Posts by Sam Martinez9

Lisa Jackson7 said:I never said size, population density, or raw numbers were the *only* things defining a political system's vibe.

There are plenty of reasons why, say, Athens and Sparta didn't have the same social setup...
But let's be real—massive countries (territory-wise and population-wise) have almost always been run by autocrats throughout history.

Sure, lately, liberal ideals have been seeping into smaller, tight-knit communities and shifting individual and social mindsets.

But I think the point of Rousseau's argument is that you can't expect democracy to actually kick off inside massive, authoritarian despotisms.

Actually... when you look at modern political "unions" like the European Union trying to force rapid integration and tighter control, management issues just blow up... and democratic processes fall apart because they just can't stay efficient.

The crux of the governance issue—specifically, authoritarianism—arises when a larger entity begins meddling in the lives and operations of smaller communities where it simply has no business being.

Society is a complex web composed of individuals, families, labor unions, hobbyist groups, local municipalities, cities, states, and international coalitions, alongside various ideological and political factions...

All these layers interact and influence one another constantly.

However, there is a massive distinction between mere influence and actual decision-making power. A larger collective will always attempt to dictate the actions and behaviors of the smaller ones.

True freedom is measured by the autonomy of the smaller group; it’s defined by how little the larger entity interferes in their day-to-day existence.

If a father dictates every move, every job, and every cent owned by his children, you have an authoritarian household. But if those family members make their own life choices while coming together to decide on matters vital to the family unit as a whole, then you have a democratic community.

Taking this to a macro level—and frankly, things haven't improved lately—the government intervenes in countless areas where it really shouldn't.

Look at family law, for example. The state dictates how a family should function, sometimes even attempting to define what constitutes a marriage or a family unit. Or consider reproductive laws, where the state attempts to mandate exactly what a woman should do when she becomes pregnant...

In the old days, laws were handed down by a king or an emperor, and everyone had to obey without question. Disobedience was met with brutal consequences, often death.

Today, in supposedly democratic societies, laws are passed through representative processes—people organize into political parties whose entire purpose is to interpret the public will. They validate their interpretations during elections. However, politics has morphed into a career path. Politicians promise the moon during a campaign, only to pivot once they're actually in office. Often, they can't even fulfill the basic promises they made just to get the power necessary to pass legislation.

As a result, voters are almost always left feeling cheated. This is why many people today don't feel like they live in a democracy, yet they look in all the wrong places to find the people who "stole" it from them.

You can see this clearly in America as well. It isn't the fault of some distant international body or the EU that our democratic spirit feels lacking; we are responsible for our own decline.

Lisa Jackson7 said:Here’s my rebuttal to addx...
...from the previous page.

I'm not even talking about total isolation here—the whole point is increasing how much an individual can actually influence their own life.
And you get way more leverage in a small community—one that, mind you, still respects human rights as a concept born from the evolution of larger political societies.

So, I'm not suggesting we just literally replay history; I mean more like a spiral—leveling up to a higher stage.

Besides, this kind of thing has already happened in our history...

The level of democracy in a society isn't dictated by its size, but rather by the maturity of its collective consciousness.

Take the family unit, for instance. It can be—and historically has been, just as it remains in certain parts of the world today—an entirely authoritarian structure, despite being tiny compared to the state. You have a father who makes every single decision while the rest of the family simply complies without question. The same logic applies to a small town, a village, or even a major metropolis.

Generally speaking, if a society leans toward democracy, that tendency filters down through every segment: families, towns, rural areas. Conversely, if a system is authoritarian, that rigidity permeates every level of social organization.

Monarchies were authoritarian across the board; the family was autocratic, and so were the dynamics within villages and small towns. There was no semblance of democracy to be found.

Today, we see more democratic principles at play across all levels—from the household to the federal government—but we are still quite far from achieving true democracy. In fact, I’d argue we are still a long way from truly grasping what democracy even means.

Corporations serve as another perfect example that scale is irrelevant to governance. Most companies operate on a strictly authoritarian principle where employees follow the owner or a manager appointed by the owner without question, regardless of whether it is a massive conglomerate like Amazon or a local mom-and-pop shop.

Lisa Jackson7 said:I hear ya...

