What is Digg?171 Comments
- inactive, on 07/05/2008, -2/+42Oh no, all that text, I can't possibly read it all.
Seriously, SA is right, the internet makes you stupid. - kxxb, on 07/05/2008, -2/+36Six pages? Have you ever read a book?
- jgambleii, on 07/05/2008, -2/+32I had a friend blow his brains out in high school... I hope they find something that would help those on the edge. It's a shame to see a young life snuffed out.
- Pikester, on 07/05/2008, -2/+31I think if people want to end their own life, they should be able to. As to why, it's sometimes a better choice to end the burden of life rather than continue to live in pain and suffering.
At least that's what I think. - seastobble, on 07/05/2008, -0/+23I think this is one of the most poignant articles I've ever read on digg.
- RUGERSP101, on 07/05/2008, -2/+22Suicide is not selfish. Its selfish to demand someone suffer in order to avoid burdening others with grief.
- tzisc, on 07/05/2008, -0/+20when you identify yourself as a threat to your own well being; when you blame yourself for your pain and/or the pain you cause others, and when you cannot reconcile maintaining your concept of self with an escape from your current situation...
the current societal stigma associated with mental illness is pretty appalling. for all our advances in medical care and education, there is a consistent tendency to ignore and ostracize people with mental issues, even among medical practitioners. but i guess the question is, how do you help people who don't know, or refuse to acknowledge that they need to be helped? - funklor, on 07/05/2008, -1/+20It sucks, no doubt. Forcing someone to live for the benefit of others sucks more. Keeping someone alive so you don't feel bad is as equally selfish, IMO.
- Pusod, on 07/05/2008, -11/+29If you're so desperate to end you life right then and there, you should think about doing something that might cheer you up, like rob a bank first. If you get away with it, then suicide averted. If you get caught, well then blow your head off! No use in wasting your chance to get filthy rich right? Just saying.
- mrinsanity, on 07/05/2008, -2/+18Thanks, Hitler!
- inactive, on 07/05/2008, -2/+18There's a theory that you're an idiot.
- Qumahlin, on 07/05/2008, -1/+15The amount of people agreeing with this comment show you just how horrible and idiotic our society has become.
- inactive, on 07/05/2008, -2/+16Oh again with "Only humans can do X".
Dogs suicide. Cats suicide. Apes suicide. Elephants suicide. Most birds suicide.
They just choose to stop eating instead of choosing the violent route.
This article really sucked. He asks how suicide rates go down from the reduction of poisoning when it was thought that mental illness causes suicide. Except he forgets to look at the mental illness numbers. Making the other 5 pages useless.
Lots of things can cause mental illness and mental illness can cause suicide. But, suicide doesn't require mental illness. - solid12345, on 07/05/2008, -13/+27Makes me want to off myself too trying to read all of it
- gnotDigger, on 07/05/2008, -7/+20I was going to go kill myself after reading this, but there is no way I will ever finish it. You have saved a life.
- theprogrammer, on 07/05/2008, -2/+15The refusal to grant that suicide can be perfectly rational is the fallacy of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_consequence ...
- Pinkertinkle, on 07/05/2008, -5/+17Isn't suicide free will?
- Vodd9, on 07/05/2008, -0/+12Some dogs too happen to kill themselves out of depression.
- pbone, on 07/05/2008, -6/+17hey mr. babyman has a new icon
- inactive, on 07/05/2008, -1/+12Well that's only a solution if you find value in life through currency.
Money doesn't always bring happiness. There are plenty of rich people who live miserable lives. - HenvY, on 07/05/2008, -2/+12Not one that was linked to from digg.
- mrinsanity, on 07/05/2008, -11/+21Thanks MrBabyMan!
/sarc - Yookji, on 07/05/2008, -0/+10You didn't read the article. He showed that successful suicides are more often than not impulsive instead of premeditated, so erecting any barrier to allow the impulsive suicidal thoughts to pass has a high chance of preventing the suicide. The majority of those prevented from carrying out impulsive suicides lead fulfilling lives in the future.
