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Yeah, I figured someone would call me out on the false dilemma. Of course if there were other major benefits to the discussion, it could still be worth having. But my disagreement with you is as follows: 1) I think the increase in probability of suicides is non-tiny, 2) I don’t value “not having taboos” particularly highly, 3) I think there are better ways to express regret than by saying, essentially, “So did he do the right thing or what?”
If you somehow found out that someone had decided to kill themselves because of this thread, how confident would you be that they made the right decision? Would you feel glad that you had helped them think it through rationally? Or would you say “Oh shit”?
Edit: Hey guys, I have a bad habit of snarking people into hardening their positions. Sorry for being kind of a jerk here.
1) I think the increase in probability of suicides is non-tiny
What would be the mechanism linking this post to future suicides? (See also below.)
2) I don’t value “not having taboos” particularly highly
That would certainly help to explain your reaction. I, however, value it very highly indeed, and think that taboos are incompatible with rationality and "enlightenment" values (such as freedom of speech) more generally. (There could be exceptions, but they must always be considered, and never knee-jerk or uncritically inherited from general society.)
3) I think there are better ways to express regret than by saying, essentially, “So did he do the right thing or what?”
You have misunderstood the post. It does not ask whether Chris did the right thing. It invites readers to consider the rationality of suicide in general. It also invites them to critically examine society's attitude (of which you evidently happen to be an exponent). It does so as a tribute to Chris: this is a discussion that I think he would have wanted to see happen, and I feel he deserves to have his fellow aspiring rationalists pay some attention to this issue before he is forgotten.
If you somehow found out that someone had decided to kill themselves because of this thread, how confident would you be that they made the right decision?
So far as I am aware, my post does not contain any argument in favor of any particular person committing suicide. It is therefore difficult to imagine that anyone could rationally decide to kill themselves "because of" it. And I do not accept the Orwellian idea that we can (or should) prevent irrational suicides by avoiding discussion of the issue. Even if the effect were non-negligible (which I don't particularly believe), I would not consider it worth the censorship cost.
In short, while I may very well say "Oh shit" in response to such a suicide, the significance of that exclamation would not be any different than if the person had committed suicide in response to any other LW post I had written (on any other topic).
I don't think your post was irresponsible, but it does frighten me. Your reaction to the suicide -- to try to put yourself in the man's shoes, to understand the mindset and grievances of a person who might make such a decision, and to withhold the judgement that his decision was a mistake -- is clearly borne of kind and humane impulses. But I suspect that you're depressed yourself, and that your depression has hijacked and perverted those impulses.
Many commenters here have reacted to the suicide not with "how must he have felt" but with "how can we prevent more such things from happening?" It seems you think this reveals a lack of empathy or respect, and that someone who understood better what it's like to "not always be enthusiastic about their own existence" would approach the issue differently -- in the way you're approaching it. I wonder if it's occurred to you, and I hope that you'll consider it, that your understanding of what depression is like might actually be poorer than those making the banal and maudlin point that this was a tragedy and a mistake, precisely because depression can rob you of perspective.
But I suspect that you're depressed yourself
I am not, in fact, currently depressed, although I have been in the past. But I (in my non-depressed state) respect the feelings, wishes, and preferences of my depressed self, just like those of someone else like Chris.
Many commenters here have reacted to the suicide not with "how must he have felt" but with "how can we prevent more such things from happening?" It seems you think this reveals a lack of empathy or respect
I haven't said much of anything in response to most comments here; you seem to be extrapolating from things I said in the post. But there I was criticizing specific bad arguments, ones that are encountered in the general culture and not necessarily here ; the remark about lack of empathy was in specific reference to the argument from grief of friends and relatives.
the banal and maudlin point that this was a tragedy and a mistake
That it was a tragedy is certain; unfortunately, that doesn't automatically imply that it was a mistake.
However, it may very well have been a mistake in Chris's case. I'm not sure he realized how close he was (a few keystrokes by him or someone else, like me) to the kind of friendship he needed.
But it's that kind of miscalculation that would make it a mistake, and not the mere fact that other people are sad, or that "we must prevent suicide" is a widespread moral-sounding meme.
I myself am very sad about this, and become more so the more I read his writings. I hope he is not forgotten.
Yikes. This post strikes me as harmful and irresponsible. Less Wrong is less of a community than I'd like -- less there for its members, less mindful of what effects each person has on the others and on the rest of the community.
