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To be, or not to be...

Jack Flak

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Klebold and Harris were the shooters at Columbine. They probably did have their deaths coming (So do the police who waited hours to move in--That's another story).

*Most* people desire *not* to die but there are those few, who in extenuating circumstances, find themselves in a grave predicament wherein which their continued existence would only stand to afford them continued exposure to such an immense magnitude of suffering, that for them, the option of death seems and becomes, quite rationally, the better choice.
Do you not realize that enough people commit suicide without you glorifying it? I can almost guarantee I've been more down than you. Way, way down, but I'm not down today. It's too bad I didn't have friends like you at these moments of desperation.
 

SillySapienne

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Do you not realize that enough people commit suicide without you glorifying it? I can almost guarantee I've been more down than you. Way, way down, but I'm not down today. It's too bad I didn't have friends like you at these moments of desperation.
Um, how am I glorifying it?

And PLEASE!!!

You do not know me and, or the depths of sorrow I have been through.

No one got me out of my, yes *suicidal depression* but myself.

Perhaps we are just two different people. If I ever choose to off myself, you can bet your ass it won't be due to anyone's influence/opinions/judgments but my own.

When people realize that life, and to live is a *choice* they become truly liberated and empowered.

I am not here because I have to be, I am here because I *want* to be.
 

Jack Flak

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I did not say you hadn't been there yourself. That was unknown, and I responded taking the possibility into consideration.

I don't think people fail to realize they could kill themselves if they chose to, if that's what you're trying to educate them on. Even if you somehow remove their blinders, and everything becomes suddenly clear to them, whether they're better off is a philosophical question, and my answer to that question is "probably not."
 

SillySapienne

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I respect man's right to choose and implement his own death, even though I may or may not find the act itself, depending on the circumstances to be a respectable one.
 

Jack Flak

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It's not a question of respect. People will do it no matter how they're thought of for it. Being that I consider genius and disastrous desperation of some kind to often go hand in hand, the kind of person we tend to lose through suicide saddens me. To encourage it is a disgrace.
 

SillySapienne

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WHO IS ENCOURAGING IT?!?!?!?

The following is a list of some geniuses who happened to have committed suicide:

Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

Diane Arbus

Kurt Cobain

Kurt Gödel

Ernest Hemingway

Primo Levi

Sylvia Plath

Anne Sexton

Vincent van Gogh

David Foster Wallace

Virginia Woolf

I do believe that genius and madness can, and often do, go hand in hand but jeez! These people were obviously hurting, and in a major way, why can't you respect their choice to put an end to the suffering that was their lives?!?!?!?
 

kyuuei

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I think that, albeit it is every man's right to take their lives, their most precious of all possessions, into their own hands.. that we should do what we can to save our brothers as well.

I've seen suicide through my friend's father, it was ugly. He had the right to take his own life.. but he was also constantly drunk, on pills, and never in the right mentality (Not to say if he were alive he'd be an outstanding citizen... but the pain my friend had to go through seeing his already good-for-nothing father committ suicide in his mom's apartment bathroom.) We didn't really ever talk after the incident.. like we both had seen some dirty secret we were never meant to know. It was an ugly awakening very young-on to the reality of death.

If I knew of a friend trying to take his life.. you bet your ass I would do all in my power to stop him. Because I feel it is my responsibility. Don't like it? Don't tell me you're going to committ suicide. I think it is your right to have your own life in your hands.. but if you tell me you're going to do it, I'm going to take that as a sign that you need help and attention and I am going to try to stop you however I can. Maybe that's for my own selfish conscious.. like I would always think I could have done more.. but whatever my motives, that is how I stand on it.

Now Euthanasia? I do believe in. I believe in putting dogs to sleep, and allowing people in pain to decide to sleep comfortably if that is how they choose to go out. In those cases, I would not feel bad doing so, though I would be sad at the passing. It's not the same, as say, someone trying to shoot themselves in the head with a shotgun in a bathtub while intoxicated and overdosing on pills.
 

SillySapienne

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If I knew of a friend trying to take his life.. you bet your ass I would do all in my power to stop him. Because I feel it is my responsibility. Don't like it? Don't tell me you're going to committ suicide. I think it is your right to have your own life in your hands.. but if you tell me you're going to do it, I'm going to take that as a sign that you need help and attention and I am going to try to stop you however I can.
I agree with this stance, and it is one that I would also take because I do believe that if someone confides in you that they are having suicidal thoughts, that it is, in essence, a cry for help.

