Why do so few humans kill themselves? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#201

Post by DanBC » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 8:11 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #55

iaskwhy wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are these available as supplements and, if so, is it safe to take them?

This may not apply to you, but I must mention it: Anyone suffering from suicidal ideation should seek professional help. These aren't the kinds of things you want to try to self-medicate away. That said, there is a form of lithium that is available over the counter: Lithium Orotate. The amount of elemental lithium per dose is lower than you'll find in prescription lithium carbonate treatment, but you wouldn't want to…

> I would never advocate for any amount of supplemental lithium in water supplies.

Would you remove the lithium from other water supplies?

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#202

Post by ucaetano » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 8:17 PM UTC

Kenji wrote: post #179

ucaetano wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're already medicated. Fluorine is added to water, and iodine to salt.

Your point being? I am opposed to that too. I just think it should be people's own decision to medicate themselves however they see fit. At least with the salt you can buy whatever salt you please,with or without iodine. The water supply, on the other hand, cannot be chosen.

You can buy whatever water you choose to drink, done pretty frequently around the world.

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#203

Post by goatforce5 » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 8:18 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #181

goatforce5 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when faced with death, we'll try anything that offers any sort of hope, even just a slight delay Many people opt-out of aggressive cancer treatments that may add months on to their lives, and increasingly euthanasia is a (legal) alternative to letting medical conditions run their course. There are situations where ending things early can be one of the valid choices made available to you. http://www.goodreads.com/qu…

That's true, but I think there's a big difference between a long-standing condition and a brief crisis. I love the quote you linked to and I think it does a great job at giving people some perspective on what suicidal people are thinking. I just think the analogy falls apart once you start digging into it. Jumping out of the towers was a last-ditch attempt to survive, not just a better way to die.

> Jumping out of the towers was a last-ditch attempt to survive

I'm not sure how it's possible to come to that conclusion.

(And to be clear: I wasn't originally trying to suggest that everyone that fell from the WTC made a decision to jump. I think it's probably fair to say almost everyone that fell was simply trying to get away from the smoke by leaning out of windows, etc. )

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#204

Post by pducks32 » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 8:19 PM UTC

I love how far philosophy has come. This is very science based and yet my first reaction to the article's title was Cmd+F..."Camus". As Camus would say it seems obvious that we realize life is stupid and we should just kill ourselves but—something I didn't realize when I suffered with depression was—that when you realize everything is stupid and meaningless you find this deep appreciation or what I call "the game." You find a competition with "meaninglessness" and even suffering. And I love that game. I think people learn to love life; they find meaning in life and so they keep going.

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#205

Post by exolymph » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 8:37 PM UTC

slantaclaus wrote: post #176

OK, now that I see the stat he's calling "low", 1.4%. I actually disagree. That's a pretty high number that we could probably get to go down further. Assuming that one person out of every graduating high school class is going to kill his/her-self would seem to me to be a fairly morbid assumption. But this appears to be the case. I think the responsibility for the weight (or perhaps, levity) of the philosophical obser…

*she

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#206

Post by mikeash » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 8:42 PM UTC

goatforce5 wrote: post #203

mikeash wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true, but I think there's a big difference between a long-standing condition and a brief crisis. I love the quote you linked to and I think it does a great job at giving people some perspective on what suicidal people are thinking. I just think the analogy falls apart once you start digging into it. Jumping out of the towers was a last-ditch attempt to survive, not just a better way to die.

> Jumping out of the towers was a last-ditch attempt to survive I'm not sure how it's possible to come to that conclusion. (And to be clear: I wasn't originally trying to suggest that everyone that fell from the WTC made a decision to jump. I think it's probably fair to say almost everyone that fell was simply trying to get away from the smoke by leaning out of windows, etc. )

I'm not sure how it's not. Certain death in the smoke and fire versus a slim chance of survival if you jump, seems like the rational choice in horrible circumstances.

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#207

Post by shanacarp » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 9:05 PM UTC

I find this a bit over the top/strange to contemplate

Maybe because I have known people who successfully committed suicide - it turns out people who survive almost always are thankful/happy they did. In fact, it turns out if you interview people who jump from building and manage to survive, as they fall, they are thinking they wish they hadn't done that...

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#208

Post by sctb » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 9:24 PM UTC

jdimov9 wrote: post #90

You 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 connotat…

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12165775 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#209

Post by Joof » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 9:45 PM UTC

I got really scared for a while because I was both suicidal (the idea itself gave me an endorphin rush to think about) and my energy levels were fairly normal / I wasn't showing other symptoms of being depressed. Depression as a mechanism for preventing suicide sounds plausible.

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#210

Post by StavrosK » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 10:06 PM UTC

sinxoveretothex wrote: post #178

StavrosK wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's how you explain things after the fact. If women could bear children until they died, we'd explain it by saying "well that's obviously because it's more advantageous to have more children". Again, something that can equally well explain why something happened and didn't happen doesn't have any explanatory power. Put it another way, if I asked you "would you think that evolution would select for women bearin…

> that's how you explain things after the fact I agree, that's what I said "if what your parent comment suggests is true" In fact, said parent comment said "It might have been a mere speculation but it kind of makes sense" I agree with you that there is no predictive power in explaining things that way (indeed, what I said is speculation, hence why I worded it in the conditional), but that was not what I was respondi…

You seem to have fixated on one word in my comment and are arguing against creationism. I'm not saying that evolution makes no predictions, I'm saying that saying "oh yes, everything is the way it is because it confers an evolutionary advantage" is a mostly wrong, largely useless answer.