TAW122
Emissary of the right to die.
- Aug 30, 2018
- 6,871
Throughout my life, I've encountered statistics when it comes to many domains and fields, not just limited to mathematics and sciences, but also just day to day life too. However, one aspect of the application of statistics in relation towards CTB prevention, CTB risk, and such really just irk me so much. I do recall that back in the days when I did see mental health professionals (MHPs) such as social workers, psychologists, therapists, counselors, and similar people within the field, I simply did not give much thought to such a statistic about risk factor and numbers. Perhaps I did not really think too thoroughly or give it a second thought at the time, I don't know.
However, in the recent years and even during the pandemic, I have time to myself and upon analysis and giving it more thought on it, I can see the malicious application of such statistics being weaponized to use as some CTB prevention, risk assessment analysis towards people who would CTB. It's akin to profiling and categorizing people who would likely CTB. In other words, it is scoping out, probing, prodding, or investigating CTB (like a suspect of a crime) instead of treating CTB as an act of a free choice. Now why do I take issue to this? I take issue to this because it is overlooking the reasons and root causes for WHY people are going to or want to CTB, failing to address it, and simply just focusing on preventing the one act. Furthermore, it is in infringement on one's bodily autonomy, personal freedom, and invasion of privacy (especially when probing into risk), then treating people as though they are suspected criminals (even though one has done nothing illegal nor wrong nor anything that would justify heightened scrutiny and such). All these drawbacks and not even focused on fixing the why or seeing CTB as the choice of a sound individual who is just 'tired' of life and want to be free of suffering.
Consider this data point from 2020 (during the pandemic) and another one from an earlier time, instead of focusing on the events (pre-pandemic included) and changes in society that result in the increase in CTBs during the decades (political, social, economics, and other causes), they all focus and double down on increasing mental health services WHILE failing to address the other underlying causes for why people CTB! That is the most backwards approach to the problem!
So when it comes to psychiatry and such, they heavily focus on: "(Amount of people) in (Blah group) are (Numerical percentage) risk for CTB!" Keep in mind I used placeholder variables just to illustrate what I mean by statistics. Generally, it is an data point or claim made by people in the field (psychiatry) on who/which groups is likely to CTB, the amount of people likely to CTB, and odds (a prediction) of said amount of people actually CTB'ing. The problem with professionals clinging onto those risk factors and statistics is again, they weaponize it in order to assess risk on whether or not they will lock one up against one's own wishes/will, all under the guise of benevolent paternalism. Again, these professionals fail to address the 'why' one would wish to CTB and instead treat them like criminals.
Also, during pre-pandemic times there are many groups ramping up their focus on CTB prevention and acknowledging the increase in CTB rates throughout the US (before 2020 even), and while they acknowledged the problem, their method of tackling said problem is just backwards and barbaric. Instead of focusing on improving quality of life, recognizing suffering, and respecting one's bodily autonomy with respect to the right to die, they doubled down on CTB prevention efforts, scoping out and probing people who are suspected to have CTB ideation or are planning (not even attempting), and just overall becoming more paternalistic. This doesn't help the situation, but just exacerbates it, and over the years as CTB rates (including failed attempts) continue to rise, they continue to double down, citing that the statistics showing the increase justified more paternalism, infringment of negative liberty rights, and more, it's just plain despicable and disgusting! Has anyone ever taken issue to hearing statistics being weaponized to target, scrutinize, probe certain groups of people as "at risk" for CTB? I'm sure there are more people who have similar sentiments on this too..
On threat assessments:
A similar problem also exists when it comes to threat assessments and such, it doesn't address "why" threats happen or why one may be willing to carry out heinous acts (don't get me wrong, I do see the benefit in stopping threats that are a harm to others). It simply just focuses solely on stopping the immediate (or emergent) threat rather than focusing on a longer term solution. What do I mean by a longer term solution? By a longer term solution, I am referring to figuring out why one (or some groups) would carry out such heinous acts and work towards solving that instead.
In short, the problem of the masses and society is how they tackle the problem when it comes to CTB in general as well as the increase in people CTB'ing. Instead of addressing the why and the causes for it, they instead just ignorantly turn a blind eye to the issues (including and especially root causes) for why people are willing to CTB and double down on paternalistic intervention as well as infringement of civil liberties (privacy, freedom from incarceration) and try to justify the loss of autonomy and temporary harm as a necessary evil to keep people suffering, all the while doing little to NOTHING to fix the causes for why one would want to CTB to begin with! Unlike them, pro-choicers, people at SaSu and similar groups focus on respecting the person's rights, attempt to figure out why the person is suffering and work towards solving that, or failing that, allowing and respecting the person's bodily autonomy to exit suffering permanently. It infuriates me how backwards society is when it comes to tackling suffering by deprivation of rights (which leads to MORE suffering later on) rather than look to solve the causes for people wanting to CTB!
