6 ms·

>The soldier who hiked out on to the moor, lay down in the heather and overdosed. Émile Durkheim, the great sociologist, theorised as to why suicide is so commo

>The soldier who hiked out on to the moor, lay down in the heather and overdosed. Émile Durkheim, the great sociologist, theorised as to why suicide is so common among military personnel – not simply because of the devastating effects of war, or because of their easy access to weapons, but because of the depersonalising effect of army training: “Military esprit can only be strong if the individual is self-detached, and such detachment necessarily throws the door open to suicide.” Is this saying that veterans can kill themselves more easily because they have more rational clarity about the situation? If so, isn't that a good thing? To be able to carry it out can certainly be framed as "strong" (I doubt I could, though I'd want to if I find myself in the position). Look at these guys: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokushinbutsu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokushinbutsu If you've thought about it with a level head and conclude, "I want to log off now, that's enough existence for me," is it better to suffer under moral or peer pressure because others offhandedly want you to exist for as long as possible?

virmundi 7y ago
Not sure why you’re downvoted because you asked a question with context from the article. For a bastion of nihilistic atheists that is HN, the lack of following the driving philosophy through is astounding. Why are people moralizing when the majority say that this existence is a fluke of an explosion? Seems hypocritical to me. It then again, why should I care when I look rationally at the situation and see humans are doing what they do: react by jerking a knee?
- astrodev 7y ago
  They have inadvertently invented their own philosophy. It's basic tenet is "don't miss out on things" - and by killing yourself you miss out on all the drunken parties and Tinder fucks.
  - postsantum 7y ago
    You wouldn't be the subject of the process of missing out if you don't exist anymore
snagglegaggle 7y ago
I think you are going in the right direction. Society needs to recognize that suicide must be some evolutionarily advantageous adaptation. Many people when pressed will say they think an individual has value, but that individual often sees no actions come from that sentiment. And if someone thinks they provide no value and are not wanted, it seems logical to unburden everyone else. It would be similar to how cats go off alone to die when they are sick.
- marmadukester39 7y ago
  Except that suicide burdens everyone around a person terribly.
  - clarry 7y ago
    And that is a major issue for many younger people who contemplate suicide. I think it's more that they want to unburden themselves, but knowing that doing so will burden their close ones is what keeps them from doing it. Quite nightmarish, if you think about it.
    - ARandomerDude 7y ago
      > Quite nightmarish, if you think about it. Your comment assumes a positive change is impossible. I almost killed myself when I was in high school but decided not to because I didn't want to hurt my family. That bought me enough time to get things straightened out and now I am very thankful to be here.
      - clarry 7y ago
        It is a nightmare if positive change does not come about. You're stuck in pain for as long as you refuse to bring others pain.
  - snagglegaggle 7y ago
    For a while, yes, but then they get over it. If the person would continue to be nonproductive (or in the situation being discussed -- feel they are being nonproductive) for years then there is a clear benefit to their death. Does suicide have place in a modern society? Probably not, but at the same time the fact people continue to kill themselves show that people really don't care about the issue. Actions speak louder than words.
syrrim 7y ago
I don't think rationality is a good way of looking at it. Rationality is defined over some goal, and there's no obvious goal here. The better way of looking at it is to say that the military teaches them to treat their own life as less valuable. Lives have no inherent value or disvalue, beyond what we apply to them, so this is neither rational or irrational. But the effect is that they are more willing to, as you say, "log off".
- ThrowawayP 7y ago
  > Rationality is defined over some goal, and there's no obvious goal here. Relieving themselves of (to them) unbearable misery is a goal, quite possibly the most rational of all goals.
whatshisface 7y ago
One one hand, we have a growing body of research saying that almost nothing anybody does is rational, and that most "rational explanations" that people deliver are post-hoc rationalizations of something they did on a whim. The popular interpretation is that this represents evidence against free will, but that may be a little overblown. On the other hand, there is a parallel cultural trend of people arguing that suicide is rational, and that many suicidal patients are that way because they sat down and added up the utility of the various options. I guess my point is, when obesity drops to zero on the day that everybody realizes that it isn't rational to be fat, I'll start considering the possibility that people could "decide" to kill themselves.
- clarry 7y ago
  It's not like people become fat on a whim or have no regrets about it happening. Likewise, you can plan suicide for years.
- solipsism 7y ago
  but that may be a little overblown No, it's quite well established, actually.
- mjevans 7y ago
  Here's a hypothesis to consider. Q: Is there a strong correlation between being lonely and being heavier? H: Being lonely has several relations to eating 'worse' food, and more of it. An economical standpoint (at least in the US). A social activities promote things other than eating to fill time. A 'rewards' perspective, where lacking other forms of joy fatty, sugary, salty foods fulfill a basic stimulation requirement. It would be interesting if a mental health research institution designed and ran a fundamental research study to determine if one, some, all, or more (possible) of these causes were related.
- ghemsley 7y ago
  Sorry, but you don't get it. Not all of us enjoy life that much. If I'm not getting what I want out of life, who are you to say that I have to stick around? It's perfectly reasonable to want to kill yourself given certain circumstances that are darker than I care to elaborate on right now, and you have no business saying otherwise. It should be up to the one suffering to decide when they've had enough. If you can't wrap your head around that, my guess is that you just haven't suffered enough. Everyone has their limit. I'm glad you are apparently far from yours but again, not all of us are so lucky.
cairo_x 7y ago
The number of people who have put off suicide and gone on to do great things is immeasurable. Curtailed suicide is such a common story, not just from people who have been exceptional, but normal people who go on to have families and spring forth entire trees of life, which themselves produce endless greatness.
throwaway28282 7y ago
It's important to note that rational clarity about the situation can also be what leads soldiers to insinuate that they are actually the bad actors in a given conflict, which can lead to depression and then suicidal thoughts. I can't find the study now. But it was documented that Viet Cong soldiers had overall less PTSD years after the Vietnam War than Americans. And the extrapolation was that Viet Cong soldiers, defending their country and people from a foreign invader, were more easily able to justify their actions and thus didn't feel the remorse, guilt, and fear during fighting that their American counterparts did. Perhaps that isn't the whole story, but I'd bet that part of the reason American vets struggle with PTSD so much is that not all of them can rationalize and defend the things the American army does in other countries around the world. It is almost always involved in offensive invasions, especially of lands where neither the natives nor the insurgents trust them or want them involved. And I think being so face to face with injustice and having to perpetrate it without any moral salve that you are doing the right thing is hard, especially in our digitally connected, personally disconnected world.
jdietrich 7y ago
>Is this saying that veterans can kill themselves more easily because they have more rational clarity about the situation? I don't think so. Doctors and veterinarians have an unusually high rate of suicide, partly because they have access to highly lethal means of suicide but also because they've become inured to mortality. For most people, the practical realities of death are somewhat foreign, which creates a psychological barrier between the urge to cease existing and the means of making that happen. The vast majority of suicidal impulses are temporary; the vast majority of people who attempt suicide do not go on to die by suicide. While it is entirely believable that some people are afflicted with unbearable and intractable misery, that is certainly not true for most people who die by suicide. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/
- jdmcnugent 7y ago
  Interesting side note about suicide among physicians (in the U.S. at least), every state license or hospital privileges (including renewals) I have applied for asks “have you been diagnosed with or received treatment for a mental health disease such as depression, anxiety, etc”. Obviously any rational person would at least hesitate to seek mental health treatment if it meant they could incur increased scrutiny just to continue to do their job, much less knowing that their peers (and sometimes competitors) on the hospital credentialling committee would be aware of their struggles. I have personally known at least 8 friends / coworkers in the medical field who have committed suicide since I entered the field and I cannot help but imagine that this contributed to at least some of them.
aalleavitch 7y ago
What does it say about our society when suicide becomes a "rational decision"? Are we really so helpless to change the conditions of the people around us who are suffering that we would throw up our hands and write it off as a loss? At what point do we admit that the structure of our society amounts to animal abuse?

