On Suicide

Because people are short-sighted. Mostly as a consequence of being lazy and greedy and stupid. Mostly as a consequence of being overworked, traumatized, under constant threat, etc. Or of bring raised by people who were like that and instilled their own bad habits formed from their traumas on their developing children. Our whole society is mentally ill, as a system not just as a bunch of individuals, and it’s a chicken and egg problem how to fix the system that could help fix the individuals who run the system without first fixing those individuals while they are still part of a broken system.

Best I can hope for is that the few people who are functional enough to work against the systemic dysfunction can over time pull hard enough long enough to pull the whole system back to functionality eventually.

There are so many responses I'm anticipating; but, the burning question is why can't our own kids fix the problems we created.

Quoting Pfhorrest

Because people are short-sighted. Mostly as a consequence of being lazy and greedy and stupid. Mostly as a consequence of being overworked, traumatized, under constant threat, etc.

Yeah, and that's why I can't read Chomsky anymore. His analysis is also short-sighted (or not) about US domestic affairs. It's all too gloomy in my mind.

Quoting Pfhorrest

Best I can hope for is that the few people who are functional enough to work against the systemic dysfunction can over time pull hard enough long enough to pull the whole system back to functionality eventually.

Like who? We had Jesus... Mohammad... Moses... Buddha, Krishnamurti, bla bla bla. Same problem if we expect it from others and not ourselves.

I just don't think that's how causation works when it comes to suicide.

Sure, losing your job or getting divorced or going into poverty might increase your chances of suicide but there's no 100% direct causation. Even the worst conditions like a concentration camp don't qualify as a "B" to your "C."

Quoting BitconnectCarlos

I just don't think that's how causation works when it comes to suicide.

I could be wrong for all I know. Then how does causation work here, with directionalities??

Reply to Wallows

The way I see it... there's risk factors for suicide. We can address these risk factors (poverty, losing a job, etc) but suicide is ultimately a choice that you make.

Quoting BitconnectCarlos

suicide is ultimately a choice that you make.

Fuck that shit. That's like saying everyone ultimately has the capacity of suicide, which may be true; but, the act itself is not totally independent from A and B.

Reply to Wallows

I never said it was totally independent from past events, I'm just saying it's not a certainty given A or B. A or B could have an impact on C, but that's not to say that A or B caused C.

If you read Man's Search for Meaning it's about a guy's experience in a Nazi concentration camp. He was under some of the worst conditions imaginable, but he never wanted to kill himself or die. It's a matter of mindset.

Quoting BitconnectCarlos

If you read Man's Search for Meaning it's about a guy's experience in a Nazi concentration camp. He was under some of the worst conditions imaginable, but he never wanted to kill himself or die. It's a matter of mindset.

I think you need to read it again...

Quoting Wallows

Like who? We had Jesus... Mohammad... Moses... Buddha, Krishnamurti, bla bla bla. Same problem if we expect it from others and not ourselves.

I'm counting myself as (barely) one of "the few people who are functional enough to work against the systemic dysfunction". I have very little power, so I can't pull very hard, but I'm at least still clear-headed enough at the moment to see the problem and do what little I can about it. Talking to people, learning, teaching, exercising the minuscule influence I have on the political process. Most people don't even vote, don't even think about these issues. I'm not saying what I do is very much, but I'm not just relying on others, I'm doing what little I can. And hoping that others that can do a little will, too, and in the end there will be enough of us who can do enough to make a noticeable difference.

Reply to Wallows

He was able to find meaning in his suffering. He could have killed himself at any point. There was no point which he just lied down and quit.

And for the record I don't blame people who committed suicide in those types of conditions, but it's not a certainty either.

Quoting Pfhorrest

And hoping that others that can do a little will, too, and in the end there will be enough of us who can do enough to make a noticeable difference.

Then you are an honorable person. I've seen the work that you did on your webpage, and ask you very humbly what makes you tick?

