I currently read some chapters of David Foster Wallace's The Pale King. I like it way more than I expected it. There are some very interesting political and philosophical passages about the state of US democracy. It is pretty eye-opening despite the fact the book was written roughly two decades ago. The question of this thread is unrelated to the stuff discussed there but reading that book stimulated my brain.
So I also got the idea from the text you can read on this forum about the censorship of this forum in Australia, Italy and New Zealand. My current thoughts are: the governments in English speaking countries are way more aggressive against this forum than in other countries. I could imagine it has to do with the userbase. Interestingly in my country Germany this forum was never ever mentioned in the mainstream press. I could well imagine they fear the streisand effect.
So from this perspective most democratic would probably like to restrict the access to this forum as good as possible. One could argument that adults should have the right to inform themselves about such things. Otherwise this would be more or less a criminalization of wanting to die. Almost all peaceful methods are already illegal. For me this is cynical. My personal theory they criminalize access to N because it should deter the citizens to commit suicide lightly. Though what is with people like me who are longterm suicidal for over a decade and applying for an assisted suicide organization would be due to financial reasons completely impossible? I hate that even in death there is a two class society. People with money can go to Switzerland and can die in dignity. For me my suicide is not with dignity. I am paranoid to use this forum already in order to die. But I have no other way out when the pain gets too much. Moreover I am scared I could lose my appartment when police came to my house after finding out I ordered SN or similar things. I rather feel pressured to take the SN as soon as possible after I ordered it to avoid that risk. Such a scenario was a reason why I have not already ordered it. Though it scares me that the availability decreases. I notice this is pretty off-topic. I just feel like I had to justify for being on here. Because all this moral judgement.
I want to say Western countries would like to shut this forum down probably. One could argue which reasons drive them. Whether they genuinely care for abused, poor, homeless, without health insurance, chronical illness patients/people or whether it is rather like virtue signaling and an outcry for the statement "suicide is bad" which is pretty cheap to have in contrast to a proper health care system, houses for the homeless, research projects on for example the chronic fatigue syndrom and other rather rare conditions which are associated with a higher suicide rate. It is easy trying to ban this forum but the underlying roots of the suicidality that many of us experience is not as easy to solve as to simply call an hotline. I tried so muh therapy I am a completely broken person that will never be able to care for himself. And I see in which life quality people like me have to live. Well I am out of here when the time comes and my parents cannot support me anymore.
So it is save to say that most Western governments are against this forum. Though I could very well imagine that even some people of the elites who are suicidal are lurkers. There was a high politician in my country some years ago who commiitted suicide by train. So these people are not immune to it. I don't want to imply he would have supported this forum. But he was a conservative and his party was against assisted suicide. I want to demonstrate that the values these people pretend to have are not necessarily their private ones. To admit one is in favor of the right for adults to die can have a negative impact on the life of a politician especially if he is a conservative. The whole thing is obviously way more intricate. But I think that many grown adults would be in favor of the right to die if they were in our positions or even in theoretical thought experiments. But to speak openly about it could be judged by society and stigmatized as in general the topic suicide.
I could go on but I sort of miss the point so far. My thought behind the title was as I elaborated Western governments try as good as they can to restrict access to this forum. Though when I write this down I am not even sure about that. If they really wanted it with full power/certainty I can not really imagine what could have prevented them from doing that? If it was their first priority why isn't there more happening? I could very well imagine that some people in these administrations are well aware that the issue suicide is way more complex than this forum. That there are deeper roots for this issue. And that to crack down on all adults who search for a way to die with dignity is kind of authoritarian. That this would mean if their plan was achieved completely that suicide would be basically criminalized.
A good argument against the title is maybe authoritarian countries also don't like that their own citizens are part of this forum. Though as a former Chinese user wrote the Chinese government seemingly gives no fuck about this forum. Probably it is the fact that there are barely users from China. Do authoritarian countries even care whether their people are on this forum? On this forum you have political free speach and you can critize Xi and Putin. On the other hand who is using a suicide forum for political debates? Religious countries would probably hate this forum because suicide is illegal in these countries. I don't know whether Russia cares whether Russian people are on this forum? I only read restrictions which were implemented by democratic countries.
So do authoritarian countries like that Western people kill themselves and inform themselves on this forum? I am not sure. I am really not sure about that. China and Russia want to destabilize Western countries. But which impact does this forum have? The populations get less in these countries get. Though many of are highly dysfunctional and are not really that important for the economy. Maybe they just don't give a fuck and this thread was sort of useless. However I could very well imagine that these countries like this forum to collect data about Western people. But will this really help them that much? It is likely US intelligence services analyze this forum too. Though I don't see a big benefit in that.
