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by mistermann 4601 days ago
When people say things like this, I wish there really was a god we could invoke and offer these people the opportunity to put their life where their mouth is, put them in front of a god who offers them two buttons: push this one to never exists, or push that one to be born "in a place where I have a high change of dying of malaria, or dysentery" - I'd feel pretty confident betting money most of them would have a sudden change of heart.

EDIT: Come to think of it, if he's correct in his assumption that the non-privileged people of the world would tend to share his opinion, we should expect to see extremely high levels of suicide in these regions should we not?
1 comments
hackinthebochs 4601 days ago
Suicide is not the same not being born. Why is that concept so hard to grasp?

The whole idea of rather not having been born is specifically because that precludes any of those emotions that make it hard to off yourself no matter how bad your situation is. It also removes the usual arguments against suicide such as impact on your family and friends.

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mistermann 4601 days ago
It's not exactly the same. But if the life is so harsh that it's not worth living, more people would commit suicide, at least those with no families.

I'm happy to consider that going through the act of suicide has some additional emotional overhead that could account for a lower rate than we might expect. But, will you consider the possibility that maybe life in a 3rd world country isn't actually so bad that it isn't worth living?

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hackinthebochs 4601 days ago
Sure I freely admit that life in a 3rd world country isn't necessarily so horrible that its not worth living. Of course, I'm a bit puzzled where you derived that implication from any of my statements.

My original statement was simply a personal preference that I would choose not to live a life of suffering out of some romantic idea of the nobility of suffering, and that I'm sure there are plenty of people (especially those who end up on the wrong side of the statistics of various diseases) who would agree. It's absurd to think that someone should want to struggle through any sort of adversity for the chance of making it through on the other side. The rationality of this choice would completely depend on the various probabilities involved.

>But if the life is so harsh that it's not worth living, more people would commit suicide, at least those with no families.

This also isn't true. The self-preservation instinct is a powerful force. One can rationally decide that life isn't worth living but still be incapable of actually ending it.

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mistermann 4600 days ago
> Sure I freely admit that life in a 3rd world country isn't necessarily so horrible that its not worth living. Of course, I'm a bit puzzled where you derived that implication from any of my statements.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6719288 "Personally I'd rather not be born than be born in a place where I have a high change of dying of malaria, or dysentery."

Maybe it's a nuance of the language, but "rather not be born" and "not worth living" are roughly equivalent in my interpretation.

While life in the 3rd world, or places where you have a high change of dying of malaria, dysentery, etc is not a walk in the park, except for the very worst places people are probably far happier than you imagine. The human spirit is really quite resilient.

At the end of the day, I think we'll both decide to believe what we want on the matter. :)

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