Quoting BitconnectCarlos

And for the record I don't blame people who committed suicide in those types of conditions, but it's not a certainty either.

Then, again I prod you to answer just how much of suicide is environmental or plain mental illness?

Quoting Wallows

Then you are an honorable person.

Thank you :)

Quoting Wallows

I've seen the work that you did on your webpage, and ask you very humbly what makes you tick?

I'm not sure. I guess a search for meaning? I want to understand what's important about everything, how it all fits together and relates, and I also want to be important to the world, to create and do good things and to matter to others.

Reply to Wallows

I don't have a number for that. I think the question we should be asking is when is suicide justified.

If you're suicidal then we're no longer having a philosophical discussion: You need to go to therapy and get help. Anti-depressants can work wonders.

Quoting Pfhorrest

and I also want to be important to the world

Isn't that the very insanity that drove some madman to burn down the Alexandria library? Try to treat as an analogy?

Quoting BitconnectCarlos

If you're suicidal then we're no longer having a philosophical discussion: You need to go to therapy and get help. Anti-depressants can work wonders.

Then, can you tell me what is all this jazz about the relationship between suicide and philosophy?

Quoting Wallows

If B follows from A, and C follows from B, and we only address C being a suicide or other ills, then why aren't we addressing the confounding factors starting from A->B->C?

I think we do attempt to address the causes of suicide, but I'm sure you're right that it's not sufficiently. But where you use C, I think it's also correct to substitute all sorts of other illnesses as well, like cancer, drug abuse, heart disease, and all sorts of things.

I'd think the causes of suicide are very complex, and not quite as often caused by single events (like divorce, job loss, or incarceration), but by deeper emotional struggles.

Reply to Wallows because we don’t know them?

Quoting Hanover

I'd think the causes of suicide are very complex, and not quite as often caused by single events (like divorce, job loss, or incarceration), but by deeper emotional struggles.

Can you back this claim up?

Quoting khaled

because we don’t know them?

Dewey once said that we only think when confronted with problems.

Reply to Wallows ok so?

Quoting khaled

ok so?

Well, the point is that there may as well as be known knowns, known unknowns, unknown knowns, and unknown unknowns. So, nothing is perfect?

Quoting Wallows

I could be wrong for all I know. Then how does causation work here, with directionalities??

Personal resilience is a contributing factor. Lack of illnesses, or other influences that weaken the ego, is a deterrent for suicide. People in concentration camps basically survived because death is a threat to survival, and people therefore avoid death at all costs, only those kill themselves who:
1. experience suffering which they can't bear
2. experience such suffering and have no hope of getting out of it
3. have lessened strengths in their mental and emotional mechanisms to fight the feeling of "giving up"

So basically it's illness or other weakening factors, an extremely unhappy or painful existence, and hopelessness to get out of it, that makes a "good" elixir for suicide.

Reply to Wallows

In some cultures suicide was honorable and even heroic. Nowadays it’s difficult to imagine that once upon a time some would commit suicide to maintain honor rather than to escape shame.

In the case of the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima he did it for profound and troubling philosophical reasons.

To continue the metaphor, let us picture a single, healthy apple. This apple was not called into existence by words, nor is it possible that the core should be completely visible from the outside like Amiel’s peculiar fruit. The inside of the apple is naturally quite invisible. Thus at the heart of that apple, shut up within the flesh of the fruit, the core lurks in its wan darkness, tremblingly anxious to find some way to reassure itself that it is a perfect apple. The apple certainly exists, but to the core this existence as yet seems inadequate; if words cannot endorse it, then the only way to endorse it is with the eyes. Indeed, for the core the only sure mode of existence is to exist and to see at the same time. There is only one method of solving this contradiction. It is for a knife to be plunged deep into the apple so that it is split open and the core is exposed to the light—to the same light, that is, as the surface skin. Yet then the existence of the cut apple falls into fragments; the core of the apple sacrifices existence for the sake of seeing.