I agree, actually, that all subjects are fitting subjects for rationality. But if you’re going to talk with someone who is suicidal and unstable about the detailed pros and cons of killing themselves, you risk having seriously bad consequences. Saying “but free speech is good, and thinking through all subjects is good” just isn’t enough of an answer to that. Talking about some subjects brings responsibilities -- responsibilities for thinking carefully through who you might harm, and how you can support them during the discussion. Offering help.
LW has a number of seriously depressed people.
Since this thread is already up -- let's make an effort now to reach out to anyone who needs reaching out to, to increase the odds that depressed LW readers have social support. That is: if you know a LW-er online or in person who is depressed, make contact with them. If you're a good listener with a couple of free hours in your life, echo Alicorn's offer of help. If you have a bit of spare money and a good CBT book to recommend, offer to mail it to someone who'd read it. If you have useful well-being tips and can write, consider making a front-level post (on happiness tips or CBT or the like, not on topics that might prime suicide).
I really don't understand your objection to this post specifically. I tried to craft it in the most sensitive way possible, it wasn't directly addressed to suicidal people themselves, and you agree that all subjects are fitting subjects for rationality. Furthermore, many commenters (including yourself) have in fact used it as an opportunity to reach out to those in the community suffering from depression.
What aspects of this post are so harmful that you think they outweigh the benefits, and how could it have been better written so as to allow the topic to be discussed while minimizing harm?
I remember in Influence how there was a whole chapter about increases in suicides after highly-publicized suicides, and even increases in apparent accidental deaths after highly-publicized accidental deaths. I'm surprised no one else has brought it up. Has this been debunked in some way, or is this thread a really terrible idea?
Has this been debunked in some way, or is this thread a really terrible idea?
Those are not the only two alternatives.
If minimizing the number of suicides were the only consideration, then you might have a (weak) argument that this post is a bad idea. (But note that gimpf's link specifically discussed television coverage; more generally, the "copycat effect" is generally considered to be a result of sensationalizing or glorifying suicide, not merely discussing it.) However, there are other, competing, values involved, such as:
- not having taboos
- finding out in what circumstances suicide is and isn't rational
- finding out to what extent our society's approach to combatting suicide is ethical
- acknowledging the death of a LW user ("one of our own"), and expressing sadness at the loss of a valuable member of the human species
and in my judgement these outweigh whatever tiny increase in the probability of some future suicide you're worried may result from this post. Not to mention the possibility that some people reading this post and the comments here might be less likely to commit suicide than they otherwise would have been. (Even if a significant copycat effect applies to this kind of discussion [unlikely], the LW readership is an atypical population, more likely to be moved by argument, and more likely to be regretful of Chris's death in particular.)
Ironically, society's demonization of suicide and suicidal people has negative consequences even from the standpoint of preventing suicide itself, as Chris points out:
I passionately hate that all of the mental health people are obligated by law to commit me to an asylum if they think I’m about to kill myself. They can’t be objective. You know, if they could talk to me without such stupid constraints, they might have prevented this very suicide
Does it overall cause more suicides than it prevents? I don't know. However, speaking as someone who has a history of clinical depression, if I'm ever in circumstances where I am contemplating suicide, I want people to commit me. Because when I'm functional I'd consider suicide to be completely and utterly awful. So where is the line here? When do we decide that someone is rational enough to decide on their own to end their existence and when not? These are certainly difficult questions, but it does seem that the majority of people who attempt suicide and do not have terminal illnesses are being essentially irrational. On the other hand, preferences are hard to break down here, and if the technology doesn't exist to cure someone then should they have a right to end it now rather than waiting years? Another thing to consider is that from a utilitarian perspective, committing suicide generally makes everyone around you absolutely miserable, and will then always cause pain for them. In that regard, committing suicide is either misguided or selfish.
from a utilitarian perspective, committing suicide generally makes everyone around you absolutely miserable, and will then always cause pain for them. In that regard, committing suicide is either misguided or selfish.
Not necessarily; it depends on whether the pain they will experience is enough to outweigh the pain that the suicidal person will experience by staying alive.
