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Comment by pwim | Hacker News Reader

In Canada and the US, it is common to not payout in the case of suicide within two years of creating the contract (the same as Japan).

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When I was going through a dark period financially and emotionally, I specifically looked for life insurance policies that did not exclude suicide and had only a two year exclusion period. They do indeed exist in the US; I hold such a term life policy at the moment.

Don't do it!

As a quote I read yesterday illustrated: Be thankful for what you haven't, for it's less worry.

Oh no no no no no, those plans are well past. I was just commenting that life insurance plans do exist where they pay out in the event of suicide (although they're conditional).

> Don't do it!

I get why you're saying this, but it bugs me when people tell those with an inclination to commit suicide to not do it.

It's not your life, and your judgments about its current and future value are meaningless. The person living the life, and that person alone, can meaningfully judge the value of continuing to be alive. It's arrogant and dickish to tell a person about the value that continuing to live has, even if well intentioned, and doubly so in the case of a person you (likely) do not know.

Naturally, you are correct, when taken to logical extreme. However, the bread and butter of communication is assumption (shared meaning of words, etc.). It's probably fair to assume that most people within this community can look forward to some relative happiness and achievement in life, and I don't think it's bad to support one another in "powering through" bad times. I'm no hard-line pro-lifer: if my grandma asked me to help her suicide, like she quietly mentioned she might many years earlier as the two of us watched her mother die, I'd certainly consider it.

When things were not...going well, I took inspiration from Winston Churchill: "If you're going through hell, keep going."

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