virmundi 7y ago

Not sure why you’re downvoted because you asked a question with context from the article. For a bastion of nihilistic atheists that is HN, the lack of following the driving philosophy through is astounding. Why are people moralizing when the majority say that this existence is a fluke of an explosion? Seems hypocritical to me. It then again, why should I care when I look rationally at the situation and see humans are doing what they do: react by jerking a knee?

astrodev 7y ago
They have inadvertently invented their own philosophy. It's basic tenet is "don't miss out on things" - and by killing yourself you miss out on all the drunken parties and Tinder fucks.
- postsantum 7y ago
  You wouldn't be the subject of the process of missing out if you don't exist anymore

snagglegaggle 7y ago

I think you are going in the right direction. Society needs to recognize that suicide must be some evolutionarily advantageous adaptation. Many people when pressed will say they think an individual has value, but that individual often sees no actions come from that sentiment. And if someone thinks they provide no value and are not wanted, it seems logical to unburden everyone else. It would be similar to how cats go off alone to die when they are sick.

marmadukester39 7y ago
Except that suicide burdens everyone around a person terribly.
- clarry 7y ago
  And that is a major issue for many younger people who contemplate suicide. I think it's more that they want to unburden themselves, but knowing that doing so will burden their close ones is what keeps them from doing it. Quite nightmarish, if you think about it.
  - ARandomerDude 7y ago
    > Quite nightmarish, if you think about it. Your comment assumes a positive change is impossible. I almost killed myself when I was in high school but decided not to because I didn't want to hurt my family. That bought me enough time to get things straightened out and now I am very thankful to be here.
    - clarry 7y ago
      It is a nightmare if positive change does not come about. You're stuck in pain for as long as you refuse to bring others pain.
- snagglegaggle 7y ago
  For a while, yes, but then they get over it. If the person would continue to be nonproductive (or in the situation being discussed -- feel they are being nonproductive) for years then there is a clear benefit to their death. Does suicide have place in a modern society? Probably not, but at the same time the fact people continue to kill themselves show that people really don't care about the issue. Actions speak louder than words.

syrrim 7y ago

I don't think rationality is a good way of looking at it. Rationality is defined over some goal, and there's no obvious goal here. The better way of looking at it is to say that the military teaches them to treat their own life as less valuable. Lives have no inherent value or disvalue, beyond what we apply to them, so this is neither rational or irrational. But the effect is that they are more willing to, as you say, "log off".