When it comes to massive societies, I think that's where Freudian technological advancement really steps up—acting as a conditional backbone for democratic processes and liberalism... provided tech access stays relatively even across the population.

Regarding this "small town without research labs" idea (looking at you, Sam Martinez9)—there’s zero reason to isolate small communities. They can just share certain "centers of excellence."
Plus, tech can be developed toward actual self-sufficiency—it happens today—where locals handle the basic stuff while the big players run the high-end gear.

A thought experiment:

Picture this: eight billion people are split into tiny clusters of about a thousand or two, scattered across the cosmos. Each group ends up in its own separate galaxy. Now, imagine they have zero way to communicate with other groups, and they can never grow larger than their initial size—no matter how much they try, they stay capped at those first thousand or two people.

So, you’re left with these micro-societies of a thousand or two souls who must rely entirely on themselves, their own specialized knowledge, and their own limited resources.

What happens to these little pockets of humanity in the next generation? Two or three generations down the line?

And what about ten generations from now?

hollowpuma762 said:When I use the term "half-monkey," I'm talking about a certain state of being—what most people call "rational animals." It refers to beings still driven by those primal, gut-level instincts that make them sacrifice everything else just to satisfy an impulse.
And there are always people ready to systematically exploit that.

Hierarchy is just how the world is built, and authority is simply the social mechanism that keeps that hierarchy running.

Disobeying authority can be a sign of high intelligence, or it can be pure primitivism. It all depends on who the authority is and why you're pushing back.

The truth is, humanity was dragged to this point by shepherds who eventually devolved into scavengers, while the masses were left without any real incentive to evolve beyond the basic survival state they were born into—kept in that exact same rut their entire lives.

The truth is, most people fit this description. Or, more accurately, everyone does; some individuals just happen to drift away from it occasionally.

So, there really isn't any need to invent a new label. We already have a word for these creatures: man (singular), or humanity (plural).

The Knights Templar suggests:

The world we experience isn't reality itself, but merely a fraction of it.

It's all highly perishable goods, considering the length of this journey and the struggle involved.

It is entirely possible that there exists a dimension of reality completely inaccessible to our senses, and by extension, our lived experience. If so, we can know absolutely nothing about it. Anyone claiming otherwise is simply lying.

Reality only becomes available to us at the exact moment we possess the capacity to experience it.

Everything—and I mean everything—is in flux; therefore, everything is *highly perishable goods*. Everything is subject to change; nothing remains static.

Change is universal, affecting both the sublime and the mediocre. You can distinguish quality by how that change manifests: the high-quality elements evolve through constant refinement and upgrading, whereas the mediocre ones simply undergo decay and disintegration.

Lisa Jackson7 said:What do you guys think about this take from Jean-Jacques Rousseau...

He basically argued that democracy only works in tiny communities where everyone actually knows one another. For mid-sized nations? He says you need oligarchies—but once you hit those massive, huge-scale societies, he thinks it's nothing but dictatorships.

Small communities can easily slide into authoritarianism; you see it all the time with local leaders who demand total obedience, or else...

Whether a society is democratic or authoritarian doesn't really come down to its population size. If anything, a larger number of citizens often leads to greater freedoms and more robust democracy. That said, I suspect the true nature of any society depends more on the collective consciousness of its people.

The US is a massive nation, yet we still struggle with these questions. Looking back at our history since the late 19th century, Americans have seen various rights eroded, and there's a real possibility we might lose even more. It's possible that America could become more authoritarian than even the old United States during the era of the former federal union.

You don't get large nations without smaller ones; every major superpower is essentially built out of smaller constituent parts.

Real progress doesn't happen in isolation within small groups. A town of a thousand people simply cannot sustain a high-level research institute. What truly separates humanity from animal colonies—things like advanced science and technology—can only survive and evolve if there is a sufficient population base to support it.

