful.
It does seem entirely different. In one case we're removing a toxin, something that doesn't need to be in water at all. In the other case we're adding something that isn't normally in the water in order to benefit a few people. We do this with fluoride in many places already, but I think this takes it to a far different level by affecting your brain chemistry.
You're giving many people who really don't need it a mood stabilizer, if it's enough to affect those who are at risk of suicide, it's surely still having an influence in the minds of those who don't need it. Why should the entire population have this alteration performed when only a few will benefit. Seems better to go and seek out those few. Personally I'd take the increased suicide risk.
Point is, people will disagree about this, the optimal solution is to just let people who want it add it or take it as a supplement in their own homes.
Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?
#85While interesting, this article seems to ignore the possibility that most people simply have a very strong desire to live. It assumes that if someone is suffering, and death would end that suffering, then suicide makes sense, and something weird must be going on to make people keep going. But this really doesn't make sense. The entire concept of suffering exists merely to keep us alive. We experience pain and despair…
In addition to a desire to live, not everyone views suffering as the worst possible thing. If I had to be in serious pain every day but could keep doing many things I would rather keep living with the pain. The loss in experience is worse than any level of pain. For the obvious counterpoint: I say that from experience not naivete. I've had a nerve in my hand accidentally sliced lengthwise (for a significant length) b…
Chronic pain is an entirely different beast from acute pain.
Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?
#86tl;dr, the article mostly discusses Soper’s hypothesis that "mental illnesses" such as depression evolved as defences against suicide rather than being the cause. So I guess rather than thinking the job's crap, I'll just have a jolly skydiving trip with no chute you get depressed instead. There might be something there - I've always been a bit puzzled by the evolutionary function of depression.
I'm not sure there needs to be an evolutionary function for everything. Some things are just "dewclaws".
Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?
#87[deleted]
Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?
#88While interesting, this article seems to ignore the possibility that most people simply have a very strong desire to live. It assumes that if someone is suffering, and death would end that suffering, then suicide makes sense, and something weird must be going on to make people keep going. But this really doesn't make sense. The entire concept of suffering exists merely to keep us alive. We experience pain and despair…
> what's weird is the fact that we do sometimes kill ourselves when things look completely hopeless.
The hope is always there, just change the purpose.
Instead of a life without suffering one expects to end the pain.
That is the final hope that the suicidal people embrace.
Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?
#89Maybe we should just add lithium to the water supply, although that would drive conspiracy theorists crazy! http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1699579 "Using data for 27 Texas counties from 1978-1987, it is shown that the incidence rates of suicide, homicide, and rape are significantly higher in counties whose drinking water supplies contain little or no lithium than in counties with water lithium levels ranging from…
You realize there are seriously negative side effects to lithium, right? Kidney disease, extremely bad for nursing babies, etc
Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?
#90You don't seem to understand much about evolution, or life. Claiming that evolution is a random, unguided "whatever works" process is mere ignorance. To everyone who has ever looked around (or listened around, or sensed around) even for one moment, it is beyond obvious that not only evolution works "by design", but that this design is supremely personal and the ultimate in creativity. So the implied negative connotations in your "creationist" label are misplaced.