Ethical dilemma: prevent a suicide at your own risk

mr friendly guy · Post by **mr friendly guy** » 2005-07-27 07:38am

Zadius wrote:
99.999999999% of suicides are mentally ill.
Wrong. Their judgement may be clouded by a mental disorder like depression but some people really honestly want to die.

Ah, how can they really want to die if their judgment is clouded?

Turin · Post by **Turin** » 2005-07-27 07:45am

Broomstick wrote:To put it bluntly, suicidal people are sick in the head. Ill. They can't meaningfully "consent".

So your saying that someone who, for example, wants to die because they are in horrible pain from some disease is automatically (well, 99.9999% likely) mentally ill? And is therefore unable to consent to their own death? Something tells me this represents a good deal more than 0.0000001% of all suicides.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2005-07-27 08:20am

Of course I'm going to try and help them as much as I can other than what risks other people if they are under extreme emotional duress and not in their right mind. It arguable that my life is worth more to me that his or her life, but the person is still a human being and saving them if at all possible is the right thing today. I know it's cool to be apathetic, but merely letting another human being die, even if they were a stranger isn't something I'm willing to do. Strangers tend to have pasts and people who care about them and if they die, they won't have a future where they beat whatever caused them to attempt suicide in the first place. After all, if by some chance it was me in that position, I know I want someone to try and help me and not merely be apathetic or even malicious.

However, the exception is people in severe medical distress. I also think that people have a right to die on their own terms if they've consciously thought about it and came to the conclusion that they are too sick and/or in pain to go on. If they've made that decision of sound mind, then I'm not going to interfere.

Tinkerbell · Post by **Tinkerbell** » 2005-07-27 01:59pm

On the mental illness note...

Despair != Mental illness
Not seeing another way out != Mental illness
Wanting to die != Mental illness

While a good deal of suicides are impulsive, and immediately regretted (hopes someone can save them, "I dont want to die now"), a lot are carefully planned. You can question the sanity of anyone who would choose to die, but you could question the sanity of a number of things. I could say that 99.99999% of drug users are mentally ill, because no one would choose to do them knowing the consequences. That doesnt make my statement valid (for the record, I dont think that). Youre taking something you dont understand and attributing it to mental illness.

Unfathomable != Impossible.

Post by **Broomstick** » 2005-07-27 08:43pm

Sir Sirius wrote:Broomstick, you wouldn't happen to have source for your claim that 99+ percent of suicides are committed by mentally ill people incapable of making rational decisions?

Good gravy, I thought that was a ridiculous enough pulled-out-of-my-ass statistic that you guys would understand that it wasn't so much a statistic as trying to make a point. I also noticed you blazed right past my statement that I was sure there were exceptions to that rule.

This "consent to die" stance is BULLSHIT. Someone mentally derranged - which quite a few suicides are - can not be said to consent to anything. We, as a society, are not in the habit of issuing guns to folks suffering from bipolar disorders, schizophrenia, or other severe mental illnesses, nor do we normally allow such individuals to mutililate themselves if we can prevent it because most people recognize that there is something wrong with such self-destructive impulses.

Post by **Broomstick** » 2005-07-27 08:46pm

Turin wrote:
Broomstick wrote:To put it bluntly, suicidal people are sick in the head. Ill. They can't meaningfully "consent".
So your saying that someone who, for example, wants to die because they are in horrible pain from some disease is automatically (well, 99.9999% likely) mentally ill?

Except that people who "want to die because they're in horrible pain" often don't really want TO DIE - they want to STOP FEELING PAIN. If you could take away their pain without side effects that vast majority would want to have more life. It's not "I want to die" but rather "I would rather die than continue like this." It's a fine distinction, but an important one. Death is not the primary objective, it's seen as a means to an end. Provide a less than lethal means to that end and they might well take you up on it.

Sir Sirius · Post by **Sir Sirius** » 2005-07-28 01:26am

Broomstick wrote: Good gravy, I thought that was a ridiculous enough pulled-out-of-my-ass statistic that you guys would understand that it wasn't so much a statistic as trying to make a point. I also noticed you blazed right past my statement that I was sure there were exceptions to that rule.

You are quite right, you were clearly saying that virtually all suicides are committed by mentally ill people incapable of making rational decisions, I thought truncating the percentage made it clear that I understood this. However I really should have know better and worded my question so as to avoid this particular form of evasion, my fault. In any case, while waiting for your source, which I never got, I succeeded in finding a few which say that nine out of ten suicides had one or more psychiatric disorders at the time of their death.

Sir Sirius · Post by **Sir Sirius** » 2005-07-28 06:49am

Oops, I meant to post the link to the source, but it seems I forgot. Here you go.

Turin · Post by **Turin** » 2005-07-28 07:56am

Broomstick wrote:This "consent to die" stance is BULLSHIT. Someone mentally derranged - which quite a few suicides are - can not be said to consent to anything.

Just to be clear Broomstick, if you'd read my entire original post you'd see that I was in fact saying that someone who is mentally ill cannot be said to have given consent to die. If someone is not mentally ill, they have the right to end their own life (although I'd still try to talk them out of it if I thought they were being foolish). If someone is mentally ill, they cannot give that consent. We actually agree Broomstick on the issue of consent, it's just that you seem to think that all but a handful of suicides are by people who are mentally ill.

Post by **Broomstick** » 2005-07-29 05:57am

I can actually name a category of suicides who I don't believe are mentally ill or seeking a release from intractable pain, and that's the suicide bombers. They actively seek death for what they believe is a good purpose. I think they're wrong, of course, but while their acts are criminal I don't think it's a sign of brain dysfunction. Thinking dysfunction, maybe, but the organ itself is working.

But I think the vast majority of suicides do fall into the mental disease category. The reasons, the triggers, for the fatal acts are typically things that most people can deal with, without seeking death - despair, rejection, financial problems, etc. are things we all deal with in life, yet most of us muddle through without even an attempt or gesture at suicide.

Turin · Post by **Turin** » 2005-07-29 07:45am

Broomstick wrote:The reasons, the triggers, for the fatal acts are typically things that most people can deal with, without seeking death - despair, rejection, financial problems, etc. are things we all deal with in life, yet most of us muddle through without even an attempt or gesture at suicide.

Okay, I'll concede the point.

Kazuaki Shimazaki · Post by **Kazuaki Shimazaki** » 2005-07-30 03:22am

Broomstick wrote:But I think the vast majority of suicides do fall into the mental disease category. The reasons, the triggers, for the fatal acts are typically things that most people can deal with, without seeking death - despair, rejection, financial problems, etc. are things we all deal with in life, yet most of us muddle through without even an attempt or gesture at suicide.

Some people are brighter than others. Within wide limits, we don't decide less bright ones have a problem. Some people also react more than others.

It is a tautology to say that people that are happy with their lives don't commit suicide - that includes the suicide bombers and kamikazes that you seem to think should be exempt from mental illness classifications. Those aren't happy because the world isn't conforming to what they think it should be.

Just because someone chose a rare solution to one of his tough problems doesn't necessarily mean he has a disease.

What is illness?

OK, say recently my life sucks. It is hard to be happy if your life sucks enough, so I'm depressed. By itself, generally being depressed is not a mental illness - being sad is not a mental illness.

I don't see a whole lot of options to get out of my funk. Not seeing options to get out of your funk, is generally also not considered illness. Sometimes problems are really hard and look even harder. That happens to everyone.

So I decide to take myself offline. But I don't die. Instead, I get taken to a hospital. Because I am depressed, any biochemical indicators that really do relate to depression are off the scale. They now put a label on me called "clinical depression".

Now, my own thoughts are something to be cured of:

1) Psychotherapy: If they are lucky, I see some new options in my life. They declare me cured and my decision to kill myself as a "disease". But how did me seeing some options later have anything to do with the fact that I really didn't see an option back then? Options don't all come into your brain simultaneously. It'd be nice if they do, but they don't, and the fact they don't is generally not considered a form of illness.