Ethics and rationality of suicide
I was saddened to learn of the recent death by suicide of Chris Capel, known here as pdf23ds. I didn't know him personally, but I was an occasional reader of his blog. In retrospect, I regret not having ever gotten into contact with him. Obviously, I don't know that I could have prevented his death, but, as one with mental-health issues myself, at least I could have made a friend, and been one to him. Now I feel a sense of disappointment that I'll never get that chance.
Having said that, I must say that I take his arguments here very seriously. I do not consider it to be automatic that every suicide is the "wrong" decision. We can all imagine circumstances under which we would prefer to die than live; and given this, we should also be able to imagine that these kinds of circumstances may vary for different people. And if one is already accepting of euthanasia for incurable physical suffering, it should not be that much of a leap to accept it for incurable psychological suffering as well.
Of course, as Chris acknowledges, this doesn't imply that everyone who is contemplating suicide is actually being rational. People may for instance be severely mistaken about their prospects for improvement, especially while in the midst of acute crisis.(Conceivably, that could even have been his own situation.) Nonetheless, I think many of the usual arguments that people use to show that suicide is "wrong" are bad arguments. For example, consider what is probably the most common argument: that committing suicide will inflict pain upon friends and family. It frankly strikes me as absurd (and grotesquely unempathetic) to suppose that someone for whom life is so painful that they would rather die somehow has an obligation to continue enduring it just in order to spare other people the emotion of grief (which they are inevitably going to have to confront at some point anyway, at least until we conquer all death).
Ironically, society's demonization of suicide and suicidal people has negative consequences even from the standpoint of preventing suicide itself, as Chris points out:
I passionately hate that all of the mental health people are obligated by law to commit me to an asylum if they think I’m about to kill myself. They can’t be objective. You know, if they could talk to me without such stupid constraints, they might have prevented this very suicide
It seems to me very possible that our society's fervor to prevent suicide may result in denying severely depressed people the compassion they need. This could theoretically be worth it if it prevented enough suicides that turned out to be worth preventing, but cases like Chris's raise doubt about this, in my mind. (From both angles: if Chris's decision was the right one for him, then the system is saving people it shouldn't be saving; if on the other hand it was the wrong decision, then we clearly see how the system failed him.)
Although I'm inclined to be sympathetic to Chris's view -- perhaps because I haven't always been maximally enthusiastic about my own existence myself -- there are some arguments that do worry me. Such as: if you think of future versions of yourself as separate agents, then suicide is a form of homicide. However, usually suicide is carried out on the belief that the future selves would approve of their nonexistence; and all of our decisions have consequences (often irreversible) for our future selves, so this is a general ethical problem that transcends the specific issue of suicide.
This post is a place to rationally discuss the ethics and rationality of suicide, as well as our attitudes (on an individual level, and as reflected in our institutions) toward suicidal people and, more generally, those suffering from psychological conditions such as depression.
I'm sad that Chris won't be able to participate.
You have to put yourself in environments where you'll be able to interact with a lot of women. College is in a lot of ways set up perfectly for this: if you're not in college right now, consider joining a class or an activity group. Try to make it one where the gender balance will be in your favor. Book groups are one example--they're wildly tilted towards women (I suspect men just, you know, read books, and don't tend to see the value in sitting around sipping coffee and talking about reading books). But if you like girls who wear glasses, try finding a congenial book group. You'll probably be the only man.
Even better than book groups, though, are dance classes. Swing and rockabilly aren't super trendy anymore, but the scenes still exist in a quieter way, and these classes are great for single men: a) they're filled mostly with women; b) dance is an inherently flirtatious activity, and the physical leading/following dynamic is one that many women find very sexy; c) even if you don't find a date in that class, you'll have learned an attractive skill, and you'll be able to participate in events that will introduce you to more women; and d) physical exercise is good for building both confidence and sexiness. Yoga classes might work too, or if you can find a martial arts practice that attracts significant numbers of women (maybe check out your local aikido classes?).
The SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) is also a surprisingly good choice for geeks who want to hook up. Wearing princess dresses is enough of a draw for women that the gender balance, while tilted towards men, isn't too awful, and so many relationships get started in the context of SCA events that there's a joke about it. (The joke is that "SCA" actually stands for "Society for Consenting Adults.")
There are of course singles bars or activities like speed-dating that are specifically designed to let you meet single women, so you could try those too. A lot of people find those environments stressful and frustrating, which is why I'd suggest finding a social scene that is not specifically about dating.