Just some rambling thoughts while I have a moment; I've got to run.

hollowpuma762 said:I don't even know where to start with this one. Honestly? It’s just... it's a lot. I was sitting there, staring at my screen, thinking about how much everything seems to be spiraling lately, and then I saw it. That specific realization that hits you right in the gut when you realize the system isn't just broken—it was designed this way. It’s like we’re all just running on a treadmill that someone else plugged into a wall, expecting us to feel accomplished because our legs are tired. We’re exhausted. I am exhausted. And yet, here we are, pretending that if we just work a little harder or follow the rules a little more closely, the view from the top will actually change. Spoiler alert: it won't. I mean, look at the sheer scale of the absurdity. You see these massive corporations, these titans of industry like Amazon or JPMorgan Chase, just moving pieces around on a board we aren't even allowed to see. They play the game, they win, and we're left picking up the scraps and calling it "progress." It’s cynical, sure. Maybe even a little bleak. But is it wrong? I'm starting to think being cynical is just the only sane response left to us. Anyway, I'm rambling. My coffee is cold, my head hurts, and I've probably spent too much time dwelling on the inevitable decline of everything. But someone had to say it. Someone had to point out that the emperor isn't just naked—he's also incredibly incompetent.

Look, in both scenarios, we aren't talking about some poetic "expression of the inner spirit" or whatever flowery nonsense people use to romanticize it. It’s much uglier than that. What we're actually looking at are psychological deviations—straight-up glitches in the psyche that happen when someone loses the ability to regulate their own internal processes. When you stop being able to steer the ship and just let those impulses run wild like some unchecked element, you end up generating nothing but pure destruction and chaos. And it doesn't stop with the individual, either; it bleeds outward and wreaks havoc on everyone around them too.

Some people have been obsessed with this idea of binary "yes/no" rules for ages. It’s like they set up these rigid frameworks where if you say "yes" but then act on a "don't," you've committed some massive sin. A total error in thought, word, or deed. And we aren't just talking about a little slip-up here. We're talking about a mistake with enough destructive potential to wreck everything from your mental state to your physical reality. It's that moment where—let's be honest—the Divinity steps in to punish some half-wit who keeps sticking their fingers in an electrical outlet even after being told exactly why that's a bad idea. It's what happens when you fail to manifest basic common sense into your actual life. Just pure, predictable chaos.

Look, when people can't even manage to follow a basic moral compass, you end up with some half-wit having to cook up a thousand different laws just to cover every single move they make. It’s nothing more than a desperate attempt to keep the system from completely imploding for five minutes. Just a temporary patch on a sinking ship.

I don't even know where to start with this one. Honestly? It’s just exhausting. Every time I think we've hit rock bottom with how things are run around here, someone pulls a stunt like this and proves me wrong. It's the same old story, isn't it? Just different faces, same tired patterns. I was reading what hollowpuma762 had to say earlier, and man, they aren't wrong. It's all just noise at this point. We're all just circling the drain while the people in charge act like everything is perfectly fine. It’s almost funny if you don't find it incredibly depressing. I mean, really. How many times can we go through this cycle before we realize nothing actually changes? Anyway, I'm probably just rambling. My bad. Just feeling a bit more cynical than usual today. Probably because it's Tuesday. Or maybe it's just life. Who knows?

Look, here’s the thing about having a conscience—it’s basically just this internal moral compass that lets you actually function like a decent human being. It’s what allows you to course-correct on the fly and tweak your own behavior so you aren't constantly crashing headlong into the reality of the world around you. Without it, we'd all just be chaotic messes, right?

Total "freedom"? Please. If you’ve got zero self-control, zero connection to what’s happening around you, and absolutely no sense of how to actually interact with your environment in a balanced way, you aren't free. You're just lost. It's an illusion. Pure and simple. Even on a microscopic level—look at the cells in the human body—if they all started operating on that kind of chaotic principle, we wouldn't last five minutes. Everything would fall apart. Total disaster.

Look, we’re living in this absolute psychotic, self-destructive circus that everyone has the nerve to call "civilization." It all boils down to the same thing: a total lack of accountability and this reckless, shallow way people treat the concept of "freedom." We just toss the word around without a second thought, acting like it's a free pass to be irresponsible, and now we're all just watching the whole thing spiral out of control. It's exhausting.

Ignorance and greed. When those two forces pair up, they create the exact kind of chaos we’re drowning in right now—and the kind of disaster that can swallow us whole without much warning.