Maybe the question was not as interesting as I thought it would be. But I think my rambling hit some good points. Lol I suck myself off after such a wall of text that literally only 2-3 people will read (If I am lucky). And probably one of them is a member of the NSA who is bored as fuck to monitor online content like this one.
So I also got the idea from the text you can read on this forum about the censorship of this forum in Australia, Italy and New Zealand. My current thoughts are: the governments in English speaking countries are way more aggressive against this forum than in other countries. I could imagine it has to do with the userbase. Interestingly in my country Germany this forum was never ever mentioned in the mainstream press. I could well imagine they fear the streisand effect.
So from this perspective most democratic would probably like to restrict the access to this forum as good as possible. One could argument that adults should have the right to inform themselves about such things. Otherwise this would be more or less a criminalization of wanting to die. Almost all peaceful methods are already illegal. For me this is cynical. My personal theory they criminalize access to N because it should deter the citizens to commit suicide lightly. Though what is with people like me who are longterm suicidal for over a decade and applying for an assisted suicide organization would be due to financial reasons completely impossible? I hate that even in death there is a two class society. People with money can go to Switzerland and can die in dignity. For me my suicide is not with dignity. I am paranoid to use this forum already in order to die. But I have no other way out when the pain gets too much. Moreover I am scared I could lose my appartment when police came to my house after finding out I ordered SN or similar things. I rather feel pressured to take the SN as soon as possible after I ordered it to avoid that risk. Such a scenario was a reason why I have not already ordered it. Though it scares me that the availability decreases. I notice this is pretty off-topic. I just feel like I had to justify for being on here. Because all this moral judgement.
I want to say Western countries would like to shut this forum down probably. One could argue which reasons drive them. Whether they genuinely care for abused, poor, homeless, without health insurance, chronical illness patients/people or whether it is rather like virtue signaling and an outcry for the statement "suicide is bad" which is pretty cheap to have in contrast to a proper health care system, houses for the homeless, research projects on for example the chronic fatigue syndrom and other rather rare conditions which are associated with a higher suicide rate. It is easy trying to ban this forum but the underlying roots of the suicidality that many of us experience is not as easy to solve as to simply call an hotline. I tried so muh therapy I am a completely broken person that will never be able to care for himself. And I see in which life quality people like me have to live. Well I am out of here when the time comes and my parents cannot support me anymore.
So it is save to say that most Western governments are against this forum. Though I could very well imagine that even some people of the elites who are suicidal are lurkers. There was a high politician in my country some years ago who commiitted suicide by train. So these people are not immune to it. I don't want to imply he would have supported this forum. But he was a conservative and his party was against assisted suicide. I want to demonstrate that the values these people pretend to have are not necessarily their private ones. To admit one is in favor of the right for adults to die can have a negative impact on the life of a politician especially if he is a conservative. The whole thing is obviously way more intricate. But I think that many grown adults would be in favor of the right to die if they were in our positions or even in theoretical thought experiments. But to speak openly about it could be judged by society and stigmatized as in general the topic suicide.
I could go on but I sort of miss the point so far. My thought behind the title was as I elaborated Western governments try as good as they can to restrict access to this forum. Though when I write this down I am not even sure about that. If they really wanted it with full power/certainty I can not really imagine what could have prevented them from doing that? If it was their first priority why isn't there more happening? I could very well imagine that some people in these administrations are well aware that the issue suicide is way more complex than this forum. That there are deeper roots for this issue. And that to crack down on all adults who search for a way to die with dignity is kind of authoritarian. That this would mean if their plan was achieved completely that suicide would be basically criminalized.
A good argument against the title is maybe authoritarian countries also don't like that their own citizens are part of this forum. Though as a former Chinese user wrote the Chinese government seemingly gives no fuck about this forum. Probably it is the fact that there are barely users from China. Do authoritarian countries even care whether their people are on this forum? On this forum you have political free speach and you can critize Xi and Putin. On the other hand who is using a suicide forum for political debates? Religious countries would probably hate this forum because suicide is illegal in these countries. I don't know whether Russia cares whether Russian people are on this forum? I only read restrictions which were implemented by democratic countries.
So do authoritarian countries like that Western people kill themselves and inform themselves on this forum? I am not sure. I am really not sure about that. China and Russia want to destabilize Western countries. But which impact does this forum have? The populations get less in these countries get. Though many of are highly dysfunctional and are not really that important for the economy. Maybe they just don't give a fuck and this thread was sort of useless. However I could very well imagine that these countries like this forum to collect data about Western people. But will this really help them that much? It is likely US intelligence services analyze this forum too. Though I don't see a big benefit in that.
Maybe the question was not as interesting as I thought it would be. But I think my rambling hit some good points. Lol I suck myself off after such a wall of text that literally only 2-3 people will read (If I am lucky). And probably one of them is a member of the NSA who is bored as fuck to monitor online content like this one.
