But we can say that with any suicide, if a guy stands on a bridge holding a rock tied to his leg then we will still try to save them because we understand they're going through something.
I mean we make an attempt to stop most suicides on the basis that they're pursued from a kind of irrational train of thought. This isn't to say that that's always actually the case, but we can't be sure of that, so most people wouldn't look at a guy jumping of a bridge and then say "hey do a flip on the way down", you know? We can kind of assume it's more of a last resort, than like a casual pastime or decision that you might just kinda make cause you kinda felt like it. That's just talking about the psychology of people who try to kill themselves mostly, though, for the vast majority it's as a last resort rather than due to a more "rational" reason, or, a more philosophically motivated reason.
It's a much safer assumption to assume they're irrational, anyways, for the same reason that capital punishment is not really a great idea. If you take the opposite as a blanket decision, it's irreversible. If you put out someone who's on fire, or otherwise save someone who's suicidal. you could always just kill them later.
I read an article many years ago about people who attempted to kill themselves and how almost all were happy they survived. There was also someone who set himself on fire and survived, extremely badly burned, his urine was black for a while, really bad. But even he was glad he was still alive. So I guess you should always help. If someone really wants to die they can always try again.
I guess the options are:
Put them out and fix them.
Leave them alone.
Kill them more quickly.
Nobody is going to stand and watch (or even speed up) something like that without suffering massive trauma themselves.
Right or wrong, they were doing what they thought best and what I imagine most think is best.
Anything else is academical
The presence of fire in a place not designed for it is a threat to the safety of others.
Maybe nobody was hurt, but if the authorities had neglected to put him out, and then someone WAS hurt, that would be on them. So, best to put him out. He can deal with the consequences of his actions.
the fuck do you mean nobody was hurt, nigga lit himself on fire and some asshole let him burn for two minutes and then put him out. He's never going to know a moment without pain that you and I, hopefully, could never even imagine.
I was watching live on TV as it happened. They were trying to put him out several times. He poured an accelerant on himself which likely made it a lot more difficult to put him out.
I'm not sure we can make such a determination. Self immolation is traditionally a form of protest. One can sacrifice oneself for awareness even with a desire to go on living. It's not generally an escape attempt chosen when losing a battle with depression.
Human life is to be protected, rescued etc. in all cases.
We need to stay absolutely clear with that, because everything else creates terrible moral problems, for you and all the people around.
And if you want to start thinking such thoughts right there in a situation, it costs way too much valuable time.
Exceptions need to have very clear and very strict rulesThe whole society should agree with these rules. The responsible persons (doctors for example) need to be educated properly.
I don't disagree with you entirely but there are some areas that do have defined societal rules where life saving is not the legal obligation. Now, this varies by state (some have samaritan laws) but many places you are not under a legal obligation to administer life saving aid. For example, providing CPR in areas considered medical backcountry.
I think it's already a mixed bag and the default position is not "protect/rescue human life in all cases" legally. Morally I would say it's a personal decision, I know I would most of the time in scenarios I can think of but obviously there are scenarios I can't think of.
My point is it's already murky and there are already exceptions.
Edit: actually the more that I think about it the more exceptions I can find your thesis. The first thing they teach you in First Aid/Cpr and the reason my entire class failed and we had to redo a 10 minute exercise to pass is that the #1 priority is your own safety. You have to secure the scene. If saving someone requires endangering yourself you are CLEARLY and unambiguously told to not attempt life saving aid until you can minimize or eliminate risks to yourself. Also see: Yellowstone hotspring rescue attempts, river rescue attempts, etc.
So again, nothing is clear and human life is not to be protected as a rule in "all" cases. EMS and police are not even obligated to save anyone in all cases.
There are no Good Samaritan laws anywhere that require life saving aid.
They only go so far as to require that you alert emergency services; (though not every state goes that far.)
What Good Samaritan laws really do is provide protections as long as you’re stay to reasonable actions.
For example, it’s common for CPR to crack ribs. Without these protections, you’d be liable for that. (For the record, even if you do want to help; etc, always check to see if it’s safe first. Be selfish. You can’t save shit if you’re a body on the ground, too.)
Human life is to be protected, rescued etc. in all cases.
We need to stay absolutely clear with that, because everything else creates terrible moral problems, for you and all the people around.
lol. What a perfectly black and white world you live in. Your harsh reality causes a lot of terrible moral problems too. Like assisted suicide for people who are terminally ill. You would insist they live in excruciating pain, unable to communicate, or otherwise live life without extensive life support; simply because …. Why again?
We should have a right to suicide (though maybe not in a manner that puts others at risk.)
I think that's where this commenter was leaning, though, with their final comment. Assisted suicide should absolutely be available to those suffering terminal illnesses and the like. But, the rules surrounding it must be very clear and anyone assisting suicide under those rules must be very well educated.
In the absence of assisted suicide rules, or where existing ones don't apply to a specific case, then human life should be protected, by default.
Human life is to be protected, rescued etc. in all cases.
We need to stay absolutely clear with that, because everything else creates terrible moral problems
I see no issue with assisted suicide if the person is or was determined to be of sound mind when they made that choice. In fact I believe it is more morally questionable to deny it.
From what I understand, there is very little one can experience that's worse than being a full body burn victim. Whoever intervened did the man no favours.
It's pretty simple. If they didn't want to live, why didn't they self-immolate in a place where no one can put them out? By choosing a place with people they implicitly accepted that there might be people there that would try to not let them die. Maybe they even subconsciously hoped to be stopped.
Stopping physical harm happening to others is a very natural way of behavior. It's almost certain it happens when a couple of people are present. You can't ever blame someone for trying it.