From the article:
"For generations, the people of Britain heated their homes and fueled their stoves with coal gas. While plentiful and cheap, coal-derived gas could also be deadly; in its unburned form, it released very high levels of carbon monoxide, and an open valve or a leak in a closed space could induce asphyxiation in a matter of minutes. This extreme toxicity also made it a preferred method of suicide. “Sticking one’s head in the oven” became so common in Britain that by the late 1950s it accounted for some 2,500 suicides a year, almost half the nation’s total.
Those numbers began dropping over the next decade as the British government embarked on a program to phase out coal gas in favor of the much cleaner natural gas. By the early 1970s, the amount of carbon monoxide running through domestic gas lines had been reduced to nearly zero. During those same years, Britain’s national suicide rate dropped by nearly a third, and it has remained close to that reduced level ever since.
How can this be? After all, if the impulse to suicide is primarily rooted in mental illness and that illness goes untreated, how does merely closing off one means of self-destruction have any lasting effect? At least a partial answer is that many of those Britons who asphyxiated themselves did so impulsively. In a moment of deep despair or rage or sadness, they turned to what was easy and quick and deadly — “the execution chamber in everyone’s kitchen,” as one psychologist described it — and that instrument allowed little time for second thoughts. Remove it, and the process slowed down; it allowed time for the dark passion to pass." - Seizure, on 07/05/2008, -3/+13My generation has ADD.
- nypix, on 07/05/2008, -3/+12If you're going to live another untold years and are going to be miserable suicide is a viable option.
Nothing can replace health and happiness. - inactive, on 07/05/2008, -1/+10If you EVER consider suicide--instead, just flee to some other place... and restart your life.
- Pusod, on 07/05/2008, -0/+8To those people I say, "Blow it all on hookers, beer & weed!" That'll prolong your life.
- brundlefly76, on 07/05/2008, -0/+8Yeah depression is actually quite prevelant among people who become suddenly wealthy - you suddenly understand that money was never holding you back from being happy, just as much as it will not make you happy.
- wolferz, on 07/05/2008, -0/+8He is right, we are the only species on earth known to be capable of pondering our own deaths. This is the root cause of why we intentionally commit suicide and other creatures do not. However it's just the tip of that iceburg.
We are capable of pondering death, we are also capable of communicating complex concepts to each other without having to share the experience. Thus a 15 year old can learn what it's like to lay in a death bed for 2 years waiting to die. We can also take what we know of death and compare it to what we know of life and even place that within the context of our own life. Also we, like some other mammals, feel strong emotions. Now emotions are primarily just chemical reactions in the brain that cause physiological and psychological "reflexes" such as the tightness one feels in your chest at breaking up with your girlfriend or the way you no longer have the desire to get out of bed in the morning.
Put it all together what do you have? You have a mammal that is uniquely equipped to make logical decisions and yet has a habit of throwing logic out the window over emotional factors. Enter suicide. If life is being good to you and you are otherwise healthy you would examine your life and the concept of death and see death as a definite bad thing. You would be losing all those good times that are still yet to come. On the other hand if your life is an utter cesspool or, because of emotional/mental health issues, you think it is you will examine your life and the concept of death and see that death is a good thing. You will lose all those bad times that are still yet to come.
Many people commit suicide for petty reasons... ie girl friend dumped them, Marylin Manson told them to, their character got nerfed in WoW, etc. If these people were thinking locally they would see that whatever emotional distress they are in will pass and things will be alright... but emotional distress robs people of their ability to think logically. That's not to say people can't make comparisons at such times... just that their results tend to be rather heavily skewed.
However, take away the capacity for communication and pondering esoteric concepts and everything else I just said becomes irrelevant... of course so does all of the human races accomplishments. You can't have one without the other. For this reason I some times wonder if suicide isn't natures way of maintaining a sort of natural selection over a race of beings capable of building tools to defend themselves from anything else that she could through at them. - jenasaurus7, on 07/05/2008, -0/+8I agree with funklor. If a person so chooses to end their life, it is their decision. Not anyone else's. It is just as selfish to make someone keep living a life they don't wish to be in.