The only thing capable of keeping ignorance and greed in check is reason.

hollowpuma762 said:I don't even know where to start with this one. Honestly? It’s just... it's a lot. I was sitting there, staring at my screen, thinking about how much everything seems to be spiraling lately, and then I saw it. That specific realization that hits you right in the gut when you realize the system isn't just broken—it was designed this way. It’s like we’re all just running on a treadmill that someone else plugged into a wall, expecting us to feel accomplished because our legs are tired. We’re exhausted. I am exhausted. And yet, here we are, pretending that if we just work a little harder or follow the rules a little more closely, the view from the top will actually change. Spoiler alert: it won't. I mean, look at the sheer scale of the absurdity. You see these massive corporations, these titans of industry like Amazon or JPMorgan Chase, just moving pieces around on a board we aren't even allowed to see. They play the game, they win, and we're left picking up the scraps and calling it "progress." It’s cynical, sure. Maybe even a little bleak. But is it wrong? I'm starting to think being cynical is just the only sane response left to us. Anyway, I'm rambling. My coffee is cold, my head hurts, and I've probably spent too much time dwelling on the inevitable decline of everything. But someone had to say it. Someone had to point out that the emperor isn't just naked—he's also incredibly incompetent.

Look, in both scenarios, we aren't talking about some poetic "expression of the inner spirit" or whatever flowery nonsense people use to romanticize it. It’s much uglier than that. What we're actually looking at are psychological deviations—straight-up glitches in the psyche that happen when someone loses the ability to regulate their own internal processes. When you stop being able to steer the ship and just let those impulses run wild like some unchecked element, you end up generating nothing but pure destruction and chaos. And it doesn't stop with the individual, either; it bleeds outward and wreaks havoc on everyone around them too.

Some people have been obsessed with this idea of binary "yes/no" rules for ages. It’s like they set up these rigid frameworks where if you say "yes" but then act on a "don't," you've committed some massive sin. A total error in thought, word, or deed. And we aren't just talking about a little slip-up here. We're talking about a mistake with enough destructive potential to wreck everything from your mental state to your physical reality. It's that moment where—let's be honest—the Divinity steps in to punish some half-wit who keeps sticking their fingers in an electrical outlet even after being told exactly why that's a bad idea. It's what happens when you fail to manifest basic common sense into your actual life. Just pure, predictable chaos.

Look, when people can't even manage to follow a basic moral compass, you end up with some half-wit having to cook up a thousand different laws just to cover every single move they make. It’s nothing more than a desperate attempt to keep the system from completely imploding for five minutes. Just a temporary patch on a sinking ship.

I don't even know where to start with this one. Honestly? It’s just exhausting. Every time I think we've hit rock bottom with how things are run around here, someone pulls a stunt like this and proves me wrong. It's the same old story, isn't it? Just different faces, same tired patterns. I was reading what hollowpuma762 had to say earlier, and man, they aren't wrong. It's all just noise at this point. We're all just circling the drain while the people in charge act like everything is perfectly fine. It’s almost funny if you don't find it incredibly depressing. I mean, really. How many times can we go through this cycle before we realize nothing actually changes? Anyway, I'm probably just rambling. My bad. Just feeling a bit more cynical than usual today. Probably because it's Tuesday. Or maybe it's just life. Who knows?

Look, here’s the thing about having a conscience—it’s basically just this internal moral compass that lets you actually function like a decent human being. It’s what allows you to course-correct on the fly and tweak your own behavior so you aren't constantly crashing headlong into the reality of the world around you. Without it, we'd all just be chaotic messes, right?

Total "freedom"? Please. If you’ve got zero self-control, zero connection to what’s happening around you, and absolutely no sense of how to actually interact with your environment in a balanced way, you aren't free. You're just lost. It's an illusion. Pure and simple. Even on a microscopic level—look at the cells in the human body—if they all started operating on that kind of chaotic principle, we wouldn't last five minutes. Everything would fall apart. Total disaster.

Look, we’re living in this absolute psychotic, self-destructive circus that everyone has the nerve to call "civilization." It all boils down to the same thing: a total lack of accountability and this reckless, shallow way people treat the concept of "freedom." We just toss the word around without a second thought, acting like it's a free pass to be irresponsible, and now we're all just watching the whole thing spiral out of control. It's exhausting.