Besides, generally talking to someone is not considered a therapy. If a friend talked me out of any other funk, most won't call it therapy or my funk a disease.

2) Everything else: Are they "curing" me? Or just "replacing" me? They feed me shitloads of chemicals and take me to electroshock, destroying trillions of my neurons and changing the biochemistry that is part of what defines me, combined with doctors that indoctrinate me into the idea they are "curing" me, not annihilating countless neurons in the faint hope a new personality occupies my body. Eventually, the old me is destroyed and a new docile me comes out and agrees I was sick (though it might just be to get away from even more electroshock that would destroy the new "me") and thank them for "curing" me. They take this as proof that I had a disease. Isn't this some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy? The real truth is more like they killed Me and replaced it with ... something else ... in the same hulk with their shocks and drugs.

Finally, here is an interesting article that says much of what I want to say in much more eloquence. I'm dubious about the others (I'm still digesting them) because they seem rather extreme, but I agree with this one.

Post by **Broomstick** » 2005-07-30 07:29am

Kazuaki Shimazaki wrote:
Broomstick wrote:But I think the vast majority of suicides do fall into the mental disease category. The reasons, the triggers, for the fatal acts are typically things that most people can deal with, without seeking death - despair, rejection, financial problems, etc. are things we all deal with in life, yet most of us muddle through without even an attempt or gesture at suicide.
Some people are brighter than others. Within wide limits, we don't decide less bright ones have a problem. Some people also react more than others.

I'm not sure what you're trying to get at here. Are you saying stupid people are more likely to kill themselves? Or smart people are? So far as I know, there is no correlation between intelligence and suicide.

Are you saying more emotional people are more likely to commit suicide? Back that up. I could just as easily argue that because "emotional" people are more likely to express they have a problem rather than bottling it up they're less likely to suddenly "snap" into violence or self-destruction.

It is a tautology to say that people that are happy with their lives don't commit suicide - that includes the suicide bombers and kamikazes that you seem to think should be exempt from mental illness classifications. Those aren't happy because the world isn't conforming to what they think it should be.

But the vast majority of UNhappy people don't kill themselves - killing yourself is NOT a normal reaction to unhappiness or pain just going by statitistics alone.

Just because someone chose a rare solution to one of his tough problems doesn't necessarily mean he has a disease.

Nor does it mean he doesn't have a disease.

Some statitistically "abnormal" things are OK by society at large - unusual beauty or talent or athletic ability, for example. But other abnormalities - such as a desire to kill yourself - are not OK. Self-destruction goes against the tide of several billion years of evolution where life forms, as a very broad, general rule, go to great lengths to survive rather than die. Suicide causes pain and dysfuction in those left behind. Suicides can also endanger or even kill other people depending on how they choose to die. In other words, except in very limited circumstances it's not OK.

What is illness?

A malfunction in a living creature, such that their body doesn't work properly.

OK, say recently my life sucks. It is hard to be happy if your life sucks enough, so I'm depressed. By itself, generally being depressed is not a mental illness - being sad is not a mental illness.

You are correct that "being sad" is not a mental illness - but depression IS a mental illness.

This is partly a matter of language. Medically, depression does have a defined definition and symptoms to distinguish it from normal sadness or grief. The fact that the general public uses sloppy language doesn't eliminate the disease any more than my relatives refering to any cancer as "the" cancer, as in "Uncle Bubba has the cancer", erases the fact that there are many types of cancer with biologically distinctive features.

I don't see a whole lot of options to get out of my funk. Not seeing options to get out of your funk, is generally also not considered illness. Sometimes problems are really hard and look even harder. That happens to everyone.

This is true - but most people do not kill themselves over these facts. If they did, the streets of every major city in the world would be strewn with suicides every morning, we'd need crews to "bring out the dead" and heave them into trucks or carts to haul them away.

A LOT of people have lives that suck - but they don't kill themselves over it, even if the suckiness continues for years and years and years.

Hell, I'm married to someone who is in constant, chronic pain, has been since childhood, and will be for the rest of his life which is definitely a "life sucks" sort of deal - yet he's never tried to kill himself. He doesn't want to die (although he would certainly like to be free of pain).

Which, again, is my point - being in a "life sucks" situation doesn't automatically equal "I want to kill myself". Nor does that approach explain people whose lives don't suck, who have a lot of good things in their life, who do kill themselves.

As for suicide bombers not liking the world - you know, there's a lot of shit I don't like about the world as it currently is, either, but I'm not planning to kill myself or anyone else over those matters. Again, this is an not-normal reaction to rather ordinary and common situations.

So I decide to take myself offline. But I don't die. Instead, I get taken to a hospital. Because I am depressed, any biochemical indicators that really do relate to depression are off the scale. They now put a label on me called "clinical depression".

It's not usually that striaghtforward. There isn't a blood test for depression.

But yeah, being mentally out of sorts enough to attempt to kill yourself generally IS one of the hallmarks of clinical depression. Sort of like having a distinct bend or kink in your leg between knee and hip is a definite sign your femur is fractured. If you try to kill yourself the assumption is yes, there is something seriously wrong with you. Why? Because it's not a normal thing to do.

Now, my own thoughts are something to be cured of:

The ones prompting you to self-destruction? Yeah.

1) Psychotherapy: If they are lucky, I see some new options in my life. They declare me cured and my decision to kill myself as a "disease". But how did me seeing some options later have anything to do with the fact that I really didn't see an option back then? Options don't all come into your brain simultaneously. It'd be nice if they do, but they don't, and the fact they don't is generally not considered a form of illness.

First of all, it's not a matter of luck - the docs try to get you to see there are alternatives to your current problems. They usually pretty thorough at presenting them, so no, it's not a matter of "luck", they don't just happen to mention in passing one day there are other ways to approach your problems.

The other problem with your argument is that suicidal people may well be aware of alternatives - they just choose death over them.

And, again, other people have lives that totally suck but they don't want to die. That's abnormal, too - abnormal enough that the absense of despair or other emotions that are a feature of clinical depression can be seen as a danger sign.

See, with living creatures there is a range of behaviors that are considered normal. Anything outside that is abnormal. Although abnormal isn't inherently a bad thing - go back to my reference to unusual talent - it frequently is.

We don't tell people who are missing a leg that lacking a foot is part of the range of possible human forms and it's all good - we try to find a way for them to compensate for their problem. None of those solutions are as good as having a whole, healthy leg but they can allow the person to function better than before. Likewise, I can't stomach the notion of suicide is a choice, just one of the many choices open to people in this life - feeling like that is a problem and yes, society should attempt to find a way to help the clinically depressed function in life and relieve their suffering without handing them a bottle of pills or a gun and saying "go ahead".

Besides, generally talking to someone is not considered a therapy.

Yes, it is - it was the original psychotherapy.

If a friend talked me out of any other funk, most won't call it therapy or my funk a disease.

There's a difference between "funk" and "I want to kill myself." I have "funks" that last a few days, make me into a swearing, irritable ogre who might closet myself in the spare room with some violent video games. That doesn't make me depressed in the clinical sense, nor does it mean I have any real urge to kill anyone, including myself. That's a completely different thing than someone who delibrately jumps in front of a train, drives their car at high speed into a brick wall, swallows a bottle of pills, or eats a shotgun. If you are so fucked that jumping off a building looks like your best alternative there's really only two possible scenarios here - 1) you're in a burning building so your choices are down to death by fire or death by gravity or 2) you're fucked in the head.

2) Everything else: Are they "curing" me? Or just "replacing" me? They feed me shitloads of chemicals and take me to electroshock, destroying trillions of my neurons and changing the biochemistry that is part of what defines me, combined with doctors that indoctrinate me into the idea they are "curing" me, not annihilating countless neurons in the faint hope a new personality occupies my body. Eventually, the old me is destroyed and a new docile me comes out and agrees I was sick (though it might just be to get away from even more electroshock that would destroy the new "me") and thank them for "curing" me. They take this as proof that I had a disease. Isn't this some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy? The real truth is more like they killed Me and replaced it with ... something else ... in the same hulk with their shocks and drugs.

