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ZorbaTHut  2yr ago (text post)   Edited 2yr ago   38810 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022

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I defy anyone to explain this as a positive or neutral indicator.

Don't tempt the devil.

Given the preponderance of Utilitarians, Aeithiests, and Accelerationists on theMotte there is a very real possibility that someone will take you up on that.

Would love to hear it, and would listen in good faith.

Gonna rip any logic gaps apart though.

And if their argument is good then it would presumably be their position that we should increase the suicide rate, so interested to see if they bite that bullet or try to dodge.

Sure, let me try.

Assumption A: A life can be so bad as to be of negative value to the person themselves.

Assumption B: Because of self-preservation artifacts, not all whose lives are negative in value are determined to end them.

Assumption C: Your desire to kill yourself generally increases as your life value drops further into the negatives.

Conclusion: More suicides means more people were pushed from the margins of worse-than-worthless lives into making a correct decision. Of course it would be better if they were raised from those margins, but apparently we can't all have nice things.

Of course it would be better if they were raised from those margins, but apparently we can't all have nice things.

This would be a stronger conclusion if we actually examined the problem to figure out what was pushing them into the decision. I don't think the majority of suicides are people who are actually suffering from material deprivation. The problem is fundamentally an emotional/mental one where people feel that life is not worth living. And in theory helping people find reasons to live and instilling purpose should be doable!

Suicide rate doesn't seem to correlate with GDP-per-capita, just ask Japan and South Korea.

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