Rationality Quotes May 2012

OpenThreadGuy

Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
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No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

I've argued on a number of occasions on this site that people who're suicidal are usually not in a position to accurately judge the expected value of staying alive, but honestly, if a person's life really isn't worth living, why should they have to?

This is a question that is very close to me, and which I've been chewing over for the better part of a decade. I have had a close personal friend for many years with a history of mental illness; having watched their decline over time, I found myself asking this question. From a purely rational standpoint, there are many different functions that you can use calculate the value of suicide versus life. As long as you don't treat life as a sacred/infinite value ("stay alive at all costs"), you can get answers for this.

My problem is that a few years... (read more)

3chaosmosis14y

"If a person's life really isn't worth living [objectively]" then the person should stop caring about flawed concepts like objective value. "If a person's life really isn't worth living [subjectively]" then they should work on changing their subjective values or changing the way that their life is so it is subjectively worth living. If neither of the above is possible, then they should kill themselves. It's important that we recognize where the worth "comes from" as a potential solution to the problem. This insight brought to you by my understanding of Friedrich Nietzsche. (Read his stuff!)

0[anonymous]14y

They don't "have" to keep going but striving for better is a more optimistic encouragement is it not? I would rather teach someone that they have worth rather than tell them that suicide (Which will undoubtedly have negative effects on their family if they have a family that loves them) is what I want for them too.

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