Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The undiscovered country: Can suicide be predicted?

harpers.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 152 posts

Re: The undiscovered country: Can suicide be predicted?

#121

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

morpheos137 wrote: post #68
MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of suicide is to end suffering, not commit to a happy predictable retirement. If you ever have a moment in your life that causes you to contemplate it, you'll understand. Otherwise, I personally don't believe people like you should be making decisions for those people who do. You have no understanding of what it feels like to consider that as actually being a rational thought.

Nothing about life is rational. I believe I "contemplate" suicide frequently but I have no inclination to do it because what good would it do me? Suicide is self-murder no matter how we sugar coat it. If we reach a point as a society where murdering ones self is condoned why wouldn't that make murder of others less severe? If life is not sacred then it seems to me that murder becomes more like a property crime.

Look at the Japanese with sepouku and Roman era civilizations. Suicide was normal as a means to end suffering or further pain being caught for instance. Your slippery slope argument is completely false because we have evidence of civilizations that have allowed suicide.

Re: The undiscovered country: Can suicide be predicted?

#122

Post by zzt123 »

autoexec wrote: post #89
pmoriarty wrote: post #34

In "Why do people die by suicide" , Dr Paul Thomlinson goes over the research on predicting suicide.[1] First, he talks about a well supported model called Joiner's Model, based on research which shows that people who are most likely to commit suicide have all three of these factors: - Thwarted belongingness ("I am alone") - Perceived burdensomeness ("I am a burden") - Ability to commit suicide ("I am not afraid to d…

Joiner's Model seems to exclude people who are candidates for assisted suicide. They often don't feel alone, don't feel like a burden, but are terminally ill, in constant pain, feel they've lived long enough, seeing significant mental/physical decline etc. You can shoehorn them into "IS PATH WARM" under hopelessness, trapped, or anger I guess.

Assisted suicide not being a thing in most places is an absurdity to me.

I can’t see the nobility in not having the option of going out cleanly on your own terms as your body reaches the final stage of terminal decline.

I suppose one could say that in the United States, the 2nd Amendment guarantees your right to an effective form of self-assisted suicide, as long as you use your 5th amendment right to keep quiet on why.

Re: The undiscovered country: Can suicide be predicted?

#124

Post by autoexec »

zzt123 wrote: post #122
autoexec wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Joiner's Model seems to exclude people who are candidates for assisted suicide. They often don't feel alone, don't feel like a burden, but are terminally ill, in constant pain, feel they've lived long enough, seeing significant mental/physical decline etc. You can shoehorn them into "IS PATH WARM" under hopelessness, trapped, or anger I guess.

Assisted suicide not being a thing in most places is an absurdity to me. I can’t see the nobility in not having the option of going out cleanly on your own terms as your body reaches the final stage of terminal decline. I suppose one could say that in the United States, the 2nd Amendment guarantees your right to an effective form of self-assisted suicide, as long as you use your 5th amendment right to keep quiet on w…

Guns can be effective, but they are also very messy and plenty of people have attempted to kill themselves with a firearm and failed. The results of that are horrific and in some circumstances can leave a person unable to try again.

I don't think you were advocating for it as a replacement for medically assisted suicide, I'm only pointing out that it's a poor substitute for what we really need.

Re: The undiscovered country: Can suicide be predicted?

#125

Post by [deleted] »

jsmith45 wrote: post #60
okareaman wrote: post #42

As someone who has struggle with suicidal ideation his entire life, whenever the subject comes up I try to educate people by quoting author David Foster Wallace (who commited suicide) with the best explanation: “The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not becaus…

One flaw with the analogy is that a pretty significant portion of suicides (successful or attempts) are impulsive. Many people who attempt it have literally no idea they will when they wake up that morning. A 2001 University of Houston study of survivors of near lethal attempts showed that 70% of them had only decided to do it an hour or less before the attempt, and 24 percent had only spent 5 minutes before the atte…

[deleted]

Re: The undiscovered country: Can suicide be predicted?

#126

Post by zzt123 »

autoexec wrote: post #124
zzt123 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assisted suicide not being a thing in most places is an absurdity to me. I can’t see the nobility in not having the option of going out cleanly on your own terms as your body reaches the final stage of terminal decline. I suppose one could say that in the United States, the 2nd Amendment guarantees your right to an effective form of self-assisted suicide, as long as you use your 5th amendment right to keep quiet on w…

Guns can be effective, but they are also very messy and plenty of people have attempted to kill themselves with a firearm and failed. The results of that are horrific and in some circumstances can leave a person unable to try again. I don't think you were advocating for it as a replacement for medically assisted suicide, I'm only pointing out that it's a poor substitute for what we really need.

Yea it’s a poor substitute, not least of which because it can ruin any open casket funeral, given that the best odds of not vegetating yourself calls for short barrel, high caliber hollow point.

Just terrible that it can end up being the primary option when you get to the point where you don’t want to go through the last few months of suffering with no hope of recovery. Just terrible.

Re: The undiscovered country: Can suicide be predicted?

#127

Post by analog31 »

underseacables wrote: post #2

Robert Lowell once said that if humans had access to a button that would kill us instantly and painlessly, we would all press it sooner or later. I think this explains suicide better: For most, it’s an irrational act done in the spur of the moment. What I think is more interesting is when suicide is done as a rational act with planning, and consideration for others.

>>>> Robert Lowell once said that if humans had access to a button that would kill us instantly and painlessly, we would all press it sooner or later.

In my view, firearms are close enough to this level of technology, to shed doubt on the hypothesis. I don't think everybody with a gun tries to kill themselves.

Re: The undiscovered country: Can suicide be predicted?

#129

Post by Dylan16807 »

acover wrote: post #114
paulcole wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wonder about a 3rd group. Those without mental illness or terminal illness who just want to die. Or is the assumption that someone who wants to die but isn’t terminally ill must be mentally ill?

That is the assumption. I don't agree with it - dying seems like a pretty rational choice for some people.

Like who? Of the people who can feel normal emotions like happiness without some great interference, and have reasonably functional bodies, (and aren't like a prisoner of war) what does a candidate for rationally wanting to die look like?

Re: The undiscovered country: Can suicide be predicted?

#130

Post by prawn »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #88

If there was a simple and dignified way to end my life I think I would have done it multiple times already. My whole life so far has been a struggle with feeling that I am not fitting in, with social anxiety, depression and other stuff. There have also been good times but it seems whenever I start to believe that life is good, something happens, and the happiness is taken away. The older I get the more tired I get an…

What are your concerns about fitting in?
Post reply on HN