Wrong, actually. Police are specifically trained to handle suicide cases as well.SkyPanda wrote:Of course, when you say that law enforcement will "will handle the situation", you mean that they will escort him to his place of residence so that he can commit suicide without disturbing anybody else, right?
I would encourage you to read that entire paper because it details some of the additional problems that police men face because of this grey social issue.http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/proceedings/13/kelly.pdf wrote:Traditionally, the police role has been seen by the community and by police themselves as
primarily concerned with law enforcement, that is, crime prevention, protection of life and
property, investigation of offences and the apprehension of offenders. However, in recent
years, the police have become more sensitive to a broad range of community social
problems and the needs of victims of society, for example cases of domestic violence, child
abuse, drug addiction and psychiatric disorders. An awareness of their community service
role, as opposed to the law enforcement role, has created adjustment problems for some
operational police officers.
Now, this I find interesting. Does physical pain excuse suicide? Could you explain this?In order to prevent a debate on euthanasia, I’m going to start by saying that everything below does not refer to suicides for reasons of unbearable physical pain or similar. In this post, I talk only about self-harm/suicide for psychological reasons.
This is, if you're interested, the point at which I decided that your post was just flamebait. The reason being because, up until this point, only one person had even mentioned suicide (and bobaga_fett graced us with such a whirlwind tour that I wonder if we can ever count his contribution). I have not been talking about suicide. I have been talking about making changes to one's body that you, SkyPanda, view as harmful. Whether this involves cutting oneself open, sticking things in one's ass, getting a lot of tattoos or just getting one's ears pierced, makes no difference. These are changes that can cause not a small amount of damage but are non-lethal. This is what the people on this particular site describe doing and this is what we're talking about.Now firstly, if the person is a child, then stopping them from committing suicide should not be a controversial action. Even if suicide was accepted practice among adults, children would certainly be deemed not sufficiently mature to make a decision like that, in the same way that they are currently considered legally not mature enough to drink alcohol, or drive a car. I believe that the minimum necessary force, whatever that may be, would be acceptable to prevent them from harming themselves. To not use force would be to allow the illegal action. It's no good having a system based on "oh well, if I can't talk you out of it, go ahead and commit murder, go ahead and steal that jewellery”. I believe that any bystander should be legally permitted to themselves forcibly prevent a child from self-harming or suiciding, because it is a matter of life and death and relevant authorities may not arrive in time.
If the person is an adult, but is intoxicated or otherwise temporarily inhibited, then it is not unreasonable to intervene and prevent them from harming themselves. This opinion is based on my personal knowledge of the sort of things that intoxicated people try to do, and how likely they are to retrospectively appreciate interference once they are no longer intoxicated. Again, reasonable force is not immoral, nor illegal, nor should it be. It may be a matter of life and death, and the relevant authorities may not arrive in time.
If the person is an adult, and is not intoxicated/inhibited, then it becomes more tricky. Here is an excerpt from the esteemed academic source, wikipedia:
“The predominant view of modern medicine is that suicide is a mental health concern, associated with psychological factors such as the difficulty of coping with depression, inescapable suffering or fear, or other mental disorders and pressures. Suicide is sometimes interpreted as a "cry for help" and attention, or to express despair and the wish to escape, rather than a genuine intent to die.”
I agree with this statement, and I believe it has several implications. Although death is permanent, the reasons for the decision to self-harm or end your life are usually not. If a person is harming themselves or attempting suicide as a ‘cry for help’, then to not intervene is to ignore their plight. For those who are thinking “well why not just try and talk them out of it?”, yes, talking, paying attention, that may indeed be all it takes.
I don't know if you've ever been a teenager but high school largely hinges around depression and a crippling self-loathing. Not to mention the fact that half of everyone who uses the internet claims to have Asperger's syndrome. The point that I'm trying to make here is that friggin' everyone's a suicide risk at some point in their life according to your broad definition and that there are still going to be some people who don't exhibit any noticeable traits and end up killing themselves. I appreciate that you "gotta catch 'em all" but it's just not feasible, practical or possible. Also, it's not what were talking about here.SkyPanda wrote:I realise this has moved on somewhat from self-harm and the vampyre folk, but it’s similar- many of the people posting on that site were showing signs of depression and mental conditions, a fair few of them sounded autistic.
I have no problem with this. It's just (what?) not what we're talking about.Based on all my above arguments, I am of the opinion that all governments should, if they don't already:
1. Legislate for legal suicide prevention
(Essentially, so that people who take reasonable action to prevent a suicide are not be charged with deprivation of liberty or similar)
2. Legislate for mandatory psychological and medical assessment for people after a failed suicide (note: this is not for euthanasia)
I don’t think this should involve locking people away. However, if the person is sufficiently delusional or mentally damaged to warrant them being considered a danger to others, then it is not immoral for them to be committed just as any other person with a mental condition would be.
3. Develop suicide/self-harm education programs
This post is already bloated enough so I’ll stop here, but there’s still a fair bit to say about the website in question and what should and shouldn’t be done about things like that, I can post more on that if the discussion goes that way.
