People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living • Hacker News Board

Re: People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living

#311

Post by anonymouskimmer » Sat, May 20, 2023, 5:53 PM UTC

denton-scratch wrote: post #303

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suicide literally just means killing oneself: https://www.etymonline.com/word/suicide The connotations of sin and criminality are in the eye of the beholder. > 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. But it does by regulating it. By deciding which suicides, or requests for euthanasia[1] are legitimate, and which aren't. If…

Suicide remains a sin in the eyes of the Catholic Church (the largest Christian denomination); and attempting it was a crime, at least in the UK (where I live) until 1961. People still speak of "committing" suicide, like committing murder. I can't think of any other legal act that you can "commit". [Edit] Wrong! Adultery, for example, is legal, and is something you commit. So I suppose that in general, you can "commi…

Sure. People also use the phrase "committing a traffic infraction".

"Committing to each other in marriage"

"Committing to a college"

"Committing money to a cause"

"Committing to God by accepting Jesus as your lord and savior" :D

I totally understand that there's baggage to this word (suicide). Given the totality of the ending of life I feel that highlighting all of these connotations with the word "suicide" is a good thing to do, as a minor, first-line form of gatekeeping. Nature is red in tooth and claw. While there are many situations in which it is okay to look at life-and-death with rose-colored glasses, when push comes to shove it is important to view the world without blinders.

Re: People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living

#312

Post by fuzzfactor » Sat, May 20, 2023, 5:54 PM UTC

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #278

vaidhy wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would think my right to live also includes my right to die with dignity.

Sure. But just as you don't have a right to material support from the state in order to live, you don't have a right to material support from the state in order to die. Unless you happen to live in a country in which you do have such a right. Regardless, these rights are limited. I'm in favor of increasing the first right such that suicides are minimized, and reducing the second right to not prosecuting you for attem…

Well thought.

When considering rights conferred by authorities or society, there is often litte relationship between what's available at any one time, to what is beneficial to any one individual, who most often has no significant input about ways their particular needs may be better addressed.

Re: People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living

#313

Post by anonymouskimmer » Sat, May 20, 2023, 5:57 PM UTC

lazyasciiart wrote: post #307

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While this may seem like a simple way, it seems like it wastes hundreds of people's time You could just leave a note or email. > that could be spent helping people who are actually wanting help. How many of those people were going to help others otherwise?

I don't know the Gordon Kaye story, but "those people" that get involved for search and rescue operations are usually professionals who would, in fact, spend that time working to help other people instead.

In some cases I believe you're right, tradeoffs do happen. In other cases they are just on call. This is why private rescues are so expensive. You aren't just paying for the professionals and the equipment, you're paying for them to sit around until called.

Re: People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living

#314

Post by Centigonal » Sat, May 20, 2023, 5:57 PM UTC

j3s wrote: post #308

SUFFERING IS A PART OF LIVING. as someone who has lost many friends and family members to suicide, articles like this feel so naive. at their funerals, there’s always a person saying “let’s remember them how they lived, not how they suffered” no. their suffering was a big part of their lived experience, and i will remember it forever. people who want to commit suicide do want to stop living. sometimes it’s because th…

Edit: I re-read your comment, and I think I was responding to what I thought you said, not what you were actually saying, so I'm rewriting my response.

You're right that suffering is an essential and inevitable part of life. We shouldn't erase the suffering that informs people's identities just because it makes us uncomfortable.

The amount of suffering in life varies from person to person and moment to moment, and can be influenced to some degree. For some (but not all) suicidal people, it is possible to make changes (different life situation, therapy, better connections, removal of stressors) to reduce suffering to a bearable level so that they want to keep on living and are no longer suicidal.

Re: People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living

#315

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft » Sat, May 20, 2023, 5:57 PM UTC

This headline strikes me as asinine. It wants to be profound, and certainly other people who hear or read it would consider it wise... but it offers no true insight. It can neither explain suicide nor help to prevent it or educate anyone on why they should want to try to do that.

It has a smarmy veneer of subjectivity to it.

If someone built an true general AI, and it suddenly started obsessing over suicidal ideation, would you jump to the "it's suffering!" explanation, or would you ask why it was malfunctioning?

"The subroutine that offers up solutions to perceived problems is fixated on a course of action that does result in the solution of any problem" seems more like an appropriate response. Or maybe "What errors exist in the code to cause it to constantly loop back to the wrong answer?"

Those would be the non-stupid reactions. So what about a natural intelligence doing the same thing makes you all wax poetic about suffering and being pushed beyond ordinary limits and crap like that? Natural intelligences shaped by evolution and chance have it worse off, of course, bugs and errors and bad code are just the way things are.

If anyone wants to ever be able to fix such things, this is the only way. Not wallowing around in psychology and other pseudosciences.

