Discussion Age caps in an ideal world

[Nemiik]

So, say the world allowed suicide. When someone wanted to die they could pay and the government or their doctor, or whatever, could give them a safe method.

Do you think there should be an age cap for someone to choose to die?

Personally, I think someone should be at least 18, maybe a couple years older or something, before they ctb. But, I also think there could be exceptions to that in certain situations, but generally 18~ seems like a decent number to me.

But, what about you guys?

 

[greamcrnec]

Euthanasia should be legal and free from birth til natural death.

 

[Sonnenblume]

Any age as long as they can demonstrate they understand the consequences of their actions. No one, regardless of age, should be forced to live.

 

[mwu14]

21 sounds like a good age. Some people's lives improve after they're 18. Late bloomers or people that just needed a change of scenery or both. If you're 21, you've had enough experience as an adult to have an idea if you want to continue.

 

[millefeui]

My opinion is that if "kids" these days are allowed to have sex younger than 18, they should be allowed to die, too.

In an ideal world, there would be no reasons whatsoever to take your own life, though, I believe.

 

[Nemiik]

Euthanasia should be legal and free from birth til natural death.

I mean, I'd love for it to be free, too, but either it'd be paid for via taxes - which no one will be happy about - or, the individual would just pay. :v But, maybe it could be a bit of both. Half-paid for by taxes, half-paid for by the individual. Or something like that, so it's more affordable.
Though if you're truly a dick, you could just leave the debt to your next of kin, or someone.

As for from birth, I'm not sure, personally. I can understand that, though. It's not like anyone asked to be born/live, so they should have the right to die if they don't want this.

My opinion is that if "kids" these days are allowed to have sex younger than 18, they should be allowed to die, too.

In an ideal world, there would be no reasons whatsoever to take your own life, though, I believe.

That's true, in my country you can consent as young as 14. I think it's possible for a younger teen like that to be able to decide if they want to live or die, and if they can show understanding of what it means when they decide that, then they should be granted a safe and peaceful death.
However, teens do stupid stuff. Their brains aren't fully developed. Plus, a teen's life is far from being what actual life is. Granted, it can be horrible in a lot of cases, but it's hardly comparable to the life of an adult. I'm talking about a general teen life, though...
Plus sex isn't as serious as death, especially not now where the western world is becoming so sex-positive. It's not like once you have sex you'll either die or never be able to move again.

But, yeah, in a true utopia there'd be no reason to die... But we can never reach a utopia, not anytime soon at least. ( and definitely not in our lifetimes... ) In the time being it'd be nice to have safe suicide options, like we have safe abortion clinics or something.

Any age as long as they can demonstrate they understand the consequences of their actions. No one, regardless of age, should be forced to live.

That's fair. I don't want to force someone to live, that's just cruel, but I do think there should be limits ( though with exceptions, as I believe there are always exceptions ) But, even if there is no explicit age cap, I do think there should be something.
Maybe a sort of queue. Such as, once you request to die, you'd have to schedule it for a few weeks or so in advance.... No same-day decisions, unless of course you have an illness you don't want to suffer through.
Maybe you have to pay for the method's resources... ( tho I do think it should be something affordable, just so those who are poor can afford it, since they generally need it the most. )

But, in the end, idk. I'm thinking about this and like to hear other opinions. Even if I doubt any safe, official, suicide methods will be available in my lifetime.

 

[DF90]

I personally think 25 is a good number.

 

[Sonnenblume]

I mean, I'd love for it to be free, too, but either it'd be paid for via taxes - which no one will be happy about - or, the individual would just pay. :v But, maybe it could be a bit of both. Half-paid for by taxes, half-paid for by the individual. Or something like that, so it's more affordable.
Though if you're truly a dick, you could just leave the debt to your next of kin, or someone.

As for from birth, I'm not sure, personally. I can understand that, though. It's not like anyone asked to be born/live, so they should have the right to die if they don't want this.