Amazing as it may seem to you, electroshock is not first-line therapy for depression and is still quite controversial

Nor is every suicide wannabee automatically doped to the gills on drugs.

Nor are depressed people automatically drugged into zombies.

For some disorders - such as bipolar - there ARE biochemical problems here. Arguing that correcting them is somehow obliterating the person in question is like arguing that removing a cancerous tumor is the destruction of someone's bodily integrity. It would be grand if we had better tools for correcting biochemical brain problems, and research is being done in this area.

There are mentally ill people for whom medication works - it makes them feel better, function better, and frees them from some of the burdern they live with. Such people are highly compliant with medication, and may even say it makes them feel more like themselves instead of less.

That drugs don't work for everyone... well, no other medication is 100% successful, either. That doesn't mean they're entirely worthless. We don't understand the brain well at all, or how it is we think and feel with that few pounds of organized jelly. We don't know why some people are so traumatized by the very ordinary stress of very ordinary life that they fall into suicidal states while others endure horrific things and yet still want very much to live and still find enjoyment in life.

I do know that those who are suicidal ARE suffering - mental pain is just as real and horrible as physical pain - and as a general rule the relief of pain is seen as a good thing. The truth is, all the drugs, talk therapy, and electroshock in the world won't save some people - some folks really are dedicated to killing themselves. That doesn't stop me from wanting to attempt to treat their suicidal impulses. When someone has cancer we don't shrug and say "you're gonna die", we try to treat the disease even if our tools are crude. Likewise, looking at someone whose suicidal and saying "go ahead, pull the trigger on that gun in your mouth" is just as wrong.

Post by **Broomstick** » 2005-07-30 08:13am

About that article Kazuaki Shimazaki linke to:

"Partly as a response to the failure of suicide prevention, partly in reaction to commitment abuses, and perhaps mainly in the spirit of accepting anything that does not physically harm anyone else, we see suicide increasingly advocated as a fundamental human right.

First of all, suicide prevention is not always a failure.

Second, it's damn hard to kill yourself without inflicting suffering on others. I don't enjoy seeing bodies killed by violence, and someone has to clean up the mess you leave behind.

Maybe if suicides could just step into a booth and go >poof< into a pile of ashes that would be one thing (and totally discounting the pain they cause to others by their permanent absence), but that ain't the way I've seen it. People who jump off buildings have been known to land on and either maim or kill those below. In my neighborhood recently a man blew his head off with a shotgun leaving the usual mess behind and his remains were discovered by his 8 year old daughter who, I'm sure, has suffered considerable distress over the whole thing and will be haunted by it all the rest of her life. I've been a passenger on two trains that were comandeered for death by suicides and frankly, I find blood, gore, and body parts sprayed against the windows nauseating, disgusting, and horrific. I would have preferred never to have seen such a thing, thank you very much - never mind the considerable delays involved by the need to clean up, deal with hysteria in bystanders, and the police investigation to make sure this was suicide and not murder.

A major flaw with this guy's thinking is the notion that a suicide exists in isolation - he doesn't. One man's death ripples outward to affect others. You can't die without causing some level of pain to others.

Taken from its social and psychological context, suicide is regarded by some purely as an issue of personal freedom"

In real life, suicide always has a context.

It should not be possible to confine people against their wills in mental `hospitals.

If they're a danger to others is sure as hell should be possible!

And suicides frequently are a danger to others as well as themselves.

Suzy Szasz, a victim of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, confirms this view in her book Living With It: Why You Don't Have To Be Healthy To Be Happy after an acute flare-up of her disease during which she contemplated suicide: "As many an ancient philosopher has noted, I found the very freedom to commit suicide liberating"

But does she really want death - or does she want freedom from her disease and suffering? If a cure that didn't involve death was possible, do you think she would then choose death... or choose health and life?

I am willing to concede that in some cases of illness death is a legitmate alterative... but not an ideal one. Ideally, we'd have a cure that restores life and health.

To these statements of support for the right to commit suicide, I will add my own: In a truly free society, you own your life, and your only obligation is to respect the rights of others. I believe everyone is entitled to be treated as the sole owner of himself or herself and of his or her own life. Accordingly, I think a person who commits suicide is well within his or her rights in doing so provided he or she does so privately and without jeopardizing the physical safety of others.

And that's a pretty fucking tall order to fill, one that suicides don't seem very good at doing.

And I'd add "mental safety of others" to the requirement as well - 8 year olds finding their daddy with a head that looks like a smashed open watermelon is not a good thing, just for starters, even if the man in question didn't physically endanger anyone else.

I know of another instance were a woman locked herself in a garage with a running car to die of carbon monoxide poisoning which, at least in the sense of achieving her primary objective, was successful. Problem was, she did such a good job of doing this on the sly that the CO levels built to near immediate-lethal levels in the garage (it was a small garage) thereby jeopardizing the police who came to investigate. The fact that neither the garage nor the car were hers only adds theft to the whole mess, which is a crime as it does NOT respect the rights of others.

And so on, and so forth... it can be remarkably hard to kill yourself in sure but "safe" manner. Suicides frequently break other laws - which, again, DISrespects the rights of others - on their way to death. They can endanger others along the way.

Provided the person in question is not violating the rights of others, that person's autonomy is of more value than enforcement of what other people consider rational or of what other people think is in a person's best interests.

See above - it's damn hard to kill yourself without inflicting some level of pain on others. It's NOT just all about you, dammit!

Whether or not a person supports the right to commit suicide is a litmus test of whether or not that person truly believes in self-ownership and the individual freedom that comes with it, the individual freedom that many of us have been taught is the reason-for-being of American democracy.

I'm sorry - I can't buy into the "suicide is OK" sentiment expressed here. Death is painful to those left behind. Even when death is a genuine release from protracted and hopeless suffering the permanent lack of a human being you care about DOES cause pain. You're happy the individual is no longer suffering... but that doesn't mean YOU stop hurting.

Even people who oppose the right to commit suicide because of their belief in mental illness sometimes can be made to understand the erroneousness of their biological theorizing or their belief in some kind of non-biological mental illness by asking them if they would see any point in living if they were suffering from a terminal disease involving excruciating, unrelievable physical pain or were completely paralyzed from the neck down with no chance of recovery. Once people admit there are any circumstances in which they would choose death, they often see suicide is the result of a person's personal judgment about his or her circumstances in life rather than a biological malfunction of the brain or some conception of non-biological mental illness.

Again, flawed thinking - someone with a terminal illness involving "excruiciating pain" isn't really seeking death - they're seeking pain relief. Offer them non-lethal pain relief they'll almost certainly opt for it.

As for "paralyzed from the neck down" - asking someone to imagine what that would be like is totally different from actually being there. Being paralysed in such a manner is actually one of the circumstances where it is considered normal to comtemplate suicide and, in fact, if someone doesn't express such levels of despair it's cause for more concern than if they do. Nonetheless, after rehabilitation - that is, after medical treatment of the problem - most such folks manage to adapt to their altered conditions and want to continue living. Some don't - but because some don't doesn't mean death is the viable alternative in all cases.

A person's reasons for choosing death may or may not make sense to other people. In a free society, however, that doesn't or at least shouldn't matter.

It DOES matter if acting on those impulse puts others at risk, or causes suffering to others.

LORDDOOMMASTER · Post by **LORDDOOMMASTER** » 2005-07-30 08:47am

aerius wrote:Nope, ain't risking my life. I ain't trained in suicide prevention, anything I do beyond trying to talk to the person will likely escalate the situation and lead to bad shit. Talk to the guy if I have to, call the cops & trained experts in to deal with it, better to have one dead guy than 2.

I'm going to have to go with this one. While I might be willing to try to help a good friend if they were trying to commit suicide (because I know them and could probably talk them out of it), there is no way I'm going to try to do it with a complete stranger. I might end up saying something that would set him off and either make him kill himself or start to kill others.

