

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Attempted Suicide as a Signal

How many completed suicides are actually thwarted rescue fantasies?











  1. What I do not understand is that doctors in the ER keep patients (suicide-attempters) alive when it's clear this will result in serious and permanent bodily harm/brain-damage. Presumably they just follow guidelines and procedures and must do this in order to keep their job but in my mind this is just cruel and immoral and the harshest form of punishment possible (under the repressive/criminal model of approaching suicide). Both for the would-be suicide (obviously) and for his or her family: in most cases people would prefer that person to have died (heartbreaking as it may be) than to have to live in agonizing circumstances. I really am curious as to how they'd justify this and how it could possible be construed as 'helping people'. If a cat was run over and its guts are hanging out the most humane thing to do is get your gun and shoot it or bang it on its head with a shovel, if we'd do this for mere animals (with presumably less capacity for suffering due to their less developped mental capacities) why don't we for our fellow man? Even withholding or blocking access to correct information about the lethality of different suicide-methods is a crime in my eyes: just imagine waking up without the ability to speak or in excruciating pain just because you misjudged the lethality of your chosen method based on faulty information. Adding to his problem is the barbaric law against assisted suicide: if there's someone with you and things go awry he or she can step in and make sure you're dispatched properly (the coup-the grace, even enemies on the battlefield would grant eachother this courtesy). I fail to see why this would make it murder or even manslaughter: if it's clear (beyond any reasonable doubt) that it was your decision soleley and the other party merely acted on your behalf and out of respect and compassion no crime was committed. Since when is caring for someone, respecting their wishes and helping them a bad thing and even worse: an action meriting incarceration? If this is made legal everything's out in the open and it'll be easy to check if someone died voluntarily or not.

    This reminds me of an ancient custom on the island of Cos where anyone who wanted to die and could make a clear and coherent case in front of officals would receive the cup with poison directly from the hands of the highest magistrate. How much more public and transparant can you make this? Truly, we may have progressed alot in terms of scientific and technological advancement but in moral terms the ancients were far superior to us. I blame the perverted jewish faith and its offshoot christianity for this disgusting change in morals and customs: instead of a society of masters, freemen and slaves we have all become slaves (in the moral sense) and we all have to endure the wrath and stupidity of public opinion and the laws that result from it.

    This is what we get when we sacrifice our individual rights and liberties (so important to our forefathers) on the altar of public outrage, misguided morality and misconceptions. Would somebody please think of the children?

  2. It is applying idiosyncratic values to people who do not share those values.

    Most people fail to distinguish between personal (agent-relative) values and objective (agent-neutral) values, only the latter of which are fair to apply to everyone.

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  3. Fear of death is not love of life.

  4. @Ian_HT completely my own fault of course







    Retweeted by Sister Y

    Retweeted by Sister Y
  12. @bswud thanks!

  13. @realmattforney you're too real the rest of the time






  19. how are those belmont "marriages" going lol 

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