271–280 of 443 posts
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So long as it's not state mandated, more power to them. If they feel 50 more years are not something they want why should we force them to?
Because the vast majority of them eventually (often pretty soon) change their mind about it.
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I've always found it interesting that addictive behaviour is often seen as a virtue by our society if it's about the 'right sort of thing' (as far as society is concerned). We end up considering people as 'dedicated' or 'committed' to some cause or other. If they are a workaholic, or pious, or a sports superstar, or a concert pianist, chances are there is an addictive personality that just happens to have gotten atta…
No such thing as an addictive personality- it was invented by the pharmaceutical companies (the term) to play down the addictive effects of their drugs, doctors were told only people with addictive personalities will get hooked on the opioids
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> We may have not experienced prolonged pain, but we all have experienced suffering Sure, but people rarely consider suicide due to momentary suffering, or even suffering for a few weeks or month. People typically consider suicide when they can't see an end to their suffering, and while this is sometimes irrational there are also many cases where it isn't.
I've already pointed out that suffering is inherent to life for most of us, so it encompasses far more than "a few weeks or month[s]". You seem to be focusing on the aversion of physical or spiritual pain, but that's merely one sort of suffering which is not different in nature from the far subtler and less obvious suffering we all experience throughout our lives.
This is something that I have had some personal experience with. I've known quite a few suicides, and survivors of the suicides of others. Very much a "walk a mile in a man's shoes" kind of thing. Everyone has opinions on the matter, until it hits them. Then, they have personal experience (not just an opinion). It sucks. In some cases, I can see why someone would want to end it all. In others, like this one[0], I fin…
As somebody who have been in and out mental hospitals, this is very familiar. At one point in my early twenties, I was literally thinking about killing myself every single waking second. Finally I decided to throw in the towel, and got around to planning my end. Sat there, ran through various scenarios in my head. All the way up to putting the gun in my mouth and pulling the trigger. My imagination always terminated…
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AA and other twelve-steps programs are not inherently "religious-based". They only ask you to believe in some power higher than yourself that you can tap into as a source of inner sternness and restraint. You can call that a spiritual outlook if you like, but it's a very mild one and quite far from any organized or established religion. And it actually works quite well as far as helping people to stop drinking and st…
There have been many that linked it to being cultist (e.g. [1]). > And it actually works quite well as far as helping people to stop drinking and stay off alcohol for the long term. In any case, that is my biggest issue with AA and a lot of other "abstinence" programs (particularly those mandated by courts): they all but mandate that complete and utter sobriety is the only acceptable way instead of helping people to…
That only works for some people and not others (likely due to genetic factors amongst other reasons). Which can be quite hard to grasp for people who are actually able (or believe that they are...) to 'moderate their consumption'.
-David Foster Wallace
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He could have ODed on opium from the dark web. He could have networked with other suicidal people to find a humane way to kill himself (or be killed). I hate that people steelman governmental oversight and approval of suicide by strawmanning the other options. In countries which legalize euthanasia it becomes easier to do it for more reasons. Just keep it illegal, but don't prosecute people who try to do it. When a p…
I would think my right to live also includes my right to die with dignity.
The article is heavily focused on how to prevent suicide. They note that suicide is sometimes rational (they call it "existential", euphemistically). I'm all for removing the causes of people wanting to die. But if people have any rights at all, the right to decide when and how you die seems to be the most fundamental. It seems to be almost impossible nowadays to obtain the kinds of drugs (basically, barbiturates) th…
> Mostly the opposition to enabling killing yourself is ideological, and seems to be particularly prevalent among people with strong religious opinions. Kevin Yuill is an atheist. If you want the non-religious argument against state-sanctioned suicide read him (though, of course, as an individual he doesn't cover every anti-euthanasia atheist's point of view). I'm sorry for your particular situation.
I don't like the word "suicide" at all. It has strong connotations of sin and criminality.
The phrase "state-sanctioned suicide" implies that the state has active involvement in someone taking their own life. What I'm talking about is the state not actively interfering to make it hard for someone to decide for themself how and when they die.
"My particular situation" is nothing; I'm fine, and whatever health problems I have are the result of a life of self-indulgence and dissolution.
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Keeping in line with the style of that comment: No, they're not.
Life is suffering. It's one of the 4 Noble truths of Buddhism. Ancient knowledge.