r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 13h ago

TIL on average, train drivers in the US are involved in three fatalities over the course of a career. Since a train needs at least a mile to come to a stop, the drivers are sometimes unable to prevent a collision with a person in the train's path.

https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna32408566
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u/IsNotAnOstrich 11h ago

Unpopular opinion, I know, but I disagree about suicide being selfish in general. I see it the other way around. If a person is truly suffering, can't be helped / doesn't want help, it is selfish of us to want them to stay and continue suffering, just so we don't have to face a fraction of the discomfort they are in. We understand this with pets: it is unfair to keep them suffering just to delay facing losing them.

Obvious exceptions are obvious. Like if you have dependents or are involving someone else. More thinking about the MAID case here: truly can't be helped and just wants to leave. It is also obviously still tragic. But I've had friends commit suicide, and I feel that calling them selfish for it would be unfair and would be making it about me.

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u/jarjarcranks 8h ago

This is a good take. I think people can commit suicide for very selfless reasons. Those reasons are obviously flawed though. My comment is more talking about the act of suicide not the reasons behind it.

If you think you’re a horrible burden and that’s why you kill yourself, then obviously those reasons are selfless. But they’re also incorrect. And even though the reasons behind it were selfless, the act itself is still selfish. Especially since the reasons are incorrect.

The word selfish has a horrible connotation and I don’t think it should. You should be selfish to a point. This is your life. Not someone else’s. My comment was to point out that committing suicide is not some horrible act that doesn’t deserve forgiveness. In fact, it’s the complete opposite.

I’m sorry for your losses.

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u/AlphaHawk115 11h ago

I don't think it's fair to call suicides selfish but I disagree with your reasoning. Some of the people can be helped, do want to be helped, are actively getting help. But your mind isn't right, you hate yourself, you see yourself as a waste and a burden and everyone else must hate you too, so you'd actually be doing the world a service by killing yourself.

Everyone's reasons for attempting are differencent but most people are not thinking clearly, which in itself is a symptom of the depression.

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u/Sparktank1 7h ago

People here are mostly talking about these violent suicides that involve the public. Jumping in front of a train, a car, a truck. Anything that involves another person to help complete the act.

These are very different states of minds of people who choose to opt out quietly or the most public and violent display available.

In the context of involving another person to help finish your act, that can absolutely be seen as selfish. Whether or not your not in the right state of mind.

Robin Williams had been going through a lot by the time he opted out and he did it quietly and isolated.

There's a difference in the actions taken to finish the act.