Seppuku is honourable in my opinion. Other ways, however, are just stupid. That's why, six months ago, I didn't kill myself even though I wanted to die; suicide just felt too emo.
Poll: Suicide - Your opinion
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Well why not?BladeOfAkriloth said:
I mean it's so neutral. You no longer have to think, be worried about stuff. Your entire sense of self will be comletely disintegrated. You won't have a care in the world simply because you can't care about anything. Eternal sleep. Sounds quite blissful.
But that's also why I don't want to die, no matter what happens. I've invested my time in developing my self. I don't want to see the the work of my labour being completely destroyed. Then again I know that once im dead I won't be able to care anymore, but since Im alive, I do care...
I'd be a fool to think that it is impossible, and even more foolish to project my judgments about it on everyone else.BladeOfAkriloth said:
But it's the right answer! "Suicide" doesn't provide sufficient context to make any other judgment reasonable. If a man commits suicide to get away from gambling debts and the arduous task of supporting his family, that's cowardly and selfish. If a man commits suicide to (somehow) save 20 others, that may well be brave. That and a whole host of other examples is why it depends.Douk said:
See, I think what a lot of people are missing is the fact that you are not the only one affected by your life. We all have friends, family, people who look up to us and care about us. Ending your own life doesn't only affect you, it has a very negative affect on those around you. Thus, I think it's selfish: it's thinking only of ending your own pain, with no thought to how much pain you are causing others.
This isn't really an argument, since you didn't choose to live in the first place. It was forced upon you. Therefore family and friendw ill just have to cope with whatever "bad feelings" they experience because of your death. it is just as forced upon them as life is forced upon everyone.Thaius said:
Why is one "forcing" more right and correct than the other? Tell me that if you can...
Yeah, real honorable.Queen Michael said:
"I failed my boss today. Therefore I have to gut myself with a knife and have my friend chop off my head. It's the "HONORABLE" thing to do..."
You do realize that the japanese system of "honor" wasn't much more than a means to subjugate and control the population under you right? If you convince your subjects that they should commit suicide if they fail any given task, and that the end of their life isn't such a bad thing, then you have pretty absolute power over them.
Sounds really "honorable" to be the one whose being completely buttfucked by your boss. honorable indeed... (note the heavy sarcasm)
Because with suicide, you are making the conscious decision to screw whoever cares about you and do what you think is right for yourself. Life is forced on everyone: life isn't selfish, it simply... is. But to kill yourself at the cost of those around you, that is selfish.Housebroken Lunatic said:
Dictionary definition: "Concerned chiefly or only with yourself and your advantage to the exclusion of others." Suicide falls squarely into that category.
I said it was selfish. You have others depending on you, or visa versa. Who knows, you coulda been the next prez. Too bad, you decided that YOUR pain was too much. Remember that theres always someone out there whos got it worse than you
Forgive me for being blunt, but that's a load of bullshit.Thaius said:
Life is selfish, as is giving life. It is a selfish act from your mother who today have the choice of not giving birth to you. It was a selfish act of both your mother and your father to choose and have sex without protection. They appointed their will over yours. They paid no respect to your wish of being born. They didn't ask you to begin with, they just went ahead and did, without considering the consequences of their actions.
But most parents don't think like that. They think that they can make you happy and provide you with a pleasant childhood. Quite simply, they don't mean to step on your toes or being disrespectful by giving birth to you, it's not their intention, even if that will still be the end result. The question is if you will be able to oversee that in the end and consider the gifts they have given you (no, life isn't a gift as I've already established), for most people this will outweigh the gross arbitrary decision of putting another life in the world.
But it's still a selfish act.
The same goes for suicidal people. It's not their direct intention to hurt loved ones around them, it's just an unfortunate side-effect that will occur due to the suicide.
Either you concede to the fact that parents are just as selfish for giving birth to children as people who commit suicide are, or you'll have to admit that people who commit suicide aren't selfish in such a hostile manner and that they don't intend to hurt others by their actions, but that they just want to take their lives into their own hands and have the power to decide over it.
Otherwise, you're just another hypocrite...
So?Lord Thodin said:
I don't know about your chosen purpose in life, but I sure as hell wasn't put here to be of service to everyone else. If I feel like killing myself it doesn't really matter if I knew I could be the next president of the United States (or even the WORLD for that matter). My life is my own, as your life is your own. We decide our own purpose, there is no right or wrong purpose. And if you claim otherwise: then step up and PROVE it with objective proof!
