karl@dartvax.UUCP (Karl Berry) (04/04/84)
`Rational', `irrational,' and the general tone of the article seem to indicate that it's ``wrong'' to commit suicide. Er, ``selfish.'' Although committing suicide certainly affects more people than just the suicider [-ee?] I don't think that makes it selfish. It is likely, perhaps, that: 1. Not all that many people would be affected -- empirically, people with lots of friends don't commit suicide, they have other things to worry about. ( Relaionships take time, after all. ) 2. The people who are won't care all that much, for all that long. The same reasoning applies. And people do ``bounce back,'' rather quickly, if someone close to them dies. 3. If the suicider is serious, and not just trying to get attention, it should be his choice to die, and people who do like him will probably understand that. People who don't like won't care anyway. I think that trying to elicit motivations for suicide is a fascinating pastime, but not, in the end, very useful or helpful. We're still alive. karl@dartmouth <> {cornell,decvax,linus}!dartvax!karl
rccall@dartvax.UUCP (R. Christian Call) (04/05/84)
I agree with Karl. I wish everybody would shut up about suicide being "wrong." For Christ's sake, if someone is going to commit suicide, can't he at least be allowed to do THAT?
hutch@shark.UUCP (Stephen Hutchison) (04/05/84)
<. . . kill myself . . . Headline news . . .> | I agree with Karl. I wish everybody would shut up about suicide | being "wrong." For Christ's sake, if someone is going to commit | suicide, can't he at least be allowed to do THAT? | (R. Christian Call) I quite disagree. The suicide is stealing something very valuable from me and everyone else - a human life. This may seem maudlin, but the value of a life is in the good or evil it gives to other lives, and in prematurely truncating itself, the possibility of further good is abolished. Hutch