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Should assisted death/suicide be legal?

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Re: Should assisted death/suicide be legal?

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my argument here is in life, nothing is permanent Your argument is based only on your own experience and what you’ve chosen to hear from others. Can you acknowledge the possibility that for some people the miserable experience of their life is permanent?

But can you acknowledge that these people are probably reinforcing the miserable experience by their own? And that's why it looks like it is permanent?

No, I can’t.

I can acknowledge it might be true for some of those people. But there are a whole fucking lot of people.

But when it comes to this, I’m not going to be so arrogant and self-centered as to say something that I believe applies to all of them.

Re: Should assisted death/suicide be legal?

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For me, the problem is death is final, while our experience of life is always changing. You have no way to know that “our experience of life is always changing.” It doesn’t always get better. Sometimes it keeps getting worse! Sometimes it stays equally awful! What’s true for you and the people you’ve heard talk about it isn’t necessarily true for everyone. Maybe the people who died on the bridge would’ve hated surv…

The experience is always changing. If you cross the same bridge twice, at the second time the experience is not the same, as you are not doing it for the first time. So if the experience is changing and you are equally suffering, you are not learning with life, that's a mistake that lots of people do. Suicide is not a solution.

Are you kidding me?

You’re willing to say that to someone who lives with an incurable and life-altering disease that I fucking hate? I cross the same bridge every day. When I get up. When I go to bed. When I’m asleep and every moment in between.

My suffering is because I’m not learning with life? That’s my mistake? And that it’s not a byproduct of something 100% out of my control?

No offense, but that’s pretty fucking arrogant of you.

So go ahead, give me your tips for learning with life and overcoming my mistake.

Re: Should assisted death/suicide be legal?

#33
1. Yes, of course. No government, religion, or society should have control over another's life or death. See below.

2. Yes. And yes mental illness like depression should qualify (See below). But mental illnesses where person is extremely disillusioned should not.

3. Yes. Appearance sure, it is their life.

4. Sure, see below.

However, I think person who is committing suicide still has responsibilities to society including not causing emotional harm to their loved ones, not leaving a mess behind for others to clean up etc. As a society, we should establish guidelines for suicide. I like Hindu practice of suicide called [Prayopavesa][1].

Prayopavesa is basically slow suicide by fasting to death. This may take days or weeks. This solves the big problem of people changing their mind after pulling the trigger or jumping off the ledge. If at any point suicidal person changes their mind, they can start eating.

Also if a person is disciplined enough to fast for days, we can trust that person has emotional maturity to make such a big decision. In other forms of assisted suicide like injecting drugs, an emotional person may sign up with a service, then they might even go through extensive paperwork. I personally end up doing things like sky diving just because I signed up to do them while drunk. I didn't want to do it later, but felt ashamed asking for refund. I imagine, emotionally unstable person may go through paperwork even when they are having second thoughts.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayopavesa

Re: Should assisted death/suicide be legal?

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The experience is always changing. If you cross the same bridge twice, at the second time the experience is not the same, as you are not doing it for the first time. So if the experience is changing and you are equally suffering, you are not learning with life, that's a mistake that lots of people do. Suicide is not a solution.

Are you kidding me? You’re willing to say that to someone who lives with an incurable and life-altering disease that I fucking hate? I cross the same bridge every day. When I get up. When I go to bed. When I’m asleep and every moment in between. My suffering is because I’m not learning with life? That’s my mistake ? And that it’s not a byproduct of something 100% out of my control? No offense, but that’s pretty fucki…

I'm the grand-parent comment so I feel a bit responsible for where it went so maybe I can clear what I meant here.

My view on the question of impermanence has been shaped by buddhism. I'm not a buddhist, I just discovered buddhism at an age and in circumstances where it talked to me and helped me a lot going through some very bad stuff.

In a nutshell, but the subject is extremelly vast: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impermanence

I hope it explains better than I did what I meant by "nothing is permanent", and maybe it'll be of interest to you like it has been for me. Feel free if you want more pointers.

Re: Should assisted death/suicide be legal?

#35
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you kidding me? You’re willing to say that to someone who lives with an incurable and life-altering disease that I fucking hate? I cross the same bridge every day. When I get up. When I go to bed. When I’m asleep and every moment in between. My suffering is because I’m not learning with life? That’s my mistake ? And that it’s not a byproduct of something 100% out of my control? No offense, but that’s pretty fucki…

I'm the grand-parent comment so I feel a bit responsible for where it went so maybe I can clear what I meant here. My view on the question of impermanence has been shaped by buddhism. I'm not a buddhist, I just discovered buddhism at an age and in circumstances where it talked to me and helped me a lot going through some very bad stuff. In a nutshell, but the subject is extremelly vast: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

Your bad stuff is not my bad stuff. Thanks for the pointers.