I kinda covered my own base already. I said that "You decided YOUR pain was too much." Meaning you chose your own purpose. Meaning your life is your own. And i didnt mean living in the service of others so much as refusal to make a difference.Housebroken Lunatic said:
Pain caused by selfishness is never a direct intention: when one is selfish, they always hurt others not as a goal, but rather they know their actions will benefit themselves and hurt others, but they do it anyway without thinking or caring about others.Housebroken Lunatic said:
And I have to say, you can be blunt, that's fine, but try to avoid insulting my parents. We both know what that says about an argument.
The fact is, there is no such thing as hostile selfishness. Selfishness, by definition, is not intentional in its effect on others. Rather, its effect on others is because of blatant disregard for others' needs and desires. For instance, if you were to get completely wasted right before going to a friend or sibling's graduation, you probably weren't thinking "hey, let's see if I can screw this up for them." Rather, you knew your actions would probably have negative consequences for those around you, but you didn't care: you wanted to get wasted.
If you do something for the purpose of hurting those around you, it's not selfishness, it's just plain douchebaggery. The negative effects of selfishness are always unintentional: they don't happen because you wanted to hurt others, they happened because you cared too much about your own desires to care about what your actions might do to those around you.
All that to say, I'm not saying suicide is intentionally meant to hurt others: I am saying that when someone commits suicide, they know it will have negative consequences on others, but they don't care. That's selfishness.
I have to say though, your thoughts on conception as selfish are completely nonsensical. No one wants to commit suicide simply because they hate life itself: they want to commit suicide because of things that are going on in life. Being forced to live is not an offense: besides, how can you offend someone when the only other option is to deny them existence in the first place? Circumstances within life prompt suicide, not existence itself. Thus, conception has no negative effects on he who is born: how he is raised and how he lives his life is what could eventually lead to a desire to take his life.
one has to consider the situation before any form of judgement can be made. Most people fear death and hence, don't go through... those who do, probably have a damn good reason. OR they've finally realised the genuine pointlessness of life and can't bare the thought of being so insignificant in the grand scale of things.
I haven't insulted your parents. Im just saying what the real reason behind you were born was, that's all (it's the same for everyone. Procreation is a selfish act, no matter how you look at it, and no matter how much the parents try to outweigh that selfishness by being generous to their children)Thaius said:
Are you suicidal? Do you know how a suicidal person thinks? Do you know that they simply don't care about the hurt it will inflict on others?Thaius said:
No you don't. You just assume that they don't care. Which is bullshit really, since the problem most suicidal people have in the first place is the fact that they care too much. It's not like they don't know that it might have negative consequences on others, it's just that often they don't see any other way out. And it doesn't really matter what someone non-suicidal say about it. A sanctimonious: "Well, look at the poor children in africa, they have it a lot worse than you!" won't help the feelings of desperation that a suicidal person is subjected to.
Are you lacking somwhat in the empathy department? I mean, I consider myself being a borderline psycopath, but still it isn't that hard to figure this shit out.
Got any proof for that statement?Thaius said:
My arguments for why conception makes perfect sense are pretty easy to see, but you can't come up with anything better than something so arbitrary as that? A little more effort please.
Oh yes, it is most certainly an offense. You act upon your own selfish desires with no care at all to how the person being born is feeling about being born. That is a clear breach of respect. That is caring only for your selfish desires to procreate, and not give a shit about the burden of life that you put on the one whose being concieved.Thaius said:
The other option is letting them stay in a non-existent form. In that state they can't care for anything, they are autmatically neutral simply becasue they don't exist. You choose to give them existence and all the burdens that comes with existing.
That is offensive. Which is why it is the fucking DUTY of anyone contemplating parenthood that they MAKE SURE their child has a happy and adequate childhood and feelings of idealism. They didn't ask to be born, the least you can do is making sure that existing doesn't feel like something bad, but rather something nice.
(of course, this is something that A LOT of parents don't give a shit about, since they mistreat their kids on a daily basis. Yet another reason to be the misanthropic guy that I am)
Well in that case, suicide could simply be considered that the suicidal person simply goes back to the state he or she was in before being born. They didn't ask to be born and they certainly don't like it, therefore the go back to a state of non-existence by killing themselves.Thaius said:
Perfectly viable reasoning...
I do no such thing.Housebroken Lunatic said:
More accurately, they are preprogrammed with behaviors that have been useful enough for survival of the genes in the past. As I explained, suiciding can be such a useful behavior, e.g. by freeing resources, conditional on the environment. Not all behaviors are like breathing in that they are always performed no matter what. Even the procreation impulse you mention is dependent on specific things to trigger it. People behave differently when they are in a leader position and when they are in a subordinate position, a matter of considerable complexity. And they have a very keen built-in sense of when they "owe" something or "are owed" something in a social context. That is obviously connected with the person's true continued value to the community, which could be a part of the requisite triggers for a useful suicidal behavior.
