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Jayson_Virissimo comments on Rationality Quotes December 2011 - Less Wrong
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I think this quote unfairly trivializes the subjectively (and often objectively) harsh lives suicidal people go through.
As a 911 Operator, I have spoken to hundreds of suicidal people at their very lowest moment (often with a weapon in hand). In my professional judgment, the quote is accurate for a large number of cases (obviously, there are exceptions).
I have read that a majority of people who survive suicide attempts end up glad that they did not succeed (although I can no longer remember and thus cannot vouch for the source.) A somewhat alarming proportion of my own acquaintances have attempted suicide though, and all except for one so far have attested that this is the case for them.
There are many people who want to die. There are few who are willing to commit suicide to do it.
The point is that whether and how much one wants to die tends to fluctuate a lot, and the willingness to commit suicide depends a lot on the availiability of means to easily and painlessly do so. A large percentage of suicide attempts are opportunistic rather than planned. The planned ones probably succeed more often, but that does not necessarily mean that those people really wanted to die more - just that their will to die was over a certain threshold for a certain time.