However, in the recent years and even during the pandemic, I have time to myself and upon analysis and giving it more thought on it, I can see the malicious application of such statistics being weaponized to use as some CTB prevention, risk assessment analysis towards people who would CTB. It's akin to profiling and categorizing people who would likely CTB. In other words, it is scoping out, probing, prodding, or investigating CTB (like a suspect of a crime) instead of treating CTB as an act of a free choice. Now why do I take issue to this? I take issue to this because it is overlooking the reasons and root causes for WHY people are going to or want to CTB, failing to address it, and simply just focusing on preventing the one act. Furthermore, it is in infringement on one's bodily autonomy, personal freedom, and invasion of privacy (especially when probing into risk), then treating people as though they are suspected criminals (even though one has done nothing illegal nor wrong nor anything that would justify heightened scrutiny and such). All these drawbacks and not even focused on fixing the why or seeing CTB as the choice of a sound individual who is just 'tired' of life and want to be free of suffering.
Consider this data point from 2020 (during the pandemic) and another one from an earlier time, instead of focusing on the events (pre-pandemic included) and changes in society that result in the increase in CTBs during the decades (political, social, economics, and other causes), they all focus and double down on increasing mental health services WHILE failing to address the other underlying causes for why people CTB! That is the most backwards approach to the problem!
So when it comes to psychiatry and such, they heavily focus on: "(Amount of people) in (Blah group) are (Numerical percentage) risk for CTB!" Keep in mind I used placeholder variables just to illustrate what I mean by statistics. Generally, it is an data point or claim made by people in the field (psychiatry) on who/which groups is likely to CTB, the amount of people likely to CTB, and odds (a prediction) of said amount of people actually CTB'ing. The problem with professionals clinging onto those risk factors and statistics is again, they weaponize it in order to assess risk on whether or not they will lock one up against one's own wishes/will, all under the guise of benevolent paternalism. Again, these professionals fail to address the 'why' one would wish to CTB and instead treat them like criminals.
Also, during pre-pandemic times there are many groups ramping up their focus on CTB prevention and acknowledging the increase in CTB rates throughout the US (before 2020 even), and while they acknowledged the problem, their method of tackling said problem is just backwards and barbaric. Instead of focusing on improving quality of life, recognizing suffering, and respecting one's bodily autonomy with respect to the right to die, they doubled down on CTB prevention efforts, scoping out and probing people who are suspected to have CTB ideation or are planning (not even attempting), and just overall becoming more paternalistic. This doesn't help the situation, but just exacerbates it, and over the years as CTB rates (including failed attempts) continue to rise, they continue to double down, citing that the statistics showing the increase justified more paternalism, infringment of negative liberty rights, and more, it's just plain despicable and disgusting! Has anyone ever taken issue to hearing statistics being weaponized to target, scrutinize, probe certain groups of people as "at risk" for CTB? I'm sure there are more people who have similar sentiments on this too..
On threat assessments:
A similar problem also exists when it comes to threat assessments and such, it doesn't address "why" threats happen or why one may be willing to carry out heinous acts (don't get me wrong, I do see the benefit in stopping threats that are a harm to others). It simply just focuses solely on stopping the immediate (or emergent) threat rather than focusing on a longer term solution. What do I mean by a longer term solution? By a longer term solution, I am referring to figuring out why one (or some groups) would carry out such heinous acts and work towards solving that instead.
In short, the problem of the masses and society is how they tackle the problem when it comes to CTB in general as well as the increase in people CTB'ing. Instead of addressing the why and the causes for it, they instead just ignorantly turn a blind eye to the issues (including and especially root causes) for why people are willing to CTB and double down on paternalistic intervention as well as infringement of civil liberties (privacy, freedom from incarceration) and try to justify the loss of autonomy and temporary harm as a necessary evil to keep people suffering, all the while doing little to NOTHING to fix the causes for why one would want to CTB to begin with! Unlike them, pro-choicers, people at SaSu and similar groups focus on respecting the person's rights, attempt to figure out why the person is suffering and work towards solving that, or failing that, allowing and respecting the person's bodily autonomy to exit suffering permanently. It infuriates me how backwards society is when it comes to tackling suffering by deprivation of rights (which leads to MORE suffering later on) rather than look to solve the causes for people wanting to CTB!
