suicide thought prompt

[vla1ne]

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Interesting legal idea, if you passed a law that the legal guardian or next of kin of a suicide victim would be prosecuted, would that make people think twice...eitherway we're a bit off topic here

in this thread, i'd like to discuss killing yourself. and potential ways to prevent it. if you want to discuss ways to increase it, that's fine too.

 

so starting with the initial prompt for the idea (thank you winter), let's discuss how effective it might be to pass a law like this. if the next of kin (within reason) were to be held liable for your death, do you think it would help lower the amount of suicides? personally, i think it would be lowered, but the people committing suicide would shift sideways, from those who can't handle life but love their family, to those who could handle life, but have no way to get out of a shitty situation and want some way to end the pain and strike back simultaneously. it'd be a new niche to affect basically, a smaller one doubtless, but one that's far easier to affect.

[mitchermitcher]

It could lower the rates a bit but it just feels really unfair to hold next-of-kin liable for this. Also, in the first place when you suicide you hurt the people around you, and people do it all the time anyway. Adding more legal harm shouldn't have too much of an effect(no sources, just venturing a guess).

 

As for people who would now have an incentive to suicide, they're probably much more of a statistical insignificant than the other camp, and at least that means there are more people committing suicide with an actual motive other than depression. Maybe it's just me but I'd rather have that.

[vla1ne]

It could lower the rates a bit but it just feels really unfair to hold next-of-kin liable for this. Also, in the first place when you suicide you hurt the people around you, and people do it all the time anyway. Adding more legal harm shouldn't have too much of an effect(no sources, just venturing a guess).

 

As for people who would now have an incentive to suicide, they're probably much more of a statistical insignificant than the other camp, and at least that means there are more people committing suicide with an actual motive other than depression. Maybe it's just me but I'd rather have that.

aye, but what would the punishment be in the case of successful suicide? i mean, killing yourself has gotta be in its own class as far as crimes go. the punishment would have to represent as much. but i can't think of anything really, that would be both fair and effective at the same time. if you ruin the lives of the people left behind, then at that point, you're basically shooing a sad-faced kitten. the punishment for a failed suicide also would be rather strange. a punishment for those who fail would be rather pointless, considering the person in question, apparently wants to die anyways. i just can't see any real way to turn it criminal, without it being either ineffective, or extremely cruel/unfair. 

[mitchermitcher]

Personally I don't believe suicide should be labeled a crime so I wouldn't really assign it a punishment. A failed one, if it compromised the safety of another individual or two should get punished but otherwise I don't really feel anything is appropriate either.

 

The thread reminds me though, in Japan when people commit suicide in apartments, sometimes the suicidee's parents have to pay the apartment owner compensation money to rebuild the building because they believe a room owned by someone who's committed suicide is cursed and it wouldn't sell. That's effectively a legal burden on the next-of kin already and Japan's rates are still skyhigh.

[vla1ne]

yeah, i really can't see a way of punishing it that isn't extremely unfair, wouldn't want to advocate something like that. 

 

on another strain though, what would be a decent way of stopping it, therapy's not a bad idea, but standard therapy isn't for just anybody since it's different for everybody. support group establishment might be a good compensation. helping people adapt to the world around them is my nomination for the best solution. getting the world to adjust is way more work, and way less effective, than teaching people to adapt, or punishing people for succeeding or failing.

[~ P O L A R I S ~]

I can't imagine those who'd commit suicide would have much respect for their next-of-kin anyway, sadly. 

[vla1ne]

I can't imagine those who'd commit suicide would have much respect for their next-of-kin anyway, sadly. 

some leave notes, at the very least they care, and there's those who do it because they think they're a drag on the people around them. it's technically a mind game, if you kill yourself to relieve those around you (whether they are correct about said assumption is irrelevant) then having a law that reverses the effect of this tactic, is likely to halt, or at least heavily slow down, a few brands of suicide.

[~ P O L A R I S ~]

If it were at all a consideration it could just as easily increase suicides committed by those who'd want to antagonize close relatives. Suicide is such a vicious, violent condemnation of one's close relatives - probably the worst - that something as a trivial as a sum of money would not tip the scales into respecting them. The narrative that people kill themselves to do their families a favour, as an act of altruism, sugarcoats what suicide is and how devastating and haunting it is to relatives. 

[LordCowCowCowCowCowCowCowCow]

As someone who often has suicidal thoughts I can say that it's not so easy to remember the people who you could hurt by doing it. Killing yourself is never a rational response so trying to put something in place that would require someone to think of the reprucussions won't do much.

If it did cause someone to think twice about it it would only be a way to make them feel guilty. To make them think if they did this it would be just causing more problems. Something many suicidal people already think they're doing. It would serve to drive them deeper into the feelings of uselessness knowing that they keep thinking about doing something that would harm their next of kin in such a way.

Add to that there's so many different reasoning for people wanting to kill themselves. Personally it's because of my obsessive paranoia and anxiety which is what causes me to constantly check messages and chats and threads even if I want to do something else. Which keeps me thinking over and over about all the things I need or want to do that makes me obsess so much that I don't do anything. That makes me feel as though there's "something" out to get me behind every door, every wall, under my bed, in my closest, across the street. That makes me wake up in the night in a panic to make sure I locked my bedroom door because what if something was going to kill me in my sleep that could be thwarted by a simple lock?

This was rambling and sort of just going with the flow because I wanted to properly express how it feels inside my mind to basically...to sum it up say.

No this wouldn't help many cases and suicide is not a singular issue that has a simple single solution for everyone.

[(GigaDrillBreaker)]

Not to mention that this would increase the rate of people who commit suicide as a sort of revenge to those around them, since that very much exists already.

[The Warden]

Plus it would be unfairly punishing people in cases where the suicidee didn't even let on there was a problem. Many suicides tend to surprise a vast majority of people, since those people who killed themselves never expressed how they felt. Take Robin Williams. Knowing that man's career and what he's done, would you even think for a second that he'd commit suicide before he did it?

 

A teacher I had in high school hung himself from a bridge due to his depression a few years ago, and that came as a great surprise to me and his family that he'd go and do that.

 

One issue with suicide is that usually the person doing it never reveals that they're unhappy, usually because they feel like they can't even express their feelings to even their loved ones. It's dumb to punish that sort of thing when, quite often, it's completely out of everybody's hands.

[Sunshine Jesse]

1. It's morally repugnant to punish someone who's already suffering in such a way.

 

2. People who do care will find ways to kill themselves that can't reasonably be ruled as suicide.

 

3. People who don't won't give a sheet.

 

Bad idea all around.

[Resident Fascist]

1. It's morally repugnant to punish someone who's already suffering in such a way.

 

2. People who do care will find ways to kill themselves that can't reasonably be ruled as suicide.

 

3. People who don't won't give a sheet.

 

Bad idea all around.

 

Discouraging Suicide is a good idea tho. Not like this tho

[Sunshine Jesse]

You discourage it by fixing society and the systemic imbalances that lead to it.

 

Not this.

[vla1ne]

You discourage it by fixing society and the systemic imbalances that lead to it.

 

Not this.

teaching people how to adapt is another method.