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

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#191

Post by hansjorg » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 7:30 PM UTC

return0 wrote: post #32

> virtually all adults have the intellectual wherewithal to take their own lives Do they? It's one thing to say 'i dont want to live' or "i wish i was dead", and another to actually go through the processes to do that. Suicide killers for example, need a strong metaphysical motive and promise of reward to do that. I often wonder if a man stranded alone in an island , without any societal pressures would ever consider…

> Suicide killers for example, need a strong metaphysical motive and promise of reward to do that.

There are many examples of suicide bombings without religious motivation and with non-religious perpetrators.

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#192

Post by thaumasiotes » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 7:32 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #19

While 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…

> The entire concept of suffering exists merely to keep us alive. We experience pain and despair and sadness not because it's some inherent part of being conscious, but because those sensations help us to avoid things which are detrimental to survival.

Emotions are often themselves detrimental to survival. They are there to make sure you survive and reproduce, not that you survive without issue.

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#193

Post by idanoeman » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 7:39 PM UTC

Ntrails wrote: post #66

antris wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A depressed mind doesn't work like that. For a depressed person, their brain is constantly torturing them, and the depressed point of view seems much more real. "You can choose to pretend you're happy like the rest, but you know how life really goes."

I think you missed the point, the way to "not suffer" is death. In general every morning we make a decision on whether the expected future happiness is going to outweigh the expected future suffering. When that fails (and it does) we find reasons of duty to keep going, for the people we love etc. You're right, depressed people have a skewed vision of the future and it destroys their expectations of happiness.

I don't think that's obvious - spdustin could be speaking from a buddhist point of view: suffering is caused by desire, not pain. You can choose to remove desire and suffering from the mind through meditation.

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#194

Post by idanoeman » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 7:44 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #164

rdslw wrote: post #160

This question is much more interesting when you realize that modern neuroscience is (slowly) going more and more into area that there is no free will in humans. What is a reason to live if they are not your decisions driving it? Skipping over all (judical etc) consequences, if this is true, then life has no sense and it's more/less ok to end it - what's funny, suicide would also not be your (as in free will) decision…

> This question is much more interesting where you realize that modern neuroscience is (slowly) going more and more into area that there is no free will in humans. Science inherently approaches the universe in a way which leaves no room for materially meaningful "free will"; only strict material determination and randomness .

I don't think the scientific method is inherently materialistic - it's just that our most validated theories about how the world work are materialist.

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#195

Post by solipsism » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 7:51 PM UTC

abandonliberty wrote: post #133

Practicality wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

15 years ago I may have said something similar. I'm going to try to shed a little light on how chronic pain and disability is a bit different than acute. I've lived with chronic pain for over 10 years. As a registered person with disabilities, college resources helped me get by - but these did not exist in the real world for someone like me. It prevented me from working in my field of study and preference and severel…

Good luck to you!

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#196

Post by ci5er » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 7:54 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…

> That's a pretty high number that we could probably get to go down further

Why? At what cost? For what benefit?

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#197

Post by leakybit » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 7:59 PM UTC

pain, suffering, happiness, evil, good are all synthetic constructs developed by evolution that optimize the feedback loop in which a system of molecules is suck in.

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#198

Post by tezzer » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 8:00 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…

He did the math wrong. The source he links shows about 10 deaths per 100,000 which is .01%. He's high by 2 orders of magnitude.

Edited to add: The highest by-country rate using the statistics he cites is Guyana at 44 per 100,000, which is .044%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r...

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#199

Post by cmurf » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 8:07 PM UTC

How do other primates behave in this regard? I'd expect various coping mechanisms exist to reduce stress becoming so high that the individual contemplates suicide as a solution, i.e. I'd expect it to be more common the individual experiences cognitive dissonance, followed by denial, withdrawal, misdirection, etc. to avoid having to directly deal with the stress inducing information/situation. Suicide requires planning, so it's a very cognitive process, where many of our coping mechanisms are more automated (even if learned, typically that's at a very young age).

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#200

Post by tezzer » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 8:07 PM UTC

ComodoHacker wrote: post #159

>Close to 100% of humans could suicide, and yet ‘only’ about 1.4% do Very bad and misleading wording. 1.4% here is of total number of deaths, not total number of people. Also, both numbers seem untrue. Wiki says[1] "approximately 0.5% to 1.4% of people die by suicide". 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide#Epidemiology

As I mentioned elsewhere, this math is wrong. it's 10 to 44 people per 100,000, which is .01 to .04%, 2 orders of magnitude lower than 1%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r...