Re: People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living

#316

Post by roncesvalles » Sat, May 20, 2023, 6:00 PM UTC

rcpt wrote: post #277

“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 because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high…

While some people really do have to make a choice between fire and falling, many who think they're in that situation may actually be hallucinating of the fire. They don't have to fall; they can be helped.

Re: People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living

#317

Post by denton-scratch » Sat, May 20, 2023, 6:00 PM UTC

mthoms wrote: post #299

denton-scratch wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> non-religious argument against state-sanctioned suicide 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 sit…

The expression " committing suicide" has those connotations and is considered taboo by some. Maybe that's what you're thinking of? The alternative suggestion is "death by suicide" which is both technically correct and devoid of any implication of criminality/sin. Of course, you're free to think what you want about the word, I'm just relaying something I've read. (I agree with the rest of your point, I just wanted to…

I was alive when attempting suicide was still a crime (obviously, you can't be prosecuted for succeeding!). For me, the word "suicide" has connotations of wrongdoing, like "homicide" and "patricide".

Younger generations may not be so aware of those connotations.

For me, "commit" doesn't have connotations of wrongdoing, unless it's a matter of a bad commit that breaks the build. "Death by suicide" doesn't name an act; it's a verdict.

Re: People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living

#318

Post by s1artibartfast » Sat, May 20, 2023, 6:04 PM UTC

harimau777 wrote: post #264

s1artibartfast wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is more than just loss of communities, although that is a big part of it. It is also a hallowing out of the human experience and the inability to enjoy simple pleasures available to anyone alive. Consumerism is so deeply entrenched in the minds of people that they usually blame their unhappiness on a lack of material goods and external factors. Meanwhile, There are millions or billions of people who can fi…

If they have a spouse and kids, then perhaps they are simply better off than someone who is wealthy but alone.

yeah, I think that is a big part of it. Or people who have friends, social groups, ect.

It can also have to do with what you focus your attention and spend your time on. Maybe watching the 40+ hours of TV a week that average Americans do doesn't actually make people happier, and sitting around a coffee shop and playing games (a cheap and common past time in some poor countries), is better for mental health.

Re: People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living

#319

Post by tpoacher » Sat, May 20, 2023, 6:04 PM UTC

harlanji wrote: post #122

effingwewt wrote: post #106

Crazy this showed up today. I do this 'existential calculus' quite often. I also sometimes wonder what the point is when it just gets worse every year. My therapist told me it's because I'm a survivor , it's what I do . But what's the point of surviving? At what point do I get to live , much less be happy? She pointed out it would be throwing away all my battle scars, all the effort I'd put in to get this far. Just t…

> He next question was whether I was an organ donor. That's dark. I've been homeless for 5 years (including working full time and having never been an addict). I'm very healthy so for a while I felt like I could be targeted by black marketeers like organ harvesters. > I completely see why people turn to hard drugs, I consider opioids daily almost. I joke that if I were to give up and become an addict at least someone…

My apologies if this is an inappropriate question (if you feel this is the case, please feel free to tell me so and to bugger off etc).

Mind if I ask the "how" question? Was there a particular 'event' or chain of events that led to your being homeless?

For context, I am researching / hoping to research "hospital admissions" as a precipitating event of (first) homelessness, so I am interested in people's lived experience with that topic (as well as practical pointers on how I could materialize this research in more practical terms).

> I joke that if I were to give up and become an addict at least someone would help me because it'd be their job. I've always been a hard worker and hate being unemployed.

I could totally see how that might be the case. This has "Shirky Principle" written all over it, doesn't it? It's weird how the system is wired like that... In fact, that's partly my motivation for this research, actually; the idea is that, if a first (and otherwise avoidable) episode of homelessness could be detected and avoided prior to discharge, that would be much more beneficial than allowing people into that mess in the first place and then having to prioritise who "deserves" the most help after the fact.

Re: People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living

#320

Post by Jochim » Sat, May 20, 2023, 6:06 PM UTC

petesergeant wrote: post #141

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's about a chap in Holland that was a recidivist alcoholic, who took advantage of the Dutch Euthanasia laws, to end his life. There's really no way to put a positive spin on it. It sucks, no matter what opinions we hold on the matter. The laws aren't the issue. If someone really wants to end things; they will. I have seen it many times, and alternative means can be absolutely devastating to the survivors.

> who took advantage of the Dutch Euthanasia laws, to end his life ... it sucks, no matter what opinions we hold on the matter His brother disagrees with you, explicitly answering an anti-euthanasia protester with: "I am just glad my brother did not have to jump in front of a train or live a few more years in agony before dying of his abuse"

I took GP to be mean that it's sad that the man felt the need to end his life. His final sentence seems to support that sentiment.