I’m getting a bit lost in your derogatory animal kingdom here, but could we perhaps define a "half-ape" as a being that refuses to defer to authority? Someone who wants to build their own worldview based on personal experience and individual stances derived from those experiences—even if the cost is pain, death, or expulsion from paradise?

In the old way, a (domesticated) half-ape would be the one who obeys instructions, paralyzed by the fear of potential pain or punishment.

And since we're discussing the animal kingdom, aren't sheep the ones who follow a shepherd without question?

If we go by your definition of a half-ape, then humanity wasn't led here by sheep or shepherds, but precisely by the half-apes.

Perhaps that is the true trajectory of human history—a constant, winding path toward achieving both the perfect collective and the flawless individual.

But it begs the question: can a perfect society ever truly be built from the sum of imperfect people?

Amanda Jackson5 said:Of course, everything is in flux, and to make matters more complicated, these forces are constantly rubbing against one another. You don't get individuals without a society, but you certainly don't get a society without individuals either. The ideal shouldn't be some setup where people are just cogs in a machine used to reach a specific goal; rather, they should form a community where, much like in a living organism, there's a healthy balance between the means and the ends. The ultimate goal is for everything to be both the tool and the destination at once.
But the crucial point Hegel makes here is that what truly matters for a person can only be realized through their relationship with the public life of the community—what he calls the objective spirit—rather than through the isolated self-determination of some alienated loner. According to him, the public life of a state is vital because the norms and ideals it upholds aren't just arbitrary human inventions; they are the expression of the Idea itself, reflecting the very ontological structure of reality.
So, the Hegelian concept of collectivity is far deeper, richer, and fundamentally different from the Enlightenment view of the state acting as a mere utility meant to manufacture "happiness" for the individual.

Sure, but if a group of interconnected individuals acts as a collective within the larger collective to push back, things can turn into a bloody mess pretty quickly. In cases of revolutionary terror, it’s not just the individual being punished; it’s the whole collective. There’s also the alternative of the alienated individual who offers nothing at all and simply withdraws. Much like the Stoics or Buddhists, a person pulls away when participating in public life—the institutions, the customs, the social norms—stops feeling meaningful. It happens when people lose faith in Washington politicians, or stop seeing any point in voting, or when they look at public life and see nothing but a mask for dishonest motives.
In any case, the core idea remains that integrating the individual and the collective (or *Sittlichkeit*) is a necessary requirement that can be deduced from the Idea itself. To put it another way, cosmic order serves as the foundation of society, and this integration is the ultimate aim of history.

I am uncertain what genetics would suggest regarding this matter, and I have a strong distaste for using phrases like "it's genetic" where it hasn't been scientifically proven, but I suspect that the need to belong is one of the most fundamental human—perhaps even non-human—needs. Is it hardwired into our DNA? Perhaps.

The sense of belonging to a family, a nation, a sports fan club...

One of our most primal emotions is fear. Fear for one's life, fear of death...

We feel more secure, or rather, we experience less fear, when the group we belong to is superior. A better tribe, a better nation, a better family, a better sports franchise... regardless of an individual's own traits, being part of a superior group provides a baseline of stability. A high-achieving individual will often accomplish far less within a failing organization than a mediocre individual will achieve within a powerful one.

The drive to ensure our specific group or nation is superior to all others is precisely what gave rise to nationalism. It is common for Americans to believe their nation is superior to others, particularly compared to their primary rivals, neighbors, or groups like Mexicans, Canadians, or Muslims...

To prove superiority, one must occasionally measure strength. Wars and sporting events are both ways of testing that mettle. If *we* are capable of defeating a top-tier football team, it serves as a proxy proof that we excel in other arenas as well.

Every one of us harbors an ideal of what our group should look like if it were perfect. What would constitute the perfect family, the perfect nation, the perfect Riot Squad...

However, groups are inherently imperfect, and we are never truly alone within them. There are always diverse members holding conflicting visions of what perfection looks like. We end up fighting within the group to impose our own idea of perfection.

But does a perfect group actually exist? Is there such a thing as a perfect nation or a perfect family that lasts forever? Or is perfection itself subject to the tides of time, meaning the "perfect" family from two thousand years ago could never be measured against the "perfect" family of today?