Lastly, let all your friends know that you're interested in meeting women. Ask to be introduced to their friends who are single. This is how people used to meet each other and it is still an important avenue to keep open.
You have to ask women out on dates. This part, I know, is hard, and I'm sorry to admit that many women don't even understand how hard it is. You will be rejected and it will suck every time, but this part is a numbers game. You just have to keep doing it until you find the girl who says "yes."
The pre-reqs for asking a girl out are fewer than you might think. It's best if you have already been introduced and have interacted a bit in a friendly manner. When I say a bit, I really mean just that you've spoken a few times. It is far, far more common for geek guys to err wildly in the opposite direction. Don't do this. If you like her, ask her out, and make your intentions unambiguous. The sooner the better.
If you're following my advice and meeting girls in activity classes, you would do this by approaching her just after one of the classes, maybe as she's getting her things together or as she's heading out the door. Make eye contact and smile. Start with a compliment that references the interactions you've had--"Hey, I've really been enjoying dancing with you [or "sparring with you," or, "I really liked what you said about the book"] and I wonder if I could take you out to a movie next week."
Be really clear about the fact that you're asking her for a date. Try not to say something like "I wonder if you'd like to meet for coffee and talk " because she could interpret this as merely a friendly gesture on your part, and you don't want that. A lot of inexperienced guys think they should establish a friendship before they ask a girl out, but you really don't want to sink a lot of time and energy into a girl who is never going to see you "like that." (It is true that established friendships can make a wonderful basis for romance, but never, ever count on that happening.)
Also, propose a specific activity and a specific time. Don't just say "I wonder if you'd go out with me some time" because a) it sounds a little desperate and b) a lot of women have trouble saying "no" directly (we're socialized not to). Leave her a face-saving way to refuse. If she says "I'd love to but I've been really busy with work/school/life recently," that means no. Move on. (If, on the other hand, she says "I'm going to Guatemala next week, but I'll be back by the end of the month, maybe then?" that means yes.)
Dealing with rejection: When you are rejected, try to be gracious about it, even if she is not. Like I said above, a lot of women truly do not understand how much gumption it takes to put yourself out there by making a pass. If she seems annoyed or condescending or whatever, try to shrug it off; just smile and say "okay, no problem" or something along those lines. Do the same thing if she says "I'd rather just be friends." (But for the love of Pete, do not spend a lot of effort trying to actually cultivate a friendship. Moooooove on.)
It does get easier the more you do it. Just remind yourself that it is a numbers game. The worst thing that can happen is not that you ask ten girls out and they all say no. The worst thing is that you ask ten girls, they say no, and then you stop asking. Because whether it was Girl #11 or Girl #83 who would've fallen head over heels for you, you'll never find her now. Keep looking to meet women, and keep asking them out; these are the two steps that lead to relationships.
Troubleshooting: If you do find that you are consistently rejected, there might be something going on with your self-presentation that is offputting to women. Make sure your basic hygiene is good: that you are wearing clean clothes that fit you, that your hair is cut and that you are clean-shaven. (Facial hair is Advanced Fashion for Men: if fashion is not your ballgame, just shave, trust me.) Ask your friends if there's anything going on with your looks or demeanor that might be getting in your way.
If you are overweight, start an exercise regimen, but do not wait until you are at your ideal weight to start asking women on dates. It is perfectly possible for big dudes to find love, they do it all the time. It IS more important to make sure that you wear flattering clothing that fits you well--a baggy, threadbare tee-shirt and Hawaiian shorts may not cut it. Use Google Images to find pictures of some of the heavier celebrities (like Sean Astin, or Seth Rogan before he slimmed down). Check out what they are/were wearing, and use those pictures as a style guide.
You may also be acting in ways that indicate you don't value yourself, which can make women (and other people in general) instinctively shy away. You will probably need the help of people who actually know you to diagnose these kinds of problems and help you fix them.
In general, though, from my observations, most geek guys are able to get dates so long as they go where the women are, and ask them out. The most common mistake by far is simply failing to execute one or both of these crucial steps.
b) a lot of women have trouble saying "no" directly (we're socialized not to).
I cannot possibly stress enough how non-obvious this is to "geeky" males.
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Nitpick: something does need to be certain to be true, but it only needs to have a high probability to to be rationally strongly believed.
The person you are replying to is unfortunately no longer with us. :-(