Poll: Can suicide be rational?

[Agrosmurf]

Well yes.. it is if you think about it...
When you die it ends... it all end, you are not there to watch your mourning family, you are not there to regret, not there to feel. You are gone, delapitating 6 feet under the earth with no feeling of anything.
I think as human beings we cannot comprehend the thought of our thoughts stopping, because withought our thoughts what is there... nothingness? And what is nothingness if we are not there to experience it.
anyhoo, it hurts my head to think about it because I don't understand it... this is where the idea of religion comes in... ofen people find something we cannot understand like what happens after die and we create our own resons to live. Some people do not agree with thoes resons and end life to find out.

This is just my opinion wrong it may be. =D

 

[Arcticflame]

There is one way to be rational about suicide.
And that's when you either are going to die, or be tortured and die. Suicide is the better option there.

 

[CuddlyCombine]

Oh boy, here we go.

It's still selfish if nobody cared - because you're only caring for YOURSELF and YOUR circumstances.

The technical definition of selfish, yes. What if you're doing it to do others a favour? There are plenty of reasons. Also, it is a bit logical to be certain of only your circumstances, given that it's your life you're taking, and not the lives of others.

Consider this, you with all your resources (or lack thereof). How much money do you make? Did you know that nearly all americans (and/or most english speaking countries) make up the top percentage of wealthiest people in the world? If you really cared about your burden on earthly resources, you wouldn't kill yourself, you'd donate your time, money, and effort to those kids in africa who are lucky to have a scrap of bread in a week. Sure maybe they're just a burden to earth's resources too, and maybe they should just be shot (like their government's doing anyways), but are you going to sentence them to death?

This is way too convoluted to draw any reasonable material from it. Population control theories and the myriad of other factors you mentioned are all useless, given that we can sit here for years talking about the cycle of life and not get anywhere. Cause and effect aren't the things portrayed in The Butterfly Effect or something; rarely does one individual change an entire planet.

What gives you the right to take your life and the life of a child who needs your money? Or maybe you could help build a home for someone with out one.

Again, this is a fallacy, given that, by living, you could very well be killing them as well. Say you build the home, and the funds go to a timber company who pays an employee who goes and buys a gun with his wages and shoots up a school. Shit, look what you've done! I mean, there's really no worth in theorizing stuff like this.

Heck, even if you were convicted of a crime, you could go to prison and do the community service they do. You can always help out... the fact you don't just makes you a fat, selfish *insert nasty word* bent on the world's destruction - but hey, don't let that get you down, you're just like every other person in the world, accept you see fit to rid us of your *nasty-word-ness*. Didn't you get what I was saying at all? True life isn't found in you, it's found in others.

There's a lot of back-and-forth here... I thought you said we're doomed, and trying to fix things won't ever work? Whatever, it's a unique brand of nihilism, 'sall good. And if life is found in others, why can't people off themselves?

Whether in victory or defeat, whenever we withdraw into ourselves, the results are never good. Stop trying to get ahead in life, and help those who have nothing at all. Nobody "wins" in this life. We all lose everything we have anyways - so we should stop caring about ourselves and start caring for others.

Admirable, altruistic, but misguided - people do win, daily. The ideals of a 18th-century Romanticist are nice to have, though rooted in myth.

Idealistically, nobody would be having a slice of their pie, they'd be too busy giving it to someone else! On top of all this, I never spoke of a purpose. You think you have a purpose? Tell me who your ancestor was, the one living two hundred years ago? how bout 3,000? Do you think in two hundred year's you'll be remembered? Whether we have a purpose or not in this life is irrelevant because there's nothing to this life. Not for us. But for everyone else, they have everything to live for.

Does... not... compute... Again, you're forgetting that we're dealing with humans here. Humans are not rational beings, though they may sometimes do rational things (surrendering everything for the good of all else could, interestingly, be suicide)

That doesn't make sense, does it? It's the great paradigm, but regardless, you'll always be nothing, but you have the opportunity to make others everything they've dreamed. That's why persevering can give you anything - when we give ourselves away we gain a whole new life. Oh, by the way, that's what I meant in that "cloudy sentence". Redemption was never for us, it was for everyone else. We can't give it, but Love always will.

Ok, well, there were a few points in there I could draw out, but the rest I don't think I can understand without a mind meld or performance enhancing chemicals. No offense meant, of course, I just can't follow your train of thought. But I respect your opinion!

(disclaimer: if I sound like an ass at any point, I don't mean to, but I've been told I come off as self-righteous sometimes... sorry)

 

[Kikosemmek]

Suicide can be rational. Simple scenario: If one's ultimate goal is to be happy, and one sees no alternative that offers happiness, then suicide is a rational conclusion, seeing that staying alive would entail avoidable suffering.

I don't believe that most people who committed suicide wanted to die. I believe they wanted pain to stop.

 

[ItsAChiaotzu]

Thats a lie and you know it

Yes.
It is totally a lie.

Wait no it is not, at all.
Good try though.

What would make you hate being super rich?

 

[Samurai Goomba]

I think it could be logical in certain circumstances, like somebody who effectively "kills themselves" in order to save somebody else, like a certain person does at the end of A Tale of Two Cities. It depends what you view as suicide. Is it personally committing murder on yourself? Is it NOT doing anything to prevent your death? At what point does inaction become an action in itself?