Kazuaki Shimazaki · Post by **Kazuaki Shimazaki** » 2005-07-30 12:55pm

Broomstick wrote:I'm not sure what you're trying to get at here. Are you saying stupid people are more likely to kill themselves? Or smart people are? So far as I know, there is no correlation between intelligence and suicide.

Are you saying more emotional people are more likely to commit suicide? Back that up. I could just as easily argue that because "emotional" people are more likely to express they have a problem rather than bottling it up they're less likely to suddenly "snap" into violence or self-destruction.

What I am trying to say here is that there is a huge range in the ability of people to find solutions to their own problems. But in that huge range, they are all not ill.

Self-destruction goes against the tide of several billion years of evolution where life forms, as a very broad, general rule, go to great lengths to survive rather than die. Suicide causes pain and dysfuction in those left behind.

Compare it to something like homosexuality:
1) It is against evolution, since homos basically can't mate for reproduction.
2) I doubt there is any family that truly feels thrilled when their children come in as a homosexual - some might feel truly traumatised.
3) And homos are a minority, and often considered somewhat un-normal.

But I hope you aren't telling me you think homos should be dragged to hospitals to try and alter their nature.

Suicides can also endanger or even kill other people depending on how they choose to die. In other words, except in very limited circumstances it's not OK.

Other moralities come into play in those scenarios, so IMO it is something of a red herring. When I first answered the question near the top of the first page, I made the caveat about the Suicide Candidate not hurting anyone.

I'm restricting it to physical. If you aren't allowed to do things because someone might get mentally offended, we would all lose our freedoms quick.

A malfunction in a living creature, such that their body doesn't work properly.

And depression qualifies because...

You are correct that "being sad" is not a mental illness - but depression IS a mental illness.

Why (in principle). Normal depressions are brought by negative events in life. It is a state due to emotions (generally speaking).

Medically, depression does have a defined definition and symptoms to distinguish it from normal sadness or grief.

DSM-IV Definitions for Major Depressive Disorder (the most stereotypical depression) is not exactly greatly different from the layman's perceptions of Depression. The first (and one of the two majors) criteria is that they feel sad. The second (the other major) is decreased interest, which most would think is a rather natural consequence of the first. Most of the others are the same. The 9th, about suicide, is also a tautology. I have yet to locate the part where they explain why this state is a disease.

This is true - but most people do not kill themselves over these facts. If they did, the streets of every major city in the world would be strewn with suicides every morning, we'd need crews to "bring out the dead" and heave them into trucks or carts to haul them away.

We are fortunate that the self-preservation instinct is very high. Even people who wound up Forfeiting had a fair wall.

Hell, I'm married to someone who is in constant, chronic pain, has been since childhood, and will be for the rest of his life which is definitely a "life sucks" sort of deal - yet he's never tried to kill himself. He doesn't want to die (although he would certainly like to be free of pain).

He obviously has a glimmer of hope. Probably said glimmer has something to do with you.

Nor does that approach explain people whose lives don't suck, who have a lot of good things in their life, who do kill themselves.

It is difficult to fairly judge when a life is good (or at least passable) from an external point of view. Your husband may be hurting like shit and look like he had little left for live for, but perhaps because you are in his life (or his family), he might have decided living still has some merits to it.

The person you think has it all, on the other hand, may not. An executive might decide he got job and family, but the stress of holding said job was too great.

Values differ from person to person. One of the rights of a person is to make his own value judgment.

As for suicide bombers not liking the world - you know, there's a lot of shit I don't like about the world as it currently is, either, but I'm not planning to kill myself or anyone else over those matters. Again, this is an not-normal reaction to rather ordinary and common situations.

Well, you looked like you were going to separate them above...

It's not usually that striaghtforward. There isn't a blood test for depression.

I'm sure the brain scan would help, along with the survey they'd make me fill.

The ones prompting you to self-destruction? Yeah.

Obviously, I'm not allowed to self-destruct.

First of all, it's not a matter of luck - the docs try to get you to see there are alternatives to your current problems.

Precisely. The word is "Try".

The other problem with your argument is that suicidal people may well be aware of alternatives - they just choose death over them.

Technically, there are always alternatives. If I owe an impatient loanshark $1,000,000 and no way to repay him, I always have the alternative to sit there and let him come and beat me to death. The issue thus is how bleak the so-called Alternatives look.

See, with living creatures there is a range of behaviors that are considered normal. Anything outside that is abnormal. Although abnormal isn't inherently a bad thing - go back to my reference to unusual talent - it frequently is.

And when something is abnormal, even if it may be suboptimal, do we just infringe on people their rights?

In Grade 8, I lost my right eye to a softball. Three separate operations were done in an attempt to salvage my eyeball. The surgeons screwed something up and ruined any chance of a semi-functional salvage. My lens was completely destroyed already.

We all were fairly sure about the screwup by the time I woke up and checked how much vision remained (almost none). Three years later, the then-assistant to the chief surgeon (who became a very senior bureaucrat in the Hong Kong government) privately admitted that was precisely what happened.

I was left with a dysfunctional eye. A new possibility of treatment in Japan showed up, leaving me with the options of:
1) Leaving my eyeball alone. There's a chance it'd atrophy the rest of the way, and eventually I'd have to replace it with one of those artificial eyeballs. Maybe it won't, maybe it will.
2) Going through another year of three more salvage operations with a moderate chance of success. If successful, my right eye will still be a useless piece of shit when it comes to seeing (I don't have enough vision left in my right to maintain stereoscopic vision), but the improved function would improve its survival chance - not definite even if the operation works!

I was sick of marginal hope of marginal (practically useless) improvements to my wrecked right eye costing me months of my precious lifespan. I want to get over griefing for my lost eye (which was pretty easy seeing that being restricted to monoscopic vision did not affect my life at all until I went onto rocky field trips during University) and onto my life. My parents disagreed. They prevailed, of course.

The result in terms of vision improvement was slightly better than I hoped - it went from maybe 20/2000 (I really could see nothing but light) to about 20/200 (it now gives me blurry-as-hell images). My eyeball still lives to this day. I'm still not sure whether the expenditure of time and money was worth this little improvement (remember the death of my eyeball was far from a sure thing) though, and I was slightly annoyed about my parents overriding my decision.

We don't tell people who are missing a leg that lacking a foot is part of the range of possible human forms and it's all good - we try to find a way for them to compensate for their problem. None of those solutions are as good as having a whole, healthy leg but they can allow the person to function better than before.

Poor analogy. A better one might be if the guy didn't want a prosthetic, he's fine with a wheelchair, but you force him to have the prosthetic in the name of helping him anyway.

1) you're in a burning building so your choices are down to death by fire or death by gravity or 2) you're fucked in the head.

In other words, you agree when the situation does look black enough, suicide is not necessarily a sign of some kind of mental illness?

Amazing as it may seem to you, electroshock is not first-line therapy for depression and is still quite controversial

I know that and I should hope not! But that's not the issue. The issue is that they are going to consider this. Electroshock is about the deliberate and crude overloading of the brain in the "hopes" (because apparently no one really has much idea how this Shock stuff works and it is hard to believe such a crude application of overloading current can possibly do any precise work).

It seems roughly equivalent to pushing the Reset button on your computer, except this time, a 200V surge of current (as opposed to the usual 3.3V-5V) is fed into the circuits during the Reset. One can hardly think anything genuinely positive could come out of such things, or that the integrity of my self (which is totally reliant on the integrity of my brain, especially the frontal lobes the shockers are apparently targetting) will be preserved.

http://www.oikos.org/ectfried.htm

For some disorders - such as bipolar - there ARE biochemical problems here. Arguing that correcting them is somehow obliterating the person in question is like arguing that removing a cancerous tumor is the destruction of someone's bodily integrity. It would be grand if we had better tools for correcting biochemical brain problems, and research is being done in this area.

In the case of a brain, however, the brain is really the very essence of your being. How much alteration with any tool can be done before you literally cease to be yourself?