When I realized that the perfect sense of existence that disintegrated the very next moment could only be endorsed by muscle, and not by words, I was already personally enduring the fate that befell the apple. Admittedly, I could see my own muscles in the mirror. Yet seeing alone was not enough to bring me into contact with the basic roots of my sense of existence, and an immeasurable distance remained between me and the euphoric sense of pure being. Unless I rapidly closed that distance, there was little hope of bringing that sense of existence to life again. In other words, the self-awareness that I staked on muscles could not be satisfied with the darkness of the pallid flesh pressing about it as an endorsement of its existence, but, like the blind core of the apple, was driven to crave certain proof of its existence so fiercely that it was bound, sooner or later, to destroy that existence. Oh, the fierce longing simply to see, without words!

The eye of self-awareness, used as it is to keeping a watch on the invisible self in an essentially centripetal fashion and via the good offices of words, does not place sufficient trust in visible things such as muscles. Inevitably, it addresses the muscles as follows:

“I admit you do not seem to be a illusion. But if so, I would like you to show how you function in order to live and move; show me your proper functions and how you fulfill your proper aims.”

Thus the muscles start working in accordance with the demands of self-awareness; but in order to make the action exist unequivocally, a hypothetical enemy outside the muscles is necessary, and for the hypothetical enemy to make certain of its existence it must deal a blow to the realm of the senses fierce enough to silence the querulous complaints of self-awareness. That, precisely, is when the knife of the foe must come cutting into the flesh of the apple—or rather, the body. Blood flows, existence is destroyed, and the shattered senses give existence as a whole its first endorsement, closing the logical gap between seeing and existing... And this is death.

– Sun and Steel

Mishima planned his suicide for 5 years and in dramatic fashion (while trying to stage a coup) disemboweled himself, finally able to see his “core”, before his comrade beheaded him in the old Japanese way.

Reply to Wallows
The reality philosophers don't like about suicide is that it's generally impulsive, thoughtless and stupid. It's not a symptom of a callous society or soulless culture. Suicide prevention exists and it's actually pretty amazing how many people care about whether you or any other random person commits suicide or not. Ultimately, peoples' relationship to the world cannot ever be defined by suicide prevention, you cannot live a life without being exposed to the things which can be cited as reasons for suicide. Which would really need to be contextualised by brain analysis anyway, we know brain differences play a role in suicide.

@Pfhorrest Ok here's what Wallows said:
Quoting Wallows

If B follows from A, and C follows from B, and we only address C being a suicide or other ills, then why aren't we addressing the confounding factors starting from A->B->C?

And here's what you said:
Quoting Pfhorrest

Because people are short-sighted. Mostly as a consequence of being lazy and greedy and stupid. Mostly as a consequence of being overworked, traumatized, under constant threat, etc. Or of bring raised by people who were like that and instilled their own bad habits formed from their traumas on their developing children. Our whole society is mentally ill, as a system not just as a bunch of individuals, and it’s a chicken and egg problem how to fix the system that could help fix the individuals who run the system without first fixing those individuals while they are still part of a broken system.

Best I can hope for is that the few people who are functional enough to work against the systemic dysfunction can over time pull hard enough long enough to pull the whole system back to functionality eventually.

Hehahaha... Wallows asked a stupid question without even specifying what he was talking about which makes your response even worse. Neither of you listed a single, real, observable problem with a suggestion for a solution - perhaps explaining why we weren't taking that solution. Instead, without even having any idea about what Wallows is talking about, you go off into a tirade about how apart from a few functional people like you, society is a disaster run by short-sighted, lazy, greedy people. Talk about deluded xd. You even proceed to share words of mutual respect while still having absolutely no idea what the other is talking about. That's just special.

