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0 pointsbrainless13y ago0 comments

I beg to differ from what you are saying. I do understand your point though, but let me give you another picture. And this I say from personal experience.

People around the world go through tough times. For some the path is eased by good friends, family, "miracles", etc. For others the path becomes too difficult to tackle. In the end the person chooses not to fight any longer. As much as we should respect this decision, we should also remember that many people avoid that decision to end life and actually become happier in life. Sometimes you may be just an inch away from being saved.

Every person who has every felt disturbed and suicidal and did not take the step, probably feels good about not taking the step. So if you ask me personally I would differ and say we should help each other till the last moment, never give up.

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6 comments · 2 top-level

icelancer13y ago· 3 in thread

>Every person who has every felt disturbed and suicidal and did not take the step, probably feels good about not taking the step.

This is the ultimate example of survivorship bias. Please don't use this line of "argument."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

dlss13y ago

While brainless did commit the survivorship bias, I would consider you responding to what he said rather than what he meant to be attacking a strawman.

In this case, lets consider all humans who ever considered suicide. Now, while it's true that we can only observe those who did not commit suicide, we do have a substantial amount of data on humans in general that we can work from. If this claim has you skeptical (ie "successful suicides are a separate reference class"), I will remind you we have data on suicidal people who were forcibly restrained, which you are encouraged to look up.

So now let's look at the core of brainless' argument: people change with time. If you look at happiness rates for quadriplegic patients (or any of the hedonic treadmill research), you'll see that your happiness levels aren't so impacted by life events. This effect is present in both the population of completed suicides, and aborted suicides, and is likely a lot of the causal force brainless is trying to reference.

Which is to say that it's highly likely that people who kill themselves counterfactually wish they didn't.

daeken13y ago

Agreed! I'm incredibly glad I didn't commit suicide when things got bad and it was on the table. I would've missed so many amazing moments that have come since then, and I can only imagine I have many more in my future. But if I had done so, it's not as if I could've regretted it.

brainlessOP13y ago

Maybe I put it in the wrong way. But the way I see it, he was a person with dreams. He wanted to go great things. Do you really think such a person wants to die? He was an activist - he lived doing stuff. Dead people can not. I am sure if he could think about it rationally, he was brilliant enough to understand that.

So I personally believe whatever happened is because he felt this was the only escape. To me, again me personally, suicide is no glorified option.

adrianhoward13y ago· 1 in thread

Every person who has every felt disturbed and suicidal and did not take the step, probably feels good about not taking the step.

Having worked as a volunteer on a counselling service for a couple of years I can say without a shadow of a doubt that you are 100% wrong there I'm afraid. Some certainly. Everybody - no.

sadlyNess13y ago

This reminds me of an episode in Medium(Patricia Arquette) where people regretted jumping from buildings but only after they had jumped. i cant recall the exact plot(google effect?).

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