That's true, in my country you can consent as young as 14. I think it's possible for a younger teen like that to be able to decide if they want to live or die, and if they can show understanding of what it means when they decide that, then they should be granted a safe and peaceful death.
However, teens do stupid stuff. Their brains aren't fully developed. Plus, a teen's life is far from being what actual life is. Granted, it can be horrible in a lot of cases, but it's hardly comparable to the life of an adult. I'm talking about a general teen life, though...
Plus sex isn't as serious as death, especially not now where the western world is becoming so sex-positive. It's not like once you have sex you'll either die or never be able to move again.

But, yeah, in a true utopia there'd be no reason to die... But we can never reach a utopia, not anytime soon at least. ( and definitely not in our lifetimes... ) In the time being it'd be nice to have safe suicide options, like we have safe abortion clinics or something.



That's fair. I don't want to force someone to live, that's just cruel, but I do think there should be limits ( though with exceptions, as I believe there are always exceptions ) But, even if there is no explicit age cap, I do think there should be something.
Maybe a sort of queue. Such as, once you request to die, you'd have to schedule it for a few weeks or so in advance.... No same-day decisions, unless of course you have an illness you don't want to suffer through.
Maybe you have to pay for the method's resources... ( tho I do think it should be something affordable, just so those who are poor can afford it, since they generally need it the most. )

But, in the end, idk. I'm thinking about this and like to hear other opinions. Even if I doubt any safe, official, suicide methods will be available in my lifetime.

Why should anyone live according to your standards? Unless you can prove a person's better off here rather than not here, that life is worth enduring even a bit of pain, this argument has nothing to stand on. I did say there should be a screening process, and ok, if you wanna force em to see a counselor a few times, find. But in the end, if they are competent (they know who they are, basic facts about life and the world, and understand death is permanent, that it affects other's lives, blah blah blah) they ultimately should have the right, regardless of age. People can't seem to comprehend this but, no one's missing out on anything by not existing.

 

[typx]

I personally think 25 is a good number.

I agree with this.

 

[greamcrnec]

I mean, I'd love for it to be free, too, but either it'd be paid for via taxes - which no one will be happy about - or, the individual would just pay. :v But, maybe it could be a bit of both. Half-paid for by taxes, half-paid for by the individual. Or something like that, so it's more affordable.
Though if you're truly a dick, you could just leave the debt to your next of kin, or someone.

Here in the US we could pay for 100 years of euthanasia by reducing the amount of money we spend on the war in Afghanistan in one month by 0.01%. Cost is really totally irrelevant, I don't see how anyone could be morally opposed to using tax dollars to allow willing participants to die but not murdering innocent nonconsenting Afghan civilians, much less be fiscally opposed when we spend 30 billion per month there (More than enough to build new houses for every homeless person in the country)

 

[Nemiik]

Why should anyone live according to your standards? Unless you can prove a person's better off here rather than not here, that life is worth enduring even a bit of pain, this argument has nothing to stand on. I did say there should be a screening process, and ok, if you wanna force em to see a counselor a few times, find. But in the end, if they are competent (they know who they are, basic facts about life and the world, and understand death is permanent, that it affects other's lives, blah blah blah) they ultimately should have the right, regardless of age. People can't seem to comprehend this but, no one's missing out on anything by not existing.

First of all, you seem a bit on edge, so relax. Maybe I'm just misunderstanding that, though.

Second, you've missed my point. I didn't say anything about forcing them to see a counseller or forcing them to stay alive. In fact, I agreed with you.

I'm just saying, kids do impulsive stuff. An adolescents mind quite literally does not have the functioning capablitity to adequately judge their impulsive actions and the outcomes of those actions.

That's why, in most countries, teens can't consent to a lot of things, because in most cases they don't understand.
( there are exceptions, but they are just that - exceptions. )
I'm just trying to think logically, and think of how a pro-choice world would function.

It's not my standards because at the end of the day I dont care either way.

Hope that cleared my thoughts up.

 

[Nemiik]

Here in the US we could pay for 100 years of euthanasia by reducing the amount of money we spend on the war in Afghanistan in one month by 0.01%. Cost is really totally irrelevant, I don't see how anyone could be morally opposed to using tax dollars to allow willing participants to die but not murdering innocent nonconsenting Afghan civilians, much less be fiscally opposed when we spend 30 billion per month there (More than enough to build new houses for every homeless person in the country)

I dont live in the US so I'm not sure or knowledgable on that so I can't comment.