Reply to Judaka You're not worth responding to, especially on a day like today, but I understood the general gist of what Wallows was on about (why aren't we doing more to address the societal ills, which are many and varied, that lead people into suicidal conditions) and my response was that society itself is sick, and the symptoms of that sickness prevent it from adequately curing its own sickness. Just like one person's depression makes it harder for them to do things to dig themselves out of the circumstances that lead them to depression, so too society's many and various problems lead people to be dysfunctional in ways that prevent us collectively from addressing those very problems leading to that dysfunction.

And I certainly don't think myself some kind of special hero who's going to fix everything. I did say I'm "barely" functional enough to do "what little I can". I'm acknowledging that most people are too beat down by life to do anything more than feebly try to solve their own problems. I'm pretty much in that category myself, but I've apparently got my head a little more above water than a lot of others.

Reply to Pfhorrest
There's no point telling me you knew what Wallows was talking about, I know you're not telepathic. I'm not either and since you're just talking about your feelings, I can only guess what they're a reaction to specifically. You've got like 1000 words in this thread without even once addressing what you're specifically talking about. I wonder how long you could go on agreeing with someone on everything until you figured out what they actually knew and thought.

Reply to Wallows

I've struggled with the issue of suicide for about 5 years and have tried multiple times and also dealt with depression. I recently joined a political party called Shark Fighter Nation. #Shark_Fighter_Nation

After joining the party my desire to commit suicide has disapeared just about completely. I've never been in the US Military but suicide among Veterans and US Military Personel is extremely high and great care should be taken when dealing with these people.

I do smoke tobacco continiously all day but other than that my life has gotten a whole lot better.

shark can be replaced with moving to chicago or Iran, bobcat, rattlesnake fighting it with a pair of garden shears, bears, alligators and there are various other ways of literally contending with the "dragon".

God bless you Sir and I hope you find whatever it is you are looking for in life. Perhaps you'll at some point begin enjoying life and live from then on out a long and happy life.

Reply to Judaka You need to work on some reading comprehension if you think what Wallows is on about isn't perfectly clear. You think it's not clear because the specifics aren't mentioned, but that's because it's not about specifics but about a general pattern. It doesn't matter what "A" or "B" are, they're unspecified "confounding factors" of "C" (suicide) the details of which aren't important for his point; he's just asking why we don't address the things (whatever they are) that lead people to suicide, instead of waiting until people are suicidal to do anything. He doesn't mention the specifics, and yeah I don't know what specifics he has in mind, but those are irrelevant to the point.

Quoting Pfhorrest

Because people are short-sighted. Mostly as a consequence of being lazy and greedy and stupid. Mostly as a consequence of being overworked, traumatized, under constant threat, etc. Or of bring raised by people who were like that and instilled their own bad habits formed from their traumas on their developing children. Our whole society is mentally ill, as a system not just as a bunch of individuals, and it’s a chicken and egg problem how to fix the system that could help fix the individuals who run the system without first fixing those individuals while they are still part of a broken system.

Best I can hope for is that the few people who are functional enough to work against the systemic dysfunction can over time pull hard enough long enough to pull the whole system back to functionality eventually.

That just about nailed it.

Reply to Pfhorrest
How can it not be relevant? If you don't know what the "confounding factors of C" are then how can you know whether people aren't trying to address those things? You obviously can't. How can you agree that nobody is addressing A and B when you have no idea what the other person is thinking A and B is. This is becoming quite funny.

Not my problem (until it is one)... ignorance?

Quoting Hanover

I'd think the causes of suicide are very complex, and not quite as often caused by single events (like divorce, job loss, or incarceration), but by deeper emotional struggles.

Sorry to get back to you so late; but, my mind works in mysterious ways even to myself.

I don't think it's that complex. See my other thread 'Against Suffering' as an example. If people constantly feel ill or unhappy to the point of suffering, then it seems to me that before C occurs, then we should strive to (not eliminate) or at least lessen the amount of suffering in the world.

What do you or others think?