5 ms·

Somehow the idea that someone can be perfectly sane and not want to live as long as possible is inconceivable to people. They should really get over it. Just l

Somehow the idea that someone can be perfectly sane and not want to live as long as possible is inconceivable to people. They should really get over it. Just like those with different gender preferences they won't ever understand they will have to just take people's word that it's sincere and they're doing it of sound mind. The rationalizations I hear people use are really hollow to me, like someone claiming a gay man just hasn't met the right woman yet. It's fundamentally different. All of my friends who have taken their own lives struggled with it for years. I wish they weren't gone but I have to respect if after all therapy and help options were exhausted, they still were committed, then so be it. I wish they were here right now, of course I do. It fucking sucks. It's personally traumatizing but as my final act of friendship I was there to support them in their decisions. I had to sign off the release forms for my friend's ashes 6 years ago and drive up to santa barbara to give them to his mother. I remember sitting there in silence at her kitchen table with her when she said "we all knew it was the right thing."

jfim 6y ago
Sorry for your loss, hopefully they're in a better place now.
- deleted 6y ago
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wolfretcrap 6y ago
It's because most people want to die are already dead so they can't vote show their support to this cause.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Shorel 6y ago
  This is something I was thinking about just reading this headline. In a hypotetical future, it is possible assisted suicide rates will be down just before elections and up after elections because a group of people have already decided on the suicide, and are delaying the procedure to be able to vote.
- oleander73 6y ago
  I'm not dead yet, but definitely plan on voluntarily dying before my cancer gets a chance to kill me and I voted this week for a political party that is explicitly pro end-of-life choice.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jjeaff 6y ago
How many friends do you have that have taken their own lives?
dfhjgkljhf44 6y ago
I can not speak of you or your friends situations, but I disagree with your generalization: >Somehow the idea that someone can be perfectly sane and not want to live as long as possible is inconceivable to people. There are many people who have considered suicide, chosen not to follow through (or failed), and then realized that they were in an emotional state of mind. Suicide is a generally pathological phenomenon - horrible things will happen if we don't accept this as the null hypotheses in specific cases.
- strogonoff 6y ago
  No one has a say in whether they want life in the first place. It seems perfectly imaginable that some may be unhappy with having it forced onto them, but endure it because the alternative is a taboo.
- guareber8 6y ago
  I disagree with your logic: the fact that there are (even possibly a majority!) of cases when not wanting to live as long as possible is the result of a pathology, it doesn't negate that there are perfectly sane people who do not want to prolongue their life. Just one such case is enough to make their statement accurate - I don't think he generalised those willing to die, but those unwilling to accept that as their choice. Based exclusively on my experience, that is a valid generalisation. And yes, plenty of people have setup advanced directives, DnR's, and other such instructions while fully on their capacities, and that doesn't require them being in a pathological or even emotional state. It can easily be caused by having a standard of quality of life they intend to maintain.
  - dfhjgkljhf44 6y ago
    I wasn't as clear as I'd like to have been. I agree that sane suicidal people exist. I don't believe it's surprising that people assume that suicidal people are not sane - the heuristic is accurate and helpful for those who need help. Edit: I feel compelled to add a qualification to what I've posted. If anyone thinks they are rational and suicidal: I don't believe you. Self-harm is an emotional behavior. Our brains are designed to help us lie to ourselves when we're emotional. The odds that you are the one philosopher in an arbitrarily large crowd of people who's needs aren't being met is incredibly slim. I grant no one abstract approval for ending their own life.
auganov 6y ago
Morality of suicide is a completely different discussion. Euthanasia (in practice) comes down to whether government-licensed doctors should get to decide whose lives are worthy of living. Some people will be approved, some won't. The implications are pretty troubling to me personally. Someone gets diagnosed with a sketchy mental condition, which in turn causes them to contemplate death, and then the very same doctors approve their euthanasia. If I tell anybody to kill themselves I will rightfully get criminally charged. Someone approving an euthanasia is pretty close. Sure, they may want it, but so will people who get denied, one cannot say the act of approving is completely meaningless.
- soco 6y ago
  I don't know much about real world cases related to sketchy mental conditions. I know cases about people terminally ill, put in palliative care, which simply cannot go on with the pains without any hope for ever getting better. These are the main (or sole, dare to say) consumers of assisted suicide, at least in Switzerland.
  - auganov 6y ago
    Euthanasia over psychiatric conditions is already a very real thing in Belgium [0] (and the Netherlands I believe). Swiss seems to be more conservative in approvals all across the board but mental isn't off the table either [1]. [0] https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/7/e007454 https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/7/e007454 [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6794705/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6794705/
qwerty456127 6y ago
Sane people don't exist. Their vision is a product of the information they have been fed during their life and the cocktail of chemicals in their brains. Add some serotonin/dopamine or related substances and the whole view, the whole attitude changes immediately. MDMA-aided therapy should be made mandatory for such cases.
- Pyramus 6y ago
  > Add some serotonin/dopamine or related substances and the whole view, the whole attitude changes immediately. The idea that there is a biological 'switch' underlying depression is misleading. It is in a number of cases but it's only a small percentage. The crux with depression (and mental health more generally) is that it's a vastly complex phenomenon [1] that we do not fully understand. We are scoring wins in many battles (e.g. MDMA-assisted therapy) but we are still far away from winning the war. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biopsychosocial_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biopsychosocial_model
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - qwerty456127 6y ago
    I don't mean you can cure a depression easily this way. But you can switch it off temporarily and let the patient experience a totally different perspective for at least some moments. In many cases this may help a lot. Many people believe what they see is always what exists and what they feel is always what the situation is. Knowing (as a result of your own experience!) you can have drastically different feelings about the same reality depending on chemicals you ingest change a lot: you know your fear, anger or apathy don't represent the objective reality (nor your self) and you don't have to act the way they push you any more.
bobthechef 6y ago
> Somehow the idea that someone can be perfectly sane and not want to live as long as possible is inconceivable to people. You're confusing not wanting prolong life in a state of unbearable pain because of an incurable, terminal illness, and willful, intentional suicide or homicide. There is a very big difference. In medicine, a distinction is made between ordinary and extraordinary care. Ordinary care concerns the basic needs of the patient such as air, food, water. Extraordinary care concerns medical treatments meant to cure or otherwise treat the disease or disorder. Typically, neither a patient nor anyone else can deprive a terminally ill patient of ordinary care. However, when providing of such things constitutes an "undue burden", such as when the body is no longer able to digest food or absorb liquids and the offering of food and drink actually causes harm, the patient may refuse food. At that point, you are accepting your powerlessness in the current situation, i.e., one in which the patient is in a state from which he cannot recover and for whom death is imminent. Even treatments that may extend the life of the patient can be licitly refused by the patient if it would, again, pose an undue burden (for example, a weak, terminally ill patient may refuse CPR if his condition is such that the procedure, which is physically traumatic, while potentially able to extend the life of the patient by some small amount of time, would leave the patient in a state of great suffering during their last few hours). So extension of life at any cost is not the goal of most people who oppose euthanasia. Natural law theory is perhaps the most vehemently opposed to euthanasia and will serve as an excellent resource for considering these kinds of questions. I would caution you against making appeals to subjective feelings in a vacuum, which your examples attempt to do. This is dangerous because we are capable of feeling all sorts of things and being confused about all sorts of things. The crude subjectivism of our times puts excess emphasis on such things without understanding them in an objective context (which itself may be misunderstood or crudely understood).