But, people are even currently opposed to people dying of their own accord without government influence / taxing. So I understand why people would be opposed to the passively assisting it / having to spend money to let someone die

I dont agree, but I can understand their thought process on that ( even if I don't get how they can be opposed to someone choosing what to do with their own life in the first place :v )

(( like, if someone is against, say, cutting trees they aren't going to be too happy about having to pay to let people cut down trees ))

 

[greamcrnec]

I dont live in the US so I'm not sure or knowledgable on that so I can't comment.

But, people are even currently opposed to people dying of their own accord without government influence / taxing. So I understand why people would be opposed to the passively assisting it / having to spend money to let someone die

I dont agree, but I can understand their thought process on that ( even if I don't get how they can be opposed to someone choosing what to do with their own life in the first place :v )

(( like, if someone is against, say, cutting trees they aren't going to be too happy about having to pay to let people cut down trees ))

If you live in a country with universal healthcare, euthanasia as a treatment for terminal depression could fall under the purview of public health.

 

[Nemiik]

If you live in a country with universal healthcare, euthanasia as a treatment for terminal depression could fall under the purview of public health.

My country ( Canada ) already has legalized Euthanasia, but only for those suffering horribly - physically ( and they have to be mentally stable, i believe, with no suicidal tendencies beforehand - but i could be wrong about that, i haven't checked in a few years ). And it's quite controversial with just that, with many being against it. Taking the step to legalize it for those who simply want to die but don't have a horrible illness or suffer through unbearable physical pain daily ( / only mental pain ) would surely cause an uproar... - I think i read something about people protesting the current Euthanasia legalization when it was proposed, but I might be remembering incorrectly...

( but, again, it should be noted I haven't looked into it for quite some years, maybe it's changed, or I was misinformed when I had learned about it, so take that with a grain of salt )

 

[deflagrat]

Sometimes, I feel like I want to die now: It's my reaction to being bored, and it's quite serious, that's why there should be a lengthy process to determine whether someone has the right to die or not. Let's be honest, if someone wants to die but they don't have illneses or dissabilities it's really hard for people to accept the idea of assisted suicide.

In those cases, you should have someone like A to sell you nembutal. For normal people, being rational about your own death equals depression, and you can't expect normal people to accept assisted suicide for depression, and it's going to be impossible in most countries.

I have a better alternative: Make sure everyone have access to a painless death at the time of their choosing. That's it, problem solved. After all, what's the difference between a legal suicide and an illegal one? Peace of mind (it won't fail, it will be painless...), right?

Everything else is too unrealistic to consider, there are too many variables and it will take too much time.

In this imaginary scenario, I think 25 should be the minimum in a normal situation. I say this because I have seen too many people in reddit from 16 to 24. They should try to choose to live at least for awhile until they decide they don't want to live anymore (try medication, therapy, get help...).

 

[FullFat]

I'm also chiming in with 25. That's supposed to be when your prefrontal cortex is done developing. However, I gotta admit - that cutoff also means I'm good to go, lol. ;-)

As morbid as it seems, I suppose you could treat this as a statistical question. You could estimate the age at which you have X% certainty that you will complete suicide in the future. [This is just a thought experiment. False positives (never would have attempted w/o gov help) would greatly outnumber true positives (people who would have killed themselves w/o gov help). A better stat would be # of failed therapy attempts/years in treatment, but false positives would still predominate. Even people who have zero luck with therapy and suffer from mental illness all their lives will *not* kill themselves.]

Does anybody know of a study of successful suicides that figured out what the average age of first ideation was? I've contemplated offing myself since age 12, and it sounds like most people here started young as well. If I do eventually kill myself, it will mean I was right on the money since 12.

 

[Tomasnil]

I think that if you been seeing a psykologist for 3 years and you dont feel better and he cant prove you are better you should be granted to die regardless of age.
Then seeing those know it all would atleast be useful

 

[AveryConure]

i think children and teens (with extreme exceptions of course) honestly need to wait til they're older cause not only can they be more impulsive but they're at least young enough to get better and possibly have their life improve where they'd change their minds about ctb.