Re: Should assisted death/suicide be legal?

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The experience is always changing. If you cross the same bridge twice, at the second time the experience is not the same, as you are not doing it for the first time. So if the experience is changing and you are equally suffering, you are not learning with life, that's a mistake that lots of people do. Suicide is not a solution.

Are you kidding me? You’re willing to say that to someone who lives with an incurable and life-altering disease that I fucking hate? I cross the same bridge every day. When I get up. When I go to bed. When I’m asleep and every moment in between. My suffering is because I’m not learning with life? That’s my mistake ? And that it’s not a byproduct of something 100% out of my control? No offense, but that’s pretty fucki…

> Are you kidding me?

I'm not, I don't know you and I don't care about you. Desperation doesn't make your point right, the same way it doesn't make it right for a poor guy to rob another just because he is hungry. Life is tough to everybody, besides the 0.1% that are too lucky to born with everything they need and the 0.1% that have and will have nothing. I'll not modulate my opinion based on the 0.1% and wonder if you are part of this group. There is no arrogance on that. Life doesn't work for you? I feel sorry for you, nothing more.

Re: Should assisted death/suicide be legal?

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But can you acknowledge that these people are probably reinforcing the miserable experience by their own? And that's why it looks like it is permanent?

No, I can’t. I can acknowledge it might be true for some of those people. But there are a whole fucking lot of people. But when it comes to this, I’m not going to be so arrogant and self-centered as to say something that I believe applies to all of them.

Your misery doesn't make the whole world miserable, paulcole. I bet you have at least one thing that if you could fix asap, with the solution you want, may it be money, love, health, or anithing else, you would not be permanently miserable as you have been saying you are. So if it can be fixed and improved, even if you lack the willpower to go forward, it is not permanent. You make it permanent, and I definitely don't care or form my world view based on desperate losers.

Re: Should assisted death/suicide be legal?

#38
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bridge jumpers are self selected group of mostly physically healthy people suffering from the mostly temporary/treatable mental health issue of depression. I think almost nobody would argue that depression should qualify you for assisted suicide. Also, jumping off a bridge is probably the most terrifying method of suicide available. It's practically suicide-by-torture, yup, you're gonna regret that. It's a very, very…

> I think almost nobody would argue that depression should qualify you for assisted suicide Did I understand this wrong? Because if not, at least I'm sure I don't agree with that. Depression is the most fixable problem an human-being can fix and is as seasonal as happiness and cheerfulness. Every person that suicides because of depression is an idiot that most of the times leave lots of people hurt.

> Did I understand this wrong?

Yes, this is a misunderstanding "I think almost nobody would argue that depression should qualify you for assisted suicide".....because everybody would argue that you should see a psychologist, get your depression treated, and go on to live a long and happy life.

Re: Should assisted death/suicide be legal?

#39
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think almost nobody would argue that depression should qualify you for assisted suicide Did I understand this wrong? Because if not, at least I'm sure I don't agree with that. Depression is the most fixable problem an human-being can fix and is as seasonal as happiness and cheerfulness. Every person that suicides because of depression is an idiot that most of the times leave lots of people hurt.

> Did I understand this wrong? Yes, this is a misunderstanding "I think almost nobody would argue that depression should qualify you for assisted suicide".....because everybody would argue that you should see a psychologist, get your depression treated, and go on to live a long and happy life.

I know some persons go on to take their life after suffering depression for majority of their life. I'm unsure if people should take the stance of discriminating one illness compared to another because it may not always be treatable in the sense of being tolerable for one person compared to another.

Re: Should assisted death/suicide be legal?

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I can’t. I can acknowledge it might be true for some of those people. But there are a whole fucking lot of people. But when it comes to this, I’m not going to be so arrogant and self-centered as to say something that I believe applies to all of them.

Your misery doesn't make the whole world miserable, paulcole. I bet you have at least one thing that if you could fix asap, with the solution you want, may it be money, love, health, or anithing else, you would not be permanently miserable as you have been saying you are. So if it can be fixed and improved, even if you lack the willpower to go forward, it is not permanent. You make it permanent, and I definitely don'…

What you're communicating is the blame is on the person suffering if we simplify it. That assumption is not correct and it's arguable based on what ideology you prescribe to. Some people understand determinism and realize people don't have free will because it's simply an illusion. So people that suffer throughout life without finding a solution are just suffering because of how the universe made the unique conditions at birth for them suffer while the summation of external forces upon them progresses the suffering. I always try to keep in mind that not everyone has a happy life or I should write not even a painless life is obtainable for everyone. In any case I think it makes me more compassionate for people I shouldn't be able to judge and specifically not attempt at blaming them individually for wanting death instead of thinking life is special for them to force themselves to live.
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