Amanda Jackson5 said:I actually dig this idea—that a utopia for society is just what God represents for a single person. But it raises the question: does God even have a place in a utopia? Or, looking at it from the other side, can there even be a utopia within God? Is the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth essentially just a utopia?
Regardless, if we approach this through an ethical lens, it seems that ethics—or what Hegel refers to as Sittlichkeit—only really functions, or becomes achievable, within a society; in other words, within the collective. This is precisely what provides actual substance to moral obligation, which stands in stark contrast to the purely formal, almost hollow concept of ethics found in Kantian thought. Not only that, but it’s only within a social framework that such an obligation can actually be lived out, effectively closing the gap between how things "ought" to be and how they actually "are." Furthermore, true individual freedom only arrives once nature (which includes "primitive" societies or humans existing in a state of nature) is reorganized to meet the demands of reason. Taylor points out that this is exactly where Hegel pivots away from the typical moral leanings of
"This is the point where Hegel runs counter to the moral instinct of
liberalism then and now."
Because of these factors, trying to draw a hard line between the individual and the collective is pretty much a fool's errand; in reality, that separation rarely holds up under scrutiny.
People naturally tend to view their own personal morality as something far more foundational than social morality (that is, Sittlichkeit), mostly because a decent person is always at risk of having society demand they act against their own conscience (something Taylor notes is especially prevalent in an era defined by nationalism). Interestingly, he also mentions that Hegel’s two greatest inspirations, or his "heroes," were Socrates and Jesus. Both of them, in their own ways, disrupted or completely severed ties with the Sittlichkeit of their respective societies, and they paid for it with their lives. Yet, no matter how profound the spiritual truths a person uncovers, those truths can't be realized or embodied if that person remains entirely isolated. Radical individualism is a dead end. If someone refuses to compromise their truth, they are left with two choices: retreat from society entirely or go to war with it, in which case they’ll likely follow the path of Jesus or Socrates.

I find myself agreeing with that first sentence, though the validity of the whole idea is clearly laid out in the second part.

After all, both Jesus and Socrates were, first and foremost, products of the society they inhabited. Jesus was born into and lived within the framework of a traditional family unit of that era. He was shaped by his surroundings; he was a product of his society.

That is, unless we assume some sort of innate biological pre-programming—the old debate over whether humans are born as blank slates or not—rendered the influence of society negligible.

Fine, if we consider him God, then perhaps that's possible. But for everyone else, we are primarily the products of the communities where we are born and raised. People eventually rebel against certain rules or even entire social structures, but that rebellion is almost always directed at the very society that formed us, and through that process, we change it.

Take that recent story about the eight-year-old girl discovered in the wilds of India living among monkeys. She wasn't shaped by any human collective. She doesn't speak; she hisses and growls, walking somewhat upright and sometimes on all fours, prone to outbursts of rage... essentially, her behavior is perfectly in sync with the environment she lived in until now.

To summarize: there is no "individual" (in the human sense) without the "collective." However, following the most accurate maxim in existence—that everything changes—the collective itself is not static; it evolves.

The individual influences the collective, but only once that collective has reached a level of maturity ready for change. If the group isn't ready, the shifts proposed by an individual will be rejected, and that person may face harsh consequences—sometimes involving exile or even death.

Major societal shifts driven by powerful individuals are recorded in history alongside their names. Yet, just as vital are the subtle, incremental changes that gradually reshape the collective every single day.

I'm running short on time, so I'll just leave it at this: there hasn't ever been a single human collective encompassing all of humanity. Instead, we are divided into various civilizations and cultures.

Through interaction, these groups constantly influence one another—sometimes through diplomacy, and sometimes through force, where one culture imposes its will upon another through fire and sword.

Harold Doyle3 said:The people on this forum just have a different perspective than yours, and looking at things from multiple angles isn't a bad thing. I don't think anyone here is claiming to know the person better than you do.

You mentioned she only confided in you, yet somehow her daughter knew enough to call and stop it... how? Was it an intuition? Does she just know her mother that well? Did you tell her? Or maybe... are you the daughter?

