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Comment by SirFatty | Hacker News Reader

Someone can think about killing themselves for months or years before actually doing it.. are you suggesting that is irrational because there wasn't a plan or consideration of others?

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The final act itself is either rational, or irrational. I think most people commit suicide as an irrational sudden decision. They may have thought about it, they may have planned about it, but I think there’s a clear delineation between someone who says screw it, and kills themselves, versus someone who plans and commits the act with thoughtful deliberation. To make it easier to understand, perhaps you might look at this between a person who sees a train coming and decides in that moment tk step in front of the train, and someone who takes a Final Exit approach at home.

The mystery is what is going through the persons mind at the moment of self execution.

edit: I used the wrong word to describe a final act.

(sorry to be that guy, just a useful FYI)

I think you may want "ultimate"? penultimate = second-to-last.

Ah! Thank you, you’re absolutely correct. I changed it to “final“.

Living can be irrational too. There are plenty of people who are completely miserable with no hope or plan to make anything better, but still choose to live out of pure fear of death.

There's always a conversation over whether suicide is rational, but no one thinks to ask if living is rational.

Rationality seems like an irrelevant term here. Desire for suicide is obviously subjective and has no objective answer. I doubt spur of the moment suicides are very common, although the 'an hero' kid and the one that misunderstood their robinhood debt come to mind. Most suicide is going to be premeditated to a large degree. How certain do the specifics need to be for it to be considered rational? I think that's grey. A lot of people point to studies showing people who survive suicide attempts often say it was a mistake, but these strike me as having an enormous survivor bias embedded in them (not on the initial attempt, but on additional more successful attempts subsequently). So long as an act isn't based on strictly false premises or mind altering substances, I'm inclined to say most are "rational" if such a term can be applied.

I've never been suicidal, but I've always felt that strong anti-suicide advocates, while strongly well intentioned, might not be fully reasoning out their belief systems. I think I'd greatly prefer to go out on my own terms in old age, without need for qualifiers like pain or disability.

Recognizing the time for your conclusion is a tropey act for old characters in fiction, and implies deep wisdom. But in real life we assume anyone feeling similar has lost their mind.

Anytime there is talk of suicide in this community I’ve always remembered heartbreaking final words of Bill Zeller. Didn’t know him personally, but I would consider his act a rational one. I do think suicide can be irrational, which comes down to heat of the moment. I’ve had a few friends commit suicide, and it’s a horrible thing to endure, but I understand. A persons choice to in their life should be theirs completely, but I hope it’s one that is done with a rational thought out purpose. Not a spur of the moment thing.

https://gizmodo.com/the-agonizing-last-words-of-programmer-b...

“All 29 people who survived their suicide attempts off San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge have said they regretted their decision as soon as they jumped.”

https://ennyman.medium.com/a-lesson-from-29-golden-gate-suic...

Sure most suicide attempts aren’t done this way but I think statistics like this showcase how many suicides are irrational on some level. If it was rational then you’d think they wouldn’t immediately regret it (unless the regret is irrational I guess).

Perhaps their regret is a significant contributor to their survival though.

Or perhaps they are only saying they regret it so they aren't thrown into a mental hospital. I wonder if there was a follow up on longterm survival.

Of 515 people prevented by police from jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge between 1937 and 1971, by the end of the 70s only 6% of them had committed suicide by other means.

Source: "Where are they now?" by Richard Seiden

Interesting, thanks!

Or perhaps having the experience itself ("I survived the jump") is a significant contributor to their not regretting it.

There could even be multiple mechanisms there: "turns out being that close to death is really scary," or "my survival means there is a higher power looking out for me," or "my life flashing before my eyes made me realize something about my life"...

I've seem the "29 people" statistic quoted a few times but I think it's more interesting to look at medical studies about how many people reattempt it after failing the first time:

"Nine out of ten people who attempt suicide and survive will not go on to die by suicide at a later date. This has been well-established in the suicidology literature. A literature review (Owens 2002) summarized 90 studies that have followed over time people who have made suicide attempts that resulted in medical care. Approximately 7% (range: 5-11%) of attempters eventually died by suicide, approximately 23% reattempted nonfatally, and 70% had no further attempts."

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/survi...

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