There are mentally ill people for whom medication works - it makes them feel better, function better, and frees them from some of the burdern they live with. Such people are highly compliant with medication, and may even say it makes them feel more like themselves instead of less.

I'm sure it does. The self now residing in the body feels better because the chemical makeup in the brain has been deliberately altered. But is that really the original self.

Suppose you are depressed. I stick you with a horde of medication that reduces the sensitivity of those receptors handling depression almost to zero. In other words, you don't feel your depression. You definitely feel better, but is that still you with your depression "ripped away"? If I wiped out your sensation of positive emotions with a drug, you would be furious not only because I denied you pleasure, but also because I altered a fundamental part of you, no? But if that's so, then isn't annihilating even depression also a fundamental change?

That drugs don't work for everyone... well, no other medication is 100% successful, either.

I am temporarily ignoring all possibilities of the drugs not working as planned to emphasize on the consequences even if they do work. If a person has to be changed to the extent that he isn't him to be "cured", then was he "cured" of a disease at all, or just destroyed?

I think few in the world truly want death, but sometimes death seems like the best out of a shitbox of poor-looking alternatives. And if that's so to them, they should have the freedom of choice, in so far they minimize the effects to others.

Post by **Broomstick** » 2005-07-30 04:16pm

Kazuaki Shimazaki wrote:
Broomstick wrote:I'm not sure what you're trying to get at here. Are you saying stupid people are more likely to kill themselves? Or smart people are? So far as I know, there is no correlation between intelligence and suicide.

Are you saying more emotional people are more likely to commit suicide? Back that up. I could just as easily argue that because "emotional" people are more likely to express they have a problem rather than bottling it up they're less likely to suddenly "snap" into violence or self-destruction.
What I am trying to say here is that there is a huge range in the ability of people to find solutions to their own problems. But in that huge range, they are all not ill.

You are correct in that there is a wide range of ability to solve problems, but I fail to see the direct relevance of that to the question of whether suicide is a valid "choice".

The fact that robbing banks is one of range of possible solutions to the problems "I need money, how do I get it?" does not mean it is the best choice, a legal choice, a moral choice, or in any way a good choice for solving the lack-of-money problem.

Yes, suicide is an option. The mere fact it exists as an option does not make it a good choice, or a moral choice, or an acceptable choice.

Self-destruction goes against the tide of several billion years of evolution where life forms, as a very broad, general rule, go to great lengths to survive rather than die. Suicide causes pain and dysfuction in those left behind.
Compare it to something like homosexuality:
1) It is against evolution, since homos basically can't mate for reproduction.
2) I doubt there is any family that truly feels thrilled when their children come in as a homosexual - some might feel truly traumatised.
3) And homos are a minority, and often considered somewhat un-normal.

But I hope you aren't telling me you think homos should be dragged to hospitals to try and alter their nature.

Nope, because your analogy is flawed.

There are numerous examples of species were not all adult members reproduce. The social insects - some bees, certain wasps, and all the ants and termites are well known examples where a majority of adults take no part in reproduction, yet their species continue on. There are a number of bird species where young adults forgoe immediate reproduction to help raise siblings. Naked African mole rats have but one breeding female per colony and, again, most adult do not reproduce. In wolf packs it is typically only the alpha male and female that produce puppies. And on and on.

And all that ignores the fact that human honosexuals DO reproduce, and a certain number have always produced children. There is no biological bar to them doing so, even if they find the act of heterosexual intercourse not particularly interesting or even distasteful. Even when they don't produce children themselves, it's nothing unusual for them to contribute to their extended families (assuming they're not disowned, executed, or the like) and contribute to the well-being of nieces and nephews. Or even adopted children.

In certain environments, multiple caretaker adults are an advantage.

Therefore, I can't see homosexuality as destructive in the same way as suicide. Aside from cultural bullshit, homosexuality is either neutral or slightly advantageous. To my mind, it's like being lefthanded - abnormal in that it is unusual in the statistical sense, but not an impairment.

Actively trying to kill yourself - that's an impairment.

Suicides can also endanger or even kill other people depending on how they choose to die. In other words, except in very limited circumstances it's not OK.
Other moralities come into play in those scenarios, so IMO it is something of a red herring. When I first answered the question near the top of the first page, I made the caveat about the Suicide Candidate not hurting anyone.

No, it's not a red herring - in theory you might plan a suicide that won't involve others, but in reality they all too often do so.

I'm restricting it to physical. If you aren't allowed to do things because someone might get mentally offended, we would all lose our freedoms quick.

Excuse me - there is a difference between "offended" and "harmed". Someone who walks onto a messy suicide scene and subsequently spends many nights over the succeeding years having nightmares about it, which disrupts their sleep and makes it harder for them to function day to day is not offended, they are harmed.

If my commuter train is late to work because some despondant jackass decided to use it to off himself and my pay is docked for the time I wasn't there to work I am not offended, I am harmed.

If someone is denied the use of their one and only car for several days because the lady next door decided to comandeer it to kill herself they are not offended, they are harmed

Note that my objections in this thread have little to do with harm to the suicide - I'm arguing mostlly that suicide is wrong because it harms others in ways both large and small.

A malfunction in a living creature, such that their body doesn't work properly.
And depression qualifies because...

Because it leads to self-destructive behavior.

You are correct that "being sad" is not a mental illness - but depression IS a mental illness.
Why (in principle). Normal depressions are brought by negative events in life. It is a state due to emotions (generally speaking).

It's not normal sadness - it's a prolonged and profound level of it.

A rise in blood sugar after you eat is perfectly normal - a sustained high level of blood sugar is not. We call that state "diabetes". It has bad long-term consequences.

Likewise, occassional sadness is normal. Prolonged and intractable sadness that leads to self-destruction is not.

That's not even touching on delusional states as you can get in schizeophrenia or bipolar disorders where the person in question may not intend self-desctructive but it might happen due to disordered thinking and behavior.

This is true - but most people do not kill themselves over these facts. If they did, the streets of every major city in the world would be strewn with suicides every morning, we'd need crews to "bring out the dead" and heave them into trucks or carts to haul them away.
We are fortunate that the self-preservation instinct is very high. Even people who wound up Forfeiting had a fair wall.

Could you rephrase that response in a manner that makes sense. What the hell were you trying to say here?

Hell, I'm married to someone who is in constant, chronic pain, has been since childhood, and will be for the rest of his life which is definitely a "life sucks" sort of deal - yet he's never tried to kill himself. He doesn't want to die (although he would certainly like to be free of pain).
He obviously has a glimmer of hope. Probably said glimmer has something to do with you.

That doesn't explain the 30 years he lived with the condition prior to meeting me, does it?

Or is it beyond your comprehension that a disabled person can desire life and find it worth living every bit as much as a suicide wannabe desires to end life?

Values differ from person to person. One of the rights of a person is to make his own value judgment.

But we don't allow a serial killer, who values being able to torture and kill his victims, to continue doing so, do we?

I'm sorry if it pisses you off, but some decisions are not acceptable.

It's not usually that straightforward. There isn't a blood test for depression.
I'm sure the brain scan would help, along with the survey they'd make me fill.

There is no definitive "brain scan" for depression - where are you getting this bullshit information?

The ones prompting you to self-destruction? Yeah.
Obviously, I'm not allowed to self-destruct.

Obviously.

Unless there is a truly extraordinary circumstance at hand.

Look at this way - it's wrong to chop the legs off someone. Unless they have gangrene or something similar that poses an immediate risk to life. Then it's OK for a trained qualified individual to cut that bit off. You have to justify breaking the general rule "it's not OK to chop off limbs".

I'm saying the rule should be "Thou shalt not kill thyself" - if you feel you have a great enough reason to justify an exception it is up to YOU to prove it, not society at large to defend your continued existance despite your opinion.

First of all, it's not a matter of luck - the docs try to get you to see there are alternatives to your current problems.
Precisely. The word is "Try".

We try to cure cancer, too - the fact we do not always succeed in no way demonstrates the disease does not exist.