However, I do believe that there exists some people for whom which life is not a treasure but rather, some kind of torturous hell.

Although I deeply understand that suffering is a *valuable* and necessary part of life/living, there is such a thing as excess and for those who suffer day in and day out, ceaselessly, I say, let them have their peace.

On a side note, I absolutely DON'T get those who decide to kill themselves on an emotional whim. Now that is just plain odd, irrational, and irrevocably dumb. Like those that kill themselves after a boyfriend or a girlfriend left them *because* their boy/girlfriend left them, like, WTF?!?!?!?
 

Jeffster

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How is it not one's right?

Are you honestly telling me that I do not, or should not, have the right to choose to end my life if the life I happen to be living is one of excruciating pain?

That's messed up dude, and highly insensitive.

You said you wanted a dissenting opinion. Like I said, you have the ability. But I don't think it's right, no. And it's not a hypothetical for me. I've attempted suicide before. I'm very thankful I wasn't successful.

And I think a lot of your views are messed up too, so there we go.
 

kyuuei

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On a side note, I absolutely DON'T get those who decide to kill themselves on an emotional whim. Now that is just plain odd, irrational, and irrevocably dumb. Like those that kill themselves after a boyfriend or a girlfriend left them *because* their boy/girlfriend left them, like, WTF?!?!?!?

I don't get why boyfriends/girlsfriends go into stalker mode, or super-depressed mode like that dude from 40 yr. old virgin that didnt get over his girl of like 6 months for two years (Wtf?!).

Someone capable of taking their life at such a sudden whim isn't healthy in the head in the first place. They're abnormal, sick.. or something. They never were right in my eyes. Sick people do sick things.
 

SillySapienne

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You said you wanted a dissenting opinion. Like I said, you have the ability. But I don't think it's right, no. And it's not a hypothetical for me. I've attempted suicide before. I'm very thankful I wasn't successful.
Just because you happened to have attempted suicide before doesn't mean that you necessarily had, or shared the same reasoning and intent as others who have attempted or committed suicide had/have.

The hypothetical suicides I am advocating here are deliberately and rationally planned out/thought through.

Have you witnessed someone slowly and excruciatingly painfully wither away from a terminal disease?

I believe that these people have a right to end their suffering.

And I think a lot of your views are messed up too, so there we go.
Awesome blossom, Hammurabi would approve!
 

Jack Flak

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Your argument is shifting, CC. If you only advocate euthanasia, and not suicide based on depression, you should state that clearly.
 

SillySapienne

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I advocate euthanasia and I sympathize and accept suicide as a last resort for those who desire to put an end to their incessant and incurable psychological/existential/emotional suffering.
 

Grayscale

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since nobody else will play devil's advocate :devil:

the bigger question is when and how much selfishness is justifiable. suicide is an act of selfishness that often negatively affects others, but there are others things like that which are not considered wrong as well as those that are.

the difference is what is fair and expected... im not sure that's the best reason, but i do know people view a big difference between something like capitalism and robbing a bank.

to relate that to suicide, i think it can only be determined on a case by case basis. sure, philosophically speaking everyone should have the option to reverse a choice that was not theirs that they feel has negatively affected them (being brought into existence), but more often than not the choice to do so is based on things that were brought upon that person by their own actions--and yet the solution is one where they opt out scott free while those close to them are left with pain.

considering this, it seems clear to me that whether it is justifiable depends on whether they brought it upon themselves or if they are suffering needlessly by circumstances outside their control with no end in sight.
 

Grayscale

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You are correct, it is a selfish act. That's a debate unto itself.

everyone is selfish, it's an innate attribute to control of self. what selfishness is okay and what isnt is entirely more difficult to answer... i think this is just another example of that, along with something like "is it okay to steal from someone to feed yourself?"

perhaps in this case, suicide could be justified in the sense that it is more important to stop whatever pain the person is experiencing than to avoid inflicting the pain of loss on those that know them? just like stealing could be justified in the sense that it is more important for someone to live than for another to possess the food that the person stole.

at the very least, i think most people could agree that any solution is better than one where nobody really wins, which is why you dont see many people promoting suicide as an option.
 
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