And then there's the case of open fire being able to spread and hurt others.
This whole YouTube channel is filled with interviews of people, families and children making the best of lives many would feel not worth living. Even some failed suicide attempts leaving people with no face but some times better off than before
Its not up to the first reactors to decide if that life is worth living.
Although I feel that people should have the right to decide on their own if they want to live or not, they should be offered and given propped help before.
I think we all know how fire works. The moment they set themselves on fire, they'll be in excruciating pain. Doesn't mean it'll be a quick, or even certain death. If you put them out, you could be prolonging their pain, or you could be saving their life. And some things can't be undone. Just try to act in good faith...
That said, there's a big difference between 1 sec after the fire and 90 secs. There's definitely a tipping point where it's more humane to just let them die instead of hours later.
You can’t be sure he wasn’t set on fire by someone else ! Plus he might have changed his mind, or extinguish on his own later than you’d have out him out, staying alive and suffering even more.
I’d maybe make an exception for someone calmly sitting as they burn, as I think the Buddhist monks who did this in China were. In those cases it’s pretty easy to see they wanted to be on fire.
But a flaming flailing guy needs to be extinguished, whatever the reason he is on fire.
I'll be a bit blunt, but at what point shall we leave some things to natural selection...
Very often, those who set themselves on fire, die very soon after due to infections...
The bigger problem is, in this case, the inability of the system/society to recognise and deal with mental health issues on time or at all...
About a quarter of Americans reported Mental health issues... In the EU only about 10% or less in countries with high social awareness...
So, I'd rather ask how to prevent those things happening in the future?
They have done a lot of studies and the best way they've found is not to highlight and report on suicides to avoid copycats, not to validate their reasons for doing it to avoid others feeling it's a worthwhile option and to provide easy and repercussion free mental health counseling as well as practical material support.
Sadly no one takes any of these seriously, the press have got better at reporting deaths by suicide respectfully and quietly but social media always spreads them twice as loud, even lemmy was pretty unanimously angry at meta for doing the right thing and reducing engagement on news stories celebrating and validating the last person to do this because they supported his message - now everyone is passing this giuys manifesto around and saying he had some good points, don't be surprised if it happens again.
The real problem for this guy was biological and cultural, he had a problem in his brain which our culture made hard for him to deal with in any reasonable way and I think the amount of hyperbole and exaggeration in the common discourse is a huge part if it. Especially on weird corners of reddit and bubble communities like lemmy.
Yes billionaires are awful and there are cultural problems but it's the same issue with so many things, the individual people are just regular humans in a good position in a bad society - they're not actually evil in the true sense of the word, they're not hell bent on destroying the world- just like most of us they think they're good people doing good things. Likewise the government is just our best attempt at organizing the country and its a complex mess with all sorts of problems which lead to people making poor or selfish choices but it's not a conspiracy to hurt people and they don't have plans to enslave us or turn us into weird human animal hybrids...
[OK so Saudia arabias linear citie did plan to make human animal hybrids using gene editing but they scalled that back and it certainly wasn't a plan other governments were in on, I don't think his own government was really in on it]
If we want to help calm things we should try to remind everyone that really humans aren't so bad and that life is difficult, uncomfortable and often tragic but it's also incredibly mundane and fairly meaningless which is OK, actually its kinda nice.
However at least in America self immolation and self harm in general pretty well remove your autonomy based on the assumption you're not mentally well enough to make a choice either way.
Even then, if you look at the guy who just did it at Trump's trial and the guy who did it to protest Israel they were on two different levels of cohesion in their reasoning and came to the same decision.
If you keep following this logic, this ends up in a pretty shitty ableist place.
If the person does survive they are going to have a pretty serious disability for the rest of their life - that would suck, but saying that we should let them die cos they'd be better off dead than disabled really devalues people who live with disabilities that they ended up with through bad luck.
You're right, they would be in a lot of pain, but honestly I just wouldn't be thinking about that.
If someone is on fire, I would put them out if I could. That's it. There's no consideration of their potential health outcomes in the future or whatever.
the constant physical agony of a burn victim is outside the scope of your quaint little attempt to virtue signal and moralize, here, not to mention you're taking the man's choice away which the cadre you're appealing to would not approve of.
If they have some way of indicating they do not wish to be resuscitated then putting them out is the wrong thing to do.
Otherwise it is hard to say. Fast enough and a lot of the suffering is avoided. Slow and there is a guarantee of suffering and likely death. Not a call I would want to make.
Legally this is similar to euthanasia or abortion. The priority is to keep the person alive at all costs even if it means lifetime of suffering.
Morally... I mean the person did it to himself, i bet he's already suffering. While being ablaze he is a danger to others as pointed out in this thread, and a literal fire hazard. Their suffering (that they caused themselves) takes second priority after safety to others.
i think it's possible to self immolate without posing a massive danger to everyone. it takes precautions and training because you don't want a molten man flailing around, but there have been people who have done so without posing a serious threat or risk to anyone else.
I don't recognize suicide as something that falls under bodily autonomy. It's almost always caused by mental health issues and shitty living situations.
If someone in chronic pain wants to opt for euthanasia, that's different, and I support it. Their condition can't be improved, and they're making the decision with a sound mind.
IMO if they didn't want to risk living with the pain of that, they should try to kill themselves in some other, more reliable way. Self immolation isn't just about suicide, it's about using your suicide to send a political message, which I personally think is an incredibly selfish, stupid, and dangerous thing to do. People doing something like that don't deserve to have their wishes respected. They are sick, they are creating a situation that is dangerous to the physical and mental health of the people around them, and they need to be stopped.