See, with living creatures there is a range of behaviors that are considered normal. Anything outside that is abnormal. Although abnormal isn't inherently a bad thing - go back to my reference to unusual talent - it frequently is.
And when something is abnormal, even if it may be suboptimal, do we just infringe on people their rights?

Death is a hell of a lot worse than merely "sub-optimal"

Trimming your fingernails is no big deal. Lopping off a pinkie finger is fucking weird but I'll let folks go that far with their own fingers. Sawing your own arm off at the elbow because you think it looks better - that's a sign of something broken between the ears.

Stop treating all opinions/impulses/desires as equal in weight - because they aren't.

You want to eat shit, smoke, drink too much, and otherwise abuse your body? Fine - you should have the right to make bad choices. Putting a gun to your head and blowing your brains out is a whole different level of "bad choice" - that's beyond mere bodily neglect and chronic self-abuse.

I was sick of marginal hope of marginal (practically useless) improvements to my wrecked right eye costing me months of my precious lifespan. I want to get over griefing for my lost eye (which was pretty easy seeing that being restricted to monoscopic vision did not affect my life at all until I went onto rocky field trips during University) and onto my life. My parents disagreed. They prevailed, of course.

Yes, because you were a minor and in most societies minors are not granted full self-determination.

If you were 30 years old, however, you would have the choice not to have the additional surgery.

What the fuck does this have to do with suicide?

We don't tell people who are missing a leg that lacking a foot is part of the range of possible human forms and it's all good - we try to find a way for them to compensate for their problem. None of those solutions are as good as having a whole, healthy leg but they can allow the person to function better than before.
Poor analogy. A better one might be if the guy didn't want a prosthetic, he's fine with a wheelchair, but you force him to have the prosthetic in the name of helping him anyway.

Nowhere did I mention prosthetics. Read what's there, not what's not there. Or do you think wheelchairs, crutches, and hopping on one foot aren't compensation for a missing leg? If a prosthetic works, fine, if it doesn't whatever does work is fine. I wouldn't dream of compelling someone to even try a prosthetic if they had strong reservations about it.

I would, however, strongly object to someone killing themselves as a "solution" to the problem of their missing leg. It's not a good enough reason to justify ending your life.

1) you're in a burning building so your choices are down to death by fire or death by gravity or 2) you're fucked in the head.
In other words, you agree when the situation does look black enough, suicide is not necessarily a sign of some kind of mental illness?

If death is inevitable, choosing the manner of death is not an illness or sign of disfunction.

Jumping out of a burning building rather than staying put and burning to death might be an example of that -- or it could be a last, desperate bid for life. The folks who jumped from the World Trade Center on 9/11 holding tableclothes in an attempt at a crude parachute (which didn't work, but oh, well) weren't jumping to die. They were making a last, desparate attempt to live. They didn't want to die.

There were other folks that day who jumped without any visible attempt to rescue themselves... well, I'd probably choose death by gravity over death by burning jet fuel, too. That doesn't mean I want to die or that I would choose to die - it's merely a preference for one kind of inevitable end over another.

Self-sacrifice to save other lives - the archetype of a soldier throwing himself on a grenade to save the lives of those around him being an example - is a valid choice, but there the motiviation isn't for the person commiting suicide to die, the motivation is to save other lives. If a non-lethal means of doing this was available, then that would be the better choice.

For some disorders - such as bipolar - there ARE biochemical problems here. Arguing that correcting them is somehow obliterating the person in question is like arguing that removing a cancerous tumor is the destruction of someone's bodily integrity. It would be grand if we had better tools for correcting biochemical brain problems, and research is being done in this area.
In the case of a brain, however, the brain is really the very essence of your being. How much alteration with any tool can be done before you literally cease to be yourself?

In the case of Rasmussen's encephalopathy up to half the brain may be removed, including the neocortex, and it actually improves function.

Removal of brain tissue that has grown into a tumor can, likewise, restore and improve function.

Is the result better than a whole brain that never lost health and function? No - but it's a damned sight better than living in a constant state of seizure (Rasmussen's), or going blind, deaf, or paralysed when you don't have to (as brain tumors can do).

Suicide-level emotions are a sign that Something Is Wrong. We'd all prefer miracles that restore health with no side effects, but that's not reality. Just because a treatment has side effects doesn't mean the treatment is useless - it means you have to make a judgement call on whether the benefits outweigh the negatives.

There are mentally ill people for whom medication works - it makes them feel better, function better, and frees them from some of the burdern they live with. Such people are highly compliant with medication, and may even say it makes them feel more like themselves instead of less.
I'm sure it does. The self now residing in the body feels better because the chemical makeup in the brain has been deliberately altered. But is that really the original self.

You know, without my glasses I have shit eyesight (my uncorrect vision is about 20/3500, so I know something about problem eyesight). That's the "original" and unaltered me. You know what? I'm happy that's been altered. Yes, glasses are a pain in the ass, but I like being able to see 20/20 and now feel the "altered" me is the "real" me and preferable to the "natural, unaltered" me.

If someone tries a psycho-active drug they might find it a good thing, a liberating thing - or they might hate it. As a practical matter, it's impossible (outside a very restrictive institution) to FORCE someone to take pills. So I'm going to call red herring on this one, because almost no one, at least in the US, is incarcerated long-term in mental institutions against their will anymore. The vast majority of suicide-wannabes are released after days or weeks. At which point if they want to flush their meds down the toilet they are free to do so.

But yes, I believe society/family/friends has some right to compell you to at least TRY medication prior to you taking the ultimate permanent choice.

Suppose you are depressed. I stick you with a horde of medication that reduces the sensitivity of those receptors handling depression almost to zero. In other words, you don't feel your depression. You definitely feel better, but is that still you with your depression "ripped away"? If I wiped out your sensation of positive emotions with a drug, you would be furious not only because I denied you pleasure, but also because I altered a fundamental part of you, no? But if that's so, then isn't annihilating even depression also a fundamental change?

Am I less me because I wear glasses?

Is my husband less himself for taking pain medication?

Is the guy Larry down the street less himself because he's had a couple organ transplants (yes, that's more than one) and literally has a part of someone else inside him? He may not be all original Larry parts, but he's still Larry.

If someone is in unrelenting mental pain and there is a means to take that pain away how does that diminish them as a human being or an individual? Are they going to change? Yes - people in chronic pain who have that pain relieved do have a personality change, whether the pain is phsyical or mental. Does relieving chronic physical pain make a person less him or herself? No? Then why would relieving mental pain do so?

That drugs don't work for everyone... well, no other medication is 100% successful, either.
I am temporarily ignoring all possibilities of the drugs not working as planned to emphasize on the consequences even if they do work. If a person has to be changed to the extent that he isn't him to be "cured", then was he "cured" of a disease at all, or just destroyed?

Why are you assuming the diseased self is the true self?

Kazuaki Shimazaki · Post by **Kazuaki Shimazaki** » 2005-07-30 10:38pm

Broomstick wrote:Yes, suicide is an option. The mere fact it exists as an option does not make it a good choice, or a moral choice, or an acceptable choice.

In general, when you try and deny someone a choice, it is you that have to go outta your way to demonstrate why it is not.

Broomstick wrote:Nope, because your analogy is flawed.

There are numerous examples of species were not all adult members reproduce. The social insects - some bees, certain wasps, and all the ants and termites are well known examples where a majority of adults take no part in reproduction, yet their species continue on. There are a number of bird species where young adults forgoe immediate reproduction to help raise siblings. Naked African mole rats have but one breeding female per colony and, again, most adult do not reproduce. In wolf packs it is typically only the alpha male and female that produce puppies. And on and on.

In that case, a homosexuality is even more devastating. Imagine a lesbian queen bee who won't mate with the King Bee. That would pretty much be the end of the whole hive.

Broomstick wrote:And all that ignores the fact that human honosexuals DO reproduce, and a certain number have always produced children. There is no biological bar to them doing so, even if they find the act of heterosexual intercourse not particularly interesting or even distasteful.

