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Comment by smusamashah | Hacker News Reader

Permission is probably correct here. Unless you can live in a close box in isolation without ever needing to depend on another living or having someone depend on you, then sure you can live/die on your own terms.

You live by the rules of whatever society you are living in. You don't live in isolation, you depend on countless other living beings to be where you are in this point of time in your life. Life is interconnected web, not an isolated event.

Your life has a value for other people too. No one can force you to live. "Permission" does not mean being forced. Unless you are physically unable to have a life, you should be needing a permission.

We already give permission in courts and write rules on how a person should live (or not) their lives for so many reasons we think are beneficial/harmful for rest of us. How is this any different?

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Because it's naive to think a person wanting to end their own life is going to be deterred by a law?

Like what are they doing to do, throw your body in prison? Hand your body a fine?

They will not let you have a reliable and painless death. I bet some people will be stopped by the pain that a traditional suicide methods might bring, as well as the risk of staying alive but getting mutilated for the rest of their life as a result.

^ This. The risk of becoming a vegetable from a botched suicide is pretty high. The last thing a suicidal person wants is to make their life even worse.

That's the kind of suicide one is going to do anyway. I am here talking about the one which someone is sane enough to seek assistance or buy a device like in the article.

We already put people with mental issues in mental health facilities instead of killing them. We could probably do something similar (not the same) for people who decide to take their own lives and seek out before doing it.

So the plan is to cause bureaucratic headaches and forced treatment options for people who openly and sanely admit they don't like being here, leaving only the messy and less effective methods easily available?

This is one of those, "in theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there are" situations.

Nobody owes society anything. In fact, the reverse is true: society owes things to those brought into this world without being asked: clean water, safety, clean environment, reasonable standards of living. I just don't see how it could cross anyone's mind to try to prevent people from ending their life, since they didn't ask to be here in the first place, to support a society that has clearly failed that individual.

If a society is good and just and receives conscious support from people, that's acceptable. But I don't see how it could possibly justify interfering with a right of self determination w.r.t. ending the ride early.

I guess I just don't get it. It seems cruel and Kafkaesque.

Forced treatment is opposite of how a person already sick of this world needs to be treated. That's not what I was suggesting. Something like providing a way to live a totally different kind of life in a totally different environment might actually help. Psychiatrists etc can suggest better ways.

Society usually tries to help, not deny the rights in a larger scheme of things. If you find someone on the verge of ending their life will you judge their sanity based on their age (what age if so and why) before deciding whether or not you should stop them or just let them do it because they must have a good reason?

I always wonder how we decide that at certain age a person is sane enough to start making decisions for their own life. In some ways or the other, we always need assistance from other people no matter how adult we become. This is just one of them. Society thinks it can help people from killing themselves just like we help kids from killing themselves unknowingly for first many years of their lives.

Attemped suicide should be a capital offence

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