That's a comforting illusion. But given an extreme enough situation, many people do sacrifice themselves for the good of "their own". For their children, for their comrades-in-arms, etc. Many other things, like the continued existence of homosexuals, attests that it's not all about the individual.
We have cultural evolution that conjures up things like moving to live in isolation and celibate in a monastery (probably not beneficial to our genes). But what drives us to do such things is curiosity, desire for strong group identification, etc. Traits which, before cultural evolution provided them an extreme outlet, would probably have been beneficial for the genes.
I believe Albert Camus once described suicide as the only real philosophical problem. It is, in all reality the ultimate answer to the only question in philosphy that really matters, which is "Is it all worth it"?
As far as categorizing suicide as a noble cause or selfish act, I suspect it depends upon the context. Afterall, ultimately we are all going to die and many of us will intentionally embark upon paths that will likely hasten our demise. In some ways, there is an almost admirable trait among the addicts of the world, for through their indulgance of vice they have taken some measure of control over their ultimate destiny.
But, that's all a bit far afield and not terribly relevent to the direct topic at hand. The question ultimately becomes I suppose is there any intrinsic nobility to be found in death? If one chooses to die because they determine life simply isn't worth living they are taking a bold gamble; since they cannot possibly truly know what awaits them they are wagering that anything must be better than whatever trials they must endure in their daily lives. Often this can be seen as a selfish act becuse whatever relief the person gains seemingly must be weighed against the suffering they cause others. But, if this suffering is inevitable is is one's death, is it truly selfish to suffer in order to delay the suffering of others? Here it seems we arrive at a conundrum where either path leads to inevitable, natural suffering and the paradox is only resolved at the individual level. At the end of it all, it seems that a person's duty must first and foremost lie with himself, and as such continued existance in the face of unberable torment is an act of magnomity that ought not be expect by others.
But, not all suicidal courses are undertaken to escape. People around the world have witnessed the phemenmon of the suicide bomber and condemned the perpetrators as inhuman monsters and psychopaths but is this really a fair assertion? Afterall, every culture has it's history of the valliant warriors engaged in a hopeless last stand against a hated foe. The defenders at the Alamo almost certainly knew they were destined to die should they attempt to hold the makeshift fortress and the final defenders at Camerone certainly couldn't have any illusions about their fate with all but five of them had been struck down and they had but a single volley left to defend their hacendia with. In such suituations, one has to wonder precisely why these men who had opportunity to escape and prolong their lives chose to stand and fight against an almost certain death. In such situations, it seems that people have the capacity to place other values or ideas above the need for self-preservation yet just as surely we know that their death will likely cause some relative or family member grief. Is such a magnonimous gesture really noble or does it fall victim to selfisness as well?
As far as categorizing suicide as a noble cause or selfish act, I suspect it depends upon the context. Afterall, ultimately we are all going to die and many of us will intentionally embark upon paths that will likely hasten our demise. In some ways, there is an almost admirable trait among the addicts of the world, for through their indulgance of vice they have taken some measure of control over their ultimate destiny.
But, that's all a bit far afield and not terribly relevent to the direct topic at hand. The question ultimately becomes I suppose is there any intrinsic nobility to be found in death? If one chooses to die because they determine life simply isn't worth living they are taking a bold gamble; since they cannot possibly truly know what awaits them they are wagering that anything must be better than whatever trials they must endure in their daily lives. Often this can be seen as a selfish act becuse whatever relief the person gains seemingly must be weighed against the suffering they cause others. But, if this suffering is inevitable is is one's death, is it truly selfish to suffer in order to delay the suffering of others? Here it seems we arrive at a conundrum where either path leads to inevitable, natural suffering and the paradox is only resolved at the individual level. At the end of it all, it seems that a person's duty must first and foremost lie with himself, and as such continued existance in the face of unberable torment is an act of magnomity that ought not be expect by others.
But, not all suicidal courses are undertaken to escape. People around the world have witnessed the phemenmon of the suicide bomber and condemned the perpetrators as inhuman monsters and psychopaths but is this really a fair assertion? Afterall, every culture has it's history of the valliant warriors engaged in a hopeless last stand against a hated foe. The defenders at the Alamo almost certainly knew they were destined to die should they attempt to hold the makeshift fortress and the final defenders at Camerone certainly couldn't have any illusions about their fate with all but five of them had been struck down and they had but a single volley left to defend their hacendia with. In such suituations, one has to wonder precisely why these men who had opportunity to escape and prolong their lives chose to stand and fight against an almost certain death. In such situations, it seems that people have the capacity to place other values or ideas above the need for self-preservation yet just as surely we know that their death will likely cause some relative or family member grief. Is such a magnonimous gesture really noble or does it fall victim to selfisness as well?