But no, I don't think anyone who kills his or her self is completely rational. I don't think that's really the issue, since suicide tends to be a lot more emotional than rational. Maybe when we as a society become less individually isolated and more familiar with one another people won't feel like they have to "end it all" (see Collateral, Taxi Driver and Fight Club for some more on that subject).

I'm pretty sure the very act of suicide is so stressful (because our bodies and minds are hard-wired against causing harm to themselves) that merely seriously considering it starts messing with our minds. So anyone who is just about to commit suicide is probably at least half-crazy by that point, anyway.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

The thing about suicide is that most people who do aren't rational. However I would not deny the right of a person to commit suicide (now that would hypocritical), but it usually isn't rational, I haven't looked at figures, but I'm guessing that most people who committed suicide suffered from a mental conditon.

 

[messiah_complex]

Suicide will always seem rational but will always be irrational. The reasons for suicide will always be based on irrational thought, emotional or physical pain, faulty or warped beliefs...

...or not....

 

[dnnydllr]

Nothing rational about killing yourself. Just selfish.

Would it be selfish if nobody else cared for you, which was the reason you were killing yourself in the first place?

Whether you realize it or not, there's always someone who cares. And if there isn't you need to leave the house for once.

 

[StarStruckStrumpets]

No way, who wants to die?!

 

[CuddlyCombine]

I basically have two main points. First, again you misunderstood what I was saying. I wasn't talking about a butterfly effect. That theory is based around the idea that "if a butterfly flaps its wings, does a gale get blown on the otherside of the world?" The butterfly didn't MEAN to cause a gale, it would have been coincidental. I'm talking about purposely devoting your time and energy to helping others out. When at the point of suicide, if you can't see that you can do things to help, and if you can only be so drowned in your own misery to not only take away your chance at living but also your certain opportunity to help others, you just proved to be irrational. Because again, the purpose of living is not about you. It's about everyone else. And, as I said, it's a certainty that right now you could devote your time and money to help somebody out - that isn't a theory. And that certainty holds true for the suicidal.

Lastly, who really is a winner? I mean really? I'm the great great great nephew of George Washington (the first president of the US). He had no children, so for anyone to carry on his "Family name" it would fall to his nephews. I don't get special treatment for that. I'm the great great grandson of Robert E. Lee, that famous Civil War general - but outside of history buffs, the public might give me a moment of astonished contemplation, but they don't care after I tell them. My great-grandfather was the chief of my native american tribe, but I'm no prince - I only have a few photos to attest to that fact. These are men who led victorious lives in one way or another, and are (for the US at least) people who "won" the lottery of history, and are the few that will be remembered in one way or another for a long time (sure most people might not know of my grandfather, but he helped establish my tribe after the Trail of Tears, so for my tribe, he will be), and yet it does nothing for their decedents, and the idea they might be famous one day did nothing during the course of their lives. That's what I mean by nobody actually wins. We come into this world cold, bloodied, and in pain - that's how we leave it. We were nothing, and so we will be nothing (so perhaps I should correct myself and say "no body ultimately wins"). Again, perhaps you can argue that it's a "theory", but with the evidence, it's a pretty damn good one. That's why I don't see a point in living for yourself, because we die and go away, but everyone else will remain - so why not give it all for them, since you were and will be nothing?

Thus, again, this is why suicide is selfish and pointless. You were pointless in life, and you will be pointless in death; any legacy you have will be nothing - if you're lucky it could be a good story for people in the future that will never actually understand you. If you're going to give your life away, you might as well give it away in a useful manner and help out the world through kind acts and selflessness, rather than self-pity.

At least this time it's easier to reply... anyway, the main thing that's been gnawing on my brain is that you keep saying everyone was, and always will be, nothing, but if we help others they can be something. Yet everyone is destined to enter life as nothing and leave life as nothing, right? If you're always nothing and pointless, why not just leave prematurely? Maybe the act of doing so will help someone become something, by teaching them the value of life, , etc. I mean, who's to say you couldn't do more in death than you did in life? Look at martyrs. They may not have committed suicide, but you know what I mean. Also, I'll make the obligatory notice that 'kind' and 'helpful' is, once again, subjective. Finally, what if somebody doesn't have time and money to donate? They've rationalized that they're doing more harm than good, and that they can't turn that around; whether they can or not is an infinite debate, I think.

God, I love being the devil's advocate! The fallacies, they're everywhere...

Whether you realize it or not, there's always someone who cares. And if there isn't you need to leave the house for once.

This is ideal, but this isn't true. People sometimes develope 'caring' after someone's killed himself (i.e. teen hangs self - neighbours hear, and, after asking each other if they remember his name, weep for him).

 

[dnnydllr]

It can't make sense, in any situation. Assisted suicide is different though.

 

[new_age_reject]

Suicide is for cowards and weak minded people.

 

[oneshotfinchy]

Suicide is a very selfish thing to do, and will only cause pain after you leave.

 

[AbsoluteVirtue18]

Mon ami, dere are alota things in dis world dat aren't rational. Like why I'm suddenly using a heavy Cajun accent.

Suicide is anutha one.

 

[AbsoluteVirtue18]

What would make you hate being super rich?

The fact that I have never, in my entire life, wanted to be rich?

Suicide is a very selfish thing to do, and will only cause pain after you leave.

Maybe so, but it's not going to cause you any pain.

Hey, if I were a rich man, my mutta wouldn't have to worry bout nuthin. And if dat makes her happy, it can't be dat bad.