That doesn't change the nature of homosexuality, only that humans tend to force themselves into situations.

Broomstick wrote:In certain environments, multiple caretaker adults are an advantage.

Generally, it is not considered equal to getting your own. Certainly the man in this instance becomes a evolutionary dead end.

Broomstick wrote:Therefore, I can't see homosexuality as destructive in the same way as suicide. Aside from cultural bullshit, homosexuality is either neutral or slightly advantageous. To my mind, it's like being lefthanded - abnormal in that it is unusual in the statistical sense, but not an impairment.

Homosexuality is "slightly advantageous"? This is a new one. Depending on where you live, being left handed is an impairment (becuase they'd sometimes force you to use your unadept rightie, and objects are often optimized for the common rightie).

Broomstick wrote:No, it's not a red herring - in theory you might plan a suicide that won't involve others, but in reality they all too often do so.

I agree a reasonable effort should be made that the effects of your suicide is minimized.

Broomstick wrote:Excuse me - there is a difference between "offended" and "harmed". Someone who walks onto a messy suicide scene and subsequently spends many nights over the succeeding years having nightmares about it, which disrupts their sleep and makes it harder for them to function day to day is not offended, they are harmed.

Just a matter of degree. When you are really offended, your psyche gets damaged.

Broomstick wrote:It's not normal sadness - it's a prolonged and profound level of it.

Which is brought on by a very large event (at least to you).

Broomstick wrote:Could you rephrase that response in a manner that makes sense. What the hell were you trying to say here?

People have a Self-Preservation Instinct, generally it is very strong, thus making Death an extremely unpleasant choice. Of course, some people have this stronger than others. This is "rolled" against the sheer perceived despair.

Broomstick wrote:That doesn't explain the 30 years he lived with the condition prior to meeting me, does it?

Not being him, and not even having knowledge of even his existence until you pointed it out, I can't very well run through his entire lifespan and even make guesses on exactly what sustained him at each stage, can I?

Broomstick wrote:Or is it beyond your comprehension that a disabled person can desire life and find it worth living every bit as much as a suicide wannabe desires to end life?

I comprehend these facts. I do not claim to comprehend their individual, precise reasons for making the choices they did.

Broomstick wrote:But we don't allow a serial killer, who values being able to torture and kill his victims, to continue doing so, do we?

I'm sorry if it pisses you off, but some decisions are not acceptable.

That's really based on harming others (and in this case harming others more than you do yourself).

Broomstick wrote:We try to cure cancer, too - the fact we do not always succeed in no way demonstrates the disease does not exist.

That's why I'm saying they are lucky when it works.

Broomstick wrote:Stop treating all opinions/impulses/desires as equal in weight - because they aren't.

I'm not treating as if they are equal. I am saying that you should have the right to make even "inferior" decisions.

Broomstick wrote:If you were 30 years old, however, you would have the choice not to have the additional surgery.

What the fuck does this have to do with suicide?

Precisely. And I don't think I'd be called "sick" or "diseased" or whatever for refusing, though it may indeed be a suboptimal choice.

The point is the freedom of having one's own body handled the way you desire, with the tradeoffs weighed by yourself.

Broomstick wrote:Nowhere did I mention prosthetics. Read what's there, not what's not there. Or do you think wheelchairs, crutches, and hopping on one foot aren't compensation for a missing leg? If a prosthetic works, fine, if it doesn't whatever does work is fine. I wouldn't dream of compelling someone to even try a prosthetic if they had strong reservations about it.

Precisely.

Broomstick wrote:Jumping out of a burning building rather than staying put and burning to death might be an example of that -- or it could be a last, desperate bid for life. The folks who jumped from the World Trade Center on 9/11 holding tableclothes in an attempt at a crude parachute (which didn't work, but oh, well) weren't jumping to die. They were making a last, desparate attempt to live. They didn't want to die.

I agree about those with the tabelclothes.

Broomstick wrote:There were other folks that day who jumped without any visible attempt to rescue themselves... well, I'd probably choose death by gravity over death by burning jet fuel, too. That doesn't mean I want to die or that I would choose to die - it's merely a preference for one kind of inevitable end over another.

No one really wants to die, pal.

Broomstick wrote:Removal of brain tissue that has grown into a tumor can, likewise, restore and improve function.

A tumor is a actual, physical, observable object of damage. Since it has already been damaged, I suppose little further damage can come by taking it off.

Broomstick wrote:You know, without my glasses I have shit eyesight (my uncorrect vision is about 20/3500, so I know something about problem eyesight).

How did you become a pilot? I thought they didn't allow people to qualify unless they had more or less 20/20 uncorrected vision. Dammit, I shouldn't have given up my pilot dreams so quickly when I was a kid (before the softball ended everything, of course). Or did I just confuse you with another denizen with a similar picture and/or board-name?

Broomstick wrote:Is my husband less himself for taking pain medication?

Suppose said pain medication does kill the pain, but it also happens to kill off his emotions and dull his thinking. The end result being that he's barely thinking now and unable to emote. The doctor of course calls that a "side effect". Is he less himself?

But if he is less himself now, then one can make an argument that even a more restricted affected range for a medication can also make a person "less himself" or even "not himself".

Why are you assuming the diseased self is the true self?

It is the original. Generally, the original is considered to be true. Why do you call it "diseased" in the first place? Because it made a lousy choice?

Post by **Broomstick** » 2005-07-31 07:32am

Kazuaki Shimazaki wrote:
Broomstick wrote:Yes, suicide is an option. The mere fact it exists as an option does not make it a good choice, or a moral choice, or an acceptable choice.
In general, when you try and deny someone a choice, it is you that have to go outta your way to demonstrate why it is not.

If your choice harms others - and suicide does cause harm to others - then it is YOU who must justify why your needs are so great that you may infringe on the rights of others.

Broomstick wrote:Nope, because your analogy is flawed.
There are numerous examples of species were not all adult members reproduce. The social insects - some bees, certain wasps, and all the ants and termites are well known examples where a majority of adults take no part in reproduction, yet their species continue on. There are a number of bird species where young adults forgoe immediate reproduction to help raise siblings. Naked African mole rats have but one breeding female per colony and, again, most adult do not reproduce. In wolf packs it is typically only the alpha male and female that produce puppies. And on and on.
In that case, a homosexuality is even more devastating. Imagine a lesbian queen bee who won't mate with the King Bee. That would pretty much be the end of the whole hive.

Queen bees are not humans.

She only mates once in her lifetime, and all her offspring are a result of that one act of intercourse. Homosexuality just doesn't come up as an issue. But yes, if a queen bee refuses to mate, then her lineage dies.

Broomstick wrote:Therefore, I can't see homosexuality as destructive in the same way as suicide. Aside from cultural bullshit, homosexuality is either neutral or slightly advantageous. To my mind, it's like being lefthanded - abnormal in that it is unusual in the statistical sense, but not an impairment.
Homosexuality is "slightly advantageous"? This is a new one. Depending on where you live, being left handed is an impairment (becuase they'd sometimes force you to use your unadept rightie, and objects are often optimized for the common rightie).

Slightly advantageous for you if Queer Uncle Henry dies and leaves his assets to you instead of to children of his own. This does not benefit Henry directly, but since you share a significant number of his genes this would fit in well with current evolutionary thinking. If you can't have children, then preseve your genetic lineage by helping your nieces and nephews.

Broomstick wrote:No, it's not a red herring - in theory you might plan a suicide that won't involve others, but in reality they all too often do so.
I agree a reasonable effort should be made that the effects of your suicide is minimized.

I question if suicidal people are "reasonable".

Broomstick wrote:Excuse me - there is a difference between "offended" and "harmed". Someone who walks onto a messy suicide scene and subsequently spends many nights over the succeeding years having nightmares about it, which disrupts their sleep and makes it harder for them to function day to day is not offended, they are harmed.
Just a matter of degree. When you are really offended, your psyche gets damaged.

And here I always thought damage=harm. So, do you concede suicide does damage others?

