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Comment by fzeroracer | Hacker News Reader

It's both sad and frustrating that an entire industry treats suicide as merely a cost of doing business. That these statistics are hidden from the public is also a shame.

Instead we prefer to sweep away the deaths of people because it's bad for business. Because it's gruesome and the reality is too much to bear.

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I'm curious how you think the industry should be treating suicide? I'm not sure if the hotel of death is the right way to go about things, and checking up on every guest from in-town to see if they are going to kill themselves doesn't seem very practical.

> Instead we prefer to sweep away the deaths of people because it's bad for business. Because it's gruesome and the reality is too much to bear.

I assume the "we" here refers to society? If so, I don't really see the issue of not announcing to everyone that there is a dead guy here and parading them around or something.

The issues behind suicide are quite complex and even if we are talking about suicide driven by a disconnection from all aspects of society, i don't see how hotels can even hope to help fix this problem.

I find people need someone to blame for things. It makes the world seem more manageable. It’s not really a rational reaction to the situation.

There are some quick easy things hotels can do.

They can sell only small quantities of medication commonly used in suicide attempts.

They can make it harder to access the rooftop of buildings.

They can put small signs giving contact details for a suicide prevention organisation in key places.

These aren't going to end suicide, but they do help reduce the numbers.

They do already, even without any goodwill, a suicide costs north of a few thousand, so it makes sense to try to reduce them.

In general, it's not the hotels' fault that guests commit suicide.

Maybe Las Vegas hotels which are also casinos deserve some scorn, however.

I was in Vegas last month for work & a woman was wailing in an adjacent room from 3am until I left around 6:30am. It was unsettling, to say the least. I could only imagine what events led up to her crisis & what fallout followed. It made for a sobering day of contemplation... I struggled w/ gamblig addiction in my youth. Coincidentally, I was asked no less than 5xs that day if I had bought my billion dollar lottery ticket... nobody cared for my response; "You can't lose if you don't play."

On topic, sorta: does anyone know the comedian who's skit is about a follow up phone call from management(police?) concerning a murder in an adjacent room she was staying in? Heard the skit on the radio a few months back and have wonderwd/searched for her name to no avail.

People want to kill themselves, very hard to stop. If not hotels, they'll choose another way. As for hotels: You pay $250 for the room and do NOT want nosy employees asking or watching you carefully, 99+% just want to stay there and be left alone, unless they call you.

While it's basically impossible to stop a person that is really really determined to kill themselves, many suicides can be prevented by making the means less available. For example, reducing the package size of paracetamol and requiring blister packaging instead of bottles reduced the number of suicides in Britain: https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/02/a-simple-wa...

You can still walk into as many pharmacies and buy as many tablets as you want in total, so in theory this shouldn't change anything. People still can - and do - kill themselves with tablets. In practice, it requires a much more premeditated plan which seems to hold off a substantial quantity of people.

The rational mind would see no difference between having to pop the pills out of the blisters individually or just having a tub of them.

A rational mind treats "I want to commit suicide" as a problem, and comes up with a myriad of solutions. It's not exactly hard to commit suicide in theory.

However people who commit suicide tend not to be thinking rationally, and it's amazing how small things can really help with reducing suicide.

I remember reading about a man who survived a suicide attempt jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. He felt overwhelmed with intractable problems and so he jumped. He immediately realized that all of the problems in his life could be dealt with... except for the fact that he was plummeting to his doom.

The idea that suicidal people will figure out a way no matter what is just ignorant of human nature. If you make something more difficult, people do it less.

Probably they want to kill themselves a certain second, but as climb the stairs, load the magazine or start unwrapping the Tylenols they change their minds.

(The mind is fickle like that, different people handle life issues differently so I pass no judgment. Personally, I think suicide is somewhat selfish, unless your children, parents /those dependent on you are cared for. But even with material things, they need the person in their life.)

That’s like saying that cancer is somewhat selfish. Don’t metastasize, your family needs you! Mental illness is a disease too.

Maybe at some point they may loose their free will, but that opens the Pandora's box...

With cancer you are never asked of you want it to kill you, the "cells" by itself decide.

I don’t think “free will” is a coherent concept. I’ve never seen a definition that actually makes sense.

There is no “you” besides the cells. Fundamentally, there’s no qualitative difference between some brain cells “deciding” to start replicating without limit, and some brain cells deciding to to swallow a lot of pills.

Does that mean there's no difference between a thinking mass of neurons asking you to remove the brain tumor, vs. the tumor that only expresses "grow"? If you would help that person remove the tumor, you're exposing a qualitative difference between the thinky bits and the not-thinky bits. If you wouldn't, then you're absolutely ridiculous.

That qualitative difference comes down to “disease.” I’m not sufficiently well versed in medical philosophy to give a good definition of that, but I know the distinction exists and is useful.

Suicidal tendencies are also disease. If you could identify the cells responsible and the person asked you to remove them, would you? How is that different from a tumor? (And for more fun, consider the cases where a tumor is causing suicidal impulses.)

I really dislike this "suicide is the most selfish thing", but I came to appreciate it for what it is - a meme. One of few of this kind society uses to discourage suicides. Others like that include pretty much every religion I've heard of making suicide a grave sin that will prevent you from reaching the desired afterlife.

I was commenting on hotels. I want to rest at the hotel, I don't want a hotel psychologist to ask me questions, research me or whatever, just because some may commit suicide.

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