jfim 6y ago

Sorry for your loss, hopefully they're in a better place now.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

wolfretcrap 6y ago

It's because most people want to die are already dead so they can't vote show their support to this cause.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Shorel 6y ago
This is something I was thinking about just reading this headline. In a hypotetical future, it is possible assisted suicide rates will be down just before elections and up after elections because a group of people have already decided on the suicide, and are delaying the procedure to be able to vote.
oleander73 6y ago
I'm not dead yet, but definitely plan on voluntarily dying before my cancer gets a chance to kill me and I voted this week for a political party that is explicitly pro end-of-life choice.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

jjeaff 6y ago

How many friends do you have that have taken their own lives?

dfhjgkljhf44 6y ago

I can not speak of you or your friends situations, but I disagree with your generalization: >Somehow the idea that someone can be perfectly sane and not want to live as long as possible is inconceivable to people. There are many people who have considered suicide, chosen not to follow through (or failed), and then realized that they were in an emotional state of mind. Suicide is a generally pathological phenomenon - horrible things will happen if we don't accept this as the null hypotheses in specific cases.

strogonoff 6y ago
No one has a say in whether they want life in the first place. It seems perfectly imaginable that some may be unhappy with having it forced onto them, but endure it because the alternative is a taboo.
guareber8 6y ago
I disagree with your logic: the fact that there are (even possibly a majority!) of cases when not wanting to live as long as possible is the result of a pathology, it doesn't negate that there are perfectly sane people who do not want to prolongue their life. Just one such case is enough to make their statement accurate - I don't think he generalised those willing to die, but those unwilling to accept that as their choice. Based exclusively on my experience, that is a valid generalisation. And yes, plenty of people have setup advanced directives, DnR's, and other such instructions while fully on their capacities, and that doesn't require them being in a pathological or even emotional state. It can easily be caused by having a standard of quality of life they intend to maintain.
- dfhjgkljhf44 6y ago
  I wasn't as clear as I'd like to have been. I agree that sane suicidal people exist. I don't believe it's surprising that people assume that suicidal people are not sane - the heuristic is accurate and helpful for those who need help. Edit: I feel compelled to add a qualification to what I've posted. If anyone thinks they are rational and suicidal: I don't believe you. Self-harm is an emotional behavior. Our brains are designed to help us lie to ourselves when we're emotional. The odds that you are the one philosopher in an arbitrarily large crowd of people who's needs aren't being met is incredibly slim. I grant no one abstract approval for ending their own life.