- dattaway, on 07/05/2008, -1/+8Dogs and cats are perfectly capable of ending it very quickly. If abandoned by their owners, they often find a car in the road or engage a predator.
- banmaster, on 07/05/2008, -3/+10I wonder who he stole it from.
- Aidje, on 07/05/2008, -0/+6single page: http://digg.com/arts_culture/Understanding_Suicide ...
- gnotDigger, on 07/05/2008, -0/+6you need to stop smoking so much genetically modified weeds, moderation my friend.
- banmaster, on 07/05/2008, -0/+6No
- ewc80, on 07/06/2008, -0/+6You know what is really sad?
- An article on a important and socially relevant subject = about 550 digs at this moment. (It is kinda a long read)
- Gmail has a ***** dot on it = 1000+ digs currently. (doesn't take long to look at a dot)
I should just make a website that has pictures of shiny stuff on it and rake in the ADD generated adsense $$$ - broncosoul, on 07/05/2008, -35/+41this article is way too long to read
- banmaster, on 07/05/2008, -0/+6As Jess2mix correctly states, this is only a good option if you're the kind of shallow bastard who thinks that 'stuff' is the ultimate goal of life.
- inactive, on 07/05/2008, -1/+7Traveling is probably the best cure for depression
- lostformat1125, on 07/05/2008, -0/+5dude your being selfish for calling him selfish....his pain is gone....yours will be too...
- gryphon50, on 07/05/2008, -0/+5i've oftentimes thought that desperate times call for desperate means...Maybe not robbing a bank or breaking the law, but if your life has you so down that you are considering suicide, maybe you should do something crazy like withdraw your savings, quit your job and go on vacation. Who knows, you might somehow get a new perspective or new hope in life. If the alternative is killing yourself and losing everything, why not make a radical change of some sort? As long as you're not hurting anyone, it can't be worse than suicide.
- thailand1972, on 07/05/2008, -0/+5Money is a bad example, but I understand what you mean: just "go crazy" (like fly to Laos and meet the woman of your dreams, and open a cushion shop in Vientiane for example). This life has so many possibilities, it's a real waste not to realise this.
- alwilson, on 07/05/2008, -1/+6For those of you who are too lazy or stupid to read the article, let me just say they brought up some good points. It's not so much that people shouldn't have the right to die, but often people are not thinking rationally when the make the decision to off themselves and those who live through it regret making the attempt. A very small percentage of people who fail at the first attempt go on to successful completion later. By making the act of suicide more difficult you can save the lives of people who might act out on impulse. It gives them some time to think things over. How many times have you been upset about something but after a good nights sleep, the problem doesn't seem so bad? If you had a loaded gun by the bedside, you probably wouldn't give yourself the chance to think about what you are about to do.
I feel sorry for anyone who is too lazy to read the article because it was very interesting. - Yookji, on 07/05/2008, -0/+5The age-old question: am I insane, or am I the only sane person in the entire world?
- thesparrowband, on 07/05/2008, -2/+7he's got a nice new icon
- Yookji, on 07/05/2008, -0/+5*cuts off thumbs*
IguessI'msafenow.Dammit,Ican'thitthespacebar! - Ursapater, on 07/05/2008, -0/+5Have you considered that some people choose to end their lives precisely BECAUSE they have no one in their lives. The implication here is that if they don't have any family or friends it's OK.
- Qumahlin, on 07/05/2008, -0/+4"how do you help people who don't know, or refuse to acknowledge that they need to be helped?"
You don't, you let them off themselves, natures way of fixing the problem and ensuring they don't go on to spread it. - rootsm3, on 07/05/2008, -0/+4***** insane? Is that your clinical diagnosis? Is that your tact on the floor?
- banmaster, on 07/05/2008, -0/+4And its NOT feasible for most people.
That suggestion is like telling a severely depressed person to 'just snap out of it', ignorant and thoughless. -
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