existentialgoof

#SuicidePrevention is what happens when the capitalist elite like @Tantacrul, @mega2e and @gabrieldance want to entrap the less fortunate in circumstances that they'll never have to experience for themselves. schopenhaueronmars.com/2022/… #SuicidePreventionIsSlavery

I agree with the central point that you are making and have written about this in the past. As a supporter of the right to die, I would argue that the cultural shift in how we view the act of suicide that was engendered by the Suicide Act of 1961 is not necessarily a more progressive or humane shift. Instead of being classified as a criminal (someone to whom moral agency is attributed, and as such, has the right to defend themselves), one is automatically discredited as incompetent and one's attempts to defend ones right to choose cannot be taken seriously, because the person making the argument is deemed to be an inauthentic witness to their own thoughts. People trying to leverage suicide to avoid consequences for their own wrongdoing is a natural and predictable consequence of the fact that we refuse to countenance the possibility that suicidal people can also be moral agents, rather than "vulnerable" NPCs. The argument about suicide being selfish is a more palatable argument and more easily argued against than a Catch 22. But I suppose that's why the 'mental elf' paradigm of suicidality is a more potent weapon for manufacturing consent for paternalism and coercion. Whereas if suicide is condemned as an immoral act, then that begs the question concerning the morality of the people who feel entitled to force others to remain alive as slaves to their emotions.

Finally had my "temporary label" (shadowban and search ban) removed after 1 month, which occurred after liking a popular post, with all appeals ignored. I am unaware of anything I did to warrant the sanction. I liked a popular post, and immediately afterwards, it asked me to prove that I'm human, but then that request vanished seconds later, followed by a notification that I have a temporary label. I have cancelled my Premium subscription, and will have my blue tick until July, because the shadowban occurred shortly after my subscription autorenewed for the year. But I won't continue paying for something that can be taken away at a moment's notice (likely because of an error with X's own systems, rather than anything I did wrong), with no explanation or working appeals process, and which has a no refunds policy.

I just signed the European petition for voluntary assisted dying as a fundamental right in Europe. Add your voice: lastright.eu/

There you have it - when all else fails, you can always pull out the trump card, and make any socially divisive issue a deeply racial one (even if data always tends to show uptake of assisted dying to be LOWER amongst non white populations). Mic. Dropped. End of debate.

Once again, like a Scooby Doo villain, the mask gets pulled off to once again expose yet another Evangelical Christian group behind these 'secular' concerns. Not that we would expect @Tanni_GT to have reservations about forming political alliances with far right religious groups, if it can help her anti-choice agenda.

If the government doesn't care about you, then it makes no sense to want them to have the power to force you to live by banning access to reliable and humane suicide methods. If they can't be trusted with facilitation of suicide, then they certainly can't be trusted with extensive suicide prevention powers.

Interesting that you think it's pro-choice people who are utilising the motte and bailey fallacy; when it is pro-lifers who start out by pretending that they just don't want the state to be involved in suicide...but then when you dig beneath the surface, you find that in fact, they want the state to be actively forcing people to live via paternalistic suicide prevention strategies (which is the only reason that government assisted dying programs even have to exist to begin with).

Clearly there very much IS a debate over whether people should be allowed to end their life. The only reason that people are seeking access to 'assistance' in dying from the state is because the state won't allow them to access reliable and humane methods through any other channels; and even goes to the extreme of locking people up to stop them from attempting suicide. Suicide being legal is NOT the same thing as people having a legal right to commit suicide without obstruction from the state. There's no such thing as a "right" that the state can lock you up to stop you from exercising, or put unnecessary barriers in the way to stop you from successfully exercising.

Let Scotland Decide: A People’s Vote on Assisted Dying - Sign the Petition! c.org/B6BvH5JZmm via @UKChange

I have been blocked by @SaveStandard so can't reply in thread. But having the time fixed at standard would affect me by drastically limiting the sunlight available to me after work. Permanent DST would be fine (I don't really care about when it gets dark or light in winter, because winter is inherently depressing anyway); but I think that the present system with the switch is a fair compromise. The thing about compromises is that they usually aren't ideal for either side.

The death penalty analogy doesn't really work here, for a number of reasons. The value of the death penalty is retribution and has nugatory utilitarian value (really just to satisfy the bloodlust of people connected to the victim and society at large - the additional deterrence value is unproven). Assisted dying is a tool of mercy. Even if we consider the "wrongful" deaths; it doesn't make sense why this argument would be sufficient to ban the right to die whilst also not restricting other fundamental liberties in the name of 'safety'. So unless opponents of the right to die would advocate to have all the innocents locked in prison in order to protect them from the criminals; this means that they have a logical inconsistency in their argument. It is also important to note that the only reason that we even have this assisted dying bill going through parliament is because the government refuses to permit people to have the negative liberty right to commit suicide without the government interfering to restrict access to reliable methods, and even detaining people under the mental health act. So it isn't merely a positive right to this proposed assisted dying service that people are being denied. They are actively being forced to live. The proposed assisted dying bill merely exempts a very small segment of the population from suicide prevention. Moreover, whilst opponents would urge supporters of the bill to think about the "collateral damage"; this presumes that allowing things to remain as they are inflicts no unjust collateral damage, or takes it for granted that it inflicts a lesser degree of damage. This assumption is not justified; and only makes sense within the context of the type of worldview that would have us all put in cages in order to protect us all from one another.

Just a note for all leftist/woke opponents of the assisted dying bill. These are who your 'allies' are. These are the people who developed the progressive sounding arguments that you use. #assisteddying

The Christian right wing zealots knew what they were doing when they formulated 'woke' arguments against the right to die in order to conceal their actual reasons. And give them credit - it has been remarkably successful.

Adducing the fact that disability organisations universally oppose assisted dying is about as meaningful as showing evidence that all Catholic priests believe in God. I strongly suspect that there are ideological tests which determine who gets to join these organisations, or at least who can lead one (and thus answer the survey).

"Once the "irrationality" argument fails; then this necessarily entails a conceptual shift whereby suicide prevention ceases to be seen an act of protection, and starts to be seen an act of enforcement" Read my latest blog post, out now: schopenhaueronmars.com/2025/…

Yes, most of the right wingers who oppose assisted dying/legal right to suicide on the grounds of "protecting the disabled" are the same ones who want to deprive the disabled of the benefits that they need in order to survive. But because they're singing from the same hymn sheet as disability activists on that issue, then those same activists never seem to see through the pretense.

It was Maureen's body, and for anyone to tell her she should have been forced to live in misery requires the utmost cruelty. The fact that the family reported it to the news validates Maureen's decision to keep her intentions secret, as they would certainly have tried their best to sabotage her plans for the purposes of imposing their will on her.

The trendiest 'take' on assisted dying at the moment: 'I support assisted dying in principle, just as long as we have a law that makes sure that nobody can ever avail themselves of it in practice'.

The only type of suicide prevention that our societies are genuinely interested in providing (apart from the type where they're just physically taking away the opportunity) is of the variety where they sit you in a room with someone who will try and gaslight and/or drug you into believing that the problems are all in your head, because no sane person would be having a problem with anything in this world.