I'd say once you're 21-25, you've been getting treatment for an illness for around 3+ years with no improvements while you know you're most likely going to be alone and in debt for the rest of your life and everything would have very little payoff, then they should just allow it with the proper paperwork and etc.

 

[Tiburcio]

3 years of therapy is a lot of time.

 

[Tomasnil]

3 years of therapy is a lot of time.

Living a whole life unhappy and depressed is alot longer

 

[Tiburcio]

Living a whole life unhappy and depressed is alot longer

True. The problem is most part of therapists aren't useful and they just want to take your money and they don't care if you are feeling bad. At least in my case. There could be some good treatments but I doubt it and I will never find one.

 

[AveryConure]

I'm lucky enough I'll admit that I had mild success with some treatments, but even with the medications I'm on that at least help me enough to get out of bed and go to work, I still felt suicidal due to factors I know are way beyond my control and when we discovered my dissociative illness was way too complex for 90% of doctors to figure out I basically knew I was going to eventually decide to ctb, regardless if my treatment helped mildly or not.

Regardless of my experiences however if you live in the US mental health care here is a joke and even I dealt with traumatizing hospital visits and doctors who clearly just wanted your money and didn't care if you self harmed in front of him and I'm sorry you guys all went through that shit.

I was thinking more of those with the 3 year mark with those with chronuc/declining physical health but who even knows about the Russian roulette that is MH care anymore.

 

[FullFat]

True. The problem is most part of therapists aren't useful and they just want to take your money and they don't care if you are feeling bad. At least in my case. There could be some good treatments but I doubt it and I will never find one.

I'm lucky enough I'll admit that I had mild success with some treatments, but even with the medications I'm on that at least help me enough to get out of bed and go to work, I still felt suicidal due to factors I know are way beyond my control and when we discovered my dissociative illness was way too complex for 90% of doctors to figure out I basically knew I was going to eventually decide to ctb, regardless if my treatment helped mildly or not.

Regardless of my experiences however if you live in the US mental health care here is a joke and even I dealt with traumatizing hospital visits and doctors who clearly just wanted your money and didn't care if you self harmed in front of him and I'm sorry you guys all went through that shit.

I was thinking more of those with the 3 year mark with those with chronuc/declining physical health but who even knows about the Russian roulette that is MH care anymore.

Even by the numbers psychologists keep, the available therapy is super hit or miss. It's true for both talk and the drugs. For a lot of SSRIs, around 75% of the effect appears to be placebo. And, as much as they like to push evidence-based therapy like CBT, they perform little better than Freud's psychoanalytic bullshit. The clinical PhDs I knew in research find this pretty fucking frustrating. PhDs who practice more than research are generally in denial, or they try not to let on that they're spinning their wheels much of the time. I can't speak to how master's level therapists think about this, but the ones I've met have been invariably airheads, so I'm not getting my hopes up.

From what I saw when I was in my PhD program (before I flunked, yay me), I think it will be another hundred years before psychology gets its shit together. You know it's bad when even the people in the field are pessimistic and jaded about everything. If you're not a patient and they let their guard down, they can spill the beans on a lot of depressing truths.

Anyway, knowing how the sausage is made has been a bit of a buzzkill. I can't get excited about therapy like I could before, and that makes it even less effective. I'd take back that placebo in a heartbeat if I could just forget.

 

[Caerula]

Even by the numbers psychologists keep, the available therapy is super hit or miss. It's true for both talk and the drugs. For a lot of SSRIs, around 75% of the effect appears to be placebo. And, as much as they like to push evidence-based therapy like CBT, they perform little better than Freud's psychoanalytic bullshit. The clinical PhDs I knew in research find this pretty fucking frustrating. PhDs who practice more than research are generally in denial, or they try not to let on that they're spinning their wheels much of the time. I can't speak to how master's level therapists think about this, but the ones I've met have been invariably airheads, so I'm not getting my hopes up.