ThrowawayP 7y ago
> Rationality is defined over some goal, and there's no obvious goal here. Relieving themselves of (to them) unbearable misery is a goal, quite possibly the most rational of all goals.

whatshisface 7y ago

One one hand, we have a growing body of research saying that almost nothing anybody does is rational, and that most "rational explanations" that people deliver are post-hoc rationalizations of something they did on a whim. The popular interpretation is that this represents evidence against free will, but that may be a little overblown. On the other hand, there is a parallel cultural trend of people arguing that suicide is rational, and that many suicidal patients are that way because they sat down and added up the utility of the various options. I guess my point is, when obesity drops to zero on the day that everybody realizes that it isn't rational to be fat, I'll start considering the possibility that people could "decide" to kill themselves.

clarry 7y ago
It's not like people become fat on a whim or have no regrets about it happening. Likewise, you can plan suicide for years.
solipsism 7y ago
but that may be a little overblown No, it's quite well established, actually.
mjevans 7y ago
Here's a hypothesis to consider. Q: Is there a strong correlation between being lonely and being heavier? H: Being lonely has several relations to eating 'worse' food, and more of it. An economical standpoint (at least in the US). A social activities promote things other than eating to fill time. A 'rewards' perspective, where lacking other forms of joy fatty, sugary, salty foods fulfill a basic stimulation requirement. It would be interesting if a mental health research institution designed and ran a fundamental research study to determine if one, some, all, or more (possible) of these causes were related.
ghemsley 7y ago
Sorry, but you don't get it. Not all of us enjoy life that much. If I'm not getting what I want out of life, who are you to say that I have to stick around? It's perfectly reasonable to want to kill yourself given certain circumstances that are darker than I care to elaborate on right now, and you have no business saying otherwise. It should be up to the one suffering to decide when they've had enough. If you can't wrap your head around that, my guess is that you just haven't suffered enough. Everyone has their limit. I'm glad you are apparently far from yours but again, not all of us are so lucky.

cairo_x 7y ago

The number of people who have put off suicide and gone on to do great things is immeasurable. Curtailed suicide is such a common story, not just from people who have been exceptional, but normal people who go on to have families and spring forth entire trees of life, which themselves produce endless greatness.

throwaway28282 7y ago

It's important to note that rational clarity about the situation can also be what leads soldiers to insinuate that they are actually the bad actors in a given conflict, which can lead to depression and then suicidal thoughts. I can't find the study now. But it was documented that Viet Cong soldiers had overall less PTSD years after the Vietnam War than Americans. And the extrapolation was that Viet Cong soldiers, defending their country and people from a foreign invader, were more easily able to justify their actions and thus didn't feel the remorse, guilt, and fear during fighting that their American counterparts did. Perhaps that isn't the whole story, but I'd bet that part of the reason American vets struggle with PTSD so much is that not all of them can rationalize and defend the things the American army does in other countries around the world. It is almost always involved in offensive invasions, especially of lands where neither the natives nor the insurgents trust them or want them involved. And I think being so face to face with injustice and having to perpetrate it without any moral salve that you are doing the right thing is hard, especially in our digitally connected, personally disconnected world.

jdietrich 7y ago

>Is this saying that veterans can kill themselves more easily because they have more rational clarity about the situation? I don't think so. Doctors and veterinarians have an unusually high rate of suicide, partly because they have access to highly lethal means of suicide but also because they've become inured to mortality. For most people, the practical realities of death are somewhat foreign, which creates a psychological barrier between the urge to cease existing and the means of making that happen. The vast majority of suicidal impulses are temporary; the vast majority of people who attempt suicide do not go on to die by suicide. While it is entirely believable that some people are afflicted with unbearable and intractable misery, that is certainly not true for most people who die by suicide. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/

jdmcnugent 7y ago
Interesting side note about suicide among physicians (in the U.S. at least), every state license or hospital privileges (including renewals) I have applied for asks “have you been diagnosed with or received treatment for a mental health disease such as depression, anxiety, etc”. Obviously any rational person would at least hesitate to seek mental health treatment if it meant they could incur increased scrutiny just to continue to do their job, much less knowing that their peers (and sometimes competitors) on the hospital credentialling committee would be aware of their struggles. I have personally known at least 8 friends / coworkers in the medical field who have committed suicide since I entered the field and I cannot help but imagine that this contributed to at least some of them.

aalleavitch 7y ago

What does it say about our society when suicide becomes a "rational decision"? Are we really so helpless to change the conditions of the people around us who are suffering that we would throw up our hands and write it off as a loss? At what point do we admit that the structure of our society amounts to animal abuse?