auganov 6y ago

Morality of suicide is a completely different discussion. Euthanasia (in practice) comes down to whether government-licensed doctors should get to decide whose lives are worthy of living. Some people will be approved, some won't. The implications are pretty troubling to me personally. Someone gets diagnosed with a sketchy mental condition, which in turn causes them to contemplate death, and then the very same doctors approve their euthanasia. If I tell anybody to kill themselves I will rightfully get criminally charged. Someone approving an euthanasia is pretty close. Sure, they may want it, but so will people who get denied, one cannot say the act of approving is completely meaningless.

soco 6y ago
I don't know much about real world cases related to sketchy mental conditions. I know cases about people terminally ill, put in palliative care, which simply cannot go on with the pains without any hope for ever getting better. These are the main (or sole, dare to say) consumers of assisted suicide, at least in Switzerland.
- auganov 6y ago
  Euthanasia over psychiatric conditions is already a very real thing in Belgium [0] (and the Netherlands I believe). Swiss seems to be more conservative in approvals all across the board but mental isn't off the table either [1]. [0] https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/7/e007454 https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/7/e007454 [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6794705/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6794705/

qwerty456127 6y ago

Sane people don't exist. Their vision is a product of the information they have been fed during their life and the cocktail of chemicals in their brains. Add some serotonin/dopamine or related substances and the whole view, the whole attitude changes immediately. MDMA-aided therapy should be made mandatory for such cases.

Pyramus 6y ago
> Add some serotonin/dopamine or related substances and the whole view, the whole attitude changes immediately. The idea that there is a biological 'switch' underlying depression is misleading. It is in a number of cases but it's only a small percentage. The crux with depression (and mental health more generally) is that it's a vastly complex phenomenon [1] that we do not fully understand. We are scoring wins in many battles (e.g. MDMA-assisted therapy) but we are still far away from winning the war. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biopsychosocial_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biopsychosocial_model
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- qwerty456127 6y ago
  I don't mean you can cure a depression easily this way. But you can switch it off temporarily and let the patient experience a totally different perspective for at least some moments. In many cases this may help a lot. Many people believe what they see is always what exists and what they feel is always what the situation is. Knowing (as a result of your own experience!) you can have drastically different feelings about the same reality depending on chemicals you ingest change a lot: you know your fear, anger or apathy don't represent the objective reality (nor your self) and you don't have to act the way they push you any more.

bobthechef 6y ago

> Somehow the idea that someone can be perfectly sane and not want to live as long as possible is inconceivable to people. You're confusing not wanting prolong life in a state of unbearable pain because of an incurable, terminal illness, and willful, intentional suicide or homicide. There is a very big difference. In medicine, a distinction is made between ordinary and extraordinary care. Ordinary care concerns the basic needs of the patient such as air, food, water. Extraordinary care concerns medical treatments meant to cure or otherwise treat the disease or disorder. Typically, neither a patient nor anyone else can deprive a terminally ill patient of ordinary care. However, when providing of such things constitutes an "undue burden", such as when the body is no longer able to digest food or absorb liquids and the offering of food and drink actually causes harm, the patient may refuse food. At that point, you are accepting your powerlessness in the current situation, i.e., one in which the patient is in a state from which he cannot recover and for whom death is imminent. Even treatments that may extend the life of the patient can be licitly refused by the patient if it would, again, pose an undue burden (for example, a weak, terminally ill patient may refuse CPR if his condition is such that the procedure, which is physically traumatic, while potentially able to extend the life of the patient by some small amount of time, would leave the patient in a state of great suffering during their last few hours). So extension of life at any cost is not the goal of most people who oppose euthanasia. Natural law theory is perhaps the most vehemently opposed to euthanasia and will serve as an excellent resource for considering these kinds of questions. I would caution you against making appeals to subjective feelings in a vacuum, which your examples attempt to do. This is dangerous because we are capable of feeling all sorts of things and being confused about all sorts of things. The crude subjectivism of our times puts excess emphasis on such things without understanding them in an objective context (which itself may be misunderstood or crudely understood).