From what I saw when I was in my PhD program (before I flunked, yay me), I think it will be another hundred years before psychology gets its shit together. You know it's bad when even the people in the field are pessimistic and jaded about everything. If you're not a patient and they let their guard down, they can spill the beans on a lot of depressing truths.

Anyway, knowing how the sausage is made has been a bit of a buzzkill. I can't get excited about therapy like I could before, and that makes it even less effective. I'd take back that placebo in a heartbeat if I could just forget.

I'm about to enter a psychology program.... Now I'm scared....

 

[FullFat]

I'm about to enter a psychology program.... Now I'm scared....

At what level? If grad, what topic area and/or age group?

 

[Caerula]

At what level? If grad, what topic area and/or age group?

It is an undergraduate program. Right now I know nothing about psychology, so I thought knowing something might be helpful to me and a few of my family members.... I worry that it's not worth it after reading what you said because I already have a job that I'm quite satisfied with. Studying psychology is not beneficial to me career wise because my job is completely unrelated.

 

[FullFat]

It is an undergraduate program. Right now I know nothing about psychology, so I thought knowing something might be helpful to me and a few of my family members.... I worry that it's not worth it after reading what you said because I already have a job that I'm quite satisfied with. Studying psychology is not beneficial to me career wise because my job is completely unrelated.

Take it to pad your schedule. There are some interesting tidbits, but very little of it is practically useful, especially at the undergrad level. The textbooks you're reading are sometimes 10-20 years behind the current research. That's true for other fields besides psych, but psych hasn't built up a core foundation of knowledge yet. A lot of things that were taken as basic truths for decades are collapsing. It's a very turbulent discipline. Research methodologies are changing dramatically and clinical practice is taking for the ride, albeit at a much slower pace.

 

[Caerula]

Take it to pad your schedule. There are some interesting tidbits, but very little of it is practically useful, especially at the undergrad level. The textbooks you're reading are sometimes 10-20 years behind the current research. That's true for other fields besides psych, but psych hasn't built up a core foundation of knowledge yet. A lot of things that were taken as basic truths for decades are collapsing. It's a very turbulent discipline. Research methodologies are changing dramatically and clinical practice is taking for the ride, albeit at a much slower pace.

Thank you so much for the overview! I definitely won't be quitting my job. I guess I will give it a try and take the courses part time and work part time.

 

[Total Imbecile]

21, most of you teenagers will grow out of this. Once you are 21 though its over

 

[CatLover]

I agree with 25. As others have said, the brain isn't properly developed before then so people can't properly understand concepts like consequences of their actions. I kind of wish that it was 25 for all kinds of things, like having kids.

I've been suicidal for as long as I can remember, on and off all my life. I've been through brief periods where it's been far from my mind but they've never lasted very long. Suicidal seems to be my 'default' state.

I made my first attempt at about 13. It was pathetic. I tried cutting my wrists because I'd read somewhere that's what you do but had no concept of how deep I needed to cut or that it needed to be across the veins so I would bleed to death. This was before the Internet.

The next time, a few years later, after I'd lost my job and partner and life had generally gone down the tubes. I think I was 20. Before I did it, I thought 'you know what, since I'm thinking about ending my life, I might as well go and see a ton of places and do a ton of things I've never done first'. I sold everything I owned and went to travel the world. There are hundreds of countries out there, maybe I would be happier somewhere different? There are hundreds of new potential partners out there, maybe I'd find someone else who wouldn't betray me like the last one.

It worked for a while, travelling is a great distraction. Living somewhere where everything is different to what you're used to means that every day is kind of an adventure. Even the most everyday things like crossing the road or getting on a train.

Sadly, ill health ended my adventures. I've also tried almost every anti-depressant out there, many different therapists and therapy styles, 'support' groups, mindfulness, all kinds of things. Nothing works for me, I'm still a miserable pos.

My point is, I think you need to try a few things like that first, plus give your hormones and emotions time to settle down after puberty. I think if you get to 25, plus you've been consistent about wanting to ctb for several years, that's fair enough. You've given it a fair shake of the tail. Before that, I kind of feel when people say 'I hate life' 'but how would you KNOW???'

I'm sorry if this offends anyone.