Look, if you know this person as well as you say:

Would anyone actually want someone to die because of them (whether during their life or after)?
If they would, what does that say about that kind of person?
Your friend lost her son... should her daughter have lost both her brother and her mother? From a mother's perspective, what was she supposed to do?
What does your friend think about mothers who wouldn't do what she wanted to do? Maybe they didn't love their sons enough?
Would she try to prevent or encourage other mothers from doing what she intended to do (if they were considering it)?

She has a "reason to live" now... but anyone who has a reason to live also has a reason to die.

If you're emotionally attached to something, don't bring it up here. Don't cast pearls before swine.
Right now, I'm just the "swine" trampling over your feelings, and you basically handed me the opportunity.

The daughter picked up on it through conversation. Her mother was saying things along the lines of: *if something happens to me, rent out the apartment, sell the house...* and the daughter replied: *I don't need an apartment, I need my mother alive.*

As for your questions, I don't sit around discussing suicide with my friend, so I have no idea what her stance is on the matter.

I can tell you what I think, though. It’s roughly this:

Every person is unique, shaped by singular life circumstances, and they react to those circumstances in their own way. Some people will take their own lives under certain pressures, and others won't. That doesn't make one person "better" or "worse" than the other; it just means we are all fundamentally different. I prefer to try to understand people rather than slapping labels on them or judging them for their actions—or their lack of action.

Life is messy and unpredictable. Many people endure massive tragedies, far greater than what my friend is facing. Yet, they move forward; they find a reason to keep going. That doesn't mean they are cold or less grieving than my friend; it just means their paths were different. I suspect that for those with larger support systems, finding a reason to carry on might be slightly easier. But the truth is, everyone hit by personal tragedy suffers, and that suffering lasts for years, even decades.

A significant number of people take their own lives in America and across the globe. Almost all of them leave family behind, many leaving children. How do they justify it to themselves? It's simple, in a dark way. They believe their loved ones won't need them anyway, or that things will actually be better without them. *They won't miss me; they'll be better off once I'm gone...*

Regarding the pearls: I can trample over the swine as much as I want, but real pearls remain pearls, and swine remain swine.

Harold Doyle3 said:You responded from the heart... and honestly, that's what makes us human.

I think there’s been a bit of a misunderstanding here. You’re looking at my previous posts and assuming I was purely reacting emotionally.

In a way, you're right, but in another, you aren't.

I shared a specific situation based on my own life experience—and since personal experiences are pretty much all we actually have—so I find it somewhat strange when people on this forum claim they know exactly what someone else is thinking or feeling when they've never even met them.

I suppose I view things differently; I would never dream of telling you, for instance, that you have no clue what one of your own friends is thinking or wanting, or that I somehow know their mind better than you do.

I can certainly offer my assumptions about what a friend might be going through, or speculate on various possibilities, but because I lack the lived experience you possess, I will always defer to your judgment. You know the individual far better than I ever could.

As for my friend, she confided her intentions solely to me and no one else; not even her family is aware of what she was planning. This isn't someone who goes around fishing for sympathy or attention by making threats of self-harm. We have known each other for decades now—we have a very deep history—and I see absolutely no reason for her to lie to me. Given that she hasn't told anyone else... I can only conclude that her intentions were genuine. She truly would have gone through with it if her daughter hadn't called.

Harold Doyle3 said:You responded from the heart... and honestly, that's what makes us human.

That isn't really the point, though. It’s more about how building habits eventually hardens into dogma.

If you look at education, learning actually rewires the brain. Those neural pathways strengthen until they become habits, and those habits eventually solidify into dogmas.

Take, for example, when you try to learn something entirely new as an adult. At first, it's a slog—it's slow, difficult to retain, and feels completely unintuitive. You have to repeat it constantly. But after a while, once you've mastered the fundamentals of that field, new information layers on easily. Eventually, that knowledge becomes second nature; it turns into a habit where we don't even think about it anymore.

We then take all these various pieces of knowledge from different areas and stitch them together into a worldview. Once that happens, it becomes incredibly difficult to change, something we defend fiercely, and the lens through which we judge everything else.

To be clear, we’re all guilty of this, myself included.

That’s why I find myself constantly questioning how objective I’m actually being when I weigh a problem.