"Nice try, but no points for this one." You left that out of your recap. Just thought I'd help you out with that because I want you to know that I know that you know that you're behaving in a manner more akin to politics than intellectual debate. Politics has, as you may know, cared a great deal about the uprightness of its patrons. So don't suddenly act as though you're the voice of unfeeling logic in this debate because you're as bad as anyone. This isn't something I particularly have a problem with because that's how I debate as well but don't you dare cry foul on anyone else for something that you do right in the fucking quote.SkyPanda wrote:I’m getting a bit annoyed with the critiquing of my posts, so I’m going to tear into this ridiculous post of yours Demonz, even though it isn’t relevant. Sorry if I cause damage to the scroll wheel on anyone’s mouse.DemonzLunchBreak wrote:SkyPanda: Your style of argument is very strange. Tanner made a perfectly valid point when he said that you argued in one thread that implied meanings should never be understood and words should be perfectly exact in their meanings, while you argued in this thread that you had an implied meaning that other people should have understood. You are not following your own principles of communication. Either your behaviour needs to change or your principles need to change, but right now they're contradictory. Your entire refutation was "both situations have to do with words." This is indicates that you either don't understand Tanner's point or you're too intellectually lazy to defend your own actions. I don't mean to be too harsh here, but I'd like to see you refute people more comprehensively and logically than you have been doing in this forum.
To quote Role Models, "You can't bullshit a bullshitter." Messing around with definitions like you do used to be how I argued. It's a childish waste of time, and it's something that I think you should be able to overcome. Instead of playing semantic games, try to address what people mean in their posts.
You’re incorrect or confused with everything single thing you’ve said. Let’s recap.
Tanner: “Are you not the same person who argued so fervently for a change in vocabulary so as to avoid unnecessary connotations in the "'black' and 'white'" thread? And now you're coming in here and flip-flopping on your own choice in verbage; being all "I said 'liberal' but I meant 'cultural liberal' and ya'll shoulda got that from my intonation"?”
Me: “Seriously though, just because I believe that a commonly used term is inappropriate, does not mean that every time I use an obscure definition of a different and unrelated word, that i'm a raging hypocrite. In fact, the only link between the two is that they both involve words. A lot of things involve words.”
Firstly, for the record, I wasn’t actually using an obscure definition of a word after all. Tsukatu mislead me. I was correct in my initial belief that most forms of liberalism place importance on personal freedoms. From wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism)- ” Liberalism emphasizes individual rights and equality of opportunity.” Furthermore, discussion about meanings and definitions are common in any debate, as you should know. See my reply to scythe. Feel free to retract your statement that I was “playing semantic games”, Demonz.
Secondly, you are completely incorrect about my “entire refutation”. If you had paid any attention, you would have noticed that my “entire refutation” was actually that there is no link between a debate about the appropriateness of a racial term and an argument about the definition of ‘liberal’. This is a reasonable and logical refutation. Tanner provided no link. I demanded one. Unless he can provide a reasonable justification for his accusation, then my refutation is perfectly fine.
Lastly, and most importantly, Tanner’s post and my reply was all side-banter anyway! My hypocrisy, or lack of, has no relevancy to the main debate. I don’t see why you felt the need to defend a jibe of Tanner’s that was between him and me. Ultimately, all he said was “you had a different opinion in that other debate”, which as you should know, is not an argument, because although double-standards apply in the real world, in an artificial online debate like this one, I can change my opinion between debates as often as I want.
Heck, you said it yourself, in the guidelines:
Demonz: “Similarly, debaters should address the argument presented, and not the person who is the source of the argument.”
No doubt Tanner knows this, but you seem to have forgotten. All your babbling was based on the assumption that tanner was making an argument against my viewpoint, which he wasn’t. Therefore your entire post is incorrect, confused and pointless.
Feel free to retract your whole post.
Another thing is that, SkyPanda, you have, whether you like it or not, made this debate as much about yourself as you have about the issue you're trying to raise. When discussing morality and things like "compassion," personal character comes into play. It's the nature of the business. It shouldn't normally but here, right now, it does. So your hypocrisy and inability maintain your own jargon, while not important to the principle, makes me question the principle's advocate's ability to carry his own flag. Still, this has more to do with the 'black' and 'white' thread than this one. But hey, while I've got the podium, that stuff in the 'black' and 'white' thread you said? That was whack, man.
Why would scythe33 do that after you so quickly brushed me off when I did the same thing? This is section is completely at odds with the last.SkyPanda wrote:Just trying to make sure that there's no confusion about my opinions, and about the definitions of words being used. This is not a big deal. There’s really no good reason for you to complain about it or make it out to be a bad thing.scythe33 wrote:Your last few posts conflated words and nitpicked "duty" vs. "compassion".
“Duty” and “compassion” are entirely different, by the way. One implies an obligation to an external authority. The other implies a moral motivation, or obligation to self.
If you’re going to make an attack like this, you need to show which words I’ve conflated, and explain why you think duty and compassion are the same thing. Good luck with that.
Guys, please stop claiming that arguing about definitions and meaning is bad debating! Yes, it is possible for a person to manipulate semantics to confuse the argument or to divert attention away from weak arguments. I’m sure that happens often. However, it’s also important to ensure that everybody is using the same definitions, that posts are understood and interpreted correctly. This should be obvious.
If you feel I’ve manipulated definitions inappropriately, you need to justify that accusation. Merely arguing about definitions is not a bad thing in itself.
Man, whatever. What a calculated way to end your gigantic self-indulgent wankfest. Do your piece and rebuke me for this post, I'll read your reply and then I'm done with this thread. Make it a good one, yeah?SkyPanda wrote:I was pointing out that SlappyMcGee didn't address my post, other than rephrasing it without adding anything. The only thing I did that was wrong was to call him shallow. Yes, I phrased that extremely poorly- I don't think he as a person is shallow! Just his arguments. Thanks for pulling me up on that one, you help me improve.scythe33 wrote:...see what you (and I) did? That was a pretty poorly veiled personal attack
-GloomP
-NicNac14
-Universe_Zero
-NicNac14
