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Oh, I have seen that clip so many, many times. It's just about the first thing trotted out. I need not read that paragraph yet one more time, life is too long.

It ignores things like, "What number of those ninety-four just continued to be miserable?" They didn't kill themselves, but it doesn't mean that they were not still suffering. It might well mean that they were bludgeoned with the "just think of how devastating it will be for your family" bit until they submitted to a life of quiet desperation. It's not a measure of life being worth living at all.




Well, I hope you aren't right. But I have to admit you might be.

How do we figure it out? What data do you have? If none, or if it isn't statistically significant, where or how do we find it?


Ask, rather than tell. We spend a tremendous amount of time telling, even yelling, over people who may say things we do not wish to hear. Rote responses appear on our lips and it is no coincidence that those responses are ideal for getting people out of our way, leaving them to puzzle over unanswerable questions like "How do you know it won't get better?" Nobody truly knows that, but would you bet on it? Bet on it enough to suffer consequences? We do not ask that, we say, "a permanent solution to a temporary problem."

The entire concept is surrounded by an interlocking complex of memes that very neatly steer us away from grappling with a thorny subject: the true suffering of others. That must be dismantled before we can begin to start gathering data.




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