Children, naturally, haven't developed these entrenched views yet; they're still absorbing them from society and their parents. But it is fascinating to observe who, when, and under what specific circumstances someone manages to shift their perspective once they've reached adulthood.

Harold Doyle3 said:I think the percentage of parents committing suicide due to the loss of a child is actually quite small, so hiddeneagle98 is right to question whether this specific case is truly representative.

That bolded sentence contains a double negative.

Thanks for the post. My brain's reaction was really just a matter of habit and somewhat dogmatic thinking.

hiddeneagle98 said:And where exactly did I claim that suicides don't happen???

Of course you didn't. But that makes your post directed at Disney even more distasteful.

The reality is that suicides certainly happen, but my friend didn't take her own life because she loves living or because she has an affection for herself; she did it because of her other child.

So, you essentially spat on a complete stranger, labeling her a common liar who is masking her true motives and her reasons for staying *in this world* from everyone else—and from herself.

ruggedbadger2 said:Then you could argue that believing things will just magically improve is its own kind of comfort... but whatever, we're getting off track.

Honestly, I don't know anyone who actually believes in a "great black void" after death. There isn't anything after death because there’s nobody left to experience it (another tangent, I guess).

I agree. I'm currently typing this up while at work, so it's a bit difficult to focus properly on the posts and the specific phrasing, which was my first thought on the matter.

hiddeneagle98 said:@wand if you're reading this, would the bolded part be interpreted as the half-truth version of the story? I'm just sitting here thinking—would she actually take her own life if the daughter wasn't there? But since she has her, it sounds much more "noble" to say she isn't choosing to live for the kid, but rather because she still finds her own life worth living despite the agony.

I’d personally categorize your take as little more than lumpen-psychology.

For context, look at the suicide rates in a place like Rhode Island, a state with a relatively small population compared to the rest of the country. Then, compare those figures to other states or international data.

The conclusion remains clear: suicide is a very real issue, and people from all walks of life reach the decision that death is preferable to continuing their lives, for a multitude of reasons.

ruggedbadger2 said:I agree, it’s not about being cynical. It’s just a fact that killing yourself is incredibly difficult; the body is hardwired to stay alive at all costs. But once those mental loops take hold, I guess it becomes hard to pin down why someone did or didn't go through with it, or why they feel like they didn't.

Of course, both sides could be right here—maybe she kept going for her daughter, or maybe she just kept going because survival is an instinct we can't really turn off. We're just guessing from the outside, so it's impossible to know for sure. These are just my assumptions.

Actually, taking one's life isn't difficult at all. My apartment building in Chicago uses natural gas; you just turn a valve and... well, you know. Beyond that, getting ahold of certain pills isn't an issue these days either, especially for a woman grieving the loss of her son.

It isn't hard, and in some instances, even making the decision isn't the hurdle. Usually, it happens when death starts looking more appealing than continuing to live. When that happens, and how it unfolds, depends entirely on the individual's specific circumstances and their personal breaking point. There is also the grim argument that death is inevitable for everyone eventually, so why wait?

And, naturally, religion plays a massive role. A devout believer won't take their own life because suicide is considered a grave sin.

ruggedbadger2 said:I guess there isn't much of a difference between consolation and hope anyway. Think about a parent trying to find comfort by hoping their kid will recover from an incurable disease, versus a parent finding solace in the belief they'll see that child again in heaven after they pass. In both scenarios, you have a parent clinging to something unprovable just to reach a positive outcome.

If a parent loves their child more than themselves—under any definition, including the idea that everyone is ultimately self-interested—then wanting the best for that child or less suffering for them is pretty much a given. I don't really see why this would be considered an action that results in neither satisfaction nor dissatisfaction.

Hope is the belief that things will change for the better. For instance, hope is believing a child will recover and return to being healthy, happy, and playful... and that life will simply carry on from there.

Comfort, however, steps in when hope has run dry. It’s what happens when the child won't get better, won't live a healthy, joyful life anymore, and we won't get to experience that happiness with them.

But we find comfort in the thought that we'll meet again somewhere else—heaven, perhaps—or that we will join our child in whatever comes next, whether that's a divine realm or the vast, dark nothingness that atheists believe follows death.