There are times when an individual's need are so great they can justify that sort of taking from others, but it's got to be one hell of a need, and since others are involved it's not up to just one person any more.

Broomstick wrote:It's not normal sadness - it's a prolonged and profound level of it.
Which is brought on by a very large event (at least to you).

Not always.

Some people are depressed for no external reason - they're depressed all the time no matter what happens in their life for good or bad. THAT's a mental illness.

Broomstick wrote:But we don't allow a serial killer, who values being able to torture and kill his victims, to continue doing so, do we?

I'm sorry if it pisses you off, but some decisions are not acceptable.
That's really based on harming others (and in this case harming others more than you do yourself).

And yet, just a few paragraphs ago, you stated that suicide can cause "damage" to other people to the suicide.... if a suicide harms others is it really a legitimate choice.

Broomstick wrote:Stop treating all opinions/impulses/desires as equal in weight - because they aren't.
I'm not treating as if they are equal. I am saying that you should have the right to make even "inferior" decisions.

Only up to a point - the point where others start to get hurt. That's like saying you have the "right" to choose to drink alcohol to excess and then drive your car. Only if it's on your own private road! You do NOT have a right to drink excessive alcohol and then drive your car on a public road where you might hurt other people.

Likewise - you only have the right to harm yourself when that damage to you won't harm others. I think that's damn near impossible with suicide.

Broomstick wrote:Removal of brain tissue that has grown into a tumor can, likewise, restore and improve function.
A tumor is a actual, physical, observable object of damage. Since it has already been damaged, I suppose little further damage can come by taking it off.

Just because we can't point to a brain malfuction on an MRI or PET or CAT scan doesn't mean there is nothing wrong. The common cold virus doesn't show up on a medical scan, either, but we all know when we have one.

Broomstick wrote:You know, without my glasses I have shit eyesight (my uncorrect vision is about 20/3500, so I know something about problem eyesight).
How did you become a pilot? I thought they didn't allow people to qualify unless they had more or less 20/20 uncorrected vision. Dammit, I shouldn't have given up my pilot dreams so quickly when I was a kid (before the softball ended everything, of course). Or did I just confuse you with another denizen with a similar picture and/or board-name?

A common misperception.

In the US, for a private pilot license, the minimum is a correcetd 20/40 in at least one of your two eyes. For commerical work, it's corrected 20/20 in at least one eye. Prior to September 16, 1996 the FAA did care about your uncorrected vision - they wanted 20/200 or better - but they dropped that and made it strictly based on corrected vision. In other words, it's still possible for you to do this (barring no other physical exclusions)

For a one-eyed pilot, there is an extra hurdle called a "medical checkride". In your case, it would occur mostly on the ground, and it's to ensure you can manuver a vehicle 30 feet or more wide around other obstacles like buildings and parked airplanes without hitting them. And, oh yes, that you flare properly on landing. Given how long you've had a damaged eye, I expect you'd do just fine since you adapted a long, long time ago to the loss. Upon successful completion of this test you will be issued a Statement of Demonstrated Ability (SODA) which is good for life.

I have one in my wallet - for being colorblind, not for monoscopic vision.

Most of the pilots I know have less than perfect vision, particularly as we pass 40 and acquire a need for reading glasses.

Broomstick wrote:Is my husband less himself for taking pain medication?
Suppose said pain medication does kill the pain, but it also happens to kill off his emotions and dull his thinking. The end result being that he's barely thinking now and unable to emote. The doctor of course calls that a "side effect". Is he less himself?

That is certainly a potential side effect of pain killers - and yes, he's gotten into that situation a few times over the years.

When the "affect" flattens (that's the technical term for what you describe) then you need to back down on the dose.

Frankly, if he's in a lot of pain he's not much himself, either. In such a case, you might have to compromise. It's not a situation with a perfect solution.

Why are you assuming the diseased self is the true self?
It is the original. Generally, the original is considered to be true. Why do you call it "diseased" in the first place? Because it made a lousy choice?

I call the suicidal mind "diseased" because it is in pain. Pain is usually a sign that something is wrong.

Is anyone ever born suicidal? If no, then how can a state of lethal despair be the "original"?

Kazuaki Shimazaki · Post by **Kazuaki Shimazaki** » 2005-08-01 10:11am

Broomstick wrote:Queen bees are not humans.

It was you who started talking about bees and the kind.

This does not benefit Henry directly, but since you share a significant number of his genes this would fit in well with current evolutionary thinking. If you can't have children, then preseve your genetic lineage by helping your nieces and nephews.

But that still doesn't compare with preserving your own genes.

I question if suicidal people are "reasonable".

There are many methods of suicide. Relatively harmless methods (to others) include ingesting poison. Depending on the poison you chew, the end could come quick and clean. I don't recommend ideas like using natural gas, especially if you are in an apartment.

And here I always thought damage=harm. So, do you concede suicide does damage others?

Sometimes it does. It can also happen if you do something else that's greatly against another person. For example, try telling deeply religious parents that you are gay and intend not to bury it, and watch them get traumatized.

There are times when an individual's need are so great they can justify that sort of taking from others, but it's got to be one hell of a need, and since others are involved it's not up to just one person any more.

There are many times when your decisions will influence others, yet we don't let those decisions interfere with the individual.

Not always.

Fine. I'd concede if no possible external reason could have caused the depression, then he may well have a fault. Now tell me how am I supposed to figure out that his depression was caused not by external circumstances, but by wierd biochemistry.

And yet, just a few paragraphs ago, you stated that suicide can cause "damage" to other people to the suicide.... if a suicide harms others is it really a legitimate choice.

Depends on the ratio of harm to the other person. As you said, if there is a great reason, sometimes this can be negotiated. As far as the person involved is concerned, his reason is big enough to kill himself, which is pretty damned big. I've never heard of suicidals that say "Yes, I know it is only a little problem, but I'd still kill myself than solve said little problem."

Likewise - you only have the right to harm yourself when that damage to you won't harm others. I think that's damn near impossible with suicide.

It'd be difficult, I'd agree.

Just because we can't point to a brain malfuction on an MRI or PET or CAT scan doesn't mean there is nothing wrong. The common cold virus doesn't show up on a medical scan, either, but we all know when we have one.

Most people volunteer to have their cold fixed.

A common misperception.

In the US, for a private pilot license, the minimum is a correcetd 20/40 in at least one of your two eyes. For commerical work, it's corrected 20/20 in at least one eye. Prior to September 16, 1996 the FAA did care about your uncorrected vision - they wanted 20/200 or better - but they dropped that and made it strictly based on corrected vision. In other words, it's still possible for you to do this (barring no other physical exclusions)

For a one-eyed pilot, there is an extra hurdle called a "medical checkride". In your case, it would occur mostly on the ground, and it's to ensure you can manuver a vehicle 30 feet or more wide around other obstacles like buildings and parked airplanes without hitting them. And, oh yes, that you flare properly on landing. Given how long you've had a damaged eye, I expect you'd do just fine since you adapted a long, long time ago to the loss. Upon successful completion of this test you will be issued a Statement of Demonstrated Ability (SODA) which is good for life.

I have one in my wallet - for being colorblind, not for monoscopic vision.

Most of the pilots I know have less than perfect vision, particularly as we pass 40 and acquire a need for reading glasses.

Wow. That's really loose.

That is certainly a potential side effect of pain killers - and yes, he's gotten into that situation a few times over the years.

When the "affect" flattens (that's the technical term for what you describe) then you need to back down on the dose.

Frankly, if he's in a lot of pain he's not much himself, either. In such a case, you might have to compromise. It's not a situation with a perfect solution.

But that compromise is the issue. How much can a person be "compromised" before he ceases to be himself?

I call the suicidal mind "diseased" because it is in pain. Pain is usually a sign that something is wrong.

Is anyone ever born suicidal? If no, then how can a state of lethal despair be the "original"?

People aren't born knowing how to walk, much less do calculus.

I'd concede it is "ill" if it has